* Posts by Andy Enderby

48 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2008

Green GT rolls out sexy e-supercar

Andy Enderby

hehehe

the guys that designed this beast have clearly not read the ACO rule book that defines what a LMP 1 or LMP 2 car is. If they get an entry, and present that thing for scrutineering in June 2011, an early bath will follow........ approximately as soon as the scrutes clap eyes on it. Where shall I start ? Moving aerodynamic devices (air brakes), bodywork not covering the cars mechanical components and I suspect their wee mockup probably only has a single central seat under that bublle.

More likely that it is merely an attempt to grab some publicity before serving up something rather more conventional.

Windows 7 — It’s like Vista, only less annoying

Andy Enderby

@ Dick Emery

A legit point, but surely XP 64 has this already, although I'm willing to confess I'd have no idea on this issue unless I consulted the relevant documentation.

Andy Enderby
Gates Horns

corporate customers ......

.....Just want to run their core applications as has been pointed out elsewhere here. Allegedly "cool" visual tweaks that require double the graphical hardware cost will acheive little beyond annoying the beancounters, and would do so regardless of a recession. Is it me or have they now completely lost their occasionally flakey connection with reality at Redmond.

Running word processors, spreadsheets and databse clients really shouldn't require a business to spend a pile on graphical hardware, and when a lower footprint alternative exists, why should they pay for even 2, let alone 3 or 4 gigs of RAM in every box ?

XP, legacy Win 2000 licenses and even embracing the penguin for those without legacy apps to support, is likely to be seen as a better business bet. According to the Beast of course, these enterprises should all have divested themselves of 2000 in favour of XP, XP in favour of Vista and now, before the bugs have all been rounded up in Vista they should do the same again and make the jump to 7......?

They are aware that cash is tight right now ? Hello ? anybody there ?

Wakey fscking wakey !

Microsoft retires AutoRun (kinda, sorta)

Andy Enderby
Gates Horns

Especially @ Tom.....

I agree, this is exactly why it still exists. That and the majority of none expert users who are unaware of Windows explorer. By pandering to these groups of users they become as bad as the malware developers themselves, a menace ot safe computing.

Even Paris, I suppose could be persuaded (with a clue by four perhaps) that leaving this functionality in Windows is tantamount to encouraging the ba*t*rds. For smart people, they make some awfully dumb decisions.

USAF slammed for pranging Predators on manual

Andy Enderby

@ Francis Fish

Correct.

How the government uses dirty data to legislate morality

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

it was ever thus.....

In recent times alone, we have the ID card, which wacki Jaqui and friends tells us enjoys near total support, the Iraqi involvement in 9/11 + WMD/dodgy dossier, and now this. As usual, if the facts don't reflect the "reality" our wonderful leaders want to punt on any given day, they simply change them for "facts" that do.

Thumbs down, not for the article but for our scumbag politicians.

Dominican lad suffers six-day stiffy

Andy Enderby
Unhappy

The usual treatment .....

Would involve getting some of the blood hideously empurpie-ing his member out of said member. This generally involves a surgeon and something sharp. Whilst a distinctly unpleasant prospect, it beats gangrene followed his tadger dropping off, which would be distinct possibility. Regular grade impotence could result even if it didn't rot off.

Neither prospect would be too appealling one suspects.

drugs (the usual suspect - that favourite of spammers everywhere), booze and testosterone, an explosive mixture and a known complication of Friday and Saturday nights at casualty departments everywhere....

Info chief slaps Met on CCTV in pubs

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

welcome to....(drum roll please maestro)

Wacki Jaqui's Panopticon O' Fun..... Delightful that the met have awarded themselves these powers and comical the weasel way they try to back away from the idea whilst still fronting up in a pugnacious fashion.

Wonderful..... really

You did what? The trials of supporting remote users

Andy Enderby
Happy

Ultimate for me.....

