* Posts by Anonymous Custard

2789 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008

Wheels come off parents' plan to dub sprog 'Mini Cooper'

Anonymous Custard

Could be worse

When my missus was at the hospital having our firstborn (named Amy, for any who think this may relate to her) I overheard at least three midwives talking another new mother out of wanting to call her child "Anus"...

I think they succeeded, or at least I bloody well hope they did for the sake of the little girl involved.

Microsoft mavens promise proper quantum computer in 10 years

Anonymous Custard
Joke

9 of 7

So perhaps we now know what happened to the mysterious Windows 9?

How French spooks can silently command Siri, Google Now on phones

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

Possible application?

So if it could be miniaturised, could we have something that would have Siri/Google Now issue a nice loud "Oi twat, look where you're going!" into the headphones for times when you have oblivious cretins wandering along so wrapped up in their music often plus facebook or whatever that they are entirely unaware of the more mundane things around them like other people, traffic and things they're about to walk straight into?

Or is that just taking away too many Darwin Award candidates to be fun?

FAA issues lithium battery warning

Anonymous Custard

Re: Lipos for cheap.

Given how long delivery takes sometimes, probably by boat.

Anonymous Custard

Re: umm...

You can have metal cutlery, it's just the knife can't be any sharper than the spoon.

Hence it's interesting (as well as exorbitantly expensive) to try and get a steak that you can actually cut up air-side at an airport these days.

Anonymous Custard

Re: @AndyS

I would expect it's the risk of exposed terminals getting shorted together and causing an overcurrent heating and/or a spark. Batteries in devices don't have that risk, as terminals aren't available for contact (or comment).

Having said all of that it seems the FAA (again) are behind the curve - the European authorities have mandated no batteries in hold luggage for ages - it's on all the warning signs at airport check-in (the one that says you can't take guns, knives and various other stuff in the hold that the check-in operative always points you at and asks if you've read it) and has been for ages.

Dry those eyes, ad blockers are unlikely to kill the internet

Anonymous Custard

Re: If adverts weren't so irritating I'd not block them

It would indeed be interesting to know the percentage of people who actually find advertising demotes rather than promotes the product that they are trying to push. As in makes people actively hostile towards it, and towards its purchase.

There does seem to be a trend that way these days, in that they think getting it into ones brain is enough, regardless of whether it's a positive or negative association. Not just on the web, but think of adverts like (for example) all the new lottery ones with Piers Morgan, Katie Price and Laurence Llewellyn Bowen (or however you spell it). Specifically designed to associate the brand with people who the public ridicule and dislike (generally speaking) as a means of advertising.

Maybe it's clever (after all it seems to have got the Lottery into my memory), but I do wonder if certain brands would have better sales if they just did nothing in terms of advertising.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Itty-bitty pyttipanna

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: The girl in the photo looks like

We should also probably point out that "the girl" (aka Katarina) is Lester's daughter, and so probably not wise to impune unless you're hard enough to upset a father with access to rocketry and all sorts of other fun SPB goodies (and who can dig a big deep hole if I remember well).

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

Word of the day

A bit off topic for this specific recipe, but I just learned my definite word of the day which is definitely SPB. It's the German word "Kummerspeck", literally translated as "grief bacon". Defined as "Excess weight gained from emotional overeating".

Definitely a word that needs adopting into English as well for suitably melancholy times.

Anonymous Custard
Flame

Holy Flaming Spatula!

OK, I have to ask, what the hell have you been doing with that spatula? Looks like you've been lighting a bonfire with it, or maybe tarring the road?

Still I'm sure it adds a certain flavour to the mix, which aside from that I must say looks quite delicious...

Icon cos it looks like what the poor thing has been used to extinguish

PHONE me if you feel DIRTY: Yanks and 'Nadians wave bye-bye to magstripe

Anonymous Custard

Vive La Difference

One other place where you're stuck with mag stripes are on the French Autoroutes, if you want to pay the tolls by card.

I only discovered this when I managed to slightly crack my card at the top, through about half of the strip. It'd been like this for ages, and I thought nothing of it (having been using the chip of course back in dear old Blightie) until I stuck it in the toll booth machine and it spat it out again.

Took a moment for the euro-cent to drop, followed by a curse and a route around for another card (with a growing queue of cars behind) and a mental note to order a new card when I got home.

Windows 10 mobile upgrade coming in December

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Great picture.

