back to article ‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’

The On Call mailbag is bulging with contributions from readers who want to add to The Register’s Dirt File, a seasonal spin-off of our weekly On Call column about tech support nightmares that focuses on the dirtiest, nastiest, grottiest, and filthiest environments in which readers have been asked to work. To open this …

  1. DS999 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    These stories are crazy

    A server rack in a public area in an airport? And what the heck does a sports bar need with four PCs located near the front entrance?

    I hope the employers of those in the article performing the onsite service charged suitably insane rates to the customers who are dumb enough to make the choices that resulted in what I just read!

    1. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Re: These stories are crazy

      "And what the heck does a sports bar need with four PCs located near the front entrance?"

      Presumably that is where the cable for the TV and internet is located so they just put the cupboard in front of the wall socket and put all the computer equipment in there. I've seen this a few times, I think it is because both VM and Sky have a bad habit of saying to only use the provided coax cable.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: These stories are crazy

        It is also logisticall easier and cheaper to put the PC near the screen, rather than have it in a back room and a 20M+ HDMI cable run all around the public area to the screen. I've seen both ways, neither is a very good solution.

    2. Graham Dawson

      Re: These stories are crazy

      Point of sale machines are usually just a glorified pc these days.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: These stories are crazy

        The talk of "CPU fans" suggests they aren't POS machines. Nor would you locate all of your POS machines next to the front door. They would be located behind the bar for bartenders, and spread around the establishment so servers don't have to walk as far to the nearest one to input a customer order. You'd have at most one by the front door, to be used by the hostess who does the seating.

        Source: I owned a sports bar for 15 years.

        1. sev.monster

          Re: These stories are crazy

          Many older PoS machines not only lived up to the acronym, but also most certianly had fans. They were incredibly chunky.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: These stories are crazy

          I've also used POS machines that weren't dedicated machines at all. It's possible to do the whole lot from a PC with a cash drawer connected. Cleared a mouse nest out of one once, back in the days when Dell machines were indestructible.

          1. sev.monster
            Holmes

            Re: These stories are crazy

            Why do the sales reps keep shoving the pointing devices inside the computer case?

    3. jake Silver badge

      Re: These stories are crazy

      You should see the insides of the computers in the barns when I clean 'em out roughly quarterly. It's especially bad when we've been clipping horses.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: These stories are crazy

        Been there, office in a cowshed. The quantity of smelly dust that comes from cows has to be seen to be believed.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: These stories are crazy

      IPTV, multiple displays with multiple different channels. Years ago you used to be able to put satellite cards in them with a C/Nline to decrypt channels. Not sure if that's still a thing but you can get free to air Satellite and terrestrial TV cards.

      Server rack in the airport will have been a redesign where no one took it into account. Not sure why they wouldn't have it protected though or move the cables if at all possible. It is an airport after all so probably not much down time.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: These stories are crazy

        quite often units are independent franchises. these tend to have little physical storage so it is quite common to have a small comms cabinet with vpn/firewall, network and server under the POS.

        In a company we worked at, one guy left a leaving present of a full crab in his base unit.

        we had a call that gis base unit wasnt working. The smell when we opened the base unit was indescribable.Cue a job for the apprentice.

    5. Marty McFly Silver badge
      Go

      Re: These stories are crazy

      Servers in the hallway sounds crazy, but there could have been a good reason.

      I was part of the tech staff for a major customer trade show event. We had all the rooms we needed at the Vegas convention center to hold all the back end equipment - ESX servers, drive arrays, switches, etc. Unfortunately we underestimated the ability for the convention center's cooling to keep up. There was plenty available, it is just the system was never balanced to pump that much into rooms which normally host a PowerPoint and a couple dozen conventioneers.

      On the 2nd day we rolled all the racks out in to the main foyer, a room several hundred feet long, escalators going to the upper floors, etc. Tossed some stanchions with velvet ropes around the racks and stationed an eager PFY to keep an eye on things.

      No more cooling problems.

    6. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: These stories are crazy

      It's the server rack in a public area that sounds ridiculous.

      Airports are big, busy places. And people will stuff rubbish anywhere- especially if there aren't any actual bins around ( or close by).

      Why would anyone wilfully place any kind of kit in a public area like that? It sounds like taking sloppiness to a whole new level of irresponsibility.

      1. Spanners
        Alien

        Re: These stories are crazy

        Why would anyone wilfully place any kind of kit in a public area like that?

        I suspect input from the Department of Bright Ideas - often full of accountants and professional suit wearers, both proud if their IT illiteracy.

      2. Noram

        Re: These stories are crazy

        That sounds like something was renovated/moved around and no one was willing to pay (or deal with the disruption) to potentially reroute a load of cabling to another location that might have been a long way off.

        The description reminds me of some of the unit's i've seen in warehouse retailers, where they've had an island with POS/information kiosks and then a decorative duct/pillar going up with all the cabling in it (if you looked about 8 foot up you'd see the "pillar" end in a frame with the cabling etc), but for whatever reason they didn't bother with that part, probably because it would have "looked wrong" or someone didn't want to pay to run it up high enough/run the cabling through one.