Getting a call from an irate business user who couldn't dial in to anything from his workstation. Everyone else could. LAN was up, no problem. Ok thinks I, "Humour me, could you plug a telephone into the socket your using to dial out please ? I think it might be dead"....... I got called every idiot in christendom and in the end sent a field engineer round. He did the same diags I did, then called me....."Humour me, could you plug a telephone into the socket your using to dial out please ? I think it might be dead"....... Now this guy (lovely chap, good field engineer, but never afraid to admit to himself if he went out of his depth), did just that. Guess what ? One patch lead later everything is fine. Oh yes, everything was on the support log too, including my initial stab at the eventual solution. I suppose I could have said something about patchbays, but given the customer........ Best not.

Andy Enderby

not me, my boss....

My boss was always a decent guy, didn't take idiocy well, but a picture of competence, personally I found him a fun guy to work for. Not everyone shared my view however....

He got a somewhat tetchy call from a supported council IT department famous for it's Friday afternoon liquid lunches and for their clueless post pub support calls. Clearly as always it's our fault, as always the customer is always right and as always we know nothing. Problem : "unix commands don't work". Our chap who has a newborn daughter, busily supporting his wife when he could, putting up with a 4 hour daily total round trip commute each day, no sleep for days, guides him through all manner of diagnostics, knowing in any event what the problems are (ie PEBKAC enhanced by booze), and that engineer concerned was drunk finishes up with......

(overheard over the partition), "ok, what does the prompt look like ?", a pause......"C:\> ? Oh for F*cks sake, get a grip man !"

There followed a brief and robust exchange of views when it was suggested that whomever was administering the organisations Unix servers either gain substantial competence or jettison the booze at Friday lunchtime and that a favour was being done in not informing his superiors of his inebriated state.

Having dealt with the guy in question, on a Friday afternoon it was a miracle he rembered to breath at times.

Immortal Dr Who jellyfish poised to rule Earth

Andy Enderby
Flame

@Jau

yes, they will indeed. But as some biologist discovered, they will also quite happily reconstitute themselves back into pukka jellyfish on leaving to stand after a brisk blending.......

Flame - sweet steralising fire, and lots of it.......

Microsoft says it again - no second beta for Windows 7

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

Vista v Win7

In the case of those lucky users whos hardware happily co-operates with Vista - why would they want to up grade - in the majority of cases, they'll have had their kit and Vista for less than 18 months. Why bother ?

In the case of those who have had a bad experience with Vista - How about demonstrating a commitment to sorting out existing problems before you get anymore of our cash eh Redmond ?

In the case of those happily still with XP - It works, cash is tight, Win7 hasn't been tested, why do we need to bin our old hardware and much of our software ? what's in it for us ?

Corporate bean counter view - Restricted functionality (depending on sku), twice the hardware spec to do the same job and all we get is a poxy new front end and increased training costs ? Bugger off.

Judges: Don't know the law? It's understandable

Andy Enderby

@Red Bren

In fairness Red, a legislature of lawyers isn't peculiar to new labour. Barristers and others of the legal ilk are heavily represented in all the major parties.

Texas lawyer sues Citibank over fake cheque scam

Andy Enderby

419 hell.....

Works by preying on the need (poor marks) and the greed (rich marks). You can't tell them that they are talking about getting something for nothing, because they simply wont belive you if they are that far down the line.

There is never a pot of gold, nobody ever got rich replying to such a scam (except the scammer),

Lawyer boy would have been guilty of money laundering even if the half witted plan had come to fruition. I hope the beak slings him in chokey for abuse of process and wasting the courts time. Strictly speaking of course he passed a dud cheque.... he could be busted in the absence of the Lads from Lagos if intent could be prooved.

The scammers do make nice, if occasionally venomous pets however and you can wind them up and waste their time endlessly with a bit of wit and patience.

1m French out of work thanks to dodgy data - UK next?

Andy Enderby
Stop

Sign here....

.....that's my receipt for you receipt.....

Fsck me..... it's not France or Britain it's Gilliams Brazil.

F1 chiefs ready post-prang battery safety scheme

Andy Enderby

earth bonding/grounding strips

@ Kevin

Those grounding straps have been a feature in F1 ever since they reindtroduced refuelling. The idea being to drop the static potential of the car to that of the refuelling rig. I used to work many years ago in a factory dealing with industrial organic solvents, where similar measures had to be taken before pouring flammable organic liquids. Moving large amounts of such material will raise a vast static charge of itself. As the car is refuelled, you also run the risk of raising a substantial potential in the car and the refuelling rig, just the same as decanting large amounts of solvent in the factory - So to eliminate the chances of accidental ignition in a spill, and to keep crew from a major static zapping, all the equipment is grounded, the vehicle/vessel and refuelling rig are also electrically bonded to each other. In F1 the connection between vehicle and refuelling rig is built into the nozzle/hose and receptacle assemblies.

