* Posts by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

6157 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2015

NASA: We'll try again in the morning after friction ruins engorgement

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"Jason Crusan, director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA Headquarters, said that the inflation process was stopped because the habitat wasn't expanding as quickly as the computer models predicted."

Good example to illustrate that you need to keep to be aware of the possibility that reality won't comply to your model(s), especially not the untested ones. Which is one of the reasons why stuffTM needs to be tested IRL. Which is a bit complicated if it's stuff-for-spaceTM.

No doubt the team at Bigelow was expecting something to work out differently as planned - now they know what did and will work it into their design and performance models. Other things might work out differently as well, which is why a two year test period makes sense to me.

As I am given to understand that there already is a technology to inflate limp things by exposing them to a localized near-vacuum, that has been around for some time, I was initially puzzled by the failure to expand the module at the first try. But now that I know that it had been in a tight squeeze for 15 months, three times the duration originally planned for, I'm quite sure that this is the root of the problem.

NASA firms up Space Launch System nanosat manifest

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Is there still room for a S.I.D. prototype?

In-flight movies via BYOD? Just what I always wan... argh no we’re all going to die!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

I'd only use the on-board WiFi to log on to Flightradar anyway...

US nuke arsenal runs on 1970s IBM 'puter waving 8-inch floppies

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Degrees of Obsolescence

"I believe that the Royal Navy did this: during periods when they were not allowed to build new ships, they simply "repaired" an old one.."

Ah, the 'I've still got my great-grandfather's axe' approach...

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: It costs more to write new software than to maintain old hardware

Ther might be other factors as well to consider...

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Programming skills .NE. programming languages

"Or like most "programmers" these days, just post your problem to StackOverflow or ExpertSexChange and rely on others to give you a solution, which you can c&p into your project with minimal understanding of its concepts."

... which you can c&p into your project with minimal ZERO understanding of its concepts."

What could possibly go wrong? My background is civil engineering/structural design. IME there are two kinds of engineering software, or rather companies that make engineering software. One usually has its roots in an engineering firm or an university's engineering department. They started writing their own software when computers became affordable. At one point they brought in mathematicians and/or coders to help with the 'heavy lifting', code-wise. At another point they may have been incorporated as a separate firm, but retained both engineers and close ties to the engineers that use their software.

The other kind is a company that reckoned there was money in engineering software, got a bunch of guys with degrees in CS and gave them a stack of codes and regulations etc.

Guess which software works better?

China gets big data fever, backed by security push

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"efforts to share information between all levels of government to spur business growth and reduce red tape"

Sounds like he took a peek at the executive summary of McKinsey's 2011 Growth and renewal in the United States: Retooling America’s economic engine report.

HR botches redundancy so chap scores year-long paid holiday

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Wow. That's one of the coolest stories ever...

Victims stranded as ID thieves raid Aussie driver licences

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Schiller:

Yes, it's 'die Dummheit', but the phrase is 'Mit der Dummheit kämpfen selbst die Götter vergebens!'. Because grammar. Apparently stupidity has a flexible gender in German - make of that what you will...

As to "No state will reissue a new driver license number meaning that once the document is stolen, victims could be considered permanently compromised." - I re-read that three times, but all I came up with is 'WTF?' each time.

Samsung reveals Batphone!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Mmh. I was hoping for something bat-shaped.

Queen guitarist Brian May releases virtual reality viewer

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

That's 'Doctor May' to you, Simon.

Two more Twitter execs quit

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Sit down, relax, take a deep breath and repeat after me: Twitter will never turn a profit, ever.

Boffins blow up water with LASERS, to watch explosions in slow-mo

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

You were right - love it Thanks for the link!

ISS 'nauts to inflate pump-up space podule

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Initial testing

Next thing you'll be telling us is that they'll won't inflate the module by blowing it up, but make it larger by rubbing it, right?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

My thoughts exactly. The least they could use it for is waste disposal.

Former Sun CEO Scott McNealy has data on 1/14th of humanity

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Quit inventing the past, please. Like targeted advertising.

"... they would understand if they just looked at actual people instead of applying their preconceived ideas to a big bunch of dead data."

No, no, no! Don't give them ideas! Letting them remain in their own parallel universes inside their minds is the only hope we normal, actual people still have! As soon as they really understand us, we are well and truly fucked.

