* Posts by Swarthy

2412 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Server broke because it was invisibly designed to break

Swarthy

Re: The hell that

One of my sprogs decided to try bypassing safety interlocks - she wanted to run the microwave with the door open (unsure why, ADHD in a 10 year-old girl: good idea, bad idea makes no difference - it's an idea.)

Fortunately, the interlocks defeated her, but it was a pyrrhic victory. It cost a few hundred USD to replace the microwave, but the child was safe.

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Swarthy

Re Moved Start Bar

Meh.

The Windows key is in the same place. The Ctrl, Alt, and Tab keys are in the same place, but now the arrow keys are less functional. All in all, it was a nasty downgrade.

Mint was a significant improvement.

Boss broke servers with a careless bit of keyboarding, leaving techies to sort it out late on a Sunday

Swarthy

Re: Belt up

So it is throwing itself at the ground, and missing?

I wonder what gave it the sudden distraction at exactly the right time?

The boss worked in a fishbowl, so office tricks were a treat

Swarthy

Mis-read cause raise eybrows

I first mis-read Chlorotrifluoroethylene as Chlorine trifluoride, and that scared the hell out of me .

Swarthy

Re: Pranks and things

we planted cress on the floor of a room and watered it. He was away at the time and came back to a cress lawn
I did that to a co-worker's keyboard once. (Membraned/water resistant, so little chance of structural damage) We put cotton batting under the key caps, seeded the batting, and misted it regularly while the co-worker was on secondment for a few weeks.

No, I will not pay the bill. Why? Because we pay you to fix things, not break them

Swarthy

I have been on both sides of this

At one point I was the on-site repair "engineer" (read "tech") working on a Compaq PC that had a weird issue with turning on (or off - mists of time) it took me four trips out because HQ would only send the parts in order of cheapest to most expensive - Power button, power button cable, micro switch, and finally a new mother board. the new MB fixed it.

On the other hand, I once attempted to get service out of ComCast, and no more needs to be said.

Swarthy

A proper BOFH would have Compaq-ted the engineer in one of those car crusher thingies.

Swarthy

Nah, Cromwell got executed, and christmas was re-instated.

Moon has been drifting away from Earth for 2.4 billion years, rocks reveal

Swarthy

The (theorized) Theia Impact that spun out the moon probably splashed the stuff that would become the Moon about that distance. But the fact is (from the article) we know that the rate of distancing is not, and has never been, constant. What I couldn't glean is whether the rate of change is constant, or if the variation, itself, is variable.

Swarthy

Re: The moon's Australian!

Australia is a Harsh Mistress?

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

Swarthy
Flame

Re: Users are the worst

Oh... Memories of my HellDesk days:

User calls in with a (common) problem -> Talk them through the dialogs and options, they "uh-huh" and "got it" until you get to an informational screen and ask them what it says. Then you get "Well, I'm not at my computer, I'm [at work/ on vacation/ driving(?!)]".

Data loss prevention emergency tactic: keep your finger on the power button for the foreseeable future

Swarthy

Re: Another sign of the migration of El Reg Westwards?

The main selling point for El Reg is that they've declined less than everyone else.

Confirmed: Asteroid shoved by Earth crash probe DART

Swarthy

Re: Now if we only had a reliable means of spotting them early enough...

Even acknowledging the existence of "Kentucky Fried Dinosaurs"™, I would argue that "going the way of the dinosaurs" is still a fate to be avoided.

Imagine either the corvids getting their own back, or the cephalopods filling the gap and having "Kentucky Fried Primate" on the menu.

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Swarthy

Re: Is it just me

Comment Bait?

Make your neighbor think their house is haunted by blinking their Ikea smart bulbs

Swarthy

Re: But, but, but ...

Just remember the 'S' on IoT stands for Security.

People are coming out of retirement due to cost-of-living crisis

Swarthy

Re: Not great news for youngsters

COVID does though - at least from a left-pondian perspective. Low-paid employees dealing with large numbers of people, their exposure risk was incredibly high; add in minimal allowed, much less paid, time-off for recovery, and those who survived generally give back the respect and commitment they were shown. IE: None.

Boffins hunt and kill cockroaches with machine vision laser

Swarthy

Re: Not so new

Better fruit flies than emus - that one didn't end well (for the military, not sure the emus noticed)

Swarthy

Re: Maybe let's wait for the perfection of the lower powered mosquito laser?

