* Posts by Darkside

67 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Nov 2007

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BOFH: Made of win

Darkside

Beer

Beer isn't a GOAL or even a goal, it's a resource.

Beer the currency for debts that mere money can't settle.

Beer the tranquilliser

Beer the emotional crutch for those who can't socialise when sober

BOFH: The stupidity criticality

Darkside
Go

Carbon-neutral

The BOFH offsets his CO2 emissions (mostly from lager fermentation) by reducing other humans' carbon footprints to zero. How thoughtful.

The green icon.

BOFH: Baitin' switch

Darkside
Badgers

Blood sports

Graham was given a sporting chance. They told him what was going on and he still put his head in that cupboard - evolution in action.

Welsh yobs clobbered by cross-dressing cage fighters

Darkside
Thumb Up

I'm impressed

Have you boys ever worn high heels? Even a martial arts expert deserves a round of applause for seeing off even a drunk while handicapped by stilettos.

BOFH: Weapon of choice

Darkside
Pint

Paper cheques?

What sort of IT unit still gets paid by cheque?

You get the same kind of panics when the bank won't accept your BACS file but you get to fix it yourself. Maybe add a 0 to your own payment while you're at it.

Cops and ISP in paedophile data mix up

Darkside
Stop

Reliable Source?

Remember the man with the chair leg? Police snipers shot him dead in the street because a "reliable source" had told them he was an IRA terrorist and the chair leg was a gun.

Remember the two Asian brothers who heard someone breaking their front door down in the small hours? They went downstairs to see what was happening and the police shot them on sight because a "reliable source" had told them the brothers were Muslim terrorists.

The "reliable source" turned out to be a mentally ill youth.

The "reliable source" excuse should be automatically FOI-able: no anonymity for false accusers or for the fools who believe them.

Vulture Central plans Brit-Yank dictionary

Darkside
Flame

You fools!

We'll all regret this foolishness when the Yanks invade us, no doubt invited in by a government we're desperate to get rid of.

Learn Welsh, Latvian, Punjabi or proper urban slang ("the filth brung 'im 'ome an' she went f*ckin' radio!") or whatever they talk down your way and don't tell the septics what it means!

Er, no, I mean I for one welcome our new alien overlords...

Hurt yourself? Try f**king swearing

Darkside
Megaphone

"Fuck" as interjection

I often hear "fucking" used in place of "um", "er" etc by blokes who are disjointed speakers but are also afraid someone else will get a word in edgeways.

Dreamliner first flight delayed yet again

Darkside
Pint

Nightmare, then?

Dream seems to have gone pear-shaped.

They're right to delay, of course. There *are* unproductive tests and even counterproductive tests (the A330 had one) where you have to replace the test aircraft and find more test pilots.

Wiltshire welcomes clutch of Great Bustards

Darkside
Go

Never mind the vultures!

Lets have a British bird on the Reg!

Indian boffins mull zero-grav bhajis

Darkside
Boffin

Already well researched

Everyone knows the ship's food replicator will supply easy-to-eat food substances, in a variety of colours and flavours, which are almost entirely unlike curry.

Budvar beats Anheuser-Busch in latest Budweiser battle

Darkside
Flame

Guerrilla success in War of Attrition

What's happening here is that A-B, which is part of a huge conglomerate, goes to law on the slightest pretext and keeps appealing every nitpick for as long as it can. The lawyers' fees and court costs are money tied up until one side wins decisively and the loser has to pay both sides' costs. That's a drop in the bucket to A-B, a lot of money to Budvar. Also, it's a gamble: if A-B lose they can delay payment so as to spin the game out longer, but if Budvar lose it could bankrupt them.

So it's corporate bullying by A-B.

They ought to spell it as they pronounce it: "Badweiser". In the UK that'd attract more teenagers (it was MY idea!) but in Germany it'd imply the product's bathwater.

