Re: In a fight over...
Anyway we all know George La Forge was the best Babylon 5 character, and in his wise words: "Use the Force Harry"
Posts by Richard 31
115 posts • joined 17 Jun 2009
May the excessive force be with you: Chap cuffed after Star Trek v Star Wars row turns bloody
Microsoft slaps Apple Gatekeeper-like controls on Windows 10: Install only apps from store
Yes
We have all access to the Store blocked in the office.
Although we don't we could restrict people to just the software allowed by SCCM too.
Sexbots could ‘over-exert’ their human lovers, academic warns
If you have bought a sex-bot, you probably don't have a real person to screw anyway.
Anyone seem my order?
What's that, Adobe? A Photoshop for faking voices?
Richard Burton
Who care about fry, when you can have everything read out by Richard Burtons baritone voice?
Is that you, HAL? AI can now see secrets through lipreading – kinda
What should the Red Arrows' new aircraft be?
FBI wants to unlock another jihadist’s iPhone
Killswitch?
I wonder how long it will be before we have some sort of secondary kill switch...
You get 10 guesses at the password or no valid code entered within $time_period = deleted keys.
These diabetes pumps obey unencrypted radio commands – which is, frankly, f*%king stupid
The letter also recommends turning on the Vibrating Alert feature, because it could be useful to be told when insulin is about to be administered, and to set a limit on insulin doses over a given period of time.</quote>
Surely our hacker could just disable them again using the same unencrypted commands to switch the alerts off again?
But with this and the 10 zillion other IoT devices out there, isn't it time an idiot proof chip or framework is produced to allow people to do secure comms on small devices easily?
Tesla autopilot driver 'was speeding' moments before death – prelim report
Only because there was noone in it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnI-LiKCtuE
8 mins in for the verdict.
Bars
At 74 MPH it seems that more likely that Mansfield bars on the sides on the trailer would have just ensured he died there rather than a few feet down the road.
First successful Hyperloop test module hits 100mph in four seconds
Re: Snake Oil
The vacuuming process for any pod need not take much time at all. No need for it to ever leave the tube.
Consider if it works more like the London Underground on the stations where they have barriers and doors to stop people falling or jumping onto the track. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Pec4GvDwQ ) for example
The pods door aligns with a platforn door, the platform extends a boom onto the pod and the door can open into normal atmosphere. It could easily be the similar to the ingress exits used for jumbos at airports.
Slow the acceleration and it would be easy enough to have straight regular tube seating.
No need to evacuate the whole system for maintenance either. Each section just needs a doors that can seal off a section. Would be simple enough to add sensors to automatically shut doors and stop trains at the next emergency exit door.
Vacuum implosions
Can't help thinking this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM
would happen once some git inevitably crashes into the loop.
Google's driverless car: It'll just block our roads. It's the worst
Rob me now!
How about just walking infront of one of these things, waiting for the emergency stop and then robbing the hell out of whoever.
Urinating teen polluted 57 Olympic-sized swimming pools - cops
swimming pools
If you have ever swam in a swimming pool, public or otherwise you have swam in piss. So who cares?
Quite a few people will have peed in that, making the contentration well about 1 in 57 pools.
Apple, Beats and fools with money who trust celeb endorsements
Dell charges £5 to switch on power-saving for new PCs (it takes 5 clicks)
Re: Those cheap bastards!
They wouldn't even need that much. MS System Center can automate all of this for you. It would be trivial for them to use this at build stage.
KRAKOOM! iPad Air EXPLODES in FIREBALL, terrified fanbois FLEE Apple store
Re: Ford Orion
I am inclined to agree
The only part of my Orion that ever worked was the Fuel Computer. Every other piece of electronics in that mobile pile of rust didn't work properly. Fuel leaks. Windows wouldn't wind. Interior and exterior lighting seemed to be some sort of optional extra. Never noticed the body roll at the time. But that could have been because my shocks were made from solid lumps of steel.
BETHLEHEM-grade SUPERNOVA possible 'within 50 years'
Already happened!
Given the size of the Milky Way and the likely distance of any star that will go supernova, it is more probable that the star has already gone supernova, but the light from it won't arrive until sometime in the next 50 years.