Didn't Bill Gates do something like this for mosquitos?

And could it be re-purposed for Drosophila melanogaster?

Charge a future EV in less than five minutes – using literally cool NASA tech

Swarthy

"If stopping every three hours for ten minutes is too much then you probably shouldn't have a license have a long commute in heavy traffic.

You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

Swarthy

Re: switch to an OS OS

Steam?! Are you saying Steam won't run in Linux?

Are you unaware of Proton, which allows (formerly) Windows game to run in Linux?

I have been having a great deal of fun playing Fallout2 on my Linux box, courtesy of Steam (and their Proton).

India's Mars Orbiter Mission loses contact, burns all fuel, deemed 'non-recoverable'

Swarthy

Foreign Aid, Reparations, what's the difference?

Whatever happened to???

Swarthy

Whatever happened to???

Visited Links?

Latest site makeover - Visited links gone?

Swarthy

Re: Latest site makeover - Visited links gone?

I second this complaint. I ended up clicking an article (Friday's On-Call) three times: once on Friday, and twice today before I realized there were no visited links color-change.

OK, Google: Why are you still pointing women at fake abortion clinics?

Swarthy

True, blood donation doesn't have long term effects and the risk factors are much smaller.

But I wanted to keep things simple.

Swarthy

If you want to go biblical - 3 days after birth. That's when babies were circumcised and named.

If you want to keep the discussion on a rational basis - It doesn't really matter. No one is deciding "I'm bored with pregnancy at 7 months - just kill it." The late term abortions that are being used to whip up the unknowing/unthinking are not optional; no-one wants them, the recipients need them.

But to avoid dodging the question, if asked my (completely un-earned) opinion, I would say on severance of the umbilicus.

Swarthy

And by not donating blood/bone marrow at every opportunity, you are KILLING the would-be recipients!

Swarthy

Bugger the line!

There is no line. If it's acceptable to force a person to share their body to ensure another person's life, then gimme your right kidney. Or how about a law that requires blood donation every six weeks?

Or better, a law that makes evictions illegal.

Googlers demand abortion searches ‘never be saved or treated as a crime’

Swarthy

Re: Women are people too.

Wow. Twitter found The Register? That is honestly the most bad-faith reading I have ever seen on these pages. Tumblr users would have a hard time making those leaps.

Just... wow.

Astroboffins present fresh evidence of moving liquid water on Mars

Swarthy

Re: They keep saying that ...

My guess is that the "salt" in Martian water would be perchlorate salts, considering we have found that the surface we've explored has been riddled with 'em.

ClO4- may be a bit harsher on life than plain old NaCl.

Arm founder says the UK has no chance of tech sovereignty

Swarthy

Re: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Why break up "The Department of Fun"?

Those screws on the Apple Watch Ultra are a red herring

Swarthy

Re: Stop status smell

Malum malum?

Soaring costs, inflation nurturing generation of 'quiet quitters' among under-30s

Swarthy

Re: You get paid what you're worth

Are you one who believes that "burger flippers don't deserve a livable wage"?

Are you one who complains that there are not enough employees at retail or fast food locations and service suffers?

The Venn diagram of people saying "If you don't like what you're paid, go elsewhere" and the people complaining that all of the retail staff have buggered off (for better paying jobs) is nearly circular.

Swarthy

Re: Quiet Quitting

Stolen from Twater:

Boss made a dollar

Grandad made a dime

But that was a poem

From a simpler time

Boss made a thousand

Gave my pa a cent

But that penny bought a mortgage

Or at least it paid the rent

Now boss makes a million

And gives us jack

Smugly blames his workers

For the labor that he lacks

Swarthy

Re: I quietly quit decades ago - it was called Work-Life Balance

Serfs got more time off.

Swarthy

Re: You sir or madame are correct.

Quiet Quitting: I quit doing the work of the two people management laid off.

I'm still doing my job, but if The Bosses want the other work to be done they can hire somebody for it. It's not my fault that the company has decided that one person should do the work of three on the pay of one-half.

California to phase out gas furnaces, water heaters by 2030

Swarthy

Where's the Super-Cali headline?

Has El Reg's more US-centric style guide banished them?