BMW driver follows satnav to edge of cliff

Darkside
Stop

Should be banned from driving

He didn't notice the road had stopped and he was following a footpath?

He's too stupid to have a driving licence. Lifetime ban.

Put down your pens: Cartoons next on censor block

Darkside
Flame

Scary? Terrifying!

Is there nothing more important for the government to waste my money on?

Global warming, nuclear weapons, obesity, the extinction of the plants and fish we depend on for food, the richer rich and poorer poor that are the ills of which a nation dies...

Forget the future, rude drawings must be exterminated!

Lockheed offers ready-to-go supersoldier exoskeleton

Darkside
Go

Fly?

Never mind the military, could the technology be used to make ornithopters?

Icarus here I come!

3D laser maths models of women's bodies produced

Darkside
Coat

Did you mean...

Did you mean seat of panties?

Airline pilots told to switch off mobile phones

Darkside
Joke

Female pilot

"Female pilot talking on the cell while doing her nails during takeoff/landing..."

...notices the aircraft is about to do something antisocial. Says "Fifi, NO!" in that clear, firm, talking-to-toddlers voice. The aircraft decides to stick to the plan. Nail filing continues.

How to survive the crisis: Sell kiddies booze

Darkside
Alert

Oh, yes they do

In fact, round here they're noted for it - see our local paper:

"A Tesco store in Woodley has been caught selling booze to children following a police crackdown on underage drinking.

The sting operation saw a 15-year-old go into the Tesco Express in Loddon Vale Centre accompanied by undercover officers and attempt to buy alcohol. The employee was issued with an £80 fixed penalty notice for disorder after illegally serving the underage teen with booze.

This is not the first time Tesco has been in trouble for selling booze to underage youngsters in Reading.

The Extra store in Napier Road, Reading, and the two Tesco Express shops in Bath Road, Southcote, and Church Street, Caversham, were previously caught in test purchases in April/May 2006 and all given £80 on-the-spot fines for selling alcohol to a 15-year-old boy."

<http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2038141_tesco_caught_selling_alcohol_to_children>

You're barcoded: The sneaky under-25 route to compulsory ID

Darkside
Flame

Kids nowadays

Kids nowadays are as wet as the pavement slush they're frightened to walk on.

They're getting the respect they deserve because they're too passive to cast a vote!

Supersonic bizjets could have windowless flight decks

Darkside

@Windows!

They don't put a window in the floor because the avionics are under the flight deck.

They'd block the view.

But how would pilots stay awake in a flightdeck without even windows to watch the clouds go past?

And who'd want to fly an aeroplane where you couldn't even watch the clouds go past?

El Reg slips into women's-fit tees

Darkside
Joke

"Irritant"

No need to buy it, if I wait a bit someone'll give it me.

Sumerians cracked world's oldest joke

Darkside
Coat

A farmer bought a slave...

...and next morning he sent the slave to market. On his way home the slave fell down and died. The farmer went to the dealer and complained: you told me this slave was healthy but already he has fallen down and died! Quickly the dealer replied: but he never did that when he was with me!

That's from ancient Greece, but some linguists researching accents for Reading University recorded the same joke (though about a horse) in Berkshire in the 1950s.

Sun may or may not be about to obliterate Oracle and Microsoft

Darkside
Boffin

Web filtering policy

Web filtering policy works like this:

Sites are blocked (apparently at random) UNLESS they're specifically excepted. Sites are specifically excepted if someone puts up a business case OR if someone in the BOFH department wants the sites herself.

So...

@Bastard: you can work that out by reading the article.

The return of Killer Chlorine

Darkside
Thumb Up

Junk science is everywhere!

The US government spends vast sums on "research" designed to find harmful effects of cannabis, dammit, no matter how long it takes.

Meanwhile in the UK, bicycle helmets are a scam: they actually make most cyclists less safe, but there's money in selling them and they shift the blame for accidents onto the person who got hurt.

A welcome addition to the Reg, indeed, Sir.

