Posts by Jesthar

Re: and he'll probably destroy Twitter on the way

Am I the only one to have heard that original Lemmings style?

Re: The situation in Ireland is perhaps more interesting

If we accept that you aren't lying, then you seriously misunderstand reality. I'm a UK union rep, and employee protections in the UK are (currently) much stronger than pretty much anything in the US...

Re: Mandatory tech support

Many moons ago I caught one of our (third rate outsourcing company) IT hardware support techs washing a work laptop under the tap in the teapoint sink to try and get rid of a dead pixel...

I duly warned the owner of said laptop, who quite rightly refused to try and turn the thing on when it was returned (still damp in places), and the IT company ended up having to pay for an expensive brand new laptop rather charge us for a replacement screen for the old machine.

Not only do they multipy, but they can turn on their masters too. I run a monthly report known as the MONARCH report (because it is the One Report To Rule Them All, and I couldn't get away with using MORDOR ;) ).

I named the thing and it had a definite clever meaning, but after ten years even I can't remember what it stands for, only that the MON was short for 'Monthly.'

Of course, it still pays dividends - when we needed some secondary reports, they naturally became known as the Prince of Wales report (PoW), and then the Duke of Cambridge (DoC)... We did draw the line at Princess Beatrice, though!

Re: Exceptions for such dual-purpose signs have been arranged.

"I’d almost forgotten the aroma of a gas tap left open. Didn’t “they” have to add something for safety to aroma-less North Sea Gas or is my memory playing tricks?"

Indeed they did. My University campus had a site wide evacuation one day because a factory up the road that makes that smell had a leak...

Re: Good start

There was an Arty Murray years ago, in the last episode before the BOFH moved to El Reg: http://www.bofharchive.com/1999/bastard99-27.html

His fate was discussed in the first El Reg episode: https://www.theregister.com/2000/05/09/bofh_returns_from_the_dead/

:)

Re: woke-global-climate-change-bullcrap

Traditional hydrocarbons (coal, oil, NG) are finite - hence the qualifier.

Last I checked, most F-T processes use coal or NG to produce synthetic oil. Biomas is useable, but lagging behind in terms of commercial development and has more technical challenges. Could be useful if it can utilise primarily waste biomass from manufacturing/food processing, otherwise it's just converting one traditional non-renewable hydrocarbon to an alternate format - at a net energy loss, of course.

Sabatier does have a better track record using wood as a carbon source (though coal and NG are still more common), but it also seems to have found a key role in renewable energy heavy systems as a method of using excess energy when demand is low to produce fuel that can be used on demand to cover shortfalls when demand is high.

Sure, renewables are far from perfect, and need to improve a lot in many ways. But maybe recent events will provide the catalyst for focussing minds on trying to make those improvements, now that there will be a lot more profit to be made - especially by the first to crack the various problems., particularly regarding sustainable microgeneration I suspect.

Re: I love the smell of burning beancounter kit in the morning

In that case, I call crabwise to the Strand...

Re: I know, right?

I've always liked Billy Joel's "Great Wall Of China" - more subtle than direct in some in places, but some very clever expressions of the "We could have had everything, but you chose the douchebag route" sentiment. I believe it was aimed at his manager (a family member) who embezzled/mishandled millions of his earnings over the years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HP_uDksJu0

Re: Fight back / ramp down

Well, to be fair, it's a bit easier to remove tech support than a country-wide dependency on hydrocarbons. ;) One involves a major reworking and re-resourcing of critical national infrastructure by dedicated specialists, the other just involves not picking up the phone and binning support tickets (so, lack-of-service as usual, then, in my experience of this particular vendor... ;) )

It will be interesting to see how many Western businesses will dip a toe back into Russian waters once all this is over. One has to think that having been badly bitten once, they may be reluctant to gamble again.

Well, it's a fine list of whataboutery, I'll give you that, but I'm not entirely sure what your point is? Ukraine had a civil war against armed Russian backed separatists, therefore it deserves to be invaded by Russia? A specific peace treaty in Ukraine didn't last (twice - the first Minsk treaty suffered violations back and forth from both sides, the second Minsk treaty was almost immediately broken by a significant offensive from Russian backed separatists), therefore we should let Russia impose 'peace' for them? Ukraine is corrupt, therefore they can't be the victim of war crimes? Civilians died elsewhere, so it shouldn't be a concern in Ukraine? We shouldn't interfere in conflicts between other people, except when we should?

It's pretty much guaranteed that some civilians will die in any conflict. There is, however, a difference between collateral damage and deliberate targeting of civilians, and military forces are supposed to do all they can to minimise the risk to non-combatants. That part of the Geneva Conventions came about after WW2, the Blitz, and the subsequent flattenng of much of Germany by the Allies and Russia. Sure, there are going to be mistakes made. But it's hard to look upon the presence of mass graves, corpses with bound hands and execution style wounds, numerous reports of rape etc. and claim that is collateral damage.

As to corruption - well, yes, Ukraine has a corruption problem, second only to Russia in the whole of Europe if memory serves. That problem started with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and pretty much escalated identically alongside and in the same way as the Russian problem - until 2014, and the Revolution of Dignity. Since then, they've been slowly but steadily trying to root out corruption. They may have a long way to go, but at least they are trying. Maybe someday they'll only be as corrupt as, say, the US, or the UK.