Super-Cali: Furnace Heating, Boilers are Atrocious

There, Fixed it!

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Don't blame us for this.

I also find it curious that CARB is going after domestic gas, when the emissions from it are insignificant compared to commercial emissions. I get that there are a lot of homes, and the small bits add up; but one fertilizer plant emits just as much as a significant number of homes.

This reeks of the same "green-washing" as crying about plastic straws being used and possibly winding up in the ocean, while doing nothing about industrial fishing nets getting chucked in the ocean.

It is another example of re-directing the blame for climate issues to individuals (who can't afford lobbying money) rather than the corporations/industries that are actually causing it. See: Exxon/BP pushing domestic recycling and the frequent articles decrying "Americans are addicted to plastic".

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

Swarthy

Re: The last sentence of the article has it.

Crap, I have to up-vote VoiceOfTruth?! Man...

They have it right though. The statues, road names, etc. started in the 1920's and stepped up massively in the 1950's-1960's and they were done, openly, as a "Remember where you came from; 'cuz as soon as we get the chance, we'll put you back there"

I would also like to add a sentiment I have stolen from elsewhere: "Losers don't get statues"

Swarthy

Re: God botherers strike again!

I see the downvoters have never read the Bible and/or are denying the political reality in the US.

FTFY

Swarthy

Re: God botherers strike again!

There is an apparent pipeline from crunchy (as in granola) to alt-right. It starts with anti-vax, muddles around for a bit in "alternative medicine", heads over to "every one (else) is lying to you" and then lands in QAnon/conspiracy thought/cult-ish groups.

Florida asks Supreme Court if it's OK to ban content moderation it doesn't like

Swarthy

Re: Would that apply to foreign companies?

And we have a Winner!

Billionaire CEO tells Googlers 'we shouldn’t always equate fun with money'

Swarthy

Re: Google, the little startup that could!

Given the rate of inflation, one could argue that a six-figure salary for a new graduate should be normal. Pulling some random dates, $100K (the bare minimum to count as six figures) in today's money would have been about $14K in 1970.

I wasn't paying much attention to pay scales at that time, but a quick Googling makes me think it wasn't that far off of an expectation.

Good news for UK tech contractors as govt repeals IR35 tax rules

Swarthy
Coat

Re: Wake me up

The cheese is gouda - I can havardi brie-lieve how much chedder the puns have become on this site.

Appeals court already under fire for upholding Texas no-content-moderation law

Swarthy
Devil

Re: Christian values? By what measure?

Personally, I love pointing out the dichotomy between Prosperity Gospel and flipping tables & chasing bankers with a whip. Add in that whole Rich Man/Camel analogy and you have to start wondering what they do believe in; 'cause it sure as Hell isn't the teachings of Christ.

Swarthy

Re: Here we go...

ODFO.

We've been over this. The only time that argument holds any value other than signifying "I don't know logic" If you are using it for "Logical Fallacy Bingo".

School chat app Seesaw abused to send 'inappropriate image' to parents, teachers

Swarthy
Trollface

Could have been worse

At least it was the relatively harmless Goatse, and not the actively malicious Rick Roll.

Red Hat says staff can stay away from the office forever

Swarthy

Re: If it's anything like where I work...

How is that any different from working in the office?

Boffins build microphone safety kit to detect eavesdroppers

Swarthy

Awareness and alerting is all well and good

But I want something that emits an EM field that will cause a mic to record some gawd-awful feedback without being picked up by Mk1 Earballs (Much like shining an IR light into a camera). This would also be useful for the voice-operated "smart" TVs that are absolutely not spying on you. Bonus points if the EM field would not effect hearing aids.

I would also accept if the EM field just generated white noise, but I would love either a 15KHz tone, or failing that, Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"

Chemical plant taken offline by the best one of all: C8H10N4O2

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Better yet...

I had a laptop killed by Ovaltine. A kid's friend spilt a cup of the stuff, mixed with milk, all over it. they and the kid cleaned it "all" up to hide the misadventure. they did not get the stuff in the vents, or that had seeped into the keyboard. a day or so later when the laptop became non-functional I found a green-ish plastic/rubber looking substance that was quite durable blocking all of the vents.

It turns out that milk + Ovaltine polymerizes when it dries.

Swarthy
Coat

Re: Ah, but what was the coffee?

That's a latte of bad coffee puns...