Re: Gold?
I would imagine that the butlers will end up grey so only John Major will complain.
Phil.
Posts by PhilBuk
302 posts • joined 7 Nov 2012
Basic bigot bait: Build big black broad bots – non-white, female 'droids get all the abuse
Hurrah! Boffins finally discover liquid water sloshing around on Mars
Elon Musk, his arch nemesis DeepMind swear off AI weapons
Side mounted bottles are normal for cave diving in the UK.
Phil. (ex CDG).
Snooping passwords from literally hot keys, China's AK-47 laser, malware, and more
Is The Power Supply Portable?
The article is a bit short on details but I wonder if the 3.3Kg weight includes the power supply? At the end of the article it says that the laser could be mounted on cars, boats and planes - for the power?
Phil.
TalkTalk plans to sell family B2B jewel to Daisy Group for £175m
Shafting?
"Matt Howett, analyst at Assembly, said there were some early signs that a turnaround was under way, with the firm shifting its focus consumers."
I read that as "shafting focus consumers."
Phil.
Das blinkenlights are back thanks to RPi revival of the PDP-11
@Thoguht
I once loaded up the 8K BASIC interpreter on our 12K PDP-8/E (slowly, as we only had the tape reader on an ASR33) hoping that it would allow me to get round some of the limitations of 8K FOCAL. No such luck. The BASIC was almost identical to FOCAL in functionality - they just swapped the commands over and made it much less efficient!
Phil.
America's forgotten space station and a mission tinged with urine, we salute you
Re: I hope..
@TheProf
I think the film/documentry was "For All Mankind" ??
Phil.
TSB's middleware nightmare: Execs grilled on Total Sh*tshow at Bank
Re: Talk to the techies
@Andrew,
All well and good but Pester comes over as an arrogant twat who seems to think that he can bluster on about everything being fine now when even the branch systems aren't working correctly. This is not a good example of damage control.
Phil.
Supercycle to su-'meh'-cycle: Apple iPhone warehouses heave with unsold Notches
Re: iPhone 6 user here
It's interesting that the last big buying spree was on the iPhone 6/6S line. Also the last iPhone with a headphone socket! Maybe people are just hanging onto them like grim death so that they don't end up looking like twats with buds hanging out their ears.
Phil.
p.s. iPhone 6 still going strong on iOS 10 (I'll upgrade when they fix 11).
Damn Zippy! You beat me to it!
There is no perceived IT generation gap: Young people really are thick
Re: Thickos
Driving on the wrong side of the road (the right hand side) was a scam introduced by Napoleon with the intention of making the roads safer. In Britain, we persisted with riding/driving on the left so that when we met oncoming traffic, they passed on the sword-hand side so we could take a swing if needed.
Phil.
Re: Yo Dabbsy
Exactly. It's usually 'The Station' or 'X Station' where X is its name. Train Station is OK but Railway Station is for long-winded Southerners.
Phil.
Two's company, Three's unbowed: You Brits will pay more for MMS snaps
Re: Maximizing profits
Whatsapp = Giving FaecesBook your mobile number. No thanks!
Phil.
Scissors cut paper. Paper wraps rock. Lab-made enzyme eats plastic
Re: Ringworld Calling...
Not accidentally. It was introduced by the Puppeteers because they considered the Protectors that built the Ringworld were a threat.
Phil.
Death in paradise: 'Cyber attack' takes out national government's IT
Re: Pictures are all wrong
Thanks to the particular skills of KLM, no saying where your luggage will end up.
Phil.
Fancy a viaduct? We have a wrought Victorian iron marvel to sell you
Re: Memories
I occasionaly go home to visit my sister who lives over near Gallows Inn. Don't usually go over that side of town unless I visit my nephew on the Cotmanhay estate. Can't sample the ales any more thanks to coeliac disease but the prices in Il's'on are comparable to where I live at the moment, the Wirral.
You're right about the Nottingham Canal - that was a long way away when I was a lad. Isn't the Nutbrook Canal up there somewhere?