Oh, and 'thin clients'? That's just a fancy way of saying 'terminal'.

Apple hires crypto-wizard Jon Callas to beef up security

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Employee Canary?

Brilliant!

Microsoft bans common passwords that appear in breach lists

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: @codysydney: Because, Dear Commentard.

At almost 50 I'd like to weigh in here: biometrics may be easy, but as long as I haven't got the ability to grow back fingers or eyeballs or whatever at will, biometrics are right out.

SWIFT CEO promises security improvements

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

SWIFT CEO promises security improvements

He'll have to clear it with the guys at Fort Meade first, though.

Pepper robot acts like real teenager, gets job at Pizza Hut

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Hmm... should be feasible to mod it a bit in an unobserved moment. Like sticking a little audio box on it's back that yells EXTERMINATE!!! or something like that.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: I didn't realise I was such a robophobe

Yeah, tipping cows is so 19th century...

Job for Aerosexuals

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Job for Aerosexuals

If you are between 18 and 65 years old and not too far from Hamburg, you can get a job testing evacuation slides for Airbus.

Home page button for bottom of page

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Home page button for bottom of page

Tabbed browsing? I usually let the tab with the home page be, open any article in a new tab, read it, proceed to the comments, close the tab when I'm done and - voilá - I'm back on the home page.

(I wonder what 1980ies coder would have commented on this. ACME Splaffer?)

Drivers wanted for self-driving vehicles!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Drivers wanted for self-driving vehicles!

Re: Science Fiction

Well, HG Wells did suggest calling the genre Scientific Romance.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Drivers wanted for self-driving vehicles!

Google is looking for "Self-Driving Vehicle Operator / Operations Associate (PHX)".

Gillian Anderson: The next James Jane Bond?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

All this suddenly reminded me

of that Schweppes ad with John Cleese announcing an all-new, family-friendly Bond who "wouldn't uzi a fly" while absent-mindedly dispatching half a dozen hitmen or so. Anyone else remember this?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: James Bond/007 Isn't a Person

He is a Time Lord, obviously...

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: "they should reboot Bond to be MI6s top agents 'identity' and not just a single person"

Mmh. I quite liked Connery in Never Say Never Again. The type of agent that makes up for missing youth by decades of experience - been there, done that, can't be fooled twice, etc. But then again I'll turn 50 later tis year, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Now get off of my lawn!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: One film / Casino Royale

I liked Peter Seller's Bond in that. And David Niven's (he also drove the proper Betley, with the compressor). And that the super villain turned out to be Woody Allen. But he last 15 minutes or so are so much OTT that I can't watch them when I'm sober.

LinkedIn mass hack reveals ... yup, you're all still crap at passwords

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Genuine accounts?

Thanks for the clarification as to what is to be deleted!

But they won't do that - their selling point is "Look at our huge user base! And it keeps growing!"

Goats boost solar power

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: If any of the weeds are bracken

Sheep and goat can be very tasty, too!

ENISA / Europol almost argue against crypto backdoors

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: How can they protect us from NSA

They can't. EOF.

Want a better password? Pretend you eat kale. We won't tell anyone

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Record random drunken warbles in the wee small hours of a really good party. Transcribe phonetically. Pretty high entropy, probably not part of any existing rainbow table. Not that easy to memorize, though - but then again, you can't have it all. (Where'd you put it, anyway?)

Safety, pah! Digital Dukes of Hazzard have robot cars powersliding

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

" ... the prospect of [...] bombing around the roads in chipped robo-cars .. "

But that's exactly what's going to happen, isn't it?

Guccifer fesses up to Clinton hacks

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

From what I've read about Guccifer on El Reg so far, I'd go for an insanity plea if I was his lawyer.

BTW, does guessing weak passwords and/or recovery questions using information already in the public domain even count as 'hacking'?

Coders crack Oculus DRM in 24 hours, open door to mass piracy

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Why would they?

"The whole DRM on oculus has nothing to do with games. Oculus is being bolted down so it cannot be used for porn." - Voland's right hand

Could be - but good luck with that... they have millions of hormone-driven teenage coders against them.

Galileo satnav fleet waxes orbital

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: In that final picture

I'd say they are PA speakers. Maybe one PA system for the usual stuff* plus two (redundant) systems for sounding alarms? They are dealing with nasty stuff in there. The other blue thing on the wall looks like a dispenser for paper towels to me. Which supports my theory that the stainless steel thingy is a sink set into the wall, probably combined with a ventilation system to get rid of dangerous fumes.

