Posts by Roger Stenning
207 posts • joined Friday 4th April 2008 12:00 GMT
And...
.. their customer service still sucks :-(
I'm more interested in knowing...
...how large this 64-element phased array was. Would I, for example, have to be carting around something the size and heft of a galvanised steel bin lid, in order to benefit from this 'advance' in antenna trickery?
Kinda defeats the object of portability, if that's the case, really. *shrug*
You gotta be bloody joking?!
Yes, IT skills, even to a basic level, are important to possess, but the ability to write - for example, your signature, writing your address, or even noting down the registration of the vehicle that just rumped you up the backside in traffic - is even more important. Imagine what might happen if the battery goes down on your device, or there's a power cut, and all you have is a scribble stick and a bit of kitchen roll, and you need to make a quick note about something. Can't write? Then you're buggered - and that's being sodding polite about it.
This charity chief is quite frankly the biggest waste of oxygen I've heard of in a long time.
Jesus H. Christ...
I stand corrected, the bloody thing DOES work.
Yes, it's a huge advance for 3D printing, and the uses it can be put to, but for pities sake, why the hell did this common sense-deficient fool have to print a sodding gun?!
Click for article on Forbes.com.
Granted, you need the use of what is currently an expensive 3D printer, and ammunition that is more (I damn well hope) conventionally produced, but for a one-shot weapon, that you can then replace the barrel (3D printed) and shoot again, this is quite honestly a bloody bad move. Think about the funds that your average drug dealer has at their disposal in places where firearms controls actually seem to work reasonably well (such our fair shores), and then think of what they could do with those funds (over and above what they already do, that is). Frankly, the possibilities are quite horrifying.
I still stand by my comments regarding carry-on items being scanned by Airport X-Ray machines, and their subsequent detection, but they are not good for scanning people. So, I guess we can look forward to a reintroduction of those pervert-view machines again, thanks to this bloody maniac.
In addition, until firmware systems can be put in place to prevent a 3D printer for making a firearm or its parts (a bloody unlikely prospect, given the AI computing that would be needed in such a stand-alone system), it's only a matter of time before 3D printers (which had the possibility of allowing small firms to make out-of-production spare parts for such things as home domestic machinery, bicycles, cars, and so on) are added to the list of export control restricted items (can you say "End User Certificate"), thus putting the kybosh on the world-wide uses that 3D printers were originally intended for.
Mr Cody Wilson has a hell of a lot to answer for, now. He's quite probably buggered up a huge advance in small-scale engineering manufacturing.
Nuke, because that's the where my temper is thanks to Mr. Wilson.
Edited for grammar and emphasis
Re: Longevity?
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that this is anti-style hysteria; the thing it completely unsafe to use as designed,
SO, forget longevity, and think survival. Without a properly produced chamber and barrel (how so ever short), this thing will blow up the moment you try to fire anything, be it a live round or a blank, from it. A blank will, likely as not, merely burst the thing open; a live round will definitely cause it to explosively shatter.
Without the addition of some of the metal parts of a more traditional firearm (chamber and barrel) that are made out of materials that can stand up to the pressure and heat produced from the detonation of the propellant in ammunition. Give us all massive advances in materials science, and maybe, just maybe, at that time, you might be able to 3D-print a firearm; until then, anything you might produce on your 3D printer will be a fairly silly toy.
I imagine the first clown that tries this thing without the proper chamber and barrel might wind up, assuming he or she survives the experience, suing Defense Distributed - they might even win such an action, too, since this is the USA we're talking about - this, assuming that they fail to make it to the Darwin Awards next year, of course!
As to detection by airport security - they can detect a child's plastic toys on the airport x-ray machines; they've had this capability for years, so I fail to see what the hullabaloo is about there, either.
All in all? It's people running around waving their hands in the air, and screaming "The Sky's falling!".
A small thing caught my attention...
A bit of nit-picking, really.
At the end of the third paragraph, you wrote: "...more than enough to obliterate both spacecrafts."
The plural of spacecraft is spacecraft.
Aside from that, it was an interesting article.
Bloody dangerous move this.
Not just for civil and criminal rights, but the thin end of the wedge for government to get at all personal data, how so ever innocent, without a properly heard warrant; privacy groups should be jumping on this like rabid Mongeese.
Took the words right out of my gob.
