* Posts by Richard Altmann

209 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2012

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Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees

Richard Altmann
Coffee/keyboard

three things:

I never learnt about an airplanecrash caused by spilled coffee in the cockpit.

Why did it take EU Aviation Safety Agencys X- Decades to warn about this hazard?

Airbus produces DoomsDay Helicopters and has not come up with coffee spill proof cockpits?

No Aviator, but seriously: is there no coffeecupholder in a jetliner cockpit?

BS!!

OK. We're off. Water ice found just below the surface of Mars. Good enough for us. Let's go. Impulse power, Mr Sulu

Richard Altmann

35°N/45°S ?

35°N/45°S, what location would that be?

And we return to Munich's migration back to Windows – it's going to cost what now?! €100m!

Richard Altmann

Coincidence?

... that in Oct. 2016 Microsoft opened their German Headquarters in Munich?

Police Scotland will have direct access to disabled parking badge database

Richard Altmann

The world

must be a good place if the cops don´t have anything else to care about.

The next Cuban gristle crisis: US Navy warship powered by beef fat

Richard Altmann

Re: Alternative fuels

Lebanon was fellt by the romans

Richard Altmann

Re: "The rest of us should get by on beans and lentils -

Mmmh, In East Africa, once the bananas are harvested, the shrub is chopped down and applied as fertilizer for the next upcoming sucker. After a few years the shrub grows on one meter or even higher heap of itself. Don´t know, how its handled on the plantations that deliver so called bananas to europe.

Africans they are not due EU import regulations. Chiquita dictated the definition of an EU banana standard.

You don´t find any of the 20 or more varieties of african bananas in europe. Nothing of the non sweet, starch rich cooking bananas or the 4" long super sweets. Just the mealy Chiquitas.

same applies for potatoes. Last night´s business idea is to open up a fish´n chips with 10 varieties of potatoes to choose from. European citizens have been prohabited to enjoy the riches of what the world has to offer by the Food Mafia.

Sorry, went off the topic here (again).

Next week, i will be back in Africa and enjoy an avocado the size of a handball and a doublesize pineapple, NGM Wheed, a real steak, triple destilled banana gin ...

Not for holidays but for my new IT-ManAnger contract. Asante Sana

Amnesty International accuses tech giants of battery bastardry

Richard Altmann

DRC is indeed the Heart of Darkness. It is too big a piece of jungle that cant be governened. Even if you would take away Kabila and his bunch of robber barons and replace it with a westernstyle government, it´s just uncontrollable. There are no roads from west to east and when they where it would be impossible to maintain them. And the treehuggers would stop those projects anyway. Not even the former USA, now NSA reigned colonies, are able to maintain their infrastructure or school their children adequatly. The eastern provinces might be a bit better off since their neighbours Rwanda and Uganda have an interest in infrastructure so they can plunder the riches of the country more efficiently. But that´s 5000km of inpenetratable jungle away from Kinshasa. As for the working kids: Mandantory schooling is a preussian invention from 19th century. So they where able, once in the army, to read depeched orders from their generals when they where in the battlefield. On the food crops field they where missing and could not participate to the outcome their families. Therefore school holidays where invented so they could help seeding and harvesting when the time was there. In Europe, there is only headshaking about the extended school holidays in Uganda and other sub saharan countries. But the kid´s hands are really needed in the villages to ensure some kind of survival. Keep in mind that Africa is demographicly underpopulated. In Congo, its living hand to mouth. It´s ever been, not only since the colonial times. So what´s the point of wasting crucial time in non equiped "under the tree schools" with unqualified "teachers" instead of making a living for the family? The kids wont find a job other in the crop fields of their parents or some foreigners mines. Never. It´s a terrible sight for our western minds but this is Africa and western values just can not be applied. In Europe they are working on a bill of "internet for all". In sub saharan Africa it is impossible to even implement a "food for all" bill. That´s not the fault of the corrupt regimes there but the cultural and enviromental circumstances.

It's 2016 and idiots still use '123456' as their password

Richard Altmann

1234

last week i left a company not IT related. The password for every account is 1234. For years they expressed their dissapointment that i was not willing to put my sysadmin experience into their heap of hardware and system crap. But i did my best by removing the ptouch stickers stating username and password on the screen frames. Thank gods, i´m out of there. Since the Winshit licences ran out, they asked me for advice and i told them to go Linux whatever. They bought Server2012. Well the update last week sent the database titsup and it took the "admins" four hours to get it going again. Retards,literally.