        Never underestimate how manglement and accountants can look at two options and decide the one that is cheaper in the short term but has the most potential for things going badly wrong (and costing far more) is the one to go with.

        Or how many designers and even techs will decide to do something without taking into account human nature, or where it's going to be placed.

      3. Ken Shabby Bronze badge
        Holmes

        Re: These stories are crazy

        Put a bin next to it?

  2. jake Silver badge

    Not to whine about it ...

    Here at chez jake, the only thing we worry about in the barrel rooms is excess CO2, and then only during crush and fermentation, and in cases where we know we'll get some secondary fermentation after moving barrels around. Needless to say, we have sensors down there to tell the fans to augment the natural ventilation if the percentage of CO2 is seen to rise. The small amount of alcohol that escapes the barrels as the plonk ages is nowhere near enough to catch a buzz by inhalation, even if the fans don't kick in for a few weeks or months (right now, the computer says the fans haven't run since mid November). In fact, idiot Yuppies pay me good money to have sleepovers down in the wine caves. It's perfectly safe, if a trifle chilly & humid for my taste in good napping spots.

    1. AbortRetryFail

      Re: Not to whine about it ...

      I seem to recall Mythbusters (or similar) seeing if you could get drunk by inhaling alcohol vapour, and I seem to recall a small sauna and pouring bottles of vodka directly onto the coals/rocks to vaporise it and, whilst their blood alcohol level did rise, it was not by a massive amount.

      So I'm with you on this; sounds highly implausible.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Not to whine about it ...

        Duration of exposure might be a factor.

      2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Ah, Mythbusters. Great show. Always ends with a bang ;)

        1. bemusedHorseman
          Thumb Up

          Remember kids, the only difference between "screwing around" and "science" is writing it down!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Am i missing an eyebrow?"

            1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

              I reject your reality, and substitute one of my own...

              1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

                Well there's your problem...

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Not to whine about it ...

        Duration of exposure might be a factor., as may Dennis's sensitivity to alcohol.

    2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: Not to whine about it ...

      we have sensors down there

      That reminds me of reporting high co2 level to building management and then them saying it is within allowed range. Then you look around the office and most people are half asleep.

      Always carry your own sensor that you trust.

      Anyway, that was my last day working there.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Not to whine about it ...

        "within allowed range" probably just means it won't result in you being carried out on a stretcher at the end of each working day. It won't mean the employer gets a decent day's productivity. Still, as long as they are paying a decent day's wages, I suppose that is their problem.

      2. G.Y.

        schools Re: Not to whine about it ...

        Some US schools would confiscate the CO2 detectors kids took in (CO2 is a good proxy for bad ventilation & COVID risk)

        1. sev.monster

          Re: schools Not to whine about it ...

          Probably thought they were newfangled gaming devices. "Oh, the kids and their beepy-boops!"

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: schools Not to whine about it ...

          Speaking of CO2 detectors

          A bunch of chinese "AQI" meters which report CO and CO2 levels are actually utterly insensitive to either gas and are reporting levels derived from the VOC sensor they have

          Some have extra sensors for temp/humi and particle counts but but the gas ppm or ug/m^3 readings are all based on alcohol detection

          These things are dangerous - they not only miss lethal levels of Co2/CO but they also falsely report high levels when there isn't any of these gasses around - giving a false sense of confidence that they're working

        3. Excused Boots Silver badge

          Re: schools Not to whine about it ...

          Yep confiscate the CO2 detector, the Colt 46, yea,

          that’s fine!

          Sorry, couldn’t resist the obvious

    3. NXM

      Re: Not to whine about it ...

      I'd blame CO2 as well, it can be really dangerous especially because it's heavier than air and doesn't waft away in still conditions.

      Round here a farmer's son went up the ladder to the top of the slurry tank (a very large, open-top cylinder for cow ... errr ... produce) for some reason. The CO2 overcame him and he fell in. His dad went up to try to pull him out and fell in too. Both died.

      1. Yes Me Silver badge

        Re: Not to whine about it ...

        Sadly, they are far from the only ones. In an industrial context, cleaning out a tank that normally contains pure nitrogen is how exactly the same thing can happen.

        On a lighter note, a true story: machine operator staples her hand (badly but not fatally) by bypassing a security shield. Next day, safety inspector asks the foreman how it happened. "Like this" says the foreman, bypasses the security flap, and staples his hand.

        No doubt that has happened many times in many places. This one was in about 1964 at the Metalastik factory in Leicester.

        1. Potty Professor
          Facepalm

          Re: Not to whine about it ...

          Place where I worked made huge transformers (amongst other electrical equipment). One of our external contractors was working above one such whilst the lid was off (naughty), and unfortunately fell in. As you can't swim in transformer oil, he was walking about, up to his neck in the oil, until someone managed to find a ladder and lower it into the tank for him to climb out.