"Royally Fucked" indeed.
I take it that since they've robbed us of our IP, they're going to tear up the country's ratification of the Berne Convention as well, then?
I didn't vote for these useless twats, and here's a perfect example of why: They have NO respect for anyone but their own bloody cronies and soft-money backhanding buddies.
Fucking outrageous >:-(
Odd...
I've got auto update switched on, and the machine performed the usual update routine last night; it rebooted, and the usual messages following such an update were present when I woke it up this morning.
However, having looked over the installed patches via the control panel, there's no trace of KB2823324 ever having been installed; guess they deleted the offending patch from the update before my machine got around to getting the update done.
*shrug*
Are they serious?
They named a ship for a *pimp*?!
Re: Patented -- or worse?
Actually, no, they're not. See the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Copyright is generally active for the lifetime of the person who created the work, plus fifty years after death (normally via his/her estate), and a fixed period of length (this fixed period isn't fixed in the convention, if I recall correctly) for companies, etc. Various national laws giver different forms of work different periods of protection, but in no jurisdictions that I'm aware of, does such protection last for ever. I stand, or course, to be corrected by those who actually know better than this layman!
Blody hell!
Common sense in a US patent court?
Anyone checked the temperatures downstairs recently?
I'll echo the comments above...
I'm a contract Vodafone punter; their 3G service is patchy at best - I hardly have a 3G signal where I live in south London, and going through Newbury, where their headquarters are, is often an exercise in aggravation. I'll grant that their 2G signals are better, but when you pay for the extra bandwidth to get a gig a month, you do tend to expect better. 3, on the other hand, have been outstanding. I use one of their PAYG dongles on my notebook, and like those above, they've never let me down.
As to 4G, given that most reviews of 4G-capable phones state that there's a massive problem with the battery consumption of those devices, why on Earth would I want a device that needs charging every six to twelve hours? The added connection speed that 4G seems to offer - coupled with the limited number of areas that it's being set up in - just doesn't seem to make the added battery aggravation seem worth it, frankly.
My Vodafone contact expires in seven or eight months time; it's therefore quite obvious who'll be getting my business at that time.
Oh for crying out loud...
...the Israelis aren't amateurs; they wouldn't put classified material like that on a system connected to the internet; it's most likely stored on a system isolated from the web, if it's even held on computer at all, rather than a tall filing cabinet holding a shitload of index cards (Noclist that, you hapless twerps!). That much is pure common sense, and ever so obvious.
As to "but the claims that they hacked the Mossad site and got a list of Mossad agents is most likely psychological warfare": Bullshit. It's not PsyOps. It's attempts by spotty-faced armchair warriors at bragging. Calling it PsyOps is plainly and simply wrong. PsyOps suggests a team of trick cyclists - ahem, excuse me, Psychiatrists - mapping out how to mentally destabilise an enemy military force in the run up to an invasion. Genuine national military services spend Lord knows how much money on such psychobabble stuff. A small group of spotty-faced teenagers wearing Guy Fawkes masks is not even close to having such resources.
Really, it grips my shit when some excuser comes along and tries to legitimise a bunch of armchair wankers who can't even shave yet.
Flames, because, well, obvious, innit >:-(
Apperently...
...it's an offence under US law for someone to lie to a federal agent. Not being a Yank, I don't know if it's true or not, but given the apparently paranoid state of the law makers over there, it wouldn't surprise me. Still, it makes a useful hook upon which to hang someone onto, whilst more serious and probably effective offences are ... erm... discovered.
Probably just as well we don''t have a similar law on the books: If we did, it might be the case that well over half of those sitting in both of our legislative houses might be banged up for lying to electors!
Posted in Outages plague Hotmail and Outlook users
Bugger the popcorn - where's the beer for the fireworks show? ;-)
Absolutely classic :-)
Thanks, good luck, and enjoy!
As above :-)
Re: Lowest common denominator
I learnt the term in the T.A., and I believe it came to the T.A. from the Regular Army; used in training (and certain other environs, truth be told), it's a kind of ballpark measurement equivalent, and referred to the thickest, most dense, lead-brained amoeba-like individual in any given group of people, such that if a lesson could be learned by that person, anyone else could learn it too.
Oddly enough, I think it was used to describe me from time to time too ;-)
Re: Stupid little boy
Not to mention s.16, Offences Against The Person Act, 1861, which provides...