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

Richard Altmann

Re: Commodore P50 programmable calculator.

Here comes the 9V - Block battery muncher TI-30 (1976). The nightmare of my school days. It´s been sitting on my office desks ever since for motivation purpose. Math and me have a S/M relationship. Using a 1985 Privileg Solar 31 Order No. 785 6511 at Quelle for day to day calculations. Maintenence free. Washed over by several spilt drinks, covered in layers of dust and nicotine ... sourcing its power from the emissions of my laptop screen. Number pad on the keyboard? I´m left handed

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

Richard Altmann

Crayday

On my journeys i once passed by a company to replace their workstations, about 6000 and another 3000 laptops. Doing double shifts for the bonus. It was the greatest team, i ever had the honour to work with. Half of the team consisted of my fellow graduates, the other half where our lecturers who hired us to join the project after graduation. The chemistry between us was just perfect. The best year in my sysadmin career i ever had. Receiving the final touch from this professors and doctors in this team of ten guys. The company we´ve been refurbishing is spread across the country with seven sites. One site was running the salaries for the whole group. So one friday pub´o´clock we went to invite the local IT crew for a brew. We found them in the basement. Equipted with a crate of beer, they where sitting on the benches of their Cray- X series machine from ´86, calling it the Crayday. It was their ritual weekend call ever since. The Beast was humbly processsing the salaries. That was 2003.

Curiosity Rover eyes Mars' creeping dunes

Richard Altmann

Re: any chance

sand it down

Electrician cuts wrong wire and downs 25,000 square foot data centre

Richard Altmann

Re: As an ex industrial Sparky, I have to agree.

As an electric apprentice in Germany the first thing you get tatooed on your forehead are

The Five Security Rules

1. separate completely (isolate the installation from all possible sources of electrical power);

2. fix (protect against reconnection) in the open position all the breaker components or switching device in the on position, or adopt preventative measures when that is not feasible;

3. verify there is no electrical power, after having previous identified the place of work and the installation which has been placed without electrical power;

4. ground and connect in a short circuit;

5. protect against nearby power sources and delimit the working zone.

Well, in most of the rest of the world one can call himself an electrician once he managed to identify the working end of a screwdriver.

Apprenticeship as electrician lasts 3.5 years in an electrical company, half of the time spent in schools of the chamber of crafts. One even learns metalwork like operating a lathe, welding and blacksmithing.

At the end you undergo theory and practice exams. Well, that certifies as engineer in the rest of makeshift wrigglers world. To certify as engineer in Germany you have to pack up another 2.5 years of studying and internships. Spending at least 5 years on site after that, you might be accepted as a real engineer by your fellow work mates.

If you then get your arse up to work abroad your´e in for a culture and probably electric shock.

Enraged Brits demand Donald Trump UK ban

Richard Altmann
Coat

Re: There are two points of view

I only came to The Reg for the BOFH and had a good time with everything that came with it. Well it´s fun when the censors let a troll have a run, but only up to a point. I´m out of here.

Richard Altmann

Re: Truth to Power

Personal insults are not accepted in The Reg. There is a thesis out that if enough monkeys are put in front of typewriters ...

Manchester 'wins' £10m to test talking bus stops

Richard Altmann

Munich

is terrible. In four years, the bus was three times late!

Outsourcer didn't press ON switch, so Reg reader flew 15 hours to do the job

Richard Altmann

Peavy Amp

Working for an audio company once, i got called out because the techie on site almost went nuts. It was a small setup with just a few mics and he did not manage to get the signal out to the speakers. I´m quite skilled in phone support. So i went through the procedure step by step up to the point where the guy asked me i if thought he was an idiot. Inputs fine, output routing on the mixer fine, amp lit up but no signal indication. So i went there (didn´t have to fly to the states) to find that the bloody amp was indeed lit up by some blue LEDs onboard the PCB, shining brightly out of the cooling grill on front of the amp. Without being switched on ... Techie was quite embarressed but i don´t blame him. ISO Norm states that an electrical device has to be switched off completly by the main switch. Well, that piece of crap is no longer avaible on the market. As for servers i appreciate some blinkyblinky to indicate the state of the PSUs before i switch it on.

