Posts by Captain DaFt

Re: Too bad...

"Siri, look up 99"

"Order for luftballoons confirmed."

Re: I strongly doubt this

"I could go on (atomic power, digital watches, CA adhesives) but I have other things to do today."

You could have at least mentioned the one that had the biggest influence on modern times: T-shirts!

Re: Whoopi Goldberg

Well if you're going to be facetious, Why not Zoidberg?

(Hmm, a non human incarnation... Hmm... Nah!)

"40kg of gold, 4,920kg of silver and 2,944kg of bronze"

If the gold medals are actually gold plated silver, the numbers look about right.

Re: A step in the right direction

"Anyone want to send her a "not sorry you're leaving" card."

Do they make those with a chip that plays "Ding dong the witch is dead" when you open the card?

Re: More worrying

"I don't think he should resign either. He shouldn't get the chance. This guy deserves to be fired without benefits at the least."

Or maybe... This?

Re: How should the history of computing be recorded? Discuss.

And then when the lawyers show up From Disney Galactic to sue them, the janitor, the Field Museum in Chicago, The company that recreated the DVD reader to read the DVDs, and the company that made the boxes they were stored in for $INCREDIBLY_VAST_SUM for copyright infringement, intellectual theft, and DRM breaking, then they will realize why there is a giant void starting in around 1990 where no historical records survive

Re: Sadly

"You guys still do the tower and axeman?"

Given the tenacity of British bureaucracy:

In some civil servant warren, there's an office with a desk, whose occupant shuffles in every day, and checks his memos.

Then strokes "Old Friend" hanging on the wall, and mutters, "Not today old friend, not today.", before taking it off its hooks for oiling and sharpening.

Re: "a cross-platform shell"

"Suspect it will require a resurrected Silverlight and .NET to be installed..."

No no, this will require something new and Different!

Silver.net, with a C# like syntax, but totally incompatible without the new IDE. (Which is still in development, but will be rolled out by late September 2020, at the latest!)

Re: Nothing changes

"Media types seem to have trouble with schedules."

Which is exactly why I dropped the local paper in the town I lived in years ago.

Every event was noted as "attendance down from last year", when they listed the program of the event... the week after.

Eventually, the town simply rented a billboard on the main highway to advertise events before they occurred. Attendance at events improved.

Re: Yet ANOTHER Trump story?

"Is there a pro attitude one can take when there's a chance that all privacy is stripped for almost everyone outside the US because almost everyone uses US operating systems which are all cloud enabled?"

2017: The year of Linux in the EU?

Re: no bias nor inflamatory tone, move along

I thought the style of writing looked familiar.

You are Otis Eugene "Gene" Ray, and I claim my £5!

Re: Too true

"Now IV caffeine.. that would be so much better than carrying a coffee cup around all day.."

Ever try caffeine patches?

Re: Shielded cable too expensive?

"Murphy's Law quantifies the likelihood of pests being able to shut down the plant by mimicking the chirping gadgets is virtually guaranteed."

Future headline: Terrorist Used Trained Mockingbirds To Shut Down Nation's Power Grid. (More at our Facebook Site)

Re: Sub heading?

Thank you

Re: Oracle LIED: Database giant IS axing hundreds of staff

"On the potential bright side is that lower income and reduced profits for Oracle might mean less money to play with and fewer vexatious lawsuits from litigious Larry."

Unfortunately, lower income and reduced profits are what usually causes a company to "Cry HAVOC! and let slip the lawyers of IP!"

Fat happy CEOs just threaten litigation, losing CEOs act like mad dogs and attack everything in sight.

Re: Amazing that somehow only Samsung was affected

"It strains credulity that TWO suppliers (one of which is Samsung SDI, i.e. basically itself!) had the same problems"

Bet you a nickle that, if true, it'll turn out that Samsung SDI subcontracted their battery manufacturing to the other company. To save costs, of course.

Re: Fundamentally, a leadership issue

"Well I have observed, that just like scum, bad management frequently rises towards the top."

It's called the Peter Principle.

Unbelievably, most of them actually started off good at their jobs.

Then they kept getting promoted until they reached a level they're not fit to handle.

Then rather than admit or even acknowledge they made a mistake, their boss just keeps shuffling them around from position to position to hide the damage.

Why would their boss do that? How do you think he got where he is?

Re: Rumour mill

Naw, nothing so modern as that! Their computer broke one of the wires on his abacus spilling beads everywhere. When he tried to retrieve them he slipped and fell, knocking over his inkwell and spilling ink all over the ledger.

"I seriously don't understand the hate against Wesley Crusher."

He's the visible symptom of the problem, and caught all the hate.

The real problem was lazy writers.

"Hey Earl, what's this episode's resolution?"

"Uhhh... Wesley saves the day by suggesting they use anti-tachyons?"

"Meh, good enough."

"Dudes, Wesley was wrote out of the show last season, remember?"

"DAMN! Ok... Don't panic, I got this... Barclay saves the day by suggesting they use anti-tachyons!"

"Love it! That oughta keep those damn Trekkies happy."

