* Posts by Anonymous Coward

1762 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2008

Windows Format dialog waited decades for UI revamp that never came

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Linux

> "my PC"

You mean the hardware that Microsoft graciously allow you to use to run THEIR operating system??

Intricate mission to de-ice a space telescope is go: Euclid's 'eye' is clear

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Job well done

Perhaps you're confusing generic ice with water ice?

Ice can be any substance that's cold enough to solidify, but as a society we generally only talk about water ice as that's the most common substance that we see exist in all* 3 states (solid, liquid, gas)

*yes, I know there's more than 3 states, but those are the main ones.

Uncle Sam's had it up to here with 'unforgivable' SQL injection flaws

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Holmes

It's cheapest not to have the problem in the first place.

Do you really need code reviews if the people writing the code truly know what they're doing? It's not like real developers default to insecure SQL and only do it correctly when reviewed and caught, then go back to being crap for the next project.

OK, it costs more to hire competent developers in the first place, but it saves the cost of problems created by crap ones.

Woz calls out US lawmakers for TikTok ban: 'I don’t like the hypocrisy'

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Coat

Everyone else is holding your udders wrong?

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Big Brother

Am I in group 4 then?

When pressed for information on a (non-government) web form, I generally make stuff up. Date of Birth? 18/9/1912

But when interacting with the government, that information is usually important, or at least relevant, so they get the real data.

Equally, my government doesn't ask for ridiculous data about me - they've never asked what I had for dinner last night nor my inside leg measurement.

BOFH: So you want more boardroom tech that no one knows how to use

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Solar Powered Plane?

If it took 16 months, it didn't circumnavigate the globe in 2016.

2016 was a particularly dreary year that seemed to drag on, but it was definitely not 16 months.

Solar Impulse 2 may have _finished_ its circumnavigation in 2016, but in no way did it circumnavigate the globe in 2016

Anonymous Coward Silver badge

Re: Hmm ...

"This is a demonstration of what not to do..."

World's first Neuralink patient enjoying online chess, long Civ 6 sessions

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Joke

At least he won't have problems of "holding it wrong"

Pioneers should be applauded for their part in any breakthrough.

McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Linux

I actually prefer the massive tablet things. It gives me a chance to peruse the menu at my pace rather than being subject to the random timings on the advert screens behind the tills.

Mine's the fish (see icon ->)

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Holmes

Re: "They have that kind of money"

Most (reasonably) rich people get that way by not spending money unnecessarily. Unfortunately they tend to have a poor idea of what is actually worth spending money on when it comes to tech.

Also, what are the chances that the flash cars were leased, so not actually his and just there to give the illusion of wealth?

Meet the Proxinator: A hyperbox that puts SATA at the heart of VMware migrations

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: I configured my own for under $200

Companies wanting to run it in production tend to want new hardware that comes with warranties etc.

Failing hardware costs time to swap it out even if the hardware is cheap, so despite the face that you can run it on redundant surplus hardware it can still work out cheaper to buy new.

In a domestic/lab environment however, it's well worth snapping up cheap hardware that companies don't want!

Network Rail steps back from geofencing over safety fears

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: because...

But the gist of the article is that they want a system for use while the lines (tracks) are still in use. That needs to be far more resilient.

Plus, I imagine any form of GPS based system won't work in tunnels and would have limited use inside buildings.

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: The title was too long.

They're probably conducting a straw poll to decide who is going to be blamed. This poll obviously needs careful planning and verification. They've also learned their lessons and now require 2 out of 3 polls to produce matching results before they take any action.

Boffins propose fiber-optic network for the Moon

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Flame

Re: They're going to need one hell of a big cable drum

Just don't forget to use fibre with a flame proof sheath. Can't risk toxic fumes or the health and safety bods will complain.

FAA gives SpaceX a bunch of homework to do before Starship flies again

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Moon landing

> "Or do you think calculating relative velocity can be done entirely on-board with no external reference?"

There's a helicopter on Mars that has demonstrated that this is perfectly feasible, using commercial off-the-shelf hardware.

Nav cam + lidar appears to be all that's needed, but I suspect SpaceX will do a bit more than that.

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Flame

Re: payload ?

Especially when there's heat around too, say from a hot engine or several

Odysseus probe moonwalking on the edge of battery life after landing on its side

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Alien

> "Epic Fail"

No, just Epic

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Failure is an option

Or make them intentionally permeable/leaky. Inflate at quicker than leakage, then stop and let them deflate on their own.

