* Posts by sundog

24 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Mar 2015

InSight Mars lander has only 'few weeks' of power left

sundog
Coat

Re: Brushes?

Damn fairy farts sprinkling turd dust on our landers...

Nvidia RTX 4090: So hot they're melting power cables

sundog
Boffin

Re: Not surprised

Having dealt with high frequency, high current connections (induction heaters, 20+kW), the best advice is - sand and scrub the connection, apply deoxidizer paste, scrub again and assemble it sloppy-drippy, then clean up and torque. Wash with solvents if necessary, but then re-clean and re-torque. Cleanliness is next to [diety]ness and torque is key to a tight connection.

Japanese sushi chain boss resigns amid accusation of improper data access

sundog
Coat

Float or sink?

Bread. Apples. Very small rocks. Cider. Gravy. Terry's Mum. Churches! Lead.

A DUCK!

Intel accidentally leaked its 34-core Raptor Lake chip. What do the dies tell us?

sundog
Coat

But does it run Crysis?

Mine is the one with the dewar of liquid nitrogen and EPA cease-and-desist for carbon emissions in the pocket.

Ex-Broadcom engineer asks for house arrest over IP theft

sundog
Black Helicopters

Re: What he said isn't relevant, what he did is.

I would think that is called "experience", but what is to stop the ex-employee from spilling trade secrets that he carries in his head? Brings to mind the book "Snow Crash" where the government employees are given only small chunks of code to work on, and specifications to meet for it. No individual worker had the big picture, just a small part of it with no knowledge of how it interacts or relates to the others.

Too much thought for a Friday. Back to my ticket queue. Black helicopter because I could imagine them chasing trade secrets in my own head.

Reaction Engines' precooler tech demo chills 1,000°C air in less than 1/20th of a second

sundog

Re: That's quite hot

Very rightly said, as you watch a CNC machine with a gnarly carbide tool simply buff the surface.

Time to check in again on the Atari retro console… dear God, it’s actually got worse

sundog

Re: You are in a tunnel. There is an echo here ...

<rant>

FFS, it's a friggin *KEYBOARD* Unless they are trying to assemble it out of UnObTanium, wtf is the delay in making them?

Fer chrissake, let's stupify this for the masses. It's a whole bunch of friggin switches that one closes when you press a key, and are open when you do not. There is a grid of traces on a PC board, a bunch of rubber doogles that have alphanumeric characters on them, and a plastic 'template' that keeps them doogles relatively in place. You press the doogle, it closes the circuit, a chip sees that, and it can figure out what key was pressed, then squirts that data to wherever it needs to go (USB, IO port, wheredafuk, etc)

HOW FUGGIN HARD IS IT TO DESIGN A SIMPLE ASS KEYBOARD? Especially for a chunk of old ass hardware whose behavior is *very* well known? Are they idiots? Are they fools? Are they incompetent? (realizing I have very little idea what the measure of competence for this situation is....)

The *only* thing I can think of, is that they're trying to re-create the unreliable, mushy, squishy behavior of the original keyboard, and every test sample they've gotten back from manufacturers is simply too reliable and usable for their standards.

</rant>

Meanwhile, it is Wednesday, which means the sammich shop near work has a two for one deal. Sounds like breakfast time to me, at 9:07 EST.

I love the reg. I get to vent my frustration caused by users by ranting like a crazy person at times. It helps me keep my sanity, and prevents bad karma when I have to go fix their stapler. Yes, a system admin gets called to fix a stapler. Granted, it's an electric power stapler, and I can only trust the user to staple their fingers together (not my problem, the stapler worked, didn't it?). But such is the life, innit?

SpaceX didn't move sat out of impending smash doom because it 'didn't see ESA's messages'

sundog
Pint

Re: I OWN SPACE

You, sir, have made me receive looks from my cow-orkers that plainly show they now doubt my sanity and mental state. I applaud the reference, and offer you a pint.

It's a God-awful smell affair.... is there life on Mars? Rocks ruled out as source of mystery methane on Red Planet

sundog

Re: Rock erosion and moon wind

To the best of my knowledge, the only significant wind currents on the moon were circling 'round the astronauts in their suits. Seems the food caused some gastric (and olfactory) distress to the poor bastards.

Meanwhile, you know there was 'that one guy' in Mission Control that couldn't keep from laughing hysterically every time one of the astronauts hotboxed themselves.

sundog

Re: "we know natural methane is odorless"

Why would it only be smelly if held in one particular hand or the other? Also, would you please elaborate which hand (left or right) is the one that causes it to be smelly? Or is it the holder's dominant hand? What if I'm ambidextrous? What if I only have one hand due to a horrible desk stapler incident, and now that is my dominant hand? Will I ever be able to hold methane without creating a stink, or am I just fscked? These are the questions that keep me up when I'm wanting to take a nap at work!

One person's harmless japery can be another's night of LaserJet Lego

sundog

I have no shame. I've changed the HP4250 printer displays to read 'Remove squirrel from tray 2', and then kept randomly sending the command to check the paper tray.

I changed half the printers in the building to read 'beware of ninjas', and when my phone rang and someone asked about it, I simply said, 'Ninjas are sneaky', and hung up.

I set a few printers to read 'Player 1 insert coin', but that backfired as I had to explain how several dimes got into a printer and shorted crap out.

Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS

sundog

I was going to comment on this, but after typing it up, I realized it wouldn't even remotely make it past the censors at El Reg.

So instead, I shall say:

Nothing at all.

Because of what my parents taught me.

