Don't you know AcmeCorp were taken over by a coyote last year?
Yes, but I'd still trust it more than Slurp.
Posts by PNGuinn
1940 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Mar 2014
Page:
Microsoft rethinks the Windows application platform one more time
Ultra-rare WWII Lorenz cipher machine goes on display at Bletchley Park
Friday 8th April 2016 02:47 GMT
Re: I wonder how Silicon Roundabout would have gone about cracking Lorenz ?
Mathematicians??
Why'd they want those smelly spoilsports at the party?
Anyway, £20 million would barely pay for the chemicals for the project launch party these days, let alone keep 'em all in whalesong and josticks for two whole years.
In any case this would be a grubbyment project - cue the usual suspects, a vast army of consultants, cost escalations, project resets, a bald minister or three, delays and a project delivered on time and on budget sometime in the 50's.
Which did not work because no one had defined the problem it was supposed to solve in the first place. But was a complete success because lessons had been learned.
Nest's bricking of Revolv serves as wake-up call to industry
White House flushes away court-ordered decryption like it was a stinky dead goldfish
Power9: Google gives Intel a chip-flip migraine, IBM tries to lures big biz
Thursday 7th April 2016 18:29 GMT 
"Either the US government hasn't thought to outlaw the export of CPU blueprints, or Big Blue's technology in foreign hands isn't seen as a strategic threat to national security."
So I presume that the TLAs are hoping that the Chinese will not find the back doors that are cleverly hidden in the hardware designs.
On the bright side: All your data are now belong to both Uncle Sam and Uncle Ping.
Lends a new meaning to the game of PingPong ....
El Reg - we need an Unobtainium alloy reinforced tinfoil hat icon ...
Three to chop off £3bn of its network in bid to woo EU over O2 merger
Thursday 7th April 2016 18:04 GMT
Re: That pledge on prices...
"As I can get a heavily discounted EE contract because I am a BT customer"
Hmmm ... Unfair competition? Distorting the market by a dominant Telco? Perhaps OFCON / the EU should look at this rather than bite the smallest / weakest operators, resulting in them being later swallowed by one or more of the big players ...
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink ...
Truly crap exhibition dumped on Isle of Wight
Brits rattle tin for 'revolutionary' hydrogen-powered car
Tuesday 5th April 2016 16:50 GMT
"top speed" of 60mph is giong to equate to a cruising speed of 45-50mph - maybe less uphill
Hmmm. Went to visit my daughter in Huddersfield at the weekend.
Assuming a nice diesel powered tanker and a long hose behind it could have been ok on the A1 / A1M. It might just have struggled as far as Barnsley. From Barnsley to Huddersfield via the Penistone road??
Would these capacitor thingies work in reverse?
Tuesday 5th April 2016 16:41 GMT
Re: I like the idea of fuelcel powered vehicles
Call me when they manage to design a fuel cell that'll work reliably on petrol.
That'd give superb range, easy refueling, and vastly improved efficiency over an internal combustion engine. And far lower transmission losses.
And it would not need to be such high octane - no need for the added carcinogens since the greenies deprecated lead.
TVO anyone?
Tuesday 5th April 2016 16:25 GMT
Re: frak me @ 2+2=5
No. Add some inflation to your handle.
They've just cadged 2m urox from the EU and an unspecified sum from what I presume are a couple of my money spaffing quangos I've never heard of.
Whalesong, environmentally friendly jostick vape, another round of funding please, look, we've made it super fugly, it MUST be green ...
Trebles all round.
Cynical? Me?
Tuesday 5th April 2016 16:15 GMT
Re: ero emissions? DropBear
The big difference between Hydrogen and the gases normally used for diving is that hydrogen under pressure reacts chemically with the tank, causing embrittlement and rupture.
Another problem is that hydrogen has a very low calorific value compared with hydrocarbons. That means either a B****y big cylinder of gas (bulky and heavy) or store the fuel as liquid with all the fuel costs of liquifaction and allow it to slowly (over a few days) boil away. **Don't store the car in a garage at home or anywhere enclosed near me if you go down this route.**
So, with a low pressure cylinder, the range will be exactly what?