Phil.
p.s. Age tends to make memories better but I will always remember Ilkeston as being 'boring' rather than 'bustling'.
Memories
Remember this from my childhood. I was born in Cotmanhay, next to Bennerley and both part of Ilkeston really. Used to fish in the Erewash canal which runs under the viaduct (did the author call it the Nottingham canal?) and go trainspotting on the Midland line (which also ran under the bridge). Trains at that time were mostly coal trains pulled by 2-10-0 WD class. There was the occasional Class 9 and some of the smaller classes but most of the traffic was pulled by clanky, hastely assembled wartime stuff.
Phil.
Doctor finds physical changes to astronaut's eyes after ISS stint
Re: The older I get, the more I like Earth
What we need are spindizzies.
Phil.
Re: Some can, most can't
Well, if you can't go off-planet you'll just have to become a blade runner.
Phil.
Re: Ummm? Artificial Gravity?
And don't tell him to lie to the crew.
Phil.
It's Pi day: Care to stuff a brand new Raspberry one in your wallet?
Re: Lovely bits of kit.
OS/8! Luxury. We had to load up via an ASR33:-
Rim Loader
(Low Speed)
7756/ 6032
7757/ 6031
7760/ 5357
7761/ 6036
7762/ 7106
7763/ 7006
7764/ 7510
7765/ 5357
7766/ 7006
7767/ 6031
7770/ 5367
7771/ 6034
7772/ 7420
7773/ 3776
7774/ 3376
7775/ 5356
Phil.
p.s. Apologies for the extra blank lines - not sure where they came from.
IBM thinks Notes and Domino can rise again
We're not robbing - just opening the casket and hammering the stake back in.
Phil.
Screw everything! French swingers campsite up for sale, owners 'tired'
Re: professional restaurant
If it was an armature restuarant I could get my starter motor rewound while I ate.
Phil.
Swiss see Telly Tax as a Big Plus, vote against scrapping it
Flags??
So which subby decided that a Swedish flag (on the home page) would be a good picture to go with this article??
Phil.
RIP... almost: Brit high street gadget shack Maplin Electronics
4G found on Moon
Re: My hopes and dreams, dashed.
You can see why Starbucks failed. They should have stuck to their usual drinks rather than trying something they know nothing about like coffee.
Phil.
Flight Simulator's DRM fighter nosedives into Chrome's cache
Re: The first virus EVER was a DRM tool.
The first virus ran on an Apple ][. First exploitation of the autorun feature on diskette-based programs.
Phil.
Life's a beach – then you're the comms nexus of the British Empire and Marconi-baiting hax0rs
Re: Marconi Monument & Lizard Wireless Station?
El Reg already did. Try here:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/23/geeks_guide_maroni_and_the_lizard_uk/
Yes - they did spell Marconi wrong in the link.
Phil.
Military techie mangled minicomputer under nose of scary sergeant
The console on our IBM mainframe S/380 (?) looked just like a 3270 terminal except for big green and red buttons at the top right of the keyboard. Red was the off switch. It soon gained a metal cover after one of the operators accidentely hit it whilst going for one of the top right keys.
Phil.
Corpse! of! Yahoo! drags! emails! of! the! dead! case! to! US! Supreme! Court!
Re: Privacy for the dead but not the living
Good comment, but please, it's "lose" for God's sake!
Phil.
A Hughes failure: Flat Earther rocketeer can't get it up yet again
Re: I’ve always wondered...
Isn't that the spec. for one of Slartifartbast's planets?
Phil.
Web searching died the day they invented SEO
Re: I disagree.
Agree. I was getting short of breath reading that mind fart.
Phil.
Nunes FBI memo: Yep, it's every bit as terrible as you imagined
You got me there Eddy. I recall that when I was in Philadelphia (in the late 70s) that the baseball team was the Phillys and the NFL team was the Eagles. A quick search and I was assured that my memory is not failing.
Phil.
Firefox to emit ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test
Re: Firefox must die
Yep, merge them with the Gnome 3 developers. They can all go together in a deep mire of bad ideas.