          He wasn't badly injured, but our Security department insisted on putting him in our venerable LDV Sherpa ambulance and whisking him off to the local hospital. He was showered to within an inch of his life and then kept in overnight for observation, before being discharged next morning.

          He was ferried home by taxi, still wearing nothing but his hospital gown, so that he could put on fresh clothes and return to work. His old work clothes were destroyed as they were sodden with transformer oil, and that don't come out easy!

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Not to whine about it ...

            If this wasn't recent, then that oil was probably loaded with PCBs (banned in the USA in the 1980s but only in the 2010s in Europe) and sending him to hospital to be cleaned up was the right move

            1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
              Mushroom

              Re: Not to whine about it ...

              Could have been worse (those of a sensitive disposition look away now).

              My old company had a large transformer / substation in a ground floor room, and some water (H20) got into the oil. When it was turned on the thing blew up killing the four people in there om and blowing the external wall across the adjacent street (fortunately no one else was hurt).

              It seems that high voltage and current electricity, water and oil really do not mix well.

              Explosion icon because that is what happened.

          2. I could be a dog really Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Re: Not to whine about it ...

            ... still wearing nothing but his hospital gown

            That reminds me of a story from a few decades ago, when we had a small coal fired power station nearby.

            It was common for the apprentices from a large engineering firm to be taken down there for a jollyeducational visit - see "big engineering". Now one of the most hazardous operations is lighting up the boilers - blow a fluidised mix of air and coal powder into the furnace and light it. In case it goes wrong, there were large flaps on the side of the furnace. The apprentices were walking along a gangway near these flaps, while the operators were lighting up and I think you can guess the rest - they all ended up black from head to toe with coal dust.

            Cue apprentices arriving back at the training school dressed in nothing but GEGB overalls.

        2. Spazturtle Silver badge

          Re: Not to whine about it ...

          Nitrogen atmospheres in enclosed spaces are a danger on ships that have claimed many lives, anchor holds are notorious for this.

          The oxygen in the air reacts with the steel of the ship (also known as rusting) and as there is no replacement air eventually the enclosed space runs out of oxygen, so you just have an atmosphere of nitrogen with a bit of carbon dioxide.

          Never enter an enclosed space without breathing apparatus, also if you are a big person make sure your breathing apparatus can supply enough oxygen for you.

          Never attempt to rescue somebody from an enclosed space without the proper training and equipment, a second casualty just makes things harder.

          1. Caver_Dave Silver badge
            Alert

            Re: Not to whine about it ...

            Used to work somewhere that had the largest customer liquid Nitrogen tank in the UK. There was a dry pond just downhill of it to catch any leakage, to protect the later built housing estate further down the hill.

            Only had the really high levels of CO2 in a cave once (Manor Farm Swallet, Mendips, UK), lethargy, a stinking headache and quite a lot of difficulty getting out. Been in there when CO2 was fairly low and it was an eye-opener to see the stupid things some people were doing as they could not think straight, and of course we got it on video! (CO2 levels are high as the water run-off from the Manor Farm cattle yard enters the cave.) On one trip down there both of us caught Leptospirosis - not pleasant! It's not even that pretty a cave, and so I don't know why I keep going down there!

  3. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Coat

    Not much to

    report here PC wise.

    Dead laptops via the plating tank... but did discover what happens when you have a pair of industrial water filters and they are suppossed to switch daily, but the relay is fried and have'nt been switched for 6 months until the working one has clogged.....

    Also discovered what the apprentice(me) is for

    Coat.. because everyone left when I arrived

  4. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    PC-Board Dust Blankets

    I have opened pizza-box-case-style computers to find a blanket of fluff and dust laying on the motherboard. Depending on the dust blanket, if you are careful and gentle, you can remove it mostly-intact and place it into the waste bin.

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: PC-Board Dust Blankets

      Important tip: take the PC outside before you try to remove the dust. And make sure you're up-wind.

      1. ITS Retired

        Re: PC-Board Dust Blankets

        And away from any obstruction, buildings, vehicles, etc. The breeze, wind can whip the dirt in unexpected directions. A mask is recommended, just in case.

        Once was enough.

        1. J. Cook Silver badge

          Re: PC-Board Dust Blankets

          All of that. ALL. OF. THAT.

          Back when we were still running physical boxes, we had to move them to a new data center, and we decided to give them a good cleaning out before we racked them in their new home.

          This was always done outside, because no one wanted to deal with the cloud of dust, ash, and other smoking byproducts that managed to get sucked in. 'gross' doesn't begin to describe it.

    2. Marty McFly Silver badge

      Re: PC-Board Dust Blankets

      Back in the early days I upgraded some DOS-based Point-of-Sale x286 slim-line boxes to new sexy x486 boxes. The old PCs were in a kitchen near all the prep & cooking areas. Their insides were a sticky gray felt mess,

      Credit where it is due... The upgrade was happening because the x486 boxes were faster, not because the x286 boxes were failing. They were still soldiering on despite their hostile workplace environment.

