Posts by jake

Re: Lockable outlet?

We're not talking about twistlocks. We're talking about locking "in use" covers. (They also make 'em for plug/socket combinations that should not be plugged in.)

Re: The cleaner did it.

That reminds me ... We banned floor wax in data centers when HDDs first became common ... The reason was that the wax made it easier for the big machines to "walk" when in use, sometimes far enough to pull their own power and/or data cables. I had one block the only door in once, in the throws of committing suicide ... I had to climb over the hanging ceiling to get in to restore order.

At DEC and SLAC, we actually pulled the tiles a few at a time, took them outside & scuffed them with 120 grit on an orbital sander, wiped them down with a tack cloth and then replaced them. Made for better traction, and fewer incidents of equipment going walkies without permission.

This precedent of "telling the cleaning staff their job" (as it was claimed) made it easier when we finally kicked them (almost) completely out of the machine room ...

Re: Urban Legend? It's not always the cleaner

JCB manufactures heavy equipment (among other things).

One such piece of heavy equipment is called a backhoe.

Other manufacturers of heavy equipment also make backhoes.

A friend "over there" owns a Case 580N backhoe. She doesn't call it a JCB.

Re: UPS won't save you

Get it in writing, or you WILL get the blame when the inevitable happens. Especially if their insurance company starts digging into it. If you can't get it in writing, fire your client. Contrary to popular belief, the customer is NOT always right!

Re: Lockable outlet?

All you need is a locking plug cover. I've used these in the past with good results. The smallest of locks will stop all but folks who are determined to be disruptive[0] ... and they can bring cutters to the party, so unless you want to invest in armored cables ... anyway, use your favorite search engine, search on "lockable plug cover" or "locking Receptacle Cover".

[0] Locks are only there to stop crimes of opportunity. Most are easily bypassed.

Re: Simply Ghastly...

Read the specs. The noise is battery powered, the mains keeps the battery topped up.

A small gelcell, sonalert+LED and relay does pretty much the same thing. A simple charging circuit keeps the gelcell topped up. The battery will power a sonalert for a surprisingly long time. Most datacenter cabinets should have them mounted ... although many have the noise unplugged.

These things have lots of similar uses ... At various times, I've had 'em mounted on my office door, file cabinet, desk drawers, the doors of various equipment racks, tool boxen, etc.

Re: Win2000

I still have a Win2K box up and running. It's the only Redmond OS I still have running. I use it nearly every day. The only reason she still exists is to run ACad2K. She has never, not once, been down when I needed her. The only time I remember her crashing was when I was sorting out drivers 20 years ago. Win2K was the absolute peak of Redmond operating systems.

She's airgapped now, so fuhgeddaboudit.

Re: Greasy kebabs + cotton money = animal traces everywhere!

Its from this post, about three years ago.

Methinks the good Dr. Jones is a trifle confuzled. Or perhaps his (her?) software is rusty; probably not enough cosmoline for the British climate.

Re: Netflix stock

To hell with single company stocks. Look into Index Funds. I suspect I'll do alright between now and this time next year ...

Re: Friday

Some say there are both Pure and Applied Hairdressing courses. Naturally, the pure professors are said to be Scientists, while the Applied are Boffins.

Re: you'd still struggle to get through a couple of rolls

The thing that none of all y'all have addressed ... What size roll? Roll size varies from manufacturer to manufacturer ... to say nothing of so-called "double" and "triple" rolls.

Also, the type of paper makes a difference. Do you lot still have that government issued stuff with the texture of machine shop waste and all the absorbancy of waxed paper? I think the one roll that was in the boy's WC at school when I got there for 2nd year was still there after A levels ... and it may still be there, forty odd years later. Nobody, and I mean nobody, would use the boy's loo for anything other than peeing. Rumo(u)r had it that the girls had a version that was a trifle kinder to the tender parts. When I found out this last was actually true (late Chem lab, I saw the janitor replenishing their stash), I threatened to swim back across the pond & walk the rest of the way home, back to civilization.

Re: Oh My!

Well, there's a commie sympathizer in the Oval Office. Does that count?

(Has anybody tapped McCarthy's grave yet? He must be spinning fast enough to light up the entire shoreline of Lake Michigan ...)

Re: Facebook and Twitter

It's not prognostication when it's already happening.

I wonder how long it'll be before Europe automatically goes into lockdown because somebody sneezes in Japan ... The world is losing it's tiny little collective mind over this thing.

We need to get a little perspective here ... How many people will die TODAY from the effects of smoking? How many will die THIS YEAR from Corona, it all its variations?

And more importantly, how many supposed Corona victims would NOT have died if they weren't smokers? Does that make Corona the killer, or tobacco?

Re: Testing kits

"Sort of like when California air dropped test kits to the cruise ship while it was in harbor"

It wasn't "in harbour" at the time. It was over 50 miles offshore.