"16 Threats to kill.
A person who without lawful excuse makes to another a threat, intending that that other would fear it would be carried out, to kill that other or a third person shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years."
Mr. Clarkson said (words to the effect that) he'd "find them and kill them". Doesn't matter if he was quoting someone or something, he's made the comment in a manner where it's possible that someone could actually believe that he's going to set out to do it. And that, children, is an offence.
He really, truly, has to learn to curb his voice of his incredibly stupid and thoughtless remarks somewhat drastically. The consequences of his carrying on regardless could be profoundly embarrassing to him, at the very least, and drastically lifestyle-changing at the worst, if the law decides to do something about it.
While we're on the topic of life changing events, let's also not forget that the kind of organised folks who hack these accounts tend to have strong ties to some of the less friendly mutual benefit societies around the globe, many of which don't give two hoots about putting two (frequently more) rounds into the head of journalistic types, with or without provocation.
And no, while I'm most definitely not a fan of his, I wouldn't want to see him catch lead for being a complete fool.
"Nothing could possibly go wrong"
Ah, now aboot that famous Canadian sense o'hoomor there, then, eh, eh ;-)
I can hear the strains of the theme from...
"Third Rock From The Sun" even as I type ;-)
Re: Not the only filtering offender
Won't be that long before your friend the computer requires a retina scan to be able to process your reclassification request...
*please insert retina here*
;-)
Re: Ahh, I see a business opportunity
It's already being filled in part; there are a number of wallets with NFC protection, either full Faraday cage-like shells, or wallets containing partial RF shielding. You can even get them through Amazon. I did. Why? Because NFC payment (what they call CPC or Contactless payment Cards) is now on London buses, and I don't want my NFC-enabled cards (that I did NOT request, they just sent me the sodding things) being read by the reader on a bus - I have a perfectly sound Oyster Card for that.
Frankly, I'm not at all comfortable (understatement of the freaking century) with the idea of NFC or Pay By Bonk. It seems, from all that I've read, to be too open for abuse, manipulation, error, and screw-up: The tech is just not mature enough for these purposes yet, in my view.
In the mean time, I'll carry on with good old-fashioned cash (dead easy) and Chip'n'Pin cards (requires deliberate authorisation to complete a purchase).
Pathetic or not (I consider this to be the latter), there's something that all the previous posts appear to have missed: What completely loony insane and bloody stupid bunch of morons actually *granted* this trademark?
You guessed it: The Utterly Stupid Pillocks and Twats Orifice, proving, once again, that they are *not* even close to being fit for purpose.
Re: Thost that are dumb enough to think a phone is a status symbol of success
A fiver a month for all that?! Who the hell did you sleep with to get that bundle?!
Unfortunately,
there are *still* large companies - and I can, but won;t, name two of them (no names, because the info comes from a friend who's under an NDA on this!) whose IT departments have their heads so deeply buried in the sand that they still require all their desktops to run IE7.
The problem lies not, unusually, with the users in these cases, but with the IT Honchos who are still living in the 70s, and who think a VAX may well be the cutting edge in corporate computing!
Still, hats off to MS for this patch, it's nice to see them taking this seriously.
G_232 - "A: Easiest pistol to use in the world as far as I can tell. Fall of shot is incredibly tight. Light. Virtually no bouncing around or rise so you can fire accurately pretty much as fast as you can squeeze the trigger (not sure how they manage this with such a light pistol, must be very well balanced). Large magazine."
The lack of muzzle rise is down to two main factors aside from the shooters positive grip of the weapon; these two design factors are: The relative angle of the grip (which is more acute, or swept back, compared to other handguns), and the position of the barrel relative to the forward-pointed forefinger (which on a Glock is somewhat lower than comparable handguns).
Similar examples of grip angle would be the Nambu model 14 pistol, and the P.08 "Luger". The only pistol I can think of with a similar barrel to forefinger position would be the S&W Sigma, which is a very close external copy, for all intents and purposes, of the Glock.
OK, so I know the topic well: I used to be a civvy pistol club shooter, and was the armoury storesman in my T.A. unit for a while, as well as an SA(B)90 Range manager and shooting coach. You learn and pick up a few things along the way. *shrugs*
Keep up the good work over there, and keep your head down.
R.