Storage rage: Like getting a nice steak and being told to only eat 80% of it
Disks in arrays
It always gets my back up that they will make a backplane and make it capable of holding say 12 disks. Then tell you the optimum is to leave 2 or 3 slots free as this makes it faster and more efficient etc etc.
Can anyone tell me why the hell if they are making a backplane that can hold 12 disks they don't optimise it for that? Even if this means developing for 15 disks and then never utilising it because the last 3 slots will never physically exist.
GRR etc!
How Alan Turing wanted to base EDSAC's memory on BOOZE
Re: Credibility
So lets call it a Semi Organic Ethanol DiHydrogen Monoxide delay line and move on. :)
Apple's screw-up leaves tethered iPhones easily crackable
Hash DB
With only 18420000 possible password in the default dictionary, you would think that you could just compile a DB of all the hashes and refer to that. It wouldn't even be all that huge.
Police 'stumped' by car thefts using electronic skeleton key
Re: Sonic Screwdriver
Deadlocking won't work if you have a device that can transmit the correct Open Sesame command to the car.
Is the next-gen console war already One?
Always on, and ending
What always concerns me about this always on bollocks is not necessasarily the being online part.
What happens when they decide supporting the console once it is no longer economically viable? You can bet they will drop the Xbox One the second that is true.
Some of us like playing ancient games, i still occasionally dig out old stuff for a quick blast about. I don't want to be dicking about with any fake auth servers or anything like that.
FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know
Cleaning products
gif-jif-cif
Does this mean that over time its name will change to CIF to be in line with European cleaning products?
Are you in charge of a lot of biz computers? Got Java on them?
Backwards compatibiliy
A lot of the reason machines and servers end up with old versions of Java is the lack of proper backwards compatibility. All to often there are programs that will only work with a particular version of one particular JVM. As someone who has to deal with this, i do get rather frustrated with Java. My arse is more backwards compatible than this.
Keyboard, you're not my type
Microswitches
You cannot beat a proper microswitch keyboard. It is worth all the comments from people about how loud you are typing to actually be able to tell when you are pressing the keys properly. And they seem to last forever, My Dell keyboard has been going strong for at least 12 years, which is odd because the company i work for never had any Dell servers or desktops. I will be keeping it when i move to another computer. I expect i will have to buy an adapter for it as noone seems to make new computers with PS/2 connectors anymore.
Elon Musk: 'Fudged' NYT article cost Tesla $100m
Power Station Efficiency
Will people stop saying that coal/gas power stations are 40-60% efficient? The closest % efficient they are to is 1% and only if you round up.
They are not! Remember E = MC^2
1KG of fuel should provide 89875517873 MJ of energy not the measly 46MJ that you get from it is you happen to set it on fire.
The only remotely efficient power stations are Nuclear. :)
Canadian man: I solved WWII WAR HERO pigeon code!
Re: Ludicrous
Its not PABLIZ either, if you look at the pic on the BBC page it's clearly PABUZ . The groups of letters are always groups of 5 not groups of 5 and occasionally 6.
The message was written by a man who wrote his U's in a blocky form. Look at other parts of the message.
Also AOAKN occurs twice in the message. Why would anyone send the same thing twice in a message?
Behold ATLAS, the fastest computer of 50 years ago
Re: Compute time was billed at around £750-800 per hour
I like to note that people here have probably used more processing power than the Atlas was capable of over its lifetime to argue the toss over an irrelevant piece of grammar.
Welcome to the internet. :)
Apache man disables Internet Explorer 10 privacy setting
waah waah waah..
.. i'm a big girls blouse is what i heard from the Apache guy here.
He has found an angle to have a go at MS and big up his own software. Are we surprised?
Bored now.
Watch out, PC disk drive floggers: Cloud will rust up those spinners
Doubt it....
If you are going to be using "the cloud" as storage, the disk makers are still going to be selling plenty of drives. To the cloud providers.
I am more or less assuming that disk usage in the cloud will even out between being able to store more than one users data on one disk, and the need for RAID and data duplication to keep everyones data.
Also i am not sure we are going to see any significant alterations in network speeds at the user level, plus with the general unreliability of the wireless networks.