Judge points laser dazzler man towards prison

Darkside
Black Helicopters

re Surveillance defence

How powerful a laser pointer do I need for blinding street CCTV? Will the normal 5mW conference type do it?

BTW the police helicopters that fly over our estate are lower than people have suggested: 1-200m. Not terribly safe but if the pilot couldn't see he could climb for safety, at least up to the bottom of the Heathrow holding pattern.

Let air passengers smoke dope, say Denver potheads

Darkside
Happy

@ Title

Yeah, herbal aviation... that's so cool.

UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace

Darkside
Flame

Being British

I'm British. I haven't merely a right to act strangely, I have a moral duty to act strangely.

Morris dancing, bus-spotting, playing Mornington Crescent while queueing for bizarre public entertainments, they're vital to our traditional British way of life.

If you care about public safety, start by preventing road accidents and food poisoning - they kill far more people.

Police detain Tariq Aziz's cigar case

Darkside
Thumb Down

"so morally ambiguous that I cannot quite think of it as theft"

Could this be the "economical with the truth" of the new decade?

BOFH: The all-clicking, all-whirring Roboboss

Darkside
Alien

Non-human Boss

My employers hired the Mekon as head of IT. He outsourced it and left.

That was about 1999, since when we've been battling against the odds to get the alien invaders to actually DO anything. There are lots of them and fewer of us, but each individual alien is assigned a year's work every month. Consequently nothing gets done and alien wastage is huge.

Another new alien's just flashed past the window. Looks'if it was trying to fly to the other building, got caught in the downdraught. They don't give them time to adapt to Earth gravity. Or mains electricity or pelican crossings or bison-grass vodka - could someone collect it and put it on the pile downstairs? I'll ring for another one to go and fix the printer...

British Columbia stray foot tally hits six

Darkside
Black Helicopters

Not the air accident then...

...since four casualties don't normally have five right feet.

You'd think they could tell *something* from the trainers. Were they sport trainers or fashion ones, genuine branded or fake, same month's style or all different ages, what secret compartments for samples of dodgy white powders, kinda thing.

Looks like a conspiracy to me.

Foldable sports plane gives Everyman a chance at crashing

Darkside

Aerial mopeds - don't panic

There's really nothing special about it - this UK specimen can carry a passenger *or* cover 800 miles on a tankful:

http://www.pmaviation.co.uk/ct.php

It's almost an aerial motorcycle, and probably about as comfortable.

They seem to be readily available, at least in remote parts of Wiltshire, though apparently if madam needs to ask the price, madam can't afford it.

Japanese woman moves into bloke's closet

Darkside

*Bedroom* closet?

Where does it say the cubby-hole was in the chap's bedroom?

Sad fantasies of emotionally stunted geeks?

Mine's the one with the black belt...

City anti-Scientology protestor avoids court summons

Darkside
Alien

Cult

A cult is "not enough people to make a minority".

Nobody objects to seeing their picture in the local paper over captions like "Fans of the cult TV series queued for hours to see their heroes".

So maybe what the clams objected to was the word "dangerous".

In what way is scientology dangerous? Other than harmful to wealth, of course - you can easily get rid of them by telling them you're penniless.

[Declaration of interest: my gran was a Suppressive Person]

Jihadis: We turned hacked killbots against US troops

Darkside

Black turbans

Iranian Shiite blokes wear turbans, and if they claim to be descendants of the prophet they wear green or black turbans.

Pink is right out.

BOFH: Shiny new computer room

Darkside

Art imitates Liff

The IT unit here used to have water leaking through the ceiling from the canteen kitchen above. They fixed it with a length of B&Q plastic gutter which led the water into a large potted plant, which evaporated the water in lieu of aircon.

We're moving soon to a new building where the server room will be below canal level and next to the town's internal ring road.

amanfromMars makes comparative sense.