It is a bird, a plane or a Chinese spy balloon? None of the above

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Don't they have big telescopes?

Because the enemies of the USA couldn't possibly write an email claiming that their balloon is innocuous???

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Holmes

Re: China insisted was an errant weather balloon

Plus, it doesn't take much image stacking to eliminate that effect.

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Joke

> "which must include the driver aiding us to insert our house keys into our respective door locks. We can usually take it from there."

> "It's a low-key affair,"

I'm probably going to hell, but I was expecting a snide reference to the driver's height...

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Windows

Re: Fire in haste, regret at leisure

"you wouldn't happen to remember the password would you"

"Let me think. It's got an 'ow' sound. No, wait, it's got two of them. And some numbers. Twelve, no, fifteen, no, twenty. That's right. Twenty thousand pounds"

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Mushroom

People in a panic situation like that often get aggressive and try to make it someone else's fault. It's difficult to admit that you fucked up.

I've found it best to let them vent a while, remain polite and suggest whatever I can to help the issue. More often than not they later acknowledge that they were being unreasonable and that they appreciate your help... if they fail to do this then the next time they have a problem I am significantly less helpful. Getting angry back at them doesn't help, unless you're actively trying to burn a bridge.

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Being polite is great

Not even enough time to hear that they're in the shit and revel in the fact that you could help them but won't because of the way they treated you?

A nice bit of karma is good for the soul.

Oxide reimagines private cloud as... a 2,500-pound blade server?

Anonymous Coward Silver badge

Re: Shades of SUN

Unless it can be split in half (or even thirds) for transport. Which I realise is unlikely, but then why are the side panels split like that?

Self-taught-techie slept on the datacenter floor, survived communism, ended a marriage

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Coat

> "Close, but no cigar."

You're Havana laugh

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year gap

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Linux

Re: Cool, a new toy to fiddle about with.

I'm not sure that I can find a use for it.

For something small and (semi-)embedded, Tiny Core is brilliant.

For anything else, particularly if you're looking for something with a window manager/desktop interface, you'll almost certainly have the space for a more mainstream Linux

I fail to see the niche that DSL will fill these days. Possibly bootable recovery tools, but I haven't had to resort to one of those for a few years.

Ukraine claims Russian military is using Starlink

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Big Brother

How about

All starlink activity in the region is passed through a Ukrainian intelligence office before (or in parallel to) hitting the internet.

Russia using starlink? Well Ukraine now know what you're doing over it.

OK, they might be smart enough to use encryption but it could at least identify communications endpoints and might be useful for identifying kit in Russian hands.

Work to resolve binary babble from Voyager 1 is ongoing

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Alien

Given that it's got to 22.5 light-hours in ~46 years, that's pretty much 0.5light-hours/year. So I reckon that boundary will be about 3 years away.

(Assuming by 'day' you mean 24 hours, as opposed to a Martian sol or other equivalent definitions)

Raspberry Pi Pico cracks BitLocker in under a minute

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: A brilliant testament to analysis

It makes it harder, which in the end is all any scheme can do.

Techie climbed a mountain only be told not to touch the kit on top

Anonymous Coward Silver badge

Re: Try turning the cable end to end

> "Ive done the same with an electrical cable - it often started working when turned end to end."

Standard USB-A connectors require rotating 180º twice before they work.

Zen Internet warns customers of an impending IP address change

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Zen are not as good as people claim

I had a case of engineer reporting No Fault Found to which I argued back: She didn't find a fault because she was completely clueless but after I told her what the fault was and what she needed to do to fix it, she did that and the fault hasn't returned since.

We didn't pay.

(it was an openreach profile problem so not something we could have done ourselves, but also not technically something the engineer fixed herself; she had to be the one to place the call though)

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Can you tell us what range your /29 is in? (suitably anonymous if you want by telling us the CIDR they're a part of - https://asnlookup.com/asn/AS13037/ )

The theory seems to be that they want to sell a range, and as you're the first to comment here that you've had that email we might be able to identify the range(s) affected. We already know that 82.68.0.0/14 seems not to be affected.

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Holmes

From their FAQs...

> "the project where we are migrating IPV4 addresses is one such change as we look to consolidate our portfolio"

"consolidate our portfolio" is another way of saying they're planning to sell a subnet, right?

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Zen continuing the downward spiral

And customer service has gone downhill.