Re: @Zmodem
Oh, don't be an idiot all your life, boy. Life is far too short.
I served with the Territorial Army, and while that might have been something of a joke back then, it's all too serious now. When I trained, it was with a 9mm SMG as my primary weapon, the 7.62mm LMG as a secondary weapon, and the 9mm pistol as a toy that we needed to be familiar with. The infantry trained with 7.62mm all the way.
These days, my present-day equivalents are training and actually operating with 9mm pistols, 5.56mm rifles and light machine guns, 7.62mm GPMGs, as well as 40mm grenade launchers, and other munitions besides.
Not one of them considers the IMI Desert Eagle to be a valid choice. Not one of them has a moment of patience for a keyboard warrior like yourself.
You want to earn respect? Join up with a unit that has more than half a chance of being deployed in the nasty places of the world, either as a reservist or a regular.
Only then, when you have earned that Operational Service Medal (what used to be called a General Service Medal) will anyone really pay much more than pico second of interest in the utter rubbish that you are pedalling.
Formerly 24910712 Cpl Stenning, RMP(v)
Posted in Shh! Proxima Centauri can hear us!
Re: 4 years from now
If that's the case, then the first interstellar war isn't far behind, if only to rid the galaxy of the menace that Humanity presents!
Let's see if I've got this right...
...these conspiracy theory nuts are saying the UN is out to run the planet, but this would require the use of force and armies of immense size to accomplish in any real sense; now, as most of these conspiracy theory nuts come from the US, which has a VETO VOTE for pretty much anything the UN throws out when it comes to use of force matters (as do the other permanent members of the UNSC), what the bloody hell are these conspiracy theory nuts so paranoid about? The Easter Bunny dressing in a sky blue romper suit and arming itself with a carrot gun?!
...And this is yet another example...
...of why I won't ever move to live in the USA. Their litigation system is just so far out of control, it boggles the mind. The ONLY people who appear to make a profit from it are the lawyers. Ought to make you stop and think, shouldn't it?
Posted in Archaeologists uncover 'Unicorn's lair'
Re: Be warned! Remember what happened to Hans Brix.
I think you mean "retort" rather than "report" ;-)
FFS, get it right..
It should never have been patented, as it's not a bloody invention, it's a graphical symbol, and instead therefore should have been copyrighted or even registered as a trade mark. Even if there's prior art that will prevent that from happening, of course.
Sodding USPTO. Always fucking up.
Sunshine, one bucket of, orbital delivery to USPTO HQ. The only way to be sure.
Asimov's gonna be spinning in his grave :(
If they're that scared of killer bees - I mean robots - why not just install Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics, then? No one will be killed, maimed, or get hurt feelings from any form of robot if this happens!
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Simple, innit?
Re: OK, so to make a point...
I'll echo Tank Boy and Tony Trolle - you don't have to work in IT to read the Register :-) I also like to know what's going on in the tech world: The Register allows me to do this in nice, easy, byte - I mean bite - sized chunks :-)
As it happens, I used to work IT, before I got out and found that I enjoyed shifting heavy metal a shedload more - I also don't have to deal with moronic users who can't find their backsides with a map compass and bit of string, let alone recognise that they've forgotten to hit the power button on the desktop. These days, I deal with the punters, mechs and techs that keep the country fed and moved. I don't recommend it to everyone, but for me at least, it's been remarkably more satisfying, if not as well paid. Job satisfaction counts for a lot!
Re: OK, so to make a point...
Oh, don't be a sodding arsehole. There are jobs requiring degree level qualifications; I don't begrudge them this requirement (who wants a doctor operating on them who has NOT got the right qualifications, for example?) but to say that it's paying to get into a fucking 'club' is quite frankly the biggest load of complete bollocks that I've heard in my 48 years on this mortal coil, and I drive heavy vehicles for a living, and have heard pretty much every sodding sea story known to man, so again, don't be a sodding arsehole.
OK, so to make a point...
...anonymous publish personally identifiable data - names, email addresses and passwords, belonging to students who are being forced to pay the fees in the first place. Now for the Faculty members I can just about follow the childish thinking behind publishing the stuff, however wrong and fucking retarded it might be, but then they went after the students as well?
Someone tell me how the fuck that helps the poor bastards?
