Posts by herman

After 30 years of searching, astroboffins finally detect the universe's 'missing matter' – using fast radio bursts

The dark matter only exists when you are not looking for it. Maybe Shy Matter would be a better name for it.

Made-up murder claims, threats to kill Twitter, rants about NSA spying – anything but mention 100,000 US virus deaths, right, Mr President?

Comparing the death rates

Here is the CDC Influenza report:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

It is not very different from Covid19.

A Spin Doctor needs to figure out how to also blame Flu on Trump.

US cable subscribers are still being 'ripped off' by creeping price increases – and this lot has had enough

All over the world - at least all 5 countries where I have lived - the cable companies offer a nice package, then proceed to gradually change the channel line-up untill you have only the unwatchable channels left and need to subscribe again to a new more expensive package to get back what you lost. So they are all sleeze balls.

Runaway Latvian drone found meditating in tree after shutting down nation's skies

Bear Lookout

Even the bears were looking for the UAV: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/high-climbing-bear-caught-on-video-in-northern-ontario-1.5578422

NHS contact tracing app isn't really anonymous, is riddled with bugs, and is open to abuse. Good thing we're not in the middle of a pandemic, eh?

Yup, an app like that is useless. It doesn't take partitions/walls/PPE into consideration. It will not be installed by 100% of the population.

The tests are mostly useless and a waste of time/money also.

If a doctor armed with a thermometer and a stethoscope cannot tell that a patient has pneumonia, then there is something wrong with the doctor.

Fortunately, the initial Covid epidemic scare is over. Someone just has to remind the fat lady to sing.

The virus will spread through the rest of the population and there is nothing we can do to stop it. A vaccine will only arrive after it spread to most.

So, forget about the virus and get on with your life.

Now there's nothing stopping the PATRIOT Act allowing the FBI to slurp web-browsing histories without a warrant

Underground Railroad

Fortunately the underground railroad to Canada still runs - Oh, they closed the border - Sorry.

ATLAS flubbed: Comet heading our way takes one look at Earth, self-destructs into house-sized chunks

Does it reassemble again?

Considering that this probably not the first ever orbit of this comet, I'm wondering whether the comet will pull itself together again once it is further away from the sun.

Quick Q: Er, why is the Moon emitting carbon? And does this mean it wasn't formed from Theia hitting Earth?

All the planets and the sun originated from the same cloud of dirt created by the last nova.

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

Hmm, well, I am sorry to admit that I had a Packard Bell PC once upon a time. I also had problems fitting cards into the damn thing and had to cut various bits and pieces off sometimes, but I preferred cutting the PC case, to cutting the cards. So I can commiserate with our friend's friend.

NASA makes May 27 its US independence day from Russian rockets: America's back in the astronaut business after nearly nine years

I think the original launches were thanks to a few German immigrants but the LEO shuttle killed more people than all other launches together.

Elevating cost-cutting to a whole new level with million-dollar bar bills

Re: Interference ...

Yah, the workshop prolly literally put oil on the grease, instead of replacing the grease as they likely should have done yearly for the past 30 years, but never did. Grease Monkeys indeed.

GCC 10 gets security bug trap. And look what just fell into it: OpenSSL and a prod-of-death flaw in servers and apps

Re: El Reg (or the readership) really has changed

Nevermind the Chancellor of Checkers - the last British PMs that I can remember were Wilson and Heath...

A paper clip, a spool of phone wire and a recalcitrant RS-232 line: Going MacGyver in the wonderful world of hotel IT

Re: How about

There are still a few military systems and terminals for the deaf/blind that use Baudot. Special forces still use Morse also. Some things never die, you just wish they would.

Re: An oldie, but a goodie

Ayup, few people know where RS Components came from, but they didn't invent RS232. AFAIK that RS stands for Recommended Standard, unless it is maybe a backronym.

I had a similar but more modern conversation with a salesdroid: Do you have Lucky-Goldstar something or other... No, we have... There it is, Lucky-Goldstar... That is LG! Well, many years ago, Lucky bought Goldstar and became Lucky-Goldstar, LG... He then did a Google search to confirm what I said.

Military equipment still use lots of RS232, RS422, RS485 and RS423 interfaces. Few know what RS423 is...

April 2020 and – rest assured – your Windows PC can still be pwned by something so innocuous as an unruly font

It is just amazing what incredibly craptastic code MS and Adobe wrote (and continue to write). It shows that they employ junior programmers with zero experience, no oversight and no code reviews get done either. It also shows that their bug fixes are equally craptastic. If it was me, I would start by auditing the libraries and provide macro wrappers to avoid common mistakes, then recompile the whole can of worms.

Started from the bottom, now we're near: 16 years on, open-source vector graphics editor Inkscape draws close to v1.0

BTW, I installed the Mac release candidate and so far (10 minutes?) it works great, so I donated them a few bucks in thanks.

I tried Inkscape many moons ago and could not get going with it - could not figure out how to do the simplest things. More recently I tried it again and was pleasantly surprised. It works great on Linux, but proved impossible to install on my MacBook. Therefore I'd be very happy with a proper Mac version.

Stop us if you've heard this before: Boeing's working on 737 Max software fixes for autopilot, stabilization bugs

The trouble is that even if Boeing fixes all the currently known bugs, the certifiers will always find a new bug. There will be an endless succession of bugs like in the Windows OS. No certifier will ever want to sign this catastrophe off. What if it crashes again? They would not be able to live with that.

Re: It can't

You are forgetting that the whole tourism market has evaporated. It will likely remain that way for a long time. Neither Boeing, nor Airbus need build any new aircraft for years.

Ransomware scumbags leak Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX documents after contractor refuses to pay

Re: Anti-mortar system?