Phil.
PACK YOUR BAGS! Two Trappist-1 planets have watery oceans, most likely to be inhabitable
Re: "why does the artwork always show a scenery which is pretty much unlikely?"
"of met"
Huh??
Phil.
A380 saved as Emirates orders another 20 planes, plus 16 options
Re: 450 seat 777 - oh dear
Totally agree. I'm not exactly a big-butt guy but the economy seats are bloody tight. The wing design seems to attract turbulance. All the most uncomfortable flights I've had were in bloody 777s. When flying into Dubai, it seems that only the A380 get proper gates - the rest, including 777s get a 20 min bus ride and a 20 min taxi to the runway.
Phil.
Upset Equation Editor was killed off? Now you can tell Microsoft to go forth and multiply: App back from the dead
Re: People who keep old cars and bikes going
The current equation editor will not edit equations created in Equation Editor 3. It is also not as capable as 3.0. Many teachers and academics have now lost the ability to edit their own equations in their documents and presentations. Fortunately, I still have an XP machine with Word 2003 and the editor intact - sometimes there are benefits to not getting updates.
See here for some of the problems:
https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304942-word-for-mac/suggestions/10316460-microsoft-office-2016-does-not-support-equation-ed
Phil.
Remember those holy tech wars we used to have? Heh, good times
Re: slashdot
I gave up on Slashdot when beta appeared. Having gone back recently, it seems just like it used to be with the same old commentards (I recognise some of the Sigs). Agree with AC about mod points. I get about 5 a day, sometimes 10. Not the once a week batch that I remember. It does allow me to do my duty and push irrelevant political posts into obscurity and boost the tech comments. There are still some very knowledgeable people posting though.
Phil.
Re: Curse you, DEC..
TECO was the best! What other text editor allows you to read the front-panel switches! Someone also created the EDT full screen editor as a macro in TECO.
Phil.
Carphone Warehouse cops £400k fine after hack exposed 3 MEEELLION folks’ data
Re: Eh?
It's not you. Either a word or maybe an entire line missing.
Phil.
1980s sci-fi movies: The thrill of being not quite terrified on mum's floral sofa
Re: 80s Sci Fi
The rental tapes used much higher quality stock than consumer (confirmed by a friend who worked at 3M). I bought a few ex-rental tapes and they were usually better than freshly bought consumer prints.
Phil.
Another Sony VCR user - that thing could play video from a slice of toast. How the mighty have fallen!
SuperFish cram scandal: Lenovo must now ask nicely before stuffing new PCs with crapware
Re: The amount of crap I had to remove was unbelievable.
Time it right and you can see the train on three levels of track. Managed to get a video of the whole thing about three years ago.
Phil.
Voyager 1 fires thrusters last used in 1980 – and they worked!
Windows Update borks elderly printers in typical Patch Tuesday style
Re: KB2952664
Always hide this one. As AC says, I don't even need to look this one up.
Phil.
Remember CompuServe forums? They're still around! Also they're about to die
Re: CompuServe's minicomputers?
"Minicomputers weren't portable."
I could pick up a PDP-8/E to move it round the lab. Wouldn't be able to do it these days without referring myself to a chiropractor for a few weeks.
Phil.
Astroboffins spot a fat 'monster' ALIEN planet terrorizing tiny dwarf
Re: Boffins mount oscilloscope upside-down!
The telescopes are in Chile. They were upside down.
Phil.
Li-ion batteries blow up because they breed nanowire crystals
Re: Nickel-Iron
You get really bad alkaline burns if they leak. Used to be used by some cavers - now superceded by lithium.
Phil.
Humble civil servant: Name public electric car chargers after me
Beeching Cuts
Well Beeching got a load of stuff named after him - bet he didn't appreciate it though.
Phil.
We talk to Tron artist Syd Mead: On the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy
Foonley
The Foonley F-1 was a fast copy of a DECsystem 10, the old 36-bit platform that most US Unis were using at the time. Also the major computing power for Compuserve (remember them?).
Phil.