World's oldest person scoffs daily ration of bacon

Richard Altmann

Re: It may just be confirmation bias on my part, but...

Word is that running can extend your life span by five years. What´s the bloody point when you spend five of this years running?

Australian cops rush to stop 2AM murder of … a spider

Richard Altmann

Re: Eek!

Very much like "DOOM" spray from South Africa then. Finishes a cockroach in less then 10 seconds.

Linus Torvalds targeted by honeytraps, claims Eric S. Raymond

Richard Altmann

Re: The whole world has gone crazy

Sausage, anyone?

Richard Altmann

However, the Germans didn't put women in the munitions factories

They did. Their husbands, sons and brothers where out there in the field and they worked their arses off to supply them and keep them alive. That´s a natural maternal reaction. Nazi or not. In the former USA, now NSA occupied territory, the wifes, daughters and sisters of the GI´s where riveting bombers and marine destroyers.

The Nazi´s slaves sabotaged the weapons and ammo they where forced to produce. 50% or so of the V2s failed because the compasses or whatever where not spec. They are the unsung heroes in the Battle Of Britain. They knew, they would die of hunger, exstorcian or tuberculosis so they had nothing to loose and did their best to throw a spanner in the Nazi gear box.

Tomorrow it´s the Genocide Memorial Site in Kigali for me.

Huawei is the new Nokia: Asian mobe maker sets out its stall

Richard Altmann

Nokia

kicked off the mobile internet, Samsung and Apple overran it, Huawei is the paradigm changer. They know how the third world (spare me "developing countries") ticks and react to the market. The Western World wants to implant its own values. Now look at Mobile Money in East Africa. The Western World banks rally against such systems because it makes them obsolete. With the claim that you are either a telecom or a bank. East Africa refused to bend over to the international banks. Now there is Tecno and Huawei with budget phones but build in Mobile Money function. Colonial times are over and the third world picks what is best for them, no longer eating the shit that is downthroated to them by the first world. The villagers are paying the schoolfees via Mobile Money without having to waste one day or more to walk to the next bank, queing up for hours and being charged ridicioulus fees and bribe for their transfer. This makes the world a better place. Apple, Samsung are just toys for people with a status problem or small dicks. Nothing to do with usability. That´s, where Huawei kicks in. They do products for the market instead of creating markets for shit that noones needs. My P6 is the best phone i ever had. Nokia was "the" brand in East Africa. I still use my 1600, noone wants to steal it. In Nigeria it´s the Blackberry. Written off in the Western World but going strong on markets where the function matters, not the glitter. In 2030 Iphone will just be a footnote in the history of Telecommunication like Nokia. Not so Huawei. They provide the full package, PBXs, datacenters ... you name it.

Scotland Yard pulls eyeballs off WikiLeaker-in-Chief Assange

Richard Altmann

Diplomatic Way

A tall "muslim lady" in a Bhurka walks into the embassy ... and walks out again without being checked by MPD. Problem solved in a diplomatic way and millions of pounds saved for the tax payer. A scapegoat going its way to the butcher, that´s it.

Beard transplants up 600% for men 'lacking length elsewhere'

Richard Altmann

Osama bin Laden

invented the hipster look, then? MoD in Germany advices soldiers who are going to Afghanistan to grow a beard. Else they would be rendered a fagott by the local population.They come back being "Real Men" after a stint of being shot at by Taliban and shooting back at rocks. So being a "Hero Warrior", or looking like one still gets you into the girl´s pants quite easily. Come home with your shield or on it. With women like this, men will never get a chance to come to reason and cease killing each other (part from the Small Dick Syndrom wherby this is nowadays compensated for by taking a loan for a BMW or Audi and then killing themselves on the highway) Thanks gods, i´m too old for this shit. Again, another most amusing zero news article in The Reg. That´s why i love you.

So, what's happening with LOHAN? Sweet FAA, that's what

Richard Altmann

Re: Standards

As in Shooting a bullet

Richard Altmann
Pint

Standards

You could have slipped that spanish guy his 100€ "Stamp Fee" and everything would have been fine. Well, taking on the Bureaucratic Way adds some flavour to the truly exiting experiment of LOHAN. Shooting The Playmonaut somewheeere up theeeere! The Vogons have taken over and i love/laugh to be informed on how you cope with it. Thank You for that long awaited update. In the mean time ... aren´t there some Pin Ups of LOHAN available?