    3. FishCounter

      Re: PC-Board Dust Blankets

      Our client support team has often vacuumed out dusty desktops and when powering on the "clean" desktop, the power supply fails, requiring replacement. Turns out the insulating layer of dusty/crud was serving a purpose.

  5. Grogan Silver badge

    Computers are filthy things... I always hated bringing them here (prefer to work on-site, but that's not always practical). Hair and dander, dust, and... I can pretty much tell what carpet cleaner they use from the smell. That's probably the thing that bothers me the most (I don't have allergies, just normal irritation from dust). They'd get a vaccuum (case ans, crevices etc.) and a blow (boards, CPU, graphics cards etc.) before I start but it still sucks.

    Worse is when the power supply fails in such a way that it smokes while you aren't in the room. I once brought one here... I should have heeded the warning. When I first turned it on, the lights dimmed briefly. As I was cleaning it up I started a scan operation and went upstairs to eat. Tranquility shattered by the smoke detector. Not only did it smoke in its death throes, it fried a $300 UPS (at the time a 1500 VA unit was expensive). That was my reward for protecting my work. I took the computer back and practically threw it at the owner. "Don't ever plug this in again". The walls had to be washed down in this room to get rid of the smell.

    1. David Newall

      So you didn't replace the power supply?

    2. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Blame Where Blame is NOT Due

      @Grogan: Why did you blame the PC's owner for his PC's smokiness? He probably didn't know much about computers, which is why he called in a pro -- you.

      1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
        Angel

        Re: Blame Where Blame is NOT Due

        You don't seem to read a lot here: PC Technicians are deities: they know far more than any other human alive can ever hope to achieve. Any other computer user is more stupid than a complete imbecile in the eyes of the mighty PC repairman.

  6. BigJohn

    I worked for a local council quite a while ago. We would need to visit councillors home addresses and fix their IT, router issues, printers etc.

    One such councillor lived on a farm of sorts, It looked a bit dodgy when I arrived as there were chickens all over the place, When in the house, they were everywhere there as well, The router that was causing the issue was located on the floor under a coffee table, there were chicken droppings everywhere, could not see that carpet. Once I swapped the broadband filter, all was working and I made a speedy exit.

    Told my boss about it, he didn't believe me, but I said I was not going back. The next time a visit was needed, he went himself. Low and behold, when he returned, he said no one was going to revisit from IT, and that they would have to resolve all issues themselves.

  7. sev.monster

    Used to work at Geek Squad. I had a certifiable grade-A gamer come in with some disgusting RGB-coated off-the-shelf Epic Gamer PC™. He said it would randomly turn off after a few minutes or somesuch.

    When I say it was disgusting I both mean the design was horrid, and it looked like he propped up unwashed feet on it over the span of twenty years without so much as blowing on it. The outside was caked in a suspiciously sticky substance that attracted caked-on dirt and grime, all the screw holes were filled with fuzz, and I knew what had to be done.

    I donned some rubber gloves and brought it out to the vehicle bay. I asked our resident tatted-out autotech if I could open the side garage door for a little while, and he said sure, before going to have a smoke. So I opened the door, checked the wind—it was in my favor, plopped the thing on the side access street, and opened the case.

    Now, it wasn't so bad—at first. Visually, I could not see any of the components inside. But most of the fuzz was somehow sticky or slimy enough that it did not move very much, even with the little breeze that was going on. I lay it down on its side, open side up, and a little bit dislodges and is carried away by the breeze. Good, I think to myself, this will go well. I go pull down the rectractable air compressor reel from the ceiling, rummage around in the autotech's drawers (the ones with the screw—the ones with the nozzle—the vehicle hardware ones) to find and replace the nozzle with one that I could easily actuate with a free hand, and point the hose in the vauge direction of the computer case.

    The resulting dust cloud was so tall and thick, it surpassed the height of the building. I crouched there blowing the thing (autotech's drawers fully attached mind you) for a good five minutes and not once did the cloud lose form. The sticky substance holding together the dust and grime inside the case somehow gave it enough structural rigidity to prevent the whole wad from being blown at once. The GM came running over after a while because he thought there was trouble, but he immediately turned around when he accidentally inhaled some of the flying gunk. I guess he didn't swing that way.

    After I was done with my role, I guessed that no amount of aftercare would save the board, as it was thoroughly doused in whatever sticky, greasy, unidentified fluid coated the outside case. At this point, I realized it was likely not feet sweat, not "something from the drawers", but rather most likely stale vape juice that covered this wreck. After packaging it all back up and testing to make sure it worked, I called back the owner to inform him his issue had been resolved and to come pick up his machine. I asked him if he vapes, and at the mere mention, he immediately pulls out a pair of massive juice-suckers to show off. Now quelling my laviscious thoughts to avoid any undue outbursts at the man, I calmly inform him that his computer is caked in the residue of his juices, and he should probably stop sucking on his vape rods so close to his computer. And he says, I kid you not, he likes hot-boxing his room with them.