To remind these fucktards, It was politicians who made the decision to charge fees in seats of higher education over here. Not students. not faculty members. Why didn't you Anonymous keyboard warrior chickenshits go after the politicians instead? Oh yeah, too difficult, and oh yeah, they might send the lads in black choppers after you, wouldn't want a real-deal Call Of Duty delivery on your doormat now, would you? Might upset mummy and daddy a bit. Might make 'em ground you for oh, all eternity.
These anonymous people must either be the most retarded halfwits in the universe, or merely a bunch of "fuck everyone" fucktards who can't hold down a proper job for more than a picosecond.
They seem to think it's funny.
I think it's a fail of the highest order. And that's the polite version.
They decided on .co.uk etc. because...
The idea was that .co.uk was to be commercial, .org.uk was to be non-commercial (charities, non-profits, etc.), .ac.uk to be seats of learning (schools, highers, universities, etc), and so on, leaving police.uk, mod.uk, etc, available to the government. The thinking was that by having a .whatever.uk suffix, you'd know the site was here in Blighty. The problem is that it never really got that popular in the early days, and only when all the really good and fun .com and .org names were filched up, did folks begin thinking of the .co.uk and .org.uk domains. It's called "Snobbery", I think ;-)
Oh joy.
There I was, deciding on which distro I'd look at when i leap from Win to linux, and whoops, Ubuntu just hit a banana skin right into a tree. That's gonna hurt some, I suspect. Certainly dropped off my interest list in a hurry.
The main problem for fondleslabs...
...is the paucity of meaningful biz apps, such as a decent office suite. Now, if OpenOffice were to be ported to Android, there might be a fair few more supplicants to the fondleslab world, but until then, and with the VERY limited offerings from Google Drive and Polaris Office, I can't see anyone really taking a fondleslab seriously for business purposes - and that's where they need to aim it, in order to make it sell in any meaningful numbers.
It's actually rather nice to see that we're a market leader in some field or other, for a change. Mind you, the electro-prod and barbedwire codpiece market's a bit thin these days, sadly...!
"Designed for piracy"?
Well there's a libel suit waiting for filing if ever I heard - I mean read - it.
more to the point...
Where in the hell did he get the CAD/CAM plans for a bloody rifle?! I thought gun companies liked keeping this sort of stuff to themselves?
and then they advertise...
a PAYG offer that "gets better over time". Presumably it gets better due to all the refunds for when you can't use the network?
WTF?!
"The Korean firm said that the "gratuitous images have no evidentiary value and have been asserted in order to turn the trial into a popularity contest", but the judge didn't agree. She said that all five of the slides with the Jobsian visage would be allowed because they were relevant to the iPhone or iPad design patents."
Jobs' face is now part of their patent?! Is this judge completely barmy?! I think it's high time to isolate the US from trading ANYWHERE on the planet because they have restrictive trading practices, a patent system that allows them to make up the rules as they go along, and a judicial system designed and intended to weigh heavily in their own favour - which is exactly what they are opposed to in the rest of the world. They CANNOT have it both ways. one or the other, Uncle Sam, and make the decision snappy.
Posted in Apple mulls over investment in Twitter
Re: #fuckoffapple
Thoroughly agree. Apple need to lay their mitts OFF, lest they bugger up something successfully that works with ALL platforms. Twitters success lies in the fact that it allows everyone, regardless of platform, to access its services. I can see, if Apple muscles in on this, that the platform availability would suddenly dwindle to one (iOS based only), and that all your personal data would suddenly 'belong' to Apple. Granted, this is a worst-case scenario, but the signs are all there: You just have to look with clear glasses.
"Citizens"?
"The committee believes that the launch of the database will help the agency improve its performance in following up on tip-offs from citizens"
OK, did someone turn this country into a republic without me noticing? The ONLY place that we are said to be "Citizens" is on a British Passport, and that's because hardly anywhere else understands what a Subject is. We're "Subjects", not Citizens. Great Britain is a "Constitutional Monarchy" after all, and HM The Queen is the Head Of State. If you don't like that, bugger off somewhere else, because it's the *only* game in this particular town. I seem to recall Parliamentarians have to take an oath of loyalty that effect as well, when they take their seats.
Hmph. Sodding politicians trying to be Politically Stupid - I mean Correct - again. Don't trust 'em, never have, never will.
...inspired, do you think, by...
...the movie "Up"?
OK, OK, I'll get me coat :-D