NOxious Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: Chief falls on sword

Richard Altmann

As CEO

Winterkorn is fully responsible for what happened. Under his regime a climate developed that made things likes this happen. Knowingly or not. He employed the motherfuckers that took advantage of his way leading the the company. If you ever attended an Audi Management Conference you know that the top and middle management is willing to walk over dead bodies for their bonuses. Just like this guys with their pyramid scam schemes. Anyway: Buy VW shares now ! They are down by 30% today. In 4 weeks they will be up as usual and growing. Thanks to investment bankers who apply the same non existing morale standards as the managements of Big Players all over the world. I just wish i could find a million bucks overnight and put it in that scheme. It would put me out of my financial (relate) misery and the weekly back up routine would be nothing like a bad dream. :-)

Indianapolis man paints his ball every day – for FORTY YEARS

Richard Altmann

@Interceptor

<kneeling>

You arrogant genius.

</kneeling>

Richard Altmann
Coffee/keyboard

He

owes me a new keyboard. Wouln´t mind a layer of paint.

Hacktivists congratulate Daily Show's Jon Stewart via Donald Trump's website

Richard Altmann

I´m

quite sure, he will not get many votes from the thousands of people who´s lifes where destroyed by his manyfolds deliberate bankruptcies. Now he is going for the big shot: Taking over the U.nhinged S.tupids of A.nalrica, turn it into some dubious company and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He might even get away with it by ruining the legistative structures, or what´s left of it, while he is in power. Retirering to his volcano lair with a bonus of some $trillion. Well, they won´t be worth much after he´s finished his business. Just make sure the bra of todays Playmate does not get tangled up with the push button of "The Suitcase". What a comedy. If it was a C-Movie.

It's alive! Farmer hides neglected, dust-clogged server between walls

Richard Altmann

Re: Daft Punk's Guide to Computer Repair

You don´t know anything about technology, don´t you?

Richard Altmann

Re: Paving Slab Construction

Don´t talk to me about grain mill infrastructure

Richard Altmann

Re: Funny - giving the old desktop a random drop has frequently solved problems

Step 1: Push it

Step 2: Kick it

Step 3: Drop it

Still not operating? There might be a failure then.

Richard Altmann
Coat

1234

The management of the IT- system in the company i mainly work for has been outsourced to a new "IT" company. The system was based on the now no longer supported "windoof server whatever version". So, against my strong vocal advice to make the switch to a Linux based system they decided to go for yet another Windows system which will be no longer supported in 4 or 5 years. So it was new servers, migrating the rental and sales database, xchange ... I went on leave for two month during this period. Last week i came back to find that on every keyboard, nice and tidy, had been placed a P-Touch sticker with Username and Password. The Password being: 1234 for every account. I´m not shitting you. Getting my coat.

AWS outage knocks Amazon, Netflix, Tinder and IMDb in MEGA data collapse

Richard Altmann
FAIL

Cloud

is the most precise description for this dead born child. It either vaporizes or rains down after everyone interested had a good look at its composition.

Richard Altmann

Cloud

is the most precise description for this dead born child. It either vaporizes or rains down after everyone interested had a good look at its composition.

All in all, it's just another hit in the stalls: Roger Waters The Wall

Richard Altmann

Re: The Wall Changed My Life

Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.

Thank you so much for reminding me. Moving to the Bricks that are left of my vinyl Wall, pulling out that jewel and throwing it onto the 1210, Setting The Controls For The Heart Of ... my sound system ... Oi! Where´s the spliff? Thanks again

Richard Altmann

Re: Pig flogging

The Pig! The Pig! Only time in my life that i lost the plot and my mates had to drag me on the ground and dose me with yet another joint to calm me down. But that was a different show, in front of the Reichstag.

Richard Altmann

I´m

quite dissapointed that he comes up with this interpretation of the production 30 odd years later while it was clearly the whole reason to watch the movie at the time. But then it seems to be just another PR wash up. He does not need to do it for the money, he´s rich enough and he certainly does not need to give us fans a "new" interpretation of something that could have only be performed once and everyone understood at the first time anyway. (Except he himself maybe) And if he reads this: The stage crew hate you because you are a cunt, Waters

Richard Altmann

Re: Riddle.

