petrea_mitchell | Entries tagged with the register

Take Back the Lunch Break Day: When you're at work (or when you worked or were still going into the office), did you fall into the habit of eating at your desk and continuing to work while eating? Did your working conditions include a proper lunch break? If you're mostly working from home, do you still eat at your desk and continue working during your lunch?

The first 6 months of my previous job, I was a contractor and therefore required by some combination of state and federal regulations to spend an entire half an hour in the middle of the day not doing anything work-related. And I hated that. I'd rather check my favorite tech news site, catch up on Ask a Manager, and then get back to work so I can have more free time in the evening.

Per The Register:

Come Sunday, October 24, 2021, those using applications that rely on gpsd for handling time data may find that they're living 1,024 weeks – 19.6 years – in the past.

A bug in gpsd that rolls clocks back to March, 2002, is set to strike this coming weekend.

What kind of apps are we talking about?

Miller, who asked that GPS kit maker Meinberg be recognized for its support for gpsd, said he's not sure who is actually using the software he maintains. "I know for a fact that a lot of military stuff uses it," he said, pointing to "man-portable" or "manpack" radios. "I know it's in at least one rocket system. I'm told it's in tanks and delivery trucks and divers' watches."

With nothing new to report about the cicada plan for world domination, The Register has instead run stories this week about a plan to send (non-talking) squid to outer space to research immune system dysfunction, and the US Air Force issuing a highly specific threat against snails and clams.

You may recently have heard of Brood X, the largest group of 17-year cicadas on the east coast of the US, which has recently emerged to breed. In most news coverage they are a loud, messy inconvenience, but The Register is covering them as though they are an evil alien hivemind bent on taking over the world. In the latest dispatch, the President is being sent to Cornwall for his own safety as the horde attempts to take down the highest levels of US government.

It's been a particularly awful couple of weeks for most of us, so have a couple of less-awful articles to enliven your weekend.

1. The Register brings us the story of a man and his horse attempting to navigate the legal maze that surrounds drive-throughs in Covid Britain.

2. Fear of Landing investigates a moment of pure childlike fun involving some heavy equipment and an aircraft.

The Washington Post's contribution to coping with the coronavirus situation today is advice from top chefs on what to stock your pantry with in case you have to spend a couple weeks in self-isolation. The most common suggestions are rice and frozen peas, which we tend to have lying around anyway, so I guess we're already prepared on that score.

Meanwhile, the inexplicable global run on toilet paper has produced a clever marketing stunt in Australia.

The UK has unveiled a new, improved, this-time-for-real Brexit commemorative coin (after having to melt down a million of them last fall after minting them with the wrong date). But there are many other monetary ways for people to observe the occasion.

For instance, The Register has a look at a package of goodies being offered by the Conservative Party, or rather at the official description of them, because:

Sadly, you cannot do the drying up with delight on the big day itself. Deliveries of the collection (which also includes a lapel pin, a mug and a magnet that presumably repels an entire political and economic union) won't start until the week commencing 10 February.

If you can't wait that long, there's also a competition which has somehow formed between Remainers and Leavers to get their favorite music to the top of the Apple and Amazon UK download charts by the 31st.

It was dark when I got up even though I lazed around until after 7am. I can't wait for the end of daylight saving time.

Cat

A gray tabby bicolor watching curiously beside a tree trunk.

A rather handsome if apprehensive fellow on the catio tour. No, I didn't take many pictures of actual catio features...

Fandom

I got my Orycon panel schedule. It consists of one panel, but it's one I've been pitching to almost every convention I've been a panelist at for over a decade, so I'm happy.

Gaming

Went to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this weekend, which is a post all by itself. While there, played a lot of Mii Plaza and a couple chapters of Fire Emblem: Awakening.

I learned that The Crucible, the unofficial online KeyForge play forum, has updated itself to the current card set after all, so I've started playing a game or two a day there. It's a good way to practice not making stupid mistakes, but it's not going to replace the gaming store games. It doesn't have the camaraderie, or the benefit of just getting out of the house... and what it does have is rather a lot of people who will quit in the middle of games rather than lose.

Books and media

The final push to get the anime premieres over with crowded just about everything else out. Though I did finally remember to pre-order Salvation Lost.
( Politics )

Return of the Obra Dinn: "[I]f insurance is this much fun, I am in the wrong industry."

The Register on the impending arrival of a Russian android at the ISS: "My god, it's full of tsars"

In The Register today, Alistair Dabbs considers the dissonance between the sf vision of indestructible, immortal killer androids and today's short-lived, disposable electronics.

I would like to invite fantasy authors and screenwriters – not Tezuka or Asimov, they're dead – to take a peek at the electronics at the back of my bottom drawer.

Far from living forever, androids would be lucky to survive until next Thursday before triggering a TITSUP* subroutine. Computers, electronics, machines in general… they all spontaneously fall to bits and require insane levels of constant maintenance just to keep chugging along.

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Natterings From Nepantla

Entries tagged with the register

6/16/2023 Question of the day

Watch out for GPS bugs Sunday

The war on mollusks

Cicada fanfic

Two less dark stories

Panic-buy this, not that

Brexit, commemorative edition

Weekly diary, October 20, 2019

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Fandom

Gaming

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For the to-be-played pile

Headline of the day

If androids were like today's electronics

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