Catch the incoming with a giant Trebuchet and lob it back.

Washington state governor green-lights facial-recog law championed by... guess who: Yep, hometown hero Microsoft

OK, but does it handle Scarves, Abayas, Balaclavas and Surgical Masks?

Windows spotted flashing its unmentionables in a Chicago clothier

Re: tumbled through the turbulence

Actually the problem is that Maxes retry a few times before they stay down...

NASA mulls restoring Saturn V to service as SLS delays and costs mount

Yes is excellent April Fool's satire. One could only wish it was true.

Zoom's end-to-end encryption isn't actually end-to-end at all. Good thing the PM isn't using it for Cabinet calls. Oh, for f...

Re: To be clear ...

It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.

Remember that clinical trial, promoted by President Trump, of a possible COVID-19 cure? So, so, so many questions...

Small trial evidence suggests that Quinone helps if administered early enough. That kind of result is similar to other anti-viral treatments like Tamiflu. If you take it too late, the damage is done already and once you are dead, nothing helps, unless your name is Lazarus.

However, the Quinone works in conjunction with other things, notably Zinc and an antibiotic. Without those two, it does almost nothing. That is why there are all these attention seeking allegations of It Works! It Doesn't Work! The Sky Is Falling! We are All Going to Die! flying around. People are cherry picking results to criticize Trump or whoever else they want to criticize, but in the end they just make themselves look stupid.

In the mean time, the large pharmaceutical companies are ramping up production of Quinone and they probably know what they are doing better than a political journalist with a preconceived agenda.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Black hole quasar tsunamis moving at 46 million miles per hour

Re: Has anyone told GoSafe?

"leaves ripples in the traffic flow for hours afterwards" - The idiot BMW driver must be O'l Eddie: Eddies in the Time Space Continuum.

Britain's courts lurch towards Skype and conference calls for trials as COVID-19 distancing kicks in

Re: Trial

Trial by television - I think OJ Simpson pioneered that.

Bad news: Coronavirus is spreading rapidly across the world. Good news: Nitrogen dioxide levels are decreasing and the air on Earth is cleaner

It is easy to see the Venice canal bottoms at low tide!

Supply, demand and a scary mountain of debt: The challenges facing IT as COVID-19 grips the global economy

Re: Just wait 2 weeks, Bob

With the schools closed, there is no shortage of good quality government buildings to turn into temporary hospitals.

Russia-backed crew's latest malware has discerning taste – when screening visitors to poisoned watering holes

Re: "an Eastern European government"

Indeed, but they are more European than Asian.

Re: "the C&C [command-and-control] server replies with a piece of JavaScript code"

"Are flash updates ever more than scantily clad?" - Depends on which bits they are flashing.

Borklays soz for the ailing ATMs but won't say if fix involved a Microsoft invoice

Fortunately the ATM self isolated and did not spread the problem.

Strong-willed field support op holds it together during painful customer call

So it was Free Open Sauce?

Service call centres to become wasteland and tumbleweed by 2024

Re: I'm calling you from Microsoft

You should go to Slovakia. Over yonder, the word 'fucked' actually means 'really'. Then you can be a fucking fucker, without a fucking care in the fucking world.

Re: Sounds like the solution is to shorten the life of the capital equipment

"Well.. unless they plan to euthanise service engineers every 4 years. Hmm." - Here, have a Corona!

European electric vehicle sales surged in Q4 2019 but only accounted for wafer-thin slice of total car purchases

Real low cost electric cars

Italcar Emoke: http://www.italcar.com/en/product/e-moke

Good for driving around a village in Europe. I asked and they said it will be available by summer 2020.

Schermata blu di errore: Italy might be in lockdown, but the sh!tshow must go on

Towel Day

That B0rkage was a sneeze from the Great Blue Arkleseizure.

Morrisons puts non-essential tech changes on ice as panic-stricken shoppers strip stores

I resorted to cleaning PCBs with petrol, since I can't find any alcohol either.

BOFH: Here he comes, all wide-eyed with the boundless optimism of youth. He is me, 30 years ago... what to do?

Re: Mixed Feelings

You realize that you are getting old when kit that you designed is in a museum...

Honeywell, I blew up the qubits: Thermostat maker to offer cloud access to 'world's most powerful quantum computer' within months

It sounds like a quantum leap of progress - a quantum being the smallest possible infinitesimally tiny energy change that one can get.

Turducken - what you get when three birds pass through a jet engine at the same time.

Death and taxis: Windows has had enough of clinging to a cab rooftop in the London rain

Philips signage screens all run Ubuntu Linux.

'I give fusion power a higher chance of succeeding than quantum computing' says the R in the RSA crypto-algorithm

Re: I had no idea that..

He probably has a few brain cells more than most of us. Trying to diss him, is probably not wise.

The right to be forgotten/change your name

In the days of the Wild Wild West, one could 'do a crime and serve your time' and that was it. You pretty much were, whoever you said you were. Nowadays, everything is recorded and any sentence is a life sentence.

The only thing people can do nowadays to finish with the 'doin yer time' part, is to change their name and move to another country immediately after leaving jail.

Microsoft uses its expertise in malware to help with fileless attack detection on Linux

I doubt whether all the false positives will be worth the tiny risk of an actual problem.

AMD takes a bite out of Intel's PC market share across Europe amid microprocessor shortages, rising Ryzen

Just the same as short selling stocks

It is like short selling.

C'mon SPARCky, it's just an admin utility update. What could possibly go wrong?

I once fixed a 777 screw up by making a virtual machine of the same version of the screwed up system on another machine, then I think I used a tar command to copy the permissions of everything over.