Microsoft names Zeus ringleaders and notifies FBI
Hackers
When i see stats like 779,816 infected machines like in this article, i am reminded of the film Hackers when Zero Cool hacked a pitiful 1706 or whatever machines and got black-ops guys bursting though the door.
Would an infection of 1706 machines even make the radar these days?
PFY vs Bearded 80s Netscape Bore: BOFH
Headbanger plays Star Trek theme on floppy drives
Movie
Not at all, the theme song played was originally composed for the Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released 1979.
Wolfenstein 3D shoots onto web
Memory
Can someone explain to me how i can remember exactly how to march through this game, knowing every turn and door to take, where the secrets are etc, despite having not played it since i had my 80386, but i can't remember where my sodding socks are in the morning?
UK government says no to turbo e-bike
28mph
even 28mph is not particularly fast.
I can maintain that pace on my road bike for a mile or so.
Those that ride the Tour de France maintain almost that as an average.
Why not allow the allow the bike?
Fools. Although part of me does think that if you get on a bike you should bloody well pedal it yourself.
Motorola Motoactv GPS fitness tracker
Map tracking?
Is there any sort of map/line functionality built it?
I have a Garmin 310 Forerunner, and one of its most useful features is that it allows you to upload a route to the device. When you load the route, you get a line you can follow to see where you going. It literally is just a line, but provided you follow road junctions properly it's pretty hard to get lost using it.
Half of Apple fanbois would bank with the iPad titan
30%
Until you realise that Apple would want its 30% cut of anything you transferred into the bank. :)
High Court confirms 'cheap DVD' tax loophole will close
Discriminatory?
Am i the only person who thinks the Govs of Jersey and Guernsey are insane for trying to claim that it's discriminatory that the unfair advantage they have is being closed?
Colorfly Pocket Hi-Fi C4
Fairer tests.
Why do we never see these tests of observed sound quality performed under anything even approaching a fair test.
In a world where so much of sound quality is perceived, and there seems to be a lot of snobbery amongst audiophiles separation from the system is essential.
In my mind the sound quality should be reviewed in a dark sound proofed room. The reviewer is told nothing what-so-ever about the system they are reviewing. The reviewer may have any music they please played for them, and for as long as they like, BUT they under no circumstances get to touch or see the kit until after they have written the review of the sound quality. This review is then sealed away from them and may not be altered.
Then and only then may they be permitted to see the kit to give the review of the aesthetics of the kit.
ENORMOUS BACKSIDE FILMED FROM SPACE in moon flypast
Monolith
Where was the Monolith? I clearly saw it in that previous footage. Also what happened to Richard Strauss' music?
The Paris angle? Her backside will never look that rugged. :)
Using phone-tracking tech? 'Fess up now, urges expert
Snow Job?
I dont suppose someone with the pre-requisite coding skills would like to write an app that generates lots of fake data? Then we could just wander about the shopping centres and make a pigs bottom of their trending data.Microsoft tempts with WinPho demo on... iPhone
I haven't had a crash or need to reboot my WP7 phone since the release day of Mango. Nor a Windows crash in i dont know how long. So from that perspective, yes it does crash as often as desktop windows. Not at all.
NASA wants space washing machine for ISS, Mars bases
Dry cleaning?
I am wondering a dry cleaning mechanism might work.
Dry cleaning machines are a closed cycle, and never run hotter than 30c anyway. All the solvent is recovered. Could use the vacuum of space for the evaporation phase.
Toshiba readies zero Watt standby mode telly
The amount of energy required to charge the capacitor will be far less than the amount required to keep the transformer and associated circuitry working all the time.
Apple iPhone owners are the most loyal smartphone buyers
MS and Samsung tout interactive table
Coffee
How does it cope when i have left my coffee on it and spilled some of my dinner? :)
Other than that, cool, but pointless.
Gates: Novell are sore losers, Word trounced WordPerfect
They both sucked/
Ami Pro was better than both!
/troll
I don't think Ami Pro even made it to 95 at all.
Security researchers break out of Apple's sandbox
Feature
Isn't this just akin to the standard practice of relabelling a bug a feature and pretending it's not there?