These days, when pit fires do occur, it's usually a result of the kind of thing we saw in Singapore (Massa clearing off with hose attached) or minor (ie >1 litre) spillages escaping the nozzle and dropping onto an exhaust.

If you spend any time sat in a departure lounge you'll see very similar measures taken for refuelling aircraft. Funnily enough that's exactly the industry those F1 refuelling rigs came from, the vendor manufacturing refuelling kit for aircraft.

Andy Enderby
IT Angle

for those who haven't heard....

KERS - Kinetic Energy Recovery System. In the F1 context, under braking, rather than conventionally disposing of the cars excess kinetic energy by turning it into heat in braking systems, the rules allow the teams to store whatever they can recover while the brakes are deployed in mechanical or electrical devices. This stored energy can then in turn be reapplied to accelerate the car for x number of seconds per lap. Spotted the other advantage ? You can get the same braking effect for a lighter application of the cars conventional braking system - if.... big if.... you can make it work seamlessly without upsetting the balance of the car.

The proposed sytems thus far seem to be quoting an additional 10 or 15 per cent power. Different principle, but the effect should be similar to the driver hitting the overboost button on the eighties turbo F1 cars. There is a trade off though, weight and complexity. Complex cars rarely do well in F1. Light and simple have historically been the way ahead.

You'll note I've hit the "IT ?" icon 'cos a lot of folk will be wondering about why it's reported here. Check the El Reg home page banner, science/tech counts too.....

Andy Enderby
Flame

@Steve

Made of stern stuff indeed, but it could be viewed as an added complication and as volunteers it will all come down to the individual of choices of the various marshalls club members as to whether they consider it an unacceptable hazard or not. Whilst we haven't had a full on tank breach in F1 for some time (Berger in '89 springs to mind - radiator punched through tub and fuel bladder), this is new. The electrical KERS solutions all add a further potential ignition source. The flywheel based systems add the potential for kinetic energy mayhem, + a further but perhaps lower risk ignition source depending on the properties of the materials used.

If I were in the marshalling business rather than the watching business, I might feel altogether more sanguine if a few examples of the technology were subjected to worse case failure modes pre season. I strongly suspect that some clerks of the course would feel similarly about running some sort of risk assessment prior to the start of the season. The job is dangerous enough with the risks of preceding seasons. Whilst no driver has died in an accident in a current F1 car since 1994, we have lost marshalls a lot more recently than that bloody awful May weekend.

Apart from anything else, the worse thing a marshall can do is turn up on the scene and require rescue him/herself, and an understanding of the new risks is going to be absolutely required to prevent this possibility.

I suspect a lack of imagination crops up frequently amongst the drivers, but some of the more responsible guys will be thinking the same, partly for their own safety, that of their teams, and that of the marshalls and spectators.

I honestly believe KERS has got the possibility of adding a little extra spice into GP weekends, but it does need to be understood from a safety view, especially if the technology is going to be aimed at road car use. This season however, as with every season with hefty new rule packages, I reckon the eventual winner will be the team that comes up with the a nice simple conservative approach and finishes all their races.

We'll see. (Flames - what I don't want to be seeing this F1 season)

Doner kebabs: Death wrapped in pitta bread

Andy Enderby

this is a surprise.....?

This is a surprise how ? If you're well lubricated, just a guess, but you're not likely to be looking for the salad. It'll be Kebab, chips, curry or maybe a drunk attempt at a fry up. Let's face it, imbibing the demon drink drives to culinary nightmares bearing loads of saturated fats that would have the awful droning Gillian McKeith running for cover. Good. Long may she keep running, her and her little sandwich boxes of unholy stench.

