Posts by james 68

@Pascal Monett

"Ah, the good old "I had no issue, so there was no problem"."

Well when the claim is that "ZOMG!!! ALL OF JAPAN WAS TAKEN OFFLINE!!!!" and my case and all of those that I have interacted with clearly proves that the premise is incorrect then yes, the fact that I did not have a problem is direct contradictory evidence and valid proof that the story is at best wrong and at worst clickbait.

The article fails to point out that only a handful of providers who are affiliated with Verizon were actually affected and makes wild claims that this, somehow, is the entirety of Japanese internet infrastructure.

@MathUHenry,

"Apparently, you didn't show him how to access the backup."

Users should NEVER have access to the backups. That is how data gets lost, projects fail and in some circumstances things can become legally disastrous for the company. If they need something restored from the backup they have 2 choices: restore from a personal backup on their own machine or place a request with IT.

Re: Good for you El Reg

It was always there and has always received tacit protection from the system, Trump has just given the scum the opportunity to move out of the shadows without fear of reprisals.

I see your statement, and raise you a driving goldfish.

https://www.dezeen.com/2014/11/25/studio-diip-self-driving-goldfish-tank-fish-on-wheels-dutch-design-week-2014/

Re: till we remove the up to

Whilst I agree in general with your statement, I must point out that it is not always the case. Back when I was living in the UK I had a Virgin fibre to the home connection advertised as "up to 150 megabits per second", however at off peak times I regularly saw download speeds of over 250 megabits per second.

I wish I still had that connection. Now I'm just outside of Tokyo and have an "up to 100 megabits per second" connection, which is utter crap. Peak or off peak I've never seen it crawl along at anything over 10.

TLDR: Virgin media disproves your otherwise correct statement.

@SkippyBing indeed, there were many in fact, some became quite famous (at least for short periods) when sailing into port with essentially half a ship.

@Caustic Soda you mean like the lauded RMS Titanic? You perhaps overestimate "watertight" compartments, as they only work when the doors are closed and some Muppet hasn't drilled stonking great holes through the walls to pass pipes and wiring. The Royal Navy has something of a reputation in the area of leaving said doors open to facilitate storage and help cool the lower decks, leading to a number of ship losses during WW2. As is well known, once the navy does something just once it becomes a "longstanding naval tradition" and will continue to be done against all common sense and damn the losses.

@Steve Evans

Pi's can run perfectly well on battery power (6aa batteries will get you well over 12 hours use including always on wifi and bluetooth, a phone charging pack will last much much longer even when powering various USB devices from the pi and handily has usb ports for easy power supply).

Wall wart aint needed.

Sure that's what the "someone" wants us to think.... But I'd put money on that "someone" being in possession of a phone with Bluetooth connectivity at the time of the "accident".

It's a conspiracy I tells ya.

Re: Getting closer.

Only 120 GB for games? What with the current trend for game development not bothering with any kind of compression or optimization most modern games come in at 12 GB+. My Steam library alone comes in at almost 2 TB and the list of games isn't exactly huge, I dread to think what my total is when I add battlenet, origin and those I own on physical disc. I make do with only having a few installed at a time, with those I'm not using backed up to a 4 TB NAS box so I can install them when I want, quickly and without killing my internet connection for several hours.

Your argument that only pirates need so much storage is very broken.

Re: Mach Numbers

Well I'm not the one who downvoted you - but I will answer your question (Knowledge after all should be shared and downvoting someone instead of explaining why they're wrong is just crass).

The speed of sound varies not only due to the medium (air, nitrogen, helium, you get the idea) but also due to the pressure and density of that medium. Near the ground on Earth for example, air is more dense meaning sound travels more slowly, 5 miles up it is less dense meaning sound travels more quickly. (the sound wave needs less energy to 'move' the less dense medium meaning it can travel more quickly). Even the temperature of the medium changes the speed of sound as a cooler medium is more dense and a hotter medium is less dense.

Given this, in space (which is not a complete vacuum) the speed of sound can be many, many times faster than the speed of sound at any height within Earths atmosphere.

Strangely the opposite is true for the speed of sound in liquids and solids, the more dense the liquid or solid, the faster sound travels.

