Something for the Weekend, Sir?Dabbsy has certain commitments which mean he won't be able to file a fresh one for you this week. So El Reg is running a column he wrote in 2013 in the hopes you don't remember reading it. We barely remember breakfast. Did we have breakfast? – Love, the Vulture backroom gremlins A colleague strides purposefully across the open- …

UpdatedA computer outage has caused worldwide delays for thousands of passengers using Delta Airlines. The US carrier tweeted about the issues on Monday morning, blaming delayed and cancelled flights on a “computer outage." Delta, based in Atlanta, Georgia, subsequently blamed the crash on a massive power cut at 2.38am ET (7.38am …

The Republic of Ireland’s IT industry would be damaged if its second-biggest trading partner Britain left the European Union. Firms are concerned about the impact on exports - particularly if the British economy and sterling hit the skids. Some think Ireland could benefit from international firms wanting an English-speaking …

PicsA large photo of a woman's bottom greets you as you walk in. Chat messages are emerging from it. Not to worry, it's only Olaf Breuning's mischievous "Text Butt" (2015). Immediately to your left is Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige's Geometry of Space (2014), a mixed-media installation comprising stretched oxidised steel, …

As rumoured last week, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is celebrating its fourth birthday today with the release of the Pi 3, packing a 1.2 GHz 64-bit ARM Cortex A53, 802.11n Wireless LAN capability and Bluetooth 4.1. The Raspberry Pi 3 The Raspberry Pi 3 We spoke to Pi head honcho Eben Upton last week ahead of the unleashing …

Geek's Guide to BritainOn the northern tip of Scotland stands Dounreay – 74 hectares of nuclear site encompassing the world's first fast breeder reactor, and one of the first nukes to be wired into a national grid. Built in an age of optimism – an era that wanted to turn the destructive power of The Bomb into energy that was too cheap to meter – …

Computer simulations can act as "virtual laboratories" and replace trial-and-error testing for creating new materials, say boffins at University College London. The UCL scientists used the power of two supercomputers to show how a composite material is formed, meaning that the properties of potential new materials can be …

The Home Office frittered away hundreds of millions of taxpayer pounds on a botched tech project designed to manage immigration and asylum applications, a National Audit Office report has revealed. The "flagship" IT programme, the Immigration Case Work computer system, was launched in 2010 to replace fragmented systems and …

When Pierre de Fermat famously complained that he didn't have space to write the proof of his famous “Fermat's Last Theorem”, he only ran out of space of the margin of a book. Now, a pair of mathematicians at the University of Liverpool in the UK have produced a 13GB proof that's sparked a debate about how to test it. The …

US authorities are investigating claims of embargo-busting sales of Dell computers to the Syrian government. It is understood officials at the US Department of Justice (DoJ) are looking into allegations that the equipment was resold into the blood-stained nation despite strict trade sanctions. The probe was revealed this week …

ArchaeologicIt took Japanese micro maker Sord more than six months to launch its M5 home computer in the UK, but in April 1983, the company said the Z80A-based machine would finally go on sale during the following month - half a year after it was originally scheduled to arrive over here. It was a bold move. Even in November 1982, when the …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?A colleague strides purposefully across the open-plan office to the production desk. She has the wrinkled brow and wild eyes of someone who is simultaneously baffled and angry. She’s on deadline but her computer is “doing stupid things” and she doesn’t understand what or why or how to stop it. Oh no, I'll have to ask Dabbsy …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?“My nephew bought me one of those iPad things for my birthday.” My heart sinks – I can already tell where this is going. I’m at a neighbour’s house party, the time is last summer, and one of the older partygoers is about to tell me that some new-fangled technology is too much for him to cope with now that he has reached the …

ArchaeologicHow popular - relatively speaking - was your early 1980s home computer? Thanks to some old chart data, we can tell you. Back in the day - 1983, to be precise - VNU Business Publications’ launched Personal Computer News, a glossy magazine pitched against the weekly incumbent, Sunshine’s newsprint Popular Computing Weekly. A …

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has opened an online software shop tied to its cheap-as-chips micro-computer. The Pi Store - not, alas, "the Pi Shop", which Brits will surely agree sounds better - is intended to provide a port of call for users seeking apps, games, tools and guidance to help them make the most of their wee, ARM- …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?My in-laws are a boisterous clan, or so it seems to a reserved half-Scot like myself. You see, they are French... well, more of a volatile Spanish-Italian-Latin mix with an explosive temper born from a Mediterranean climate, macho upbringing and unspeakable experiences in revolutionary Algeria. Meals are embellished with …

Something for the Weekend, Sir?I like my house zen. Unfortunately, I am a hoarder, so it’s not. My half-life wife has been trying to educate me by making me watch TV programmes with titles like Extreme Hoarders, I Can’t Stop Hoarding and Smelly Old Fat Bastards Who Don’t Wash And Won’t Throw Anything Away. To some extent, this does the trick. After each …

As a journalist, engineer and car nut enthusiast, I can easily find myself spending hours upon hours poring over technical documents and workshop manuals, among them tomes published by Haynes. This time, however, I’m looking at something less mechanical and more digital: the latest in Haynes’ Build Your Own Computer series, …