Bottom line, this is an imperfect world and the human race makes a lot of mistakes. But we can always try and do better than before. Yes, that means we'll probably make more mistakes, as the only way to never make a mistake is to never do anything. Personally, I think that letting Russia have their way in Ukraine (which, essentially, involves the erasure of Ukraine as a separate culture and people) would be a mistake. Maybe you see that differently.

Re: Here's an idea

Why is it the cynic in me suspects the huge profit margins might well remain, and just be collected by pharmaceutical companies instead...

Re: Morals

Agreed - sometimes the boot is the best option.

Many moons ago I was IT admin in an engineering department of a big company. One of the project engineers was an absolute social turd - OK at his actual job, but delighted in antagonising others for the sole purpose of mocking and humiliating them to 'prove' his knowledge superiority. Women were a favourite target, so I was firmly in his sights until I out-argued him numerous times with witnesses (to the point where he would walk away when I arrived, which regularly let me run interference when he picked on the office admin girls).

I will add that our managers were decent and would normally have dealt with people like that pretty swiftly, but this guy was also an ethnic minority, VERY well versed in discrimination law (to the point of exploiting it for profit as a significant second income stream by suing people and businesses regularly), and played the race/discrimination card at the drop of a hat. So there was a certain amount of extra caution, and Mr Obnoxious clearly believed he was Teflon.

Until one evening my boss discreetly approached me as I was wrapping up for the day and quietly asked how long it would take to lock Mr Obnoxious out of certain key systems. "About 30 seconds, why?" I replied. "Please do it now - he's about to have a meeting he won't be coming back from. He'll probably win an unfair dismissal claim, but HR have said it's worth it to be rid of him..."

Shortly after, I left the building with a big grin on my face. Rumour had it the meeting was 'interesting, and loud' ;)

Re: He is very bright

My university had a tounge in cheek 'glossary of terms' in the freshers handouts. If memory serves, one entry read:

"Lecture: A period time wherin the first ten minutes is usually spent watching someone with three PhDs trying to figure out how to work the lights and OHP"

Re: Of course, being centrally controlled

You have to look beyond the weasel words. Of course he's going to be defending the app - it's kind of his job. But it's easy to keep repeating how everyone is wrong about it whilst not actually offering any specific details or answers to concerns, whilst deflecting from the real privacy concerns with constant reference to the app not 'tracking' anyone, when the real concerns come from the uniquely-to-your-app coded data which would be sent to the central server if you pushed the button - data you then lose all control over and can be used however the recipents see fit for - well, forever.

And, technically speaking, he's not wrong when he says the app doesn't track people - the app itself (in it's current incarnation, anyway - who knows how it might evolve) isn't a tracker in the way most people would use that term (like the running/cycling route tracker apps). It's the central server that does that part, isn't it...

Anyway, I'll trust El Reg over a government minister any day when it comes to technical analysis and honesty ;)

Re: Putting the bodies under the floorboards

Speaking as a fellow cat slave, try changing their diet. You wouldn't BELIEVE the difference switching to grain free food made to the - er - odour component of solid offerings with my two.

Also, CatSan is crap ;)

Re: Blink... Notepad?

Exactly - sometimes simple is extremely useful.

I don't do server stuff myself, but I still use notepad pretty much every day in my job - have yet to find a better way of stripping all formatting and hyperlinks off text in one swift move for moving between various applications, and I need to do that multiple times most days.

Re: Dirty Scammers

Mum and I have an ongoing competition for how long we can keep these muppets on the phone. Currently, she's winning - and she doesn't even have a computer! :D

My favourite call was quite brief, though, and still makes me laugh! As I recall, it went roughly as follows:

Scammer: (heavy Indian accent) Ma'am this is David and I'm calling from BT, how are you today?

Me: (opting for the bright and breezy approach) Awake!

Scammer: Ma'am, the reason I am calling is that we are worried about your internet, for the past few nights it has been sending us error messages which indicate to us it is being used illegally at night, do you understand?

Me: (thoughtfully) Riiight...

Scammer: Ma'am, we're talking about your router, OK? It's been hacked, OK?

Me: (energetically) Oh, right! Hang on, I work in IT, let me check the logs!

Scammer: You're an IT professional?

Me: Yes!

Scammer: Right. I am talking to Mrs <surname>, yes?

Me: No! (Not married, and not going to correct them!)

Scammer: (confused, talking loudly to self) Then who the hell are *YOU*?

Me: (trying not to laugh) Well, that's not very polite for this time in a morning!

Scammer: (realises he said the last sentance out loud, not in his head!) >click<

Re: Weird laws for sure

Yup, check these out: http://voices.yahoo.com/top-20-silliest-laws-alaska-275833.html

Think my favourite has to be #3 - "It is considered an offense to push a live moose out of a moving airplane" - I don't think I want to know HOW they wound up with that one...!

Re: missing the point I think

Being as I never respond to anything other than non-public family invites anyway (which come along once in a blue moon), and never public invites, highly unlikely I'll be featured anywhere. No comfort to other users, I know, but I did only say that *I* could live with it ;)

And if Failbook starts broadcasting private events to the world and his dog, then that's going to meet with some pretty vicious user backlash I should think...

Would be fun to try in London, though ;)

I'm not sure the car flattening only being a stunt has any bearing on being awarded the prize - he was just demonstrating that running them over with an APC was a potentially practicable way of solving the problem. And isn't that what scientific research is primarily concerned with, the exploration and validation (or otherwise) of hypotheses and/or theories? ;)