Ironically we've just shifted away from Zen because... they refused to give us a different IP. Ours had been erroneously blocked somewhere that then denied it, so we had no scope to redress it there; Zen acknowledged the problem but suggested a VPN would be a better solution than a different IP. We suggested that a different ISP would be even better and they weren't bothered at all, so that's the route we took.

Alphabet just banked $3B by stretching life of its servers

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Big Brother

It's a trade off between power/performance ration of the old vs new kit, rack space, parts availability, maintenance cost, labour cost to swap, .......

There's a lot of things to factor in, but I don't see much improvement in power/performance in the last decade (GPUs excepted, but they might be able to retrofit those) so while everything is running OK I imagine modern kit could stay in service for a decade without much hassle.

I don't know what temperature they run their DCs at, but I wouldn't be surprised if the improved reliability meant that they could run a bit hotter now as well.

One thing that is absolutely certain is that google have the data to do the relevant analysis.

Things are going to get weird as the nanometer era draws to a close

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Hold up!

But what is it in Linguine?

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will fly no more, but is still standing upright

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Why not

What is there to gain? Well there's a possibility that the damage is minor enough that flight operations could potentially continue. They might also redefine altitude limits - pushing the boundaries to see what is possible. Testing to destruction achieves a lot, but they can't do that on an otherwise viable craft.

What is there to lose? It's not like anyone is ever going to go retrieve it and salvage parts.

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Why not

As it is now scrap, why not command it to spin up as fast as possible and fly as high as possible just to see what happens? OK, it will vibrate terribly but as a final farewell it could be an exciting experiment.

Still a fantastic achievement to get this thing off the ground in the first place though.

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "coloured pencil office"

Spreading your own faeces on toast is even cheaper. Would probably taste as good as the avocado too.

Boeing goes boing: 757 loses a wheel while taxiing down the runway

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: potato potato

Exactly what I came here to say. I'm disappointed that I had to go so far down the comments to find it.

Poor communication led to complete lack of communication

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Trollface

> "Since we all know the cliché about what happens when you assume, we will not repeat it here"

Do we? Are you sure?

NASA lost contact with Mars helicopter Ingenuity, then managed to find it again

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Alien

Why do you think he set up "the boring company"?

It's all a brilliant synergy.

Actually, just trying to launch a super-heavy might be a quicker way of digging down if you don't need the hole to be neat...

Asahi Linux team issues promising update on efforts to conquer Apple Silicon

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Linux

Congratulations

From a software engineering/tinkering point of view... bravo. That's quite an achievement to add support for quite radically different processors.

From a practical point of view... how many people are going to want to pay the apple hardware premium but not want the apple software stack?? It strikes me as having a real-world (i.e. not just for tinkering) market of 2, maybe 3 people. (and I use linux daily, on several devices, albeit relatively cheap devices)

WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Headmaster

I'm personally opposed to the dissent shown by your pedantry which includes the used of "doesent"

BOFH: Nice air conditioning system. Would be a shame if anything happened to it

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Bearing in mind the target market, what wifi are you expecting to use when the power is out???

Yes, I would also just stick a battery on the router (etc), but we're not the target market.

Adios, dead zones: Starlink relays SMS in space for unmodified phones on Earth

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Now you'll never have an excuse for missing that weekend work text or call

7) That's a work matter so not applicable outside of working hours. If you want me available for overtime, my out-of-hours rate is £x,xxx/hr

New year, new bug – rivalry between devs led to a deep-code disaster

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

Re: The real lesson...

It's impossible for C to be better than assembler for any specific case. When you run C through the compiler, the output IS assembler. So if a human was skilled enough (extremely unlikely now) they could product assembly code that's just as good. (Or indeed if you're skilled enough with your butterfly - 378)

HOWEVER

The overarching benefit of C (or any other high level language) is that it's processor agnostic. Assembly needs to be written for each target architecture, whereas in C the compiler deals with that (mostly)

BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Three point one pints please

Some people will be driving, so let's say the average is 3.75 pints per person.

"Oops", I just ordered 37.5 pints per person.

Superuser mostly helped IT, until a BSOD saw him invent a farcical fix

Anonymous Coward Silver badge
Boffin

I have a dim memory of installing Norton's 3 month trial version on a machine with the clock set 10 years into the future, then resetting the clock afterwards.

Bingo! a 10 year extension to the free trial.

(That was when Norton was a decent choice of AV, so a long time ago)