Amazing quite how many horrible memories even reading that sound written down evokes...

Anonymous Custard

Re: Stick with 8.1

@Steve,

It'll be interesting to see, but given how long it took them to get 8.1 out to the 8x over 8.0, I think the phone will be up for its renewal before it does get Win10 (especially if it needs other prodding first to Denim).

The tech preview is also interesting (I've been following it on WP Central) as apparently it was available, then stopped being so (and seemingly to flip at least once back to available again), and the reports of how it's been going on the 8x have been many and varied (hence why it's not so clear if the 8x will get Win10 finally or not).

As it's both my only phone and my work phone (which they provided) tech preview isn't an option, if I get it, it will have to be "official OTA". But somehow I think I'll end up getting Win10 wrapped up in a nice new Nokia wrapping of some description or other in the end...

Anonymous Custard

Re: Stick with 8.1

Not to mention those of us on non-Lumia devices. My work phone is an HTC 8X, which is a nice phone but is only on 8.10.14203.306 so from the article info isn't going to be visited by the Win10 fairy.

It's a shame, as I like the phone as a phone (I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet for other stuff) although the general consensus seems to be that 8.1 maybe better for phone stuff than 10 anyway. And all that said, I guess work will end up swapping it out for a Lumia at some point soon anyway, so the whole point could become moot (although it'll be interesting to see with what OS, given the PCs here are still on Win7 and don't look to be moving anywhere else anytime soon).

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Anonymous Custard

No I said the hunting simulator should have deers in it! With a D!

Anonymous Custard

In the forest of the deaf, the one eared tree is king.

Anonymous Custard

Trees with ears? Where's Attenborough when you need him?

Anonymous Custard

Davy Crockett - King of the wild front ear

Anonymous Custard

First we had pale bulbous eyes staring at us, and now this...

Anonymous Custard

Budget cuts, poor script and wooden characters meant the Star Trek VR game could only show the final front-ear in the Captain's log.

Anonymous Custard

The beta-testing of Halloween VR was going well until they reached the Eerie Forest scenes

Anonymous Custard

Hackers stumble across the NSA's secret cyberspace listening post

Anonymous Custard

Can't hear you son - I'm as deaf as a post...

Anonymous Custard
Alien

The Captain's Log was discovered near the final front ear

Anonymous Custard

Occulus Rift - The Wilderness Ears

Anonymous Custard

The new Occulus Rift 2.0 - brought to you by Q-Tip

Anonymous Custard

VR is so yesterday - the big thing now is V Ear

Anonymous Custard

Occulus's next generation idea - V Ear

Anonymous Custard

The VR version of The Eerie Forest lost something in translation

Anonymous Custard

Mr Potato Head - the wilderness (y)ears

Anonymous Custard

Some bastard sabotaged the "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" simulation

Anonymous Custard

When I said I wanted the Halloween VR to be eerie, this isn't quite what I meant...

Anonymous Custard

Can't see the wood for the ears

Anonymous Custard

Quick, call China - they've set this Robin Hood VR in Earwood Forest!

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

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Re: Correlation thingy

'However facial hair grows more "when a man has not had sex for a while".'

It also explains why Father Christmas only comes once a year...

Is the world ready for a Raspberry Pi-powered Lego Babbage Engine?

Anonymous Custard

Re: Adder

Judging by the couple of simple examples below, it would probably be quite a large room too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UulJaoDAflw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfFbX2GgPnE

Maybe one for the turbine room at Tate Modern, which would sort out the funding aspect too (if calling it "art" isn't too pretentious).

Anonymous Custard

On the case

He's missed a trick here - with a few minor modifications it would also make a superb geeky Pi2 case (as another way to market and sell the project).

OK so a Babbage engine with a micro-USB and an HDMI cable coming out of it is not entirely historically accurate, but it would help get the thing funded and into production.

Anyway at least one more vote (mine) added, and I should admit my Pi2 at home is currently sat in a case made of Lego, albeit one nowhere near as well constructed or cool-looking at this one.

Behind the curve: How not to be a technology laggard

Anonymous Custard

Re: How about neither

Or just being able to tell the "technological blind alleys/duplicated standards" from the "new fad which will die soon and be replaced by the next incompatible one", the "this is good, we just need to do a bit more on it to make it perfect" and of course the "this is great, will you beta-test it for us at your own expense and risk" from the genuine new innovation that will change the world (again).