    So at that point I check him out and send him on his way with his computer, fully expecting to see him again for round two.

    Sadly the store closed before I was able to blow the computer again, or so much as learn its fate.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      " it was thoroughly doused in whatever sticky, greasy, unidentified fluid coated the outside case."

      A bucket of hot soapy (detergenty) water and toothbrush usually works (followed by a clean water rinse and washoff with isopropyl)

      Source: "Back in the day" when I was an apprentice we had to regularly clean printing calculators and cash registers that had been used by chainsmoking accountants/clerks (Also a few cash registers that lived in pubs - they were usually swimming in "stuff" internally).

      As they were expensive (late 70s-early 80s) it was deemed desireable to save them. These days I'd declare them a biohazard and return them in a sealed plastic bag

      1. sev.monster

        While I completely agree with you, I certainly didn't get paid enough at the time to scrub that trainwreck of a computer. Kudos to you though for braving the gunk.

      2. Death Boffin

        Unidentified substances

        Back before PCs I was the delivery driver for an adding machine supplier. One of the contracts was with a Chinatown butcher shop. For some reason the adding machine was kept in the back in the butchering area. Monthly I had to go there and trade out machines. It was definitely a little shop of horrors. What was caked onto the machines was indescribable along with the smell. Fortunately I was only the delivery boy, the technicians back at the shop had to actually clean the things.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Please pass the mind bleach, I thought I'd forgotten about ...

        In a previous job, we'd get computers in, and as described some of them would be "manky". One though really was - it was brown. Everything was brown - the case bits that should have been black were brown, the case bits that should have been silver were brown (perhaps a lighter shade being on silver instead of black). And inside was worse - having been force fed the user's atmosphere by the fans. To say this guy smoked would be an understatement. And he wasn't all that much better - if you think of the stereotypical hippy with long unkempt beard and hair, stylisticially dechevilled clothes, and "an odour of old pub smoking room" then you'd be somewhere near.

        But the computer was rank, really rank.

        But the best thing was, he was a founder member of a local pressure group against nuclear. Here he was, against something relatively benign, but wilfully exposing himself to known and proven carcinogenic chemicals.

    2. blcollier

      Lest people think this is exaggerated, I can confirm this from personal experience. I used to vape heavily indoors and I'd often "hotbox" the room with clouds. If you go for the "big clouds, lots of fog" kind of liquids/devices, it will leave a sticky residue when it condenses on surfaces. Dust and other detritus sticks to it, meaning you can no longer simply run a duster or vacuum over it - you have to wash it off.

      I never had any problems with the stuff ending up in my computer, but it did destroy a keyboard. I'd converted an old IBM Model M terminal keyboard to USB and had used it for years without issue, but it stopped registering keypresses about 6 months into lockdown. When I tore it down to figure out what was going wrong, I discovered the sticky residue coating the interior and the membrane had multiple traces corroded beyond repair.

      I still do vape in my "office"(/gaming room), but these days I stand next to the wide-open window and blow the clouds outside.

      Also, I'm surprised you weren't allowed to simply outright reject an obviously filthy machine. It _was_ Geek Squad though, so perhaps you didn't have that flexibility. I used to work in a local(ish) independent computer store around 2000-2001, and we rejected multiple machines for repair (even ones we'd sold) because they were so disgusting. Sometimes you wouldn't discover the full horrors until the case came off, but sometimes they didn't even get as far as the workshop. I can remember a handful of occasions where my boss flat out told customers that he wasn't even prepared to *touch* the machine, let alone take it in for repair. In almost all cases they were machines from a household where people smoked indoors. All half-dozen or so people working in that shop were all heavy smokers, myself included, but even we were revulsed by the state of some of these machines. You could smell them the moment they came in the door, it was vile...

      1. Noram

        One of my friends currently has his younger brother living with him.

        The younger brother vapes and has one of the really heavy duty "custom" things that is more like a low quality smoke machine than a vape.

        He's adamant that it doesn't put out anything unpleasant, the coating on the walls, glass, mirrors and screens tends to disagree. IIRC the base material for the vapes is is similar to a very watery jelly (glycerine?) and once it cools and settles out of the "vapour" you're left with a thin, but increasing thickness of it on every surface that attracts dust.

        I had to sort out one of his computers a while back (about 6 months after the brother had moved in), and it gave me flashbacks to when I used to fix computers for my dad and a couple of friends who smoked, it was a very similar tacky sensation with the thick blocks of dust.

        1. blcollier

          Primarily, vegetable glycerine (VG) and propylene glycol (PG). Both are perfectly safe ingredients, even when inhaled - both PG & VG are used in inhaled medicines and smoke machines. The residue left isn't harmful, it's just sticky, unpleasant, and an utter ballache to clean.

          Open your goddamn windows when you vape indoors, people!

      2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        So does "hotbox" mean that you don't put the vape into your mouth, instead you turn the room into a sort of vape sauna?