Re: Talking to people at the computer

"Keep this crap out of the OS and keep it in Skype or whatever so that it will turn off when I tell it to. </rant>"

Hear hear! Send me a message on IRC* if you want to communicate.

Text keeps communication (relatively) succinct and to the point, unlike voice, where once someone starts talking, they forget how to stop!

* Yes, I'm that guy.

Re: not on the LAN, no need to worry

And don't forget: "she said, adding that there had been no signs of exploitation."

Were they looking for any?

Ranks right up there with, "I've never used anti-virus and never had an infection."

Re: The *people*

"Trump won the electoral college, Hillary won the popular vote. So who has been disenfranchised?"

In America, the popular vote in a presidential election has always amounted to bupkis. The EC vote is the deciding vote, always has been.

And you're only complaining now?

Re: Sigh

(how much of a vac does it need?)

Well, a couple of centuries back (1870s), a demonstator was built proving that as long as the air pressure was lower in the front than the back, no other propulsion needed. so not much vacuum.

Re: And using Google is a good thing?

Which pinhead? The fired admin or his boss?

Re: The USA way of doing things

"A case to point: NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen American astronauts could use in micro-gravity conditions"

Nope. They both used grease pencils.

The Fisher Pen Co. developed a pen that would write in any position, on their own, no funding, and NASA started using those after they tested out OK for zero gravity use.

Didn't see it that way, but now it's the only way I see it.

Gee, thanks.

Re: A Typical Scam Call I Get

"Amongst my canned Spam call answers."

"How'd you get this number? Who really gave it to you?"

<hold phone at arms length and shout>

"Hey Mike, put a trace on this call!"

Connection seems to die then, for some reason.

Re: Really??

"How did these Korean crooks not get away with it?"

Because the Korean Corps forgot the step of making their paid for representatives pass laws making 'contributions' and 'fact finding funding' legal?

-Will they be retrofitted to humans ? "I have a little list ..."-

No need. Humans will be obsolete.

Two species, Homo Bureaucracitis and Homo Corporatis will rule a world populated by AI drones that happily know their place and love it, or <BZZZT!>

"First smart watches, now drones. Is 2017 the year tech dies?"

Hopefully, it's the year useless 'cyber' <spit> tat dies.

"What's to stop IBM getting a banking license and then offering to buy the Lloyds brand at a knock-down price?"

They're already a finance company! There's nothing to stop them.

(Look a trifle risky, putting your bank under a competing company's control, don't it?)

Re: " whoever finds it can probably look back and KNOW where the aircraft has been"

"Any notion that dullards future insurgents could get into the system, let alone ready that data is quite absurd.

Honest."

admin/password can't be that difficult to figure out.

Re: Welcome to the New World

"Try calling <snip> just about any "service" these days."

No thanks, it always seems to go like this:

"Thank you for calling Megacorp,your call is important to us. Please press the appropriate number for the service you wish to use:"(switches to different voice)

"plerk berk srng dorf klep"

"Singe nerf terk twang blerk"

"Smerk nerb burble cleff nor"

"Perkle twik smok torb blin"

"Aper nerk tohn jurblly mergle plot"

"...."

(switches back to original voice after pause)

"You have not selected any number listed. We will now hang up."

"Fuck you for calling Megacorp."

I've had this exact same experience calling several different company's help lines.

I'm sure it's deliberate.

Re: We all need less stress...

"I'm curious why there is apparently less control for a linear motor than a steam piston."

Curiously, the steam valve that was fitted to the electric catapult (as per military regulations regarding carrier catapults) had no effect controlling the motor's performance. ☺

Re: Energy to the customer?

"Finally, how many man hours of effort, meetings and yet more meetings did it take to change the BDOD screen into the GSOD? Don't the people in redmond realise that they are doing the MS equivalent of 'fiddling while Rome burns'?"

Looks like MS has actually abandoned its attempts to emulate Google.

Now they're emulating Yahoo! instead!

Re: stormtroopers being fodder

"Because teddy bears are so CUUUUTE!"

About those "teddy bears". To quote Kkatman:

"A mechanically intuitive species and fascinated with technology. How many 'primitives' do you know that can engineer a war glider? That can carry boulders? Or figure out a speeder bike in five seconds flat?... Or did you think we worshipped the mechanical man with the glowing eyes because he was shiny?"

In Kkatman's fan fic, Endor was destroyed by the exploding Death Star, and covered up by rebel propaganda.

The only surviving Ewoks were the ones in the Imperial shield generator bunker, and abandoned by their rebel "friends".

They survived the Hell their world became because:

A.They were tech savvy and used the Death star Wreckage, and

B. Their shaman used his new training to protect them.

New training? "The biggest, most badass Sith was betrayed and murdered within sight of my home.

Ask yourself: Do you think only the good ones can pull off that glowey-ghost mentor trick?"

Re: Message to advertisers and ad agencies

"One drop against an endless sea, they will reply."

My counter reply: Many drops are what make an endless sea. You risk being swept away on the rising tide you create.

(See? I can do fortune cookie wisdom too!) ☺