Anyway, cool chemsuits! I've never seen suits with that kind of helmet.

* "Will the owner of the yellow Subaru please move their car, it's blocking the fire exit."

Shakes on a plane: How dangerous is turbulence?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: AAIB reports are freely available

Quantas never crashed...

Google-backed solar electricity facility sets itself on fire

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

IIRC this has been done - NOT by mythbusters but by archeologists. In a Greek harbour. With just a couple of guys wielding polished metal plates and a model, but it would probably scale well enough. I know I have seen this on TV ages ago, but I can't remember on which programme or how it was called, so no luck searching for it so far.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Supply commitments?

"Maybe the smartest move is to move LA?"

That'd get my vote... The Alaskan Riviera should do very nicely.

BTW: The Toasters - Weekend In LA

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Predicting Problems

The mirror(s) pointing upward would be safe, too. (See post above. Okay, sunglasses wouldn't hurt.) This could be achieved by adding a counterweight - in case of power failure all mirrors tilt upward thanks to gravity. If one or several mirrors stop tracking correctly, pull the plug on them - mirrors tilt upwards.

Chaps make working 6502 CPU by hand. Because why not?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Stupid masochists / @Roo

Yep, that's the way to do it. My granddad used to do it that way, but despite all his efforts I never got the hang of it.

And you really have to be very, very carefull with a scythe, especially when sharpening it, I've seen some nasty scars on several guys. Slices through tendons like butter.

Heck, why do you think DEATH carries a scythe?

Being an IT trainer is like performing the bullet-catching trick

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Always enjoyed my IT training days.

Or make the smartass (there always is one, isn't there*) your assistant. Works quite well as long as they're not also an asshole. Also, he'll be the first guy they'll ask the next day/week/month after the training when they run into any problems.

* Yeah, okay. Sometimes it's me, when I'm on the receiving end of any training. But technically it's not smartassery when it's true. And you can do it in a way that is actually helpful.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: AND a better picture...

I liked the 'Aleister Dabbs' pic better...

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Footwear

Hmm... repetitive vocal phrasing, you say?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"... thrusting incubated fintech wankers ..."

Wouldn't inbred be a tad more accurate?

Bold stance: Microsoft says terrorism is bad

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"We have a responsibility to run our various Internet services so that they are a tool to empower people, not to contribute, however indirectly, to terrible acts," Microsoft said in announcing the policy. "We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and the right to access information."

Aww, that's nice, dear.

*cough* GWX *cough*

HD and SSD Prices not declining - why ?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: How to Recover Dissertation writing Files from Storage device?

Try a data recovery utility. There are several availiable as freeware/open software. I've used RECUVA a couple of times in the past when I had problems with USB memory sticks or SD cards, and it did the job. Mind you, that were a) mostly holiday snaps, a relatively small number of files and I have no way of knowing whether all the files were restored or b) data that either wasn't important or could be recovered from backups or re-created otherwise.

USB sticks can be tricky, there are a lot of combinations of hardware and firmware, and some of them are pretty dodgy. I've had USB sticks that had limitations regarding the number of folders you could create in the stick's root directory, and the number of folders you could create in them, and the number of files you could put in there. Problem was: the stick would let you create as many folders as you liked and also let you store as many files as you liked in whichever folder without any error or warning message. But if you exceeded any limitation, old data would be overwritten with new data without any warning whatsoever! So it took me a while to notice. Wasn't mentionend in the "manual" either, naturally.

Also, memory modules in USB sticks (and other solid state storage devices, including SSDs) can sort of "wear out". And stop working. And they usually do so without warning. It's not like your old HDD that started making funny noises before packing in.

Okay, back to the problem: try a data recovery tool. There is some usefull stuff availiable for free or at reasonable prices. As long as the computer can still recognise the stick as an external memory, a recovery software might find something. Beyond that lies the realm of professional forensic data recovery, and that comes with a large price tag.

Google Chrome deletes Backspace

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Don't care about backspace

Has somebody looked behind the office fridge yet?

'Acts of war in a combat zone are not covered by your laptop warranty'

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Pint

Sometimes I don't like my job very much, but at least nobody is shooting at me. Perspective and all that... Anyway, thanks for the story - have a nice weekend everybody!