        Do you have any idea how many people are found dead from going that? Including other family members, and pets? I don't know if it happens at all, but it sounds likely. So I'm curious. And I expect that word goes round.

        1. blcollier

          Not... really sure what you're getting at there...

          The term "hotboxing" originates from smoking cannabis, where you (and your compatriots) would smoke so much that you'd fill the room with a thick haze of smoke. The term has been appropriated by vaping to describe the same thing: filling a room with a thick haze of (exhaled) vapour. No one dies because of a hotboxed room, and if you hotbox a room that you share with your pets or unwilling third parties then, even though they won't die from it, you're a bellend.

          Other than having some kind of agenda, I have no idea why you'd think it's likely that it kills people.

          1. sev.monster

            I'm attempting to imagine a situation where the amount of vape cloud (which, of course, dissipates as it cools down, meaning you can't sustain it for a long period of time without major work) would be thick enough to displace the oxygen in the room to the point that it would cause some kind of major issue, but... can't really see it.

        2. sev.monster

          See above, but no hotboxing is a colloquiolism for inhaling a vapor or smoke cloud and releasing it with the intent of filling a small space with the resulting cloud. I'm curious where you've seen people die from it, because I can't imagine it being anything more than a comorbidity. Like is it possible to suffocate or something because you hit it too hard??

          1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

            I suppose there's billions of people in the world using vapes, so I assume there are fatalities, not only from ones with cheaper chemicals added, but just from the most enthusiastic users. Second-hand vapours may be less dangerous, but still something you really have to work at producing. But not as bad as my idea that you were converting your room to a huge vape with you inside.

            1. sev.monster

              Yeah I'm sure that there are deaths relating to any kind on inhalant, and burning your vape juice by running at high temperatures gives you a higher risk of cancer as it shoots burnt carcinogens into your lungs. But I was more musing about vaping so much and filling the room so thoroughly that there is no oxygen left to breathe.

              I would imagine most deaths from vaping would be related to poor quality juice, lung cancer/burnt lungs from too high temps, exploding batteries in your face, low visibility causing accidents, and other such situations. Would be an interesting research topic, especially compared to other risky pastimes.

              And second-hand vape is much less of an issue than cigarette/cigar smoke, as it dissipates almost instantly unless you are intentionally trying to make it last longer as previously discussed. It is much better for those around you, especially if you do not use any harmful chemicals like nicotine in your juice. Some people just use flavors and skip the high.

      3. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

        Standard Repair Rates

        When I worked in a PC shop, we had a big sign up, and a form the customer who brought their PC in for repair, had to fill out. Both the sign and the form explained that the customer had two choices: (1) assert that they had proper current backups and excusing the shop of any liability for data lost or corrupted on the PC during repair, or, (2) pay us the standard repair rate for us to back up the PC before work began. We backed up a lot of PCs. We used Fastback Plus, which would keep a tech continuously-busy swapping floppy diskettes and labelling them on systems with two floppy drives and a hard drive or two. [Shoutout to Fifth Generation Systems for writing that awesome backup/restore program!]

        I'm thinking an expansion of that policy would kick up the repair rate, which would include physically cleaning the PC and repairing it, to say, 360 Euros an hour of any PCs the shop deemed a "biohazard". (The customer would be informed before any work began if their computer was deemed a biohazard, and would then sign a form acknowledging this and the higher repair rate ... or they could take their computer somewhere else for repair.)

  8. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    "Wright"

    ...meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Wright”

    Now there is a coincidence:

    The same day this is published, the UK National Archives have dusted down some documents regarding Peter Wright's Spycatcher book...

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/29/thatcher-utterly-shattered-by-mi5-revelations-in-spycatcher-files-reveal

    Has M15 hacked the Regomizer?

    1. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: "Wright"

      And did you notice how the whole UK government was in a tizzy because something called a "book" was about to be "published" in Australia? I believe that referred to some kind of hard copy system they used to have before Wikileaks.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: "Wright"

        It was in a tizzy alright but having read said "book", there wasn't much in it and the tizzy boosted sales by a factor of a few hundred

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: "Wright"

          Alan Brown: "there wasn't much in it"

          Nonsense, Peter Wright announced to the world the incredible and genius idea of having a basic current running along a circuit and using variations in that current to send messages. Which he and his colleagues thought of all by themselves. (OK so the telephone network uses exactly the same system but that had only been going since 1879*, so it was revolutionary and shows how incredibly technically brilliant the spies were at that time.)

          *https://techround.co.uk/guides/history-uk-phone-numbers/#:~:text=The%20first%20telephone%20exchange%20in,essential%20to%20ensure%20efficient%20communication. Well, maybe, Not entirely sure of my telecoms history actually. But I am fairly sure that the 'idea' was very well known early in the C20, and certainly before Peter Wright and his chums 'invented' it. el Reg experts please correct / advise.

