Posts by Anonymous Custard

Re: It is over....

So Samsung's Galaxy TriFold project has.... well... folded.

Yes, they tried and then sadly had to fold.

I'm obviously equally enough of a nerd to have the same comment.

And even if the Beeb don't find that the new discoveries make it viable enough to animate the missing 7, it would be nice if they can release the audio of them (which does still exist) as at least something to join things together.

Re: Paint them!

Or at the very least, take a leaf from Disney's playbook on painting stuff green.

Re: That OS...

Etch-a-sketch is an OS now...?

Re: Bah!

It's probably the modern update of the 60's theoretical work for putting spherical cows in a vacuum...

Re: "too many firsts in Artemis III mission"

But all heros, since they pulled their bacon out of the fire.

And their Hanks and their Paxton...

There's a couple of decent vans on Manor Royal that do not just fairly decent burgers, but also a very nice chicken curry and a few other bits like the classic fish finger sarnie. Plus one in the car park of Wicks which also does a cracking burger.

That said, McDonalds, Greggs and Starbucks all opened up on Gatwick Road (side-by-side or across the road from each other) and they seem to be doing trade so I hope the vans don't go out of business as a result. There is a 4th one about to open in the same building as Greggs, but I forget offhand who it is (as I don't particularly care).

I'm trying to work out which building you're referring to, so I can see if the steak van is still there (or if it's one of the ones I mention above).

Re: Old Nokia phones

And of course, not forgetting this classic...

Re: Why even bother?

Sadly that's not so unusual for that place.

I got a TV from them a while back, and initially actually had a refreshingly positive experience with a newbie young sales guy who did actually listen and steered me to a TV which fitted my needs.

Unfortunately as he was quite new (a trainee or probationary sales guy or somesuch), he had to get a more "senior" sales guy involved to finish the transaction, and that smarmy git proceeded to put down the young guy, and upsell me to some whizzy smart crap which I certainly didn't need. Then on top of that tried repeatedly to sell me the "extended warranty" and the usual blurb.

After the 2nd time I started to get annoyed, and just responded "so I need to buy a longer warranty as you seem to think what you're trying to sell me is poor quality and will break in a couple of years?". At that point he started to get a bit grumpy too but still kept pushing it, so I just apologised to the young guy and said that his colleague had just lost him a sale and started to walk towards the door.

"Senior" guy then flounced off in a huff, at which point I just said to the younger one "ok, where were we?" and he found another colleague to approve the sale without any further fuss or attempts at upselling. And in the few times I've been in the store since, I've seen the younger one a couple of times (now seemingly a full staff member) and the "senior" guy not once.

The TV is still going strong (about 5 years after this event) and proving that the warranty extension would have been a total waste of money anyway (as fully expected).

Re: less frequent windows

escaped cheetah at Chessington North, .

What, again...!?!?!

Microsoft (and others) are testing the old adage "It’s Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than To Get Permission" to destruction...

Re: Quite a rare sight

But knowing what you did to break them is a very important part of being a tester.

And seemingly for being a user, so they know exactly what not to tell the poor helldesk person assigned to fix it (at least until afterwards).

Or is it just the ones I have to deal with occasionally (when the helldesk dumps it on me as it's non-standard tool specific software).?

In related news, if you drop a hot soldering iron, don't try and catch it.

Re: Based on past efforts (Skylab)

Although could NASA afford another $400 fine for littering?

That said, it was only actually paid in 2009, and not by them.

Not to mention communications issues and crew hatch problems being horribly reminiscent of the lead-up to the Apollo 1 fire.

Re: Use case?

it seems to have migrated from building a better (digital) mousetrap to a better Post-it note.

Except at $1.50 per hour, it most definitely isn't...

Re: Lucky to still have his finger

And even when it's not in the "wrong place" (e.g. anywhere near the heart), the same induced muscle contractions can prevent you actually letting go if you've accidentally grabbed something live rather than just come into touching contact with it.

You worked on Bullseye and I claim my speedboat (or at least my BFH).

Re: software dev asking to borrow a screwdriver

iFixit are your people for those kind of things. They make some very nice sets.

This one is similar to the one I have, just the small pocket set for "useful" hobby jobs.

It gets both a lot of use and a lot of comments about the weird shapes of some of the bits, and they make some much larger/more varied sets with even stranger bits.

Oh and the lid is held on magnetically, and doubles up as a very nice and retentive place to keep the screws you remove, to stop them from wandering off and exploring the floor.

Or maybe just blow his mind by telling him that at their closest points, Russian and American territories are about 4km apart (the Diomede Islands)?

Re: Answers on a postcard to,...

Not-pAId

Or bloatpAId, as a variant on the original suggestion.

Re: I might be accused of being a little jaundiced but.....

The problem is with AI, it's garbage in, gospel out.

Even if it is still slop, AI said it so it must be true (apparently)...

Re: BS

One of my abiding childhood memories is from the old QED programme that the BBC did.

There was an episode on testing, including exploding custard powder.

Prof Anthony Clare's narration somehow made it stick in my (warped) mind.

And yes, finding that link did take a nostalgic half an hour out of my day, now that you ask...

SiC (and similar stuff like GaN and other upcoming wide bandgap materials) are generally for power, rather than logic or DRAM.

Whilst the market there is certainly expanding nicely (from device chargers all the way up to solar/PV convertors and electric vehicles/chargers), TSMC have stopped their work in that area a while ago.

Presumably as they are riding such a giving cash-cow already, it is in their interest to focus all their efforts and investment in it, at least for now.

Re: Mars samples.

Nah, just say they're made of pure 48 carat solid gold.

Much purerier than anyone elses gold, twice as biggly much in fact...

(with apologies to my native tongue for the mangling).

Re: Synthetic Take: Why Vibe Coding Isn’t “Just for Toys”

The key distinction is learning the difference between using an LLM as a tool and using it as a sub-contractor (and blindly signing off its work unchecked)...

Re: An alternative method?

There was an article on this very website over the holidays for doing something similar for Chrome and google search therein.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/26/disable_ai_features_chrome/

I do appreciate the not-so-subtle irony there, but some of us are forced to use it as the chosen browser by our employers (who should know better, but don't given their current push for all things DX).

Re: How about a Waffle!

Open the fridge door HAL.

I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that...

Re: Erm

All the naming discussion is giving me deja vu from my morning reading diversion...