Of course, if you're sober and tucking into such fare on a regular basis I would argue that it's time to learn to cook, and home made, healthier, less greasy and far tastier kebabs are definitely on my diet sheet. Or check out the terms of your life insurance. It's worth knowing who will benefit and by how much....

Kebabs - like bush tucker, you can live on it, but........Best not.

Disabling Windows Autorun - there's a right way and a wrong way

Andy Enderby
Thumb Up

@ Mark

Yup, I'm agreeing with you old chap.

Andy Enderby
Happy

@ Mark

<snip>And with RedHat, there's a GUI for fucking about with your ntp configuration anyway, so why the FUCK do you care what it's called?

</snip>

For when the GUI gets broken.... Mind you, at least if it does in a unix/unix like system the chances are you can still get at it and take remedial action. If the registry in windows goes breasts uppermost ......? Better make sure you know where the install media and license is. You did back everything up didn't you ? Then again that's why I've preferred Linux and Unix for years.

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

Andy Enderby

"cool" new features ?

You mean like were supposed to be a part of every Windows release since 2000 and got chopped from the finished product ? I think most would settle for something like current XP in terms of stability, speed and usability with a dash more security. How much higher will the hardware spec be than it is for Vista I wonder ?

Spy chief to Obama: Let DARPA fix economy

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

AC 14:44......

wow.....what was he watching ? I saw the inauguration on tv. I can only assume that the beeb edited out all of the "hate filled" "bigotry". Somebody not get their coffee and danish this morning or what ? Or did an african american take your parking space ?

Jeez......

Back on topic, if DARPA are capable of contributing to the world at large in ways that don't involve killing people or blowing stuff up, then Obama would be mug not to make use of them. On the other hand research establishments in the defense field tend to have a drive to develope pretty specialised technologies, how would Johnny Taxpayer feel if the agency appropriated funding into just another war pr0n project ?

SCO auctions Unix and mobile assets to continue fight

Andy Enderby
Stop

wait......

I'm sort of surprised that this hasn't been spotted and commented on.... They are selling off all of the rights to products/development, which means that strictly speaking they no longer be in the OS business at all, merely a company with a 100% patent trolling core business. Now, just a thought, wouldn't it be up to the new owners to sue or not, as they see fit, rather than the up to the dregs of Caldera/SCO Group ? Don't you have ot be engaged in exploiting a patent in order to sue someone else ? What's a company buying into this going to get a license to flog and develop, "....and we promise not to sue you if it all goes pear shaped down the line." , whilst the trolls retain the actual goods ? Who would want to be a SCO Group employee in that climate ?

Answers to the above on the back of a postage stamp....

Secondly, is it theirs to sells, would this be covered by their agreement with Novell or do the rights lapse back to Novell ? In any event this would give them money to pay what they owe to Novell, which clearly isn't part of the SCO plan..... Novell need to get their own lawyers to head this one off at the pass, before SCO Group suddenly find money to prolong this further whilst welching on exiting judgments......

Battery builders beg for $1bn

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

Hang on a mo....

Batteries for what. Just about every western hemisphere manufacturer of consumer electronics has either outsourced, or is under pressure to do so.

It's all very well wanting a lithium ion manufacturing plant now, but as has been pointed out, the patents are held elsewhere.....

Why the hell would any self respecting taxpayer go for this ?

Original lightsabre sale brings big, big bucks

Andy Enderby

a guy I once knew....

.... bought one of the pulse rifle props from aliens at auction back in the day when such purchases weren't too madly expensive. He then had a bit of a whizzo idea and made up a mould and recouped most of what he spent churning out fibreglass replicas that film buffs stuck on their walls. He worked with film props a lot, and it was easy. A quarter of million dollars though for this prop ? Wow ! He's either really, really a big time rich star wars geek or he's going to have to run off an awful lot of unauthorised replicas......

Brits not turned on by mobile internet

Andy Enderby

title

still no prospect of recovering the investment in those 3g licenses eh ? It's prohibitively expensive now and always has been. You'd think the (lack of a ) huge rush for such products would tell the vendors something, but hey, who the hell am I ?

Geek Wheels touted as the ultimate tech scooter

Andy Enderby

the title

Jeez..... a poxy little moped ? You'd need a Honda Gold Wing to haul and power that little lot.