          1. JulieM Silver badge

            Re: "Wright"

            That article is *highly* suspicious! The STD code for London only changed to 020 on 20 April 2000. It was originally 01 followed by 7 digits (in the very early days, three letters and four digits); changing in the 1980s to 071 for inner London and 081 for outer London, then 0171 and 0181 in 1995. In 2000, 0171 seven-digit numbers became eight-digit 020 numbers beginning with 7, and similarly 0181 numbers became 020 8xxx xxxx. Anyone who gives a number as "0207 xxx xxxx" obviously has never tried dialling it from within London.

      2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        Re: "Wright"

        "There wasn't much in it" - quite right, a subsequent enquiry determined that nothing was published in it that breached the Official Secrets Act. Apparently the CIA is faced with this problem often enough that they have an approved process for former agents wanting to publish their memoirs.

        What was in it was a lot of publicity and a lawyers' picnic. The publicity made Wright a millionaire and the lawyers' picnic made or broke several careers. One of the makers was one Malcolm Turnbull QC, who notoriously got a senior public servant (a Cabinet Secretary, IIRC) to confess under oath that, in giving his advice he was "being economical with the truth." Turnbull ended up Prime Minister of Australia.

        1. I could be a dog really Silver badge

          Re: "Wright"

          In the UK there are also similar systems for retired [whatevers] to have their books/memoirs cleared for publication.

  9. spireite Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Scruffy people about....

    Back in the early 2000s, the IT department of which I was part regularly had to replace the keyboard of someone I'll call Terry.

    Terry had a devastating habit of eating French stick chicken salad and sweetcorn at his desk. This contributed far too regularly to keys not registering and this was sometimes down to

    1. Mayo gumming up the mechanisms

    2. Crust getting between keycap and keyboard plate

    3. Sweetcorn getting UNDER and inside the keycap.

    For some time the keyboards were being replace at 3 month intervals.

    Eventually. we stopped doing it. because....

    ... Terry was spotted in the loo taking a No1 or No2 and exiting WITHOUT washing his hands.

    Once you see that, you question every bit of stickiness, and keyboard discolouration. You also give yourself a good scrub down not unlike Chernobyl...

    Eventually senior management banned him from having an office supplied keyboard, and also from eating at desk.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Scruffy people about....

      [Bystander, on seeing Churchill emerging from the urinal without having washed his hands:]

      Bystander: At Eton, they taught us to wash our hands after using the lavatory.

      Churchill: At Harrow, they taught us not to piss on our fingers.

  10. PB90210 Silver badge

    The sports bar thing reminded me of the edict from on high banning smokers from congregating round the (hidden from the road) front entrance.

    Unfortunately this was swiftly followed by another because the smokers had had found a sheltered spot round the side of the building... right in front of the inlet for the building's air con!

    (luckily we only had a couple of smokers)

    1. Andy A
      Thumb Up

      I was impressed when a place I worked at came up with their Official Smoking Areas.

      Many workplaces pander to smokers, providing things which look like bus shelters. Not this place.

      In the various yards they painted red squares with 4m sides. In each there was an ashtray on a stand.

      Nothing else.

      No chairs, no protection from the wind, or the sleet which came with it.

      1. I could be a dog really Silver badge
        Flame

        At a place (shared office complex) it was something similar - the official smoking place was exposed (and where we are, a good SW wind has naff all to stop it between coming off the Atlantic and passing us). So people tended to ignore the signage and stand, smoking right in front of the sign saying "No Smoking" ... right underneath our office window. From some of the responses I got, you'd think words like "Excuse me, the smoking area is over there - you're filling our office with smoke" was some sort of very rude insult.

        But that's bettered by the day we were getting smoke, from someone sitting in her car with the windows open. The response from her was "I'm OK, I'm in my car".

  11. Alan Brown Silver badge

    There's a lot to be said for HEPA filters

    It really surprises me that this isn't an option for cabinets/cases in hostile environments and people end up having to cobble their own filtration

  12. fromxyzzy

    I wonder if there's a timeline that could be collated as to when each major computer company decided to stop servicing computers belonging to smokers.

    I know in the brief time I worked at Apple a few years back, there was a very broad rule that said that any computer known to be owned by a smoker could be rejected for repairs due to the 'biohazard' of caked on tar. It was very much understood that you don't really use that unless it's a genuine and obvious issue, but if invoked it was never questioned and the customer was flagged in the system forever.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When working in warehouse automation, we had a client that sells rice. A very well known brand here in the UK. Their first system ran on an industrial spec PDP-11, rack mounted in a big case that was air tight at the front and had ventilation ports at the rear which went through a wall. This was decommissioned as it still ended up full of rice dust, as despite the products being prepacked they arrived covered in dust. The replacement was a MicroVAX, which was still in service when I left that job in 2004.

    We had a spare McroVAX in the store room, but the first one just kept going, and I was allowed to adopt the spare. It's still mine, and runs an old release of NetBSD.

