Posts by Parax

OK, so we paid a bill late, but did BT have to do this?

Because you can...

...is usually the strongest reason that you really shouldn't.

To many companies(and people) do too much 'because they can' without thinking through the consequences.

Angry Brazilian whacks NASA to put a stop to ... er, the NSA

Misunderstanding, but whose?

I read that this protest was targeted at Nasa for a recent launch of a Delta IV Heavy from Vandenburg with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (Spy satellite)... ie stop spying on us.

So it's possible that it was an intentional hack on Nasa. Those who are hacked are always quick to discredit the hackers.. (so ask yourself who has the biggest media team?)

Though I'm not sure how involved Nasa was in this launch as Vandenburg is an airforce property isn't it?

Cold-blooded, INHUMAN visitor hitches ride on NASA moon rocket

Re: Not the first time

I've just been shown this by a colleague..

Re: Not the first time

exactly my thought too.. I was surprised spacebat didn't feature in the article.

Myst: 20 years of point-and-click adventuring

These games were great, But I doubt they would have been so successful were it not for the emergence of the internet with a walk-through only a click away when you got really stuck.

I would really love to see these games resurrected but they need to try much harder to level up the problem solving, teaching you early on how to solve the difficult puzzles that occur later, sometimes the off-the-wall out-of-the-box nature of the puzzles meant for many a walk-through was a disappointing requirement.

LOHAN cops a faceful of smutronyms

End of the outing? need to get home quick?

Terminate Autonomy eXtricate Immediatly

We've cracked riddle of ANTIGRAVITY mountains on Saturn's Titan - boffins

Inward pointing spikes..

So just like Ice floating on water, 2/3 is below the surface?

So it's liquid under the icy crust.

They could have said it better.

Delta Air Lines makes mass Windows Phone 8, Lumia 820 buy

My guess is one per in-flight sales trolley, which is usually one per isle for 700+ aircraft the majority will be one, for wide bodies its two and jumbo's get three. So around 1200, if you add one spare unit to every craft it's 2000 units. I'd be very surprised if it's more than that.

Assuming every flight attendant gets a company phone is a nice idea but unlikely! They're just PoS* devices.

*Point of sale - of course what did you think I meant.

3D printers stroke LOHAN's shapely midriff

Messrs Cooper, Dodd and Surendra.

I make that 300%

Mystery of Guardian mobos and graphics cards which 'held Snowden files'

Re: Clever or stupid?

silly me, of course I forgot the government has different procedures for every type of industry. Yeah they leave the chips on for my industry sector cos its clear I'd have never have thought of that.. oh hang on I did.

Re: Clever or stupid?

"such things cannot possibly hold any data"

Do you think they checked each and every chip was what it said it was?

Or perhaps they grind anything and everything that could be swapped with a flash chip of one sort or another.

Not beyond imagination to remove a memory chip and glue on a flash chip in its place... And who would really notice? yeah it might not work, but a cursory look over would likely miss it. You could be even cleverer if you bought a low end card with unused blank spaces to hide your flash chips.. then it would work correctly as well.

In case of LOHAN flight emergency, gobble THIS Iridium-Arduino sandwich

Balloon Landing Override With Iridium Execution

Just cant find a suitable J to finish the job.

Flab-fighting LOHAN fettles fantastical flying truss

There's a lot of bolts and plastic plate on that truss are you sure a couple of tubes of araldite and fibre mesh wouldn't be lighter?

British spooks seize tech from Snowden journo's boyfriend at airport

The only thing they are after is a private key.

They want to know exactly how much he has leaked...

when I say 'they' I mean the puppet masters in the US not the UK border muppets who can't say jurisdiction let alone spell it..

AREA 51 - THE TRUTH by the CIA: Official dossier blows lid off US secrets

Re: YA-12

Isn't that one actually an M-21 with D-21 drone?

Is NASA planning to send LAVA LAMPS to Jupiter?

Re: The physics of lava lamps are complex

I think you've missed the point, this is supposed to be an increased G simulation. the ~7m/s wind flow is not there to compensate, it is an unintended error on the test. Additional cooling may change the behaviour more than the additional G!

Re: The physics of lava lamps are complex

I'm sure it's not that complex. If the fluids are incompressible there will be minimal difference with another value of G, the densities will remain the same, as will the heat capacity and melting point of the wax and oil. and the buoyancy ratio will also remain proportional.

The key factor for a lava lamp to 'work' is having a suitable cooling convection around the chamber (which this test omits)

NSA-proof email encryption? Cobblers, sniff German hackers

NSA proof

But from what I understand the NSA were mainly recording the from and to fields, to see who was communicating, content has always been encoded by various means, codewords etc.

It'd be a bit hard to send a mail with encrypted To Field unless the servers were exchanging keys? this is not what they are doing. this will not stop the NSA seeing who is communicating with who.

Elon Musk unveils Hyperloop – the subsonic tube of tomorrow

Re: A pipeline?

nearly a pipeline!

It would probably be ideal to set up a prototype with the fall back of using it as a goods service (express parcels for TNT or Fed Ex) if the public don't take to being spam in a can.

If it does become popular running goods at night may be viable, hence suitable investment could come from those sectors.

I'm still not 100% convinced on the signalling system though.. I guess time and prototypes will tell...

Xerox copier flaw changes numbers in scanned docs

Re: They are held in memory

The 'Black magic' is called the Eurion constellation. I've always wondered if it's free to use or copyright (no pun intended)... I may have slipped it into random work reports for fun.

LOHAN lays mitts on second Iridium sat comms kit

Sounds like all your UK flights could do with a cut-down to avoid the channel in future. Perhaps GPS if no SMS iridium device is available.