Apricot drops 'too complicated' Linux from netbook line

Andy Enderby

....I worked for 'em

@ Dabooka and gizmo32 they actually did nice servers almost to the end. We were I believe, first to market with a whole raft of features and tech including multi processors and hotswap SCSI backplanes.

As gizmo32 points out, some manufacturers cases left you dripping blood after opening the PC for upgrade/maintenance. The apricot cases were by contrast a joy to work on. Robust too, one of the FT4200 servers having been struck by a 4x4 in a ram raid on a dealers premises remaining operational, needing only a panel or two replacing by all accounts. Whilst the FT4200's were wheeled, I wouldn't fancy other manufacturers chances in such an impromptu crash test.

There is no connection to the old Apricot or indeed Mitsubishi Electric PC Division (Apricot Computers), it's simply someone trading under the name. The guy running this operation did something similar with Acorn, but had to walk away when it became apparent that there was a dispute over ownership.

As far as Linux support goes, I'm sure that everyone who must have linux will simply install it themselves. Last I heard, the staff of the company offering this product was rather few (extremely), I'm sure this is a factor.

Home Office mulls fighting hacking with corporate ASBOs

Andy Enderby
Thumb Up

I was against this at first.....

....Then an exception occurred to me. Abusive naked shorters..... Slap an ASBO on'em, print posters with their piccies, names and addresses on ''em, Put their faces on't t'internet, then ban 'em from the square mile and coming within a mile of a share broker.

1980s Apricot reborn in noughties as netbook seller

Andy Enderby

I worked for Apricot.....

.... in the Mitsubishi days from '96 until they started to shut down in April '99. By then all of the products were PC based, and innovation was still alive and well in the server range up until the last handful of products. Some of the servers were truly impressively specc'd by the standards of the day. Hotswap disks, multiple processors, integrated UPS....

One minor potential problem, this is apparently the same guy that tried to resurrect the Acorn brand back in 2006. Unfortunately, that went sour, as it appears the brand was still owned by someone else. You can read anout that here.....http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1594.html

I do hope the paperwork is in order......

Alien crustaceans clash claws in UK waterways

Andy Enderby

It's an ill wind....

it turns out that the mitten crab was a hugely favoured luxury food in Shaghai until it was all but fished out. It transpires that the little buggers taste good, and this may prove their ticket to a trip back to China. Even a small locally grown crab can set a diner back hundreds of Yuan in Shanghai...... There is a British university assessing them for food safety and economic viability already. Pass the chopsticks, it's dinner time.......

US telco: 'Public broadband is illegal'

Andy Enderby
Thumb Up

monticello to pigopolists.....

Your shipment of fail has just arrived. If you just like ot pick it up from reception.....

I'm very sorry, says gay health warning clergyman

Andy Enderby

turbulent priests....

Wirh apologies to Neal Stephenson, I couldn't resist it..... Poor Impulse Control across his forehead.

Fraud victims urged to use DPA to rebuild credit ratings

Andy Enderby

sadly predictable

Since the government and police decided that banking/credit card fraud was the responsibility of the banks, and the banks/CC co's farm credit rating out to third parties it's sadly predictable that it would all come back to the service user to correct such screw ups.

Good on the AC for giving solid advice.

Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia's naked shorts

Andy Enderby
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@ Tim

.....But with naked shorting, you don't need a position of strength. It's nothing less than fronting king, high in poker when you hold nothing. There is the risk of it all going south, but hey ! you have bugger all anyway. In conjunction with a co-ordinated whispering campaign naked shorting is a recipe for those with the right connections to destroy the economy whilst growing rich themselves. It has to go. It's essentially some random joe flogging your house out from under you.

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

@ Tim - prepare to lose your shirt....

Do the math. Even if you taxed their profit at 90%.... from 1.7 million of something the mystery trader didn't own, they made 270 million......... They'd still have made according to my rough and ready numbers a thumping 26.8 million...... Lose their shirt ? We need to see your wardrobe old man.

No snapping: Photographers get collars felt

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

Thatcher.....

Thatcher would have been proud. No wonder Brown has been rambling about giving the evil old witch a state funeral. He stole all his favourite policies from her.