Re: Chinese entrepeneures

My thoughts exactly - these "entrepreneurs" are starting up a company in America which would provide Americans with jobs and provide both revenue and bragging rights due to Made in America home and export sales. But Trump does not want this? Make America great again my hairy arse, he is dead set on turning America into a third world nation so his buddy Putin can rule the world.

Re: No contest

Nope.

Red Dwarf for the win. Smeg all the others.

Re: More importantly...

Sounds like something his ex-wife would do (tearing it off the non-rotating wall mount in the process). Mind you, I once argued with her for over an hour that people cannot catch viruses from an infected computer, something she still believes in wholeheartedly, alongside fairy power and guardian spirits.

Even rotating using the DVD player menus still wouldn't work however, what with him having made a DVD meaning it then had permanent black bars at either side to fill the aspect ratio - same thing as what happens when YouTube re-encodes portrait videos to 16:9 using standard settings but idiots persist in doing it anyway.

Re: Binary/Twin Star?

As both stars would be losing mass then it stands to reason that their gravitational pull would weaken to the point where they would no longer be bound, sending them off rather quickly in opposite directions. Depending on specific mass, orbital distance and speed, this could have happened very early in the life of the stars.

Did you try (carefully) explaining that it does not, in fact, involve dogs?

Re: Astronomers aren't buying it, it seems.

That comets emit radio waves is not in question (there are other peer reviewed articles covering this), what is in question is this particular article and author.

A small but important question for you - where is the authors proof that the WOW signal matches that of the comet?

I'll save you the search, there isn't any. The author speculates that there is a match, although the signal does not in fact match and the author resorts to hand waving, giving several different solutions as to the variance stating that any one of them could be the factor.... or maybe even a mixture of them. This is not science. A scientist would work at the problem until they found an answer so they could state that the variance is due to X, not fire off that maybe, possibly if you squint real hard it could be X, Y or Z but maybe its X + Y to the the third power of Z's cousin twice removed but I can resolve this maybe/possibly if you donate on my kickstarter page.....

Probably because the non-Americans aboard also have the capability to look out the windows, including any nefarious cosmonauts. None of whom can I imagine the NRO would want to get a look at one of their spy sats and all of whom have binoculars and DSLR cameras.

Re: comments so far missed the point

@Palpy

"Ever seen an (American-style) football coach on the sidelines of a game? Why is he hiding his mouth as he speaks? Is it because he is describing shameful secrets to his quarterback?"

According to the many news stories I've seen concerning various coaches that is sadly very, very possible.

Re: The real message is...

Writing off a PS4 is easy.

It's an "Internet connected market analysis tool for research into entertainment and social trends" or it can be covered under medical as a "device for stress relief and depression treatment through roleplay and social interaction".

Even the games could technically be covered under either of those headings.

@Bill Gray +1 for answering the question and not being condescending.

But...

The acceleration would be a positive even if the object were being pushed away from the positive mass just as it would be if it were attracted as it is accelerating in space not decelerating, it is direction which is changed (I could well be wrong, but this is how I view it).

The application of a force shown in the experiment, a positive pushing force, caused the object to be attracted, so why would the inverse also not be true? If gravity is acting as a pulling force why would the acceleration not be sending it away from the earth?

Serious question.

Re: The Dr. Evil picture is appropriate

$100,000 is quite cheap. Consider that Apple's "bug bounty" stands at $200,000 they are in fact charging only half the price. I think however that they perhaps did not read the small print on the proper means of claiming said bounty...

Hell no. A chainsaw is the perfect toy for unsupervised use by politicians.

Shame on you for suggesting otherwise.

Re: |Eh?

They did them in Belfast too, that was a security thing back then though (or at least that was the excuse) what with the IRA and their pesky urge to blow things up in both Belfast and actual UK cities.

Re: Prior art

Indeed, and they're taking on NOKIA of all the companies they could have trolled. NOKIA probably has more mobile coms patents than any other company, almost certainly including for the ones BB is trying to troll.

Re: Whatever it takes to make a sale

@Mage

That'll be because you showed good sensibility, I applaud you for that. The contractors I've dealt with in the past rarely show anywhere near that level of logical understanding, I wish more were like you in this regard.

@Alan Brown

I've had to deal with similar idiocy, more often than I'd like to recount. But you provide a good example of why networks should not only be secured from outside AND inside molestation but be proofed as much as possible against actions by "administration" also.