Mystery object falls from sky, area sealed off by military: 'Weather balloon', say officials

Re: it's...

It's more likely a Space Data Corporation balloon .

Surprised link had not already been made since it's mentioned here.

Re: it's...

Project Loon?

Was there a playmonaut aboard?

'Strange Noises' isn't really a descriptive term, was it a locator beep, or a whirring fan mashed up with styrofoam?

You MERCILESS FIEND... you put that audio file on AUTOPLAY

Tweet of the day.

see title.

Apple KILLER decloaked? Google lovingly unboxes Nexus 7 Android 4.3 slablette

Re: Note to laptop manufacturers...

The dumbing down of the PC, and screen resolution, is because manufacturers would rather sell you a crappy drm'd to hell games console.

They wont make what is in the customers interest because thy are too big and too greedy. They'll make what they want to sell. It's only when a company like Apple comes along and rocks the boat by releasing a product (like the iphone) that actually does what the customer wants and sells in the billions that the big dinosaurs are forced to change tack.. until then they'll do as they please.

Burger-rage horse dumps on McDonald's: Rider saddled with fat fine

McDonalds has beef with horse

(That's nicked from the internet)

How our shaken Reg Playmonaut survived a 113,000ft stratodangle

Re: No video of the release?

Having a camera that will record everything is as important as all the release/trigger components, any one without the other is a poor show.

Heavenly SPEARS gives LOHAN a hot satisfying BANG

Re: Stratodangle

He did the twatdangle in 2003.

(all due respects to Mr Brigstocke)

Stratodangle

David Blaine is on the phone, he wants in....

VCs take a nasty cold bath on Drobo deal, leave Barrall 'delighted'

Always wondered how they had such market foothold the product is not that great, the competition has been around longer and has better offerings, but I guess appealing to the ask-no-questions iCrowd costs... a lot.

Rap for rap chap in crap rap app flap: Jay-Z blasted by privacy bods

Re: *Applauds*

Surely you mean headline? the sub-head is dull.

Google study finds users ignore Chrome security warnings

Re: Phising Hazard

*[Phishing]

Oh for an edit.

Phising Hazard

Once you know its a scam what's the harm in learning how it intended to scam you?

How is "click through curiosity once alerted" accounted for?

Obviously same does not apply to security vuln's.

'Thundering mechanical behemoth' walker mech to attack Leicester today

attack Leicester

Oh damn you el Reg, I got all excited, then you let me down with this 'art'

El Reg Playmonaut soars to 113,000ft

What is this CHARM?

Surely this is not a standard El'Reg Acronym...

Clockwork High-altitude Umbilical Fracture Facility?

REVEALED: Google's GINORMOUS £650m London Choc Factory

Re: It looks like a 60s council office.

Agreed way to Brutal.

Sony Xperia Tablet Z: Our new top Android ten-incher

Re: "It's a Sony"

The quicker you forgive and forget the sooner they will screw you over again.

I'm with the OP, different reasons, but I'm still a no go when it comes to Sony.

Yorkshire police lose 9,000 guns in rogue BOFH database blunder

You forgot one:

Looking the other way when their press/politico mates ask them to.

Telly psychics fail to foresee £12k fine for peddling nonsense

@J1mb0b

Whilst there is no doubt that Placebo can have a positive effect with certain ailments (pshycological ills). There is NO doubt that placebo does NOT treat Aids/HIV or Prevent Maleria. Yet homoeopathy is currently being used to treat Aids Patents in Kenya, in lieu of proper antiretroviral medication and for others, to prevent Maleria. This is why Homoeopathy is akin to the work of Satan. It is preventing a cure that science already has.. Homoeopathy is one of the vilest deceptions that still exist in our society. Pure Snake Oil.

Re: Cure

But there is actually a character there!

Homoeopathy doesn't even require a trace to be present!

==><==

The logarithmic fail:

1 part dilutant to 100 parts water = 1C dilution

Repeat x2 = 2C dilution 1:10000

Repeat x3 = 3C dilution 1:1000000

...

12C dilution = Pinch of salt in the North & South Atlantic Oceans

...

40C dilution = 1 Molecule in the observable universe.

...

200C = Homoeopathic cure for flu

Not understanding maths, chemistry, or medicine is a prerequisite for believing in homoeopathy (not to be confused with herbal remedies)

The good news is that I've been treating all homoeopaths to a regular 12C* potentisation of my piss for the last 30 odd years. (*based on all the water in the world)

Apple said to dump Samsung as chip-baking partner – again

Dump?

reduce maybe, but since Sammy chips are in the air and the new pro I doubt that "dump" is the appropriate word.

It's all hype, the type apple thrives on.

Google erases G8 venue from Earth: Microsoft doesn't

Re: Where's Eadon?

"Dogged -- there is no fail, but Eadon would find some claim it was."

There I fixted it.

Microsoft caves on Xbox One DRM and used-game controls

even taking time to lampoon Redmond for its restrictive policies.

Since its not linked in the article Here it is.

Kim Dotcom victim of 'largest data MASSACRE in history'

so presumably the US DoJ would have an easier time starting its data-deletion campaign there,

No.

US law applies in the US, the DoJ would be liable for its "Advice", especially if it related to destruction of evidence for a US trial.

US law does not apply in Holland, it would be easy for the DoJ to say "do you want to be involved in this protracted and drawn out case? if you do preserve the evidence for us, but we can't force you..."

Thousands of fingered crims, informants spaffed in web security COCK-UP

Re: Hire peanuts, paid monkeys

this > thing .. oh for an edit.

Re: Did you say you looked El Reg?

In this case what door? this content was 'published' to the web.

Of course that probably won't stop your average Joe from getting his collar felt.