Jeery Jerry loves Vista, y'know

Andy Enderby
Gates Horns

advice from a comedian on O/S choice ?

What the hell qualifies a comedian to offer advice on choice of O/S ? What about that nice, calm Mr Ballmer...? Oh wait.....

UK fraudster gang go PIN sniffing

Andy Enderby

minimum wage ?

minimum wage == 10 quid per hour ? errrr think more like £5.80. Less for younger employees.

Research firm emails 20,000 addresses in the clear

Andy Enderby
Joke

Don't they teach BCC at PR school?

of course not, the PR and marketing peoplettes have to be taught to walk, talk and chew gum without forgetting to breath. Then they need to learn on how to get the lawyers to screw the trousers onto those "challenging" clients every morning.

Microsoft Mojave 'outs' secret Vista lovers

Andy Enderby

Down hill from 2000

Win 2000 was a nice incremental development from NT4, XP was a quantum leap in bloat. Vista ? Unless you absolutely must have DirectX10 I can't see the point.

None of the above do much more than NT4 (except maybe active directory). If you were buying for a corporate entity that isn't a games house, how could you justify canning an installed base of XP and rolling out a new, underperforming O/S that does nothing the old one couldn't, and the increased costs for har hardware replacement and staff training. With most workplaces trying to hold down IT expenditure, you'd have to be nuts....

UK BOFHs face psychometric dissection

Andy Enderby

@ AC fourth post from top

......neither. It would make you Leon. Shortly before wasting Deckards buddy. Still one of my favourites - Bladerunner

SCO ordered to pay Novell $2.5m Unix royalties

Andy Enderby
Linux

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"We have no products, we have no new customers to sell product to even if we did. I propose we become patent trolls, unleash the dogs of law !"

Some time later.....

"DOH!!!"

Couldn't have happened in a more ironic or amusing way.

Google taunts 'losers' with secret Android code

Andy Enderby

oh come on...

This is a common marketing practice these days to "increase the buzz", and when dealing with the likes of Apple, MS, Google et al can be taken for granted. Which just goes to show what marketing types think of engineer types.

If only engineer types would hold off and feign a bit of apathy the marketing droids wouldn't try these stunts. After all it's hardly as if there aren't enough other worthy platforms on the market begging for attention.

Criminal record checks could hit over 14 million people

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

common sense ?

I volunteered some time ago to assist with maintaining the IT infrastructure and website for a charity. They are now in the position of paying for 5 CRB's per week in addition to every last one of the 20 or 30 or so folks working for them in paid positions and untold numbers of volunteers. The charity runs projects that work with drug addicts (more successful than most) and some of those working with these folks have had a colourful past of their own. Each of these CRB's regardless of the background of the individual concerned is subject to yearly renewal.

My wife worked in education as a teaching assistant through an agency - Supply teachers and assistants have to be CRB'd.... for all of the agencies they are registered with, and at their own expense with no promises regarding whether or not they'll actually get any hours.....

Someone, a contracting company I suspect, is getting rich off of this, whilst those that have to be CRB'd are going to end up stealth taxed. Oh....and we have ID cards around the corner. More dollar for idiots in sharp suits, another tax on employment for those least able to pay..... great

Next we'll be expected to submit to a CRB at our own expense simply to apply for work in any of these areas. Whatever happens all taxpayers end up paying for this stupidity.

Disgusted of Birmingham

Cnet blogger squadron discovers long lines at Apple retail stores

Andy Enderby
Jobs Horns

tiresome...

....Fluff not news.

Wake me when Cnet return to reporting news instead of doing the Apple marketeers jobs for them.

zzzzzzzzz

Grand Theft Auto reportedly inspires teen rampage

Andy Enderby
Thumb Down

or maybe...

just maybe, they were advised they needed a scapegoat by someone, such as the parents (whom I blame) or their brief.

The media blaming such behaviour on games is simply lazy journalism, but what James writes here is more along the lines of, "I went on a rampage and it's not my fault, it was that game" from the perp themselves, or those attempting to deal with 'em.

It's an interesting defence, for all of two seconds, cut the buggers hands off.

Deaths too good for 'em