Re: Obvious Reason Why

"Pity impeachment wasn't successful."

Actually, he was impeached. However, the Senate chose to ignore facts and allowed him to remain in office. For the moment. (Gut feeling is that even the conservative ultra-right old guard doesn't want that fucking nutcase Pence in the oval office, not even for a couple of months ...)

Re: Oh My!

"waiting for a horse called Binky"

In the third at Aqueduct?

Re: The White House response...?

The entire world would be better off if all politicians everywhere were brought up on a steady diet of the likes of The Cramps Everything Goes ...

Re: Oh My!

Panic? Mo, it's just that the Religious Right who are currently in charge of the Oval Office are tired of getting laughed at when they talk complete bollocks about science.

Hey, guys: It's not working. We're still laughing at you, you fucking idiots! :-D

Re: Without Whisper....

More to the point, what is brexit going to do to the price of Real Ale?

Re: If you want to keep something really secret . . .

I'd add to that "AND KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, YOU FUCKING MORON!".

"When three sit down to talk revolution, two are fools and the third is a police spy."

"and fewer attempts by El Reg to determine unscientically / randomly by algorithm if we're sexual predators or not."

Post proof or retract.

Re: Whisper's Chinese financial ties

Note to my fellow Yanks: "Chinese Whispers" is the name the Brits (and non-Yank derivatives) use for the children's game we call "Telephone".

This trans-Atlantic translation service brought to you by the letter T and the number 6. We now return you to your usual unfounded speculation and bickering

"900 million user records" and "90 metadata fields" suggests 10 million users. And it's not really users, it's induhvidual logins, including those who tried it once and then never went back, and the ubiquitous trolls with multiple accounts. I'd be surprised if they have even one million active users.

Re: MS at least try to be the good guys every now and then

Indeed. How many man-hours world-wide would have been saved if the corporate world had quite sensibly told Redmond to fuck off way back when? More to the point, why the fuck do people still allow the garbage from Microsoft on their corporate systems? I wonder how many billions of dollars (trillions?) have been wasted in this charade?

Re: MS at least try to be the good guys every now and then

The answer to your questions is "yes".

Also, the bulk of Windows users are quite gullible when it comes to technology. (Note that I have made no comment about any other OS before your knee jerks itself out of socket.)

Re: fun facts

The deliberate mispleling/typoe/fat figner when correcting someone is tradition, indicating that the writer acknowledges that he, too, is only human and also makes misteaks. Goes back to BBSes, before USENET.

Re: The benefits of working for the company

"my copies were stolen in a car break in"

There's a special place in hell ...

If that kind of talent were normal ...

... we would undoubtedly find it boring. Or worse.

Re: Reg Anonymiser needs re-calibration

Shirley one's tucker bag should be full of dunny roll in this age of the "we're all gonna die!!!1!111!!!!!" Corona virus? (Is it called the Fosters virus down under? The two are equally vile ... ) Besides, mine was set upon by an angry Thylarctos plummetus.

Re: Had a mischeif disk...

"calling it an optional hobby and comparing it to knitting is really beyond the pale."

True enough. Knitting is an important skill that keeps people warm and alive in cold climates. Religion? Not so much, unless you are one of the shamans suckering the rubes.

I call for the deletion of this gratuitous knitting bashing immediately!

Re: Why reinstall Win3.1?

"Quarterdeck's offerings did something similar on top of a dos system which you could run windows inside of - but generally didn't need to as it had its own UI and would run windows programs directly"

Eh? I ran Quarterdeck's stuff from Desq on (pre DESQview). I do not remember any of their products that would allow one to run Windows programs without Windows. Elucidate?

Re: Timing is off..

"Stargate and Bob are apparently not the same person."

Not even close. Who would think that?

Re: Error

Except that 8gig drives weren't available to the public until very late in '97 (Maxtor's first 8.4 Gig drive was on store shelves in time for Xmas) ... at which point the price had dropped to about 8.5 cents per meg.

Re: DUKE NUKE'EM

I think you just b0rked my parser ...

Re: Timing is off..

To really complete the history lesson, at the same time Microsoft was pissed off at IBM because Apple was actively courting them ... which resulted in the Pink/Taligent dead-end clusterfuck a couple of years later instead of IBM being involved in Microsoft's Cairo vision, which was another dead-end clusterfuck. Gawd/ess knows how much money was wasted between the three of them during the decade long three-way hissy-fit ...

Re: Bash gets the extend, embrace, extinguish treatment @phuzz

"I've seen the loss of influence of the *IX admins, and the corresponding rise in Windows almost everywhere I've worked over the last 20 years"

I've seen quite the opposite, and apparently so has Redmond. There is a reason they are playing with Linux, and it's not because they are suddenly seeing eye to eye with The Friends of RMS.