Samsung kind of cracks the 10nm barrier with new 8GB DDR4 slabs
Nest bricks Revolv home automation hubs, because evolution
'Devastating' bug pops secure doors at airports, hospitals
April Fool decries Blighty's dodecaquid
Flying Finns arm octocopter with chainsaw
Space archeologist discovers new evidence of Vikings invading America
Google tried to be funny, cocked it up, everyone thought it was a bug
Friday 1st April 2016 15:42 GMT
Re: "We're a couple of intelligent, caring guys, who'd you probably like if you met us socially"
More likely a google car would say" I know you wanted to go to Aldi where the food's cheaper / better but Tesco pay for the ads so sod off and get that 2 for 1 offer I've been pestering you with the whole way. AND I've just spaffed your details AND this journey to Tesco, so expect to be getting lots of coupons for nothing you want, even if you pay cash. Punk"
The Register to publish Mindful Sysadmin adult colouring book
Friday 1st April 2016 11:10 GMT
Do the decent thing
Ok, El Reg, this thing has legs.
I dare you to produce the whole book. And send a complimentary copy to Sadnads.
It'll either force a reset more powerful than the traditional 3 fingered salute or better cause the whole kaboodle to implode with nuclear ferocity.
One a can but hope ... >>
Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?
Friday 1st April 2016 10:57 GMT
Re: Rotated screens and "pranks"
I'm feeling old.
Many moons ago I came back from lunch to my CIT101 (JapeneseVT100 clone with quite the best keyboard I've ever used) and logged on to the VAX.
Hit return only to watch the logon text scroll as 1 vertical line rapidly down the screen. Someone had set the terminal column width to 1.
Happy days.
Furious English villagers force council climbdown over Satan's stone booty
Friday 1st April 2016 10:36 GMT
Re: Move the bloody thing
"I'd suggest painting an area of white cross-hatching around the rock"
Definitely not.
Just look at the at the state of that road surface on the BBC pic.
Traditional British at its best. This rock needs proper traditional marking. There's a clear need for a veritable Erection of Penises at this junction!
Bet that'd satisfy all the villagers. They could make a fortune out of the postcards.
Hi! Up here! I'm your Amazon drone. Do you mind if I land now?
Ofcom puts aside a little bit of spectrum for Internet of Things things
Adblock wins in court again – this time against German newspaper
Wednesday 30th March 2016 22:49 GMT 
So it's coming to this ....
The ad "industry" is bleating that blockers are "Stealing" it's lunch.
The said industry is serving more and more intrusive ads.
Worse, far, far worse the said industry is serving an increasing amount of malware.
The said "industry" couldn't give a flying ****.
By the most effective form of advertising - word of mouth - everyone is beginning to get the message that ad blockers are becoming as essential (if not more) than av.
So fewer and fewer visitors will see the ads and their revenue stream will fall drastically
Soon, pretty soon two things may start to happen:
(a). The reputational damage of being associated with ad slinging scum (I'm feeling charitable today) and the decreasing advertising value will mean that companies will begin to look for other ways to advertise online.
(b). Reputable online sites that depend on advertising will notice the same thing and arrange to serve ads locally off their own servers, hopefully having thoroughly vetted them first as there will now be a direct line of liability.
Until the next round in this war of wackamole with the scumbags who infest the net.
Bash on Windows. Repeat, Microsoft demos Bash on Windows
Teen tricks leaky Valve into publishing hot new Steam game: Watching Paint Dry
Zombie SCO rises from the grave again
Legal right to 10Mbps broadband is 'not enough', thunders KCOM chief
Microsoft's bigoted teen bot flirts with illegali-Tay in brief comeback
BMW complies with GPL by handing over i3 car code
Wednesday 30th March 2016 13:48 GMT
Source Code Availability
Considering the price this bunch of boy-racer cowboys charge for their toys if they had any common decency they'd have put it up on the technical part of their website with a note of the url in the owner's handbook.
And possibly included a cd (with a note in the readme that updated software might be available online) with the technical info supplied with the car. They do supply a proper workshop manual / partslist and online access to updates?
(Making an assumption here - no intention of slandering someone doing the right thing) No? Thought not.
Wednesday 30th March 2016 13:36 GMT
CS agents
To be fair...
The typical CS agent wouldn't understand what grease was let alone being greased up about it. (I'm not being specific to anyone here.)
It's up to the company - any company - to make sure that (a) the quality and training of their staff is adequate for the job and (b) the information immediately available to them is up to date, easy to assess, readily understandable AND ABOVE ALL ACCURATE.
In other words - typical response of "sod off you're the product not the customer" IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
