Posts by DJV 2657 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Aug 2009
One of my previous tower PCs had a power switch right on the top of the front panel itself. The manufacturer had carefully designed the top of the panel so that it was slightly lower than the top of the PC case itself. This meant that placing anything on top of the PC wouldn't accidentally depress the power switch.
Of course, they never factored in cats jumping on top of the PC and switching it off!
...one way of creating passwords might be to use one of the many combinations of three words from What3Words that just happen to be on the grounds of your residence.
Of course, those of us in the British Isles can also use the four-word version from: https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/
For example, the following might be an appropriate password for the "artist" formally known as a prince: pussypounder.weeb.pissartist.fartlozenge
Indeed, I patch as soon as updates are available on my Linux Mint machines.
However, on my one remaining Windows 10 LTSC PC, I prefer to defer the installation for a few days until I know for certain that the latest patch won't bring the machine to its knees. At least Windows 10 is getting off more lightly when it comes to machine-breaking, untested (until it hits the consumers) junk-filled, AI-written update slop than its younger sibling.
"Anyone else notice that the anode cap on a CRT is exactly where your thumb lands when you pick one up?"
YES!!! Another ex-TV engineer here.
Did you ever replace an old CRT and not check that the connection to the scan coils was fully home? The horizontal burn line across the brand new CRT was quite spectacular and necessitated its immediate replacement with a second brand new CRT. I did it only once - you don't make that kind of mistake twice (well, not if you want to keep your job).
I am freelance/self-employed, building websites for all and sundry. CEST couldn't even handle the idea that I might be working for multiple organisations and decided I should have been employed. CEST was obviously specified by and written by idiots who had no idea of the variation out in the real world.
When I was a trainee TV technician back in the 1970s, we had a punched card and clippers system that recorded each job we did by clipping out the appropriate sections around the edge. It was then a relatively quick job to tot up the jobs and their types done each week at the branch by poking rods through the holes and counting those cards that fell out.
An example can be seen here.
True!
Back in the 1990s, when I was at university, we had a mix of (never quite enough) Windows PCs and Macs. When you needed to do some word processing, you had to grab the first available computer. Both of them were running Word that had 'exactly' the same version number. However, moving a document between the Windows version and the Mac version more often than not would screw up the formatting in subtle but very annoying ways.
As far as I am concerned, Anthropic Claude and all of his delusional, hallucinating AI mates can basically F&CK RIGHT OFF!
Then again, they do sometimes give us a bit of a laugh when those who should know better make use of them (Copilot in this case) and embarrass themselves by treating the output as gospel!
It's almost enough to make you long for older, simpler times when your CPU had, at most, one or two clock speeds*, followed a simple name and numbering system, and AI was just something that only science fiction writers banged on about.
* e.g. 6502 = 1MHz, 6502A = 2MHz, anything faster? = tough, it ain't available**
** Yes, I know that, later on, faster versions did become available.
Sigh...
So, Douglas Adams might have been right about the Shoe Event Horizon!
Thanks, Liam, for the original article back in April 2025. I only have one Windows PC left (the rest are all running Linux now), but I still have a few programs (NOT apps!!!) that still require the Windows behemoth, hence the one rescued via your LTSC article (and the massgrave site).
Not a prank, but all this does remind me of when I worked in IT Support back around 1998, long before optical mice were a common thing. We used to get numerous complaints about mice not working due to the build up of crap on the rollers and balls. I used to remove all the balls and take them to the nearest "gents" and give them a good soak in a basin of warm, soapy water. Other staff entering the loo would ask, "What are you doing?"
"Washing my balls," I'd reply.
Reminds me of my days in the early 1970s when I was an apprentice/trainee TV engineer for Rediffusion. I had accompanied an engineer called Mack to collect a rental TV that the customer no longer required. As the mains socket was the other side of the chimney breast, the customer had, at some point, extended the mains cable using the then still legal "taped joint" - i.e. twisting the wires together and wrapping the whole thing in insulating tape.
As the customer wanted to keep their section of wire they'd used to extend it, Mack said, "Fine. Please unplug the cable and I will just cut it with these (insulated, thank goodness) snips at the taped joint."
"It's unplugged," says the customer.
Snip - BANG!
"Oops," says the customer, "I think I may have unplugged the wrong cable."
Mack stands there in shock, staring at his snips, which, by this point, had a large, smoking hole blown out of the cutting edges.
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