  14. RobDog

    40 JPS per day

    I was an Commodore 64 and Amiga user; my brother caught the micro bug and bought an Atari ST. My teenage room was relatively clean; he, being 10 years older, smoked 40 JPS per day and periodically he paid me a fiver to open up his ST and clear out the build up of fag ash. I was good with electronics whereas he was a bit ham-fisted and probably destroyed an Atari joystick every 2 months, until he invested in one with a steel shaft and micro switches.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hospital story

    In times past, PCs on wards used to get full of bed fluff and overheat.

    I took one to infection control and they swabbed inside and found it close to sterile. Apparently it got so hot inside that it killed everything. Only a fire risk...

    The best description I heard was when a colleague said "I opened it up and took out a duvet."

    Doesn't seem to happen so much now. Not sure why.

    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Hospital story

      I was going to suggest old blankets vs. newer duvets, but you used the latter word as implicitly in the dust era or just after it. I think "bedding in a sack" was introduced to me as a "continental quilt" reaching Britain in the 1970s maybe. I miss blankets... I think.

  16. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Aside - Working environment

    I worked in an office where the management decided to outsource the cleaning. So they did. Well, we had some plastic 'plants', sort of large shrub / bush sized things in pots, but fake. Anyway the outsourcer was only contracted to clean flat surfaces, not the 'plants'. After a year or so these seems to have achieved a sort of 'steady state' regarding the accumulation and shedding of dust. Being asthmatic when the air conditioning was running it spread the dust around and I would get rather wheezy. I managed to get the' plant' moved to place away from my desk, but they were filthy.

    I also worked next to the second desk of an 'engineer' type, and it was covered with a load of old computer bits, boxes etc. and a goodly layer of topsoil (sorry, dust). Again, the air con would disturb the dues and I'd get and asthma attack. One day the engineer* was out and I brought in a hand held vacuum cleaner and cleaned the whole thing. Result - no more asthma attacks.

    *(His name was Steve, he retired ages ago. If you are reading this and recognise yourself, say hello. And if you are reading this and recognise your 'spares desk' - FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE CLEAN IT!)

    1. I could be a dog really Silver badge

      Re: Aside - Working environment

      I'm not Steve, but I resemble that story

  17. big_D Silver badge

    Smoking room? Server room?

    When I first started work in the 80s, we had a network of Macs and a Mac Plus was set aside as a file server, with a "massive" 40MB external hard drive. But where to put it? It and the network printer were put in the smoking room! Thick stale smokey air, not pleasant, when you went in to get a printout, even worse for the health of the "server".

    My dad used to work for a company that did piping in the 60s and early 70s, they'd plan and build the pipes for factories. One was, allegedly, the a sugar based drink manufacturer that wanted to teach the world to sing, there, all the piping had to be glass, where possible, as stainless steel pipes would need replacing every 6 months due to corrosion.

    They also did work for breweries, they were taught to drink beer "quickly", in one go, just opening the throat and pouring it in. They'd have to drink 3-4 pints, before they could enter the brewing area, otherwise the fumes would make them drunk. One guy didn't bother, one morning, just went straight in. When the others had drunk their ration and were ready to enter, they found the guy up in the rafters, balancing on the beams and running backwards and forwards, totally off his head!

  18. OllieJones

    IT people are angels, that proves it

    The evaporated spirits are sometimes called the angels' share of the cask.

    It's good to know the IT angel could partake.

  19. Skiver

    When I worked at DEC, one of my customers was one of the big newspapers in the city where I lived. They had an 11/70 system in the basement. The room was air conditioned, but it wasn't a computer room. Just outside the door was where they moved around the giant rolls of paper used to print the newspaper. The room was always dirty and required frequent preventive maintenance to make sure nothing got clogged up.

    In contrast, one of my customers was the USPS. There main place was the bulk facility at the airport. The computers were used for tracking mail that was being transported on commercial carriers. The systems were in their own customer made air conditioned cabinets. The site itself was a typical factory floor type situation, so not too clean.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The thing that looked like a felt mat reminded me of my time in IT working for a newspaper group. It was 1999 and I was going around the buildings seeing which equipment and software wouldn't make it through into 2000. The reporters were still using a DOS-based program on 386 computers which were on the floor under the desks. One had failed so I whipped the case off there and then, and sure enough I found a 1/4" mat of felt from the years of dust it had sucked in. I wondered how so much crap could have got in the computer as we had a cleaner, and the floors were the only thing they seemed to clean along with emptying the bins.

    A couple of years later I happened to be working out of hours in another department in quite a large room. The cleaner, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a stained sweatshirt, wandered in through the far entrance dragging his Henry vacuum cleaner. He was oblivious to me being in the room watching him. I noticed that he pushed the vacuum head back and forth across the same 3 feet of carpet about a dozen times, whilst his hand was down the back of his tracksuit bottoms obviously having a good scratch at the crack and ring. He pulled his hand out and sniffed back and forth along his forefinger appreciating the aroma like it was a fine Cuban cigar. Up until then I had thought that dealing with sales people was the worst thing that had happened to me.

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