But then we still don't have USB-powered crystal balls either...

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Mistakes

The best mistakes to learn from are those made by other people...

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

Anonymous Custard

Thunderbirds are go?

Good to have an update, even if the news isn't as good as we'd have liked.

One thought did strike though in relation to Virgin Galactic. Would it be worth getting in touch with Beardy Branson and getting him on-side, either to have some leverage with VG or just for the publicity angle that it could no doubt generate for his organisation.

Or even failing that he could maybe let you launch the thing from Necker Island, in true TB stylie...

Boeing builds British Airways 787 Dreamliner in 4 minutes

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Re: Tail fin

That or they're still haunted by past embarassment over the things and so get in early with them?

Anonymous Custard

Re: Jet engines...

Not to mention the absurdly tight tolerances they require, both during manufacture and operation. Saw a programme about it a while ago (a Discovery Channel special) and they were talking about how accurate everything needed to be and how high quality, as if not the stresses involved during normal operation would basically make the whole thing self destruct quite catastrophically.

My hat would definitely have to be doff'd to the boys and girls who keep those things flying so well, pint would be bought if they didn't need such a steady hand...

Lies from VW: 'Our staff acted criminally but board didn't know'

Anonymous Custard

Re: no honour in the top knobs club

@TeeCee - I strongly hope what you say about contractual rules is right, although the WSJ reported that he could be on for a 60m Euro pay-off. Presumably this is why he's been playing so dumb about it all, although given how closely that software is normally held in-house and how important it is to the business it's almost unfeasible that he did have no knowledge.

Will have to keep an eye on that one, along with the investigation into him that the Germans are doing as mentioned at the end of the article.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-volkswagen-chief-martin-winterkorn-could-receive-60m-payoff-1443103501

Adblock farms out acceptable ad policy to independent reviewer

Anonymous Custard

Re: uBlock Origin

For home, I added PiHole to my little Pi1 home server, and route the DNS through that. Works a treat and covers all of the devices on my home network without having to mess directly with any of them, and if I so desire I can white (and black) list particular sites if I like them or ad-blocking on them screws things up (which thus far I've yet to find a site where it does).

And as most of the time when I'm out and about I use a VPN back to the home network anyway (OpenVPN also running on said home server) it covers me there as well.

Whoops, there goes my cloud: What to do when AWS foresakes you

Anonymous Custard

Re: Simple fact of life

Personally I take one to include the other.

But then I'm an engineer and not a manager, so probably a fair point to make...

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

And of course someone else to shout at and demand urgent and extensive meetings with.

You know, those meetings that managers demand with engineers to insist on knowing in minute detail (that they don't actually understand even if provided with) how they're going to fix the problem. Usually extensive and boring ones that take up most of the time that the engineer would actually prefer to be using to fix the issue itself.

Or in my case (in the role of said engineer) the one that leads to the quote:

"Do you want me to just talk about fixing it or just actually go and do so?"

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Simple fact of life

A good provider is one who learns from their mistakes and problems.

A better provider of course is one who also learns from those of their peers and competitors, and also from the past.

NASA announcement of MAJOR MARS DISCOVERY imminent: WHAT can it be?

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Rock n Roll?

Come on - where's the poll option for "A rock"?

OK so a fossil is close, but there should be a smeggin' rock in there somewhere.

iPhone 6S, 6S Plus: Apple SHAFTS eager fans with STRAPPING VIBRATOR

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Repair Score

Are we sure that Apple didn't just "VW" iFixit knowing the comments and scores that they usually get, and sent them one without the glue inside?

Devious Davros, tricksy Missy and Dalek Clara delight in The Witch's Familiar

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: hard wired Dalek voice box for the pundits....

I'm still wondering quite how both the Doctor managed to fit into Davros's chair when only the top half of Davros got removed from it (and so presumably the Doctors legs must fold up small for easy storage) and furthermore how Clara managed to fit inside a Dalek case when every time we've seen the actual mutant inside other Daleks (in the past few series) it's been at most about the size of a football. I know she's the Impossible Girl, but that's pushing it a bit.

A fairly good episode (certainly better than most of last season), but those two kinda spoilt the immersion for me a bit.

Oh and:

And can we expect to see the Time Lord ditching the creepy tech specs for an Apple Watch in Season 10?

Didn't Captain Jack have one of those a few series ago?