@ Thomas Gray

It´s Blues man, what are you talking about?

Richard Altmann

21 July 1990

There was only one "Wall" show ever worth mentioning. I attended two or three others of them. Delivered on the freshly cleared minefields between East and Western Berlin. Well, the mines were cleared but not the decatons of DDT sprayed by the DDR to keep the minebelt clean of weeds. We half a million of kids went there and kicked up the dust inhaling a superdose of that shit. I was sick for a week afterwords. Anyway it was worth it. The scene of Ute Lemper´s microphone being switched off and she throwing it on the ground and stampeding off stage ... one of the big moments in Rock`n`Roll history. She was just too full of her " I´m a star in the States" attitude and completly unprepared for her song. I will forever tip my hat to the sound guy who had the balls to just switch her off. It´s not in the movie of course... but I, me, myself am in it. I managed to get in the place for the rehearsals. A lot of the audience shots were taken the night before the show and its the Riggers and Stage Hands you see on the movie.

Have a Cigar

Salon Privé: The UK's billionaire-friendly answer to Pebble Beach

Richard Altmann
Thumb Up

Toroidion

I want one! To put down the foot one needs a salt lake track. I might be running short of change for that. :-) And then ... One kicks off at one end of the lake and stops at the other end and has not gone anywhere except across the salt lake. Outstanding engineering! Add driverless controls, go into mass production and the world is your oyster.

Ich nicht bin Charlie: Facebook must crack down on racists, says Germany's Merkel

Richard Altmann

Re: free speech in Germany

Take your Geiger Counter, check on the mushrooms in your neighbourhood, find that they are 3000 fold overcontaminated and try to publish it. Then come back to me.

Global warming stopped in 1998? No it didn't. If you say that, you're going to prison

Richard Altmann

Re: Dear Lewis...

Owh. LP is just taking the piss and you guys fall for it. That´s why i love coming to this site. If he is serious he would piss me off and because of that i would still love to visit this site. Subjective reporting is what the world keeps turning and discussions going. Yet another tip to the hat for El Reg and LP.

Richard Altmann

If one is

taking into account 7.3 Billion people constantly radiating 100W of heat that would be 730 Billion Watts permanently. Don´t know how this figure relates to whatever else releases warmth into the enviroment, but makes me think.

Richard Altmann

Re: Interesting law to apply

@ john devoy

What´s modern on that?

BOFH: Press 1. Press 2. Press whatever you damn well LIKE

Richard Altmann

@bid_D & robertcirca

Please accept my apologies. Having spent more than a decade abroad and being a disciple of Terry Pratchett and repeatedly having been asked in which part of London i grew up, i might have turned arrogant against my fellow germans. (Now, there is a sentence only a german can come up with) English is the language of the IT trade. I understand that a hairdresser or a plumber (no offence ment) has no need to converse in english and the years at school spent with english lessons were wasted on them. As were my French lessons i have to admit. In IT, i expect everyone to be able to converse and negotiate in English. I became sick and tired of having every english speaking caller being forwarded to my desk. The outcome is that my work mates started to watch their Blue-Rays twice. Once in German, and one more time in English with subtitles. The results are amazing. They can even crack the odd joke now. No apologies for the East German reference though.

Richard Altmann

@bid_D

So you´re located in East Germany then, where after 25 years, still noone learned english. Well, they are too busy burning refugee homes.

Richard Altmann

Simon

is still alive! Thank gods! Now to the comments.

Hate noisy jets above you? What if they were charging your phone?

Richard Altmann

(a bit less than130 dB iirc)

Sorry to appear pedantic but what dB are you meaning? "The dB is a logarithmic way of dscribing a ratio. The ratio may be power, sound pressure, voltage or intensity or several other things." Source: http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/dB.htm

Microsoft has developed its own Linux. Repeat. Microsoft has developed its own Linux

Richard Altmann

Are we

talking about this certain company that bought Skype and then announced that it will no longer support third party hardware? AverComm had this fantastic Skype Bridge video conferencing box that enabled the Boss to partake on conferences while being chauffeured to whereever. Open source my ass, Microsoft. And 1k€ of my money right into the bin.

http://de.aver.com/press-release/VCBridge%20Termination

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