Boffins find asteroid with the shortest solar year of any space rock in our Solar System

sundog
Coat

Re: Short observation window

The most expensive part of building a base on Mercury will be shipping the blankets and sunscreen. It's not tidally locked to the sun, but its day is longer than its year, so your surface installation will either be in a deep freeze (practically no atmosphere to trap heat, or distort telescope pictures), or in blistering heat and super high solar flux.

But at least you could power the whole base with a solar cell from a pocket calculator......

Mine's the one with the SPF 9001 in the pocket.

Look, we've tried, but we just can't write this headline without saying boffins have probed Uranus's cold ring

sundog
Coat

Re: colour

No, they're various sickly grey colors. I've seen the pictures, and all the rest of my color blind friends agree with me.

Mine's the one with the monochromatic paint chips in the pocket...

The eternal battle for OpenStack's soul will conclude in three years. Again

sundog

Totally off-topic, childhood moment.

What movie was the title image captured from? I remember the movie, but can't remember the name of it, and it's bugging the heck out of me.

Thanks!

Gluster techie shows off 'MySQL of object storage' Minio projects

sundog

Re: Another technology

Yep, another VM to set up so I can poke it with a pointy stick and see what it does. Though to be honest, if it does what I need it to do and works, it's worth taking a closer look at and using a sharper pointy stick.

International Space Station celebrates 18th birthday in true style – by setting trash on fire

sundog
Coat

Lets see you drive blindfolded, at 100mph, across the desert, in a flatbed truck, for three days to catch a parachutist (also blindfolded) on the center of an X after six vodka martinis per hour for three days.

Orbital mechanics is a particularly nasty branch of math, and it's one of those things that rewards pre-planning vs brute force. Try to log in too many times, you get locked out. Try to brute force a launch and orbit, and you die a firey, incandescent death.

Would you rather crap yourself, and arrive safely to duck to the washroom in relative shame (they've all been there, done that), or rush the job and say into the mike, 'Oops, we smashed into you, now we all die..."

Shit myself and get there, or rush and die? I'd rather be shitted than dead. Shit wipes up, death.... not so much.

Mine's the one with the Depends in the pocket.

Robot solves Rubik's Cubes in 637 milliseconds

sundog
Coat

It's an eternity!

.637 seconds....

My significant other can probably claim that I break that record, but not for solving a rubix cube....

Mine's the one with my dignity in the pocket.

Ballsup helps Toshiba double tablet SSD capacity

sundog

Re: WTF BGAs are news?

Thank you. BGA has been around for a damn long time, not sure how this qualifies as 'news' other than 'it's tech related, and it came into my inbox.'

Damn. I need a drink.

Alleged Aussie plum plucker pleads guilty to motel tissue swipe

sundog

Re: Couldn't help but think

*note to self* If I'm couch-surfing, and stay here, don't partake of any offered food. Ever.

US work visas for international tech talent? 'If Donald Trump is elected all bets are off'

sundog

Re: Good for competition?

Ah, read a bit further down in my post, and you'll see that I didn't call for a cessation of the work visas, but to make them uneconomical for business to use for 'cost cutting' measures. It will *help* ensure that the best and brightest still have a chance, but they need to be good enough to justify the expense.

I don't want to stop immigration. Hell, almost all of us here in the US are immigrants. I want the visa system reformed. I want the number curbed, and the costs raised. Dump that extra money into primary and secondary education. Fund programs to help those that can't afford an education to get one.

sundog

Re: Good for competition?

Remember that when you're forced to train some foul-smelling, arrogant, ignorant, mentally deficient fscktard to be your replacement, at 1/2 your salary, 1/4 your benefits, and none of your experience. Bonus points if they are a misogynistic prat who treats female secretaries and assistants like they're trash.

Take comfort in the fact that you've given someone a 'chance to live the American dream' as you pack up your belongings from your foreclosed house and have to explain to your family that you were replaced by a foreigner who was happy to do the same job as you for half the pay.

Enjoy struggling to find employment, even as an experienced worker, because companies can hire some foreign idjit who will promptly send better than half of their earnings back overseas to their family.

No. Work visas don't need to be stopped, but they do need to be made so expensive for the companies that they aren't a viable choice vs hiring local talent. Same with outsourcing. They want to outsource the call centre to whatever-istan? Sure. 500% increase in federal taxes for every man hour they pay for out of country.

Yes, while businesses are in business to make money (otherwise they're charities), most places tend to function on the 'GIMME GIMME GIMME' aspect of money at the expense of their employees. Whereas places that pay their employees fairly, treat them well, and give them a *reason* to work hard very quickly find out that happy, loyal employees are hard working employees. And hard working employees make you money. End of story.

So enjoy your newfound free time, because congratulations, you're being fired and replaced by a foreigner. Oh, and I'm sorry that you can't collect unemployment benefits, because we gave all that money away to illegal immigrants. Got to think of everybody else's children first, you know.

Plucky cable billionaires defeat menace of small-town broadband

sundog

It works like this -

The craptastic cable companies give lots of money in "Campaign Funds" to the politicians. The politicians don't vote for items that go against what the cable companies would like to happen.

There's a fancy name for it when they get caught, too. Graft. Because it's impossible to conceive that a law-abiding-god-fearing-public-serving elected official would do anything as shameful as take a bribe....

It's stories like this one, where it's dead plain that the elected officials were bribed, that makes me ashamed to be American. Even more embarrassed to admit that I was born in Tennessee, albeit not in Chattanooga. Thankfully.

Chewier than a slice of Pi: MIPS Creator CI20 development board

sundog

Wait a second!

Why does the "Pi 2" in your picture have a battery?!?! I'm staring at my Pi 2 right now, and there is most assuredly *NOT* a battery on it. There's only one reason for a battery on a Pi - RTC.

So please, can you explain the presence of the battery on that Pi 2?