BOFH: PFY's mum pays a visit

Darkside
Boffin

@ Dex

Women invented beer, textiles, ceramics, information technology...

and of course heavier-than-air flight.

The terror dam of doom that looms over Boise, Idaho

Darkside
Alert

@ Blighty and 2001

If gasholders were soft targets how did they survive the Second World War?

The 2001 building collapse happened because New York didn't enforce its building code, which required skyscrapers to not fall down if they were set on fire. Regardless of the size of their acre feet.

On a related note, structural neglect is the world's top-performing cause of dam collapses.

Courts slam Blair's 'abject surrender' to Saudi prince

Darkside
Black Helicopters

Is there a party I can morally vote for?

We've got Labour, the corrupt party of Big Business, and Tory, the corrupt party of Big Business. And various wingnut groups like the British Nazi Party or UKIP. My area has no Monster Raving Looney Party so who can I vote for and not hate myself for doing it?

How an app called WarmTouch nailed a grenade-stockpiling cyber extortionist

Darkside
Flame

Sexists!

Don't they realise (rhetorical question) that women over 30 who are technically adept but have trouble fitting in at work and in social situations can stockpile weapons too?

BWAHAhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!

BAA boots Vulture from T5 frequent flyer club

Darkside
Alien

Conspiracy!

If that doesn't stop you destroying the aliens' environment we'll have to do some random body cavity searches...

Want to get into 10 Downing Street? Get a Lithuanian ID card

Darkside
Boffin

@Jamie

People caught driving without licence, tax, insurance and/or MoT have *normally* stolen the car. See the Magistrate's Blog for details and intelligent discussion.

I'd agree with crushing any car driven without an MoT, and flogging off the uninsured car unless it was stolen from someone not known to the defendant, but theft is the main issue.

Aaargh, a serious comment! The nerd icon.

UK's biggest meteorite impact rocked Scotland

Darkside
Alien

Conspiracy !

At that date, Scotland was near the Antarctic, in the barren heart of a vast supercontinent where the technologically-advanced giant clams were just on the point of wiping each other out in a war to end wars.

Until now the Government has covered this up because the clams

++ NO SIGNAL ++

Mega-mortuary creaks open its doors in Westminster

Darkside
Black Helicopters

NOT in Trafalgar Square?

I want you all to know that if I'm machine-gunned by panicky Yank invaders while manning any barricades, I want to be stacked in Trafalgar Square, not hidden from the eyes of the world.

Helicopter, because we'll never see tanks in Trafalgar Square (though only because they'd fall through the streets into the Underground).

Brit apiarists demand £8m to save honeybees

Darkside
Dead Vulture

No change here then...

There are already no honeybees where I live.

Wild honeybees have been wiped out by Varroa mites, so the only ones left are hive bees whose keepers protect them. There are no beekeepers within three miles of my garden.

I see quite a few Bombus and every year the beautiful Adrena armata make a mess of my lawn, but overall pollination is very poor.

I'd keep bees myself but I have back trouble, can't lift the weights.

Who can honestly say they'd rather see their taxes spent on despoiling Afghanistan than on conserving harmless useful bees?

The vulture, because it doesn't look very healthy either!

BOFH: The secret gentlemen's club

Darkside
Alien

Librarians

Please can we have a Librarian icon?

Man cuffed for lamppost sex outrage

Darkside
Coat

Has Wiltshire come to this?

Where have all the sheep gone?

Vote now for your fave sci-fi movie quote

Darkside
Boffin

There are other sayings...

for other Fridays.

Who first said "Trust me, I'm a doctor" ?

Darkside, PhD

Airline pilot sacked for 777 Top Gun stunt

Darkside
Pirate

Famous barrel roll

When I was a Boeing minion I was told that when they were showing the prototype 747 to customer bosses, they had their chief test pilot fly it past a few times, and on impulse he barrel-rolled it.

At that time Boeing was on the brink of bankruptcy and the joke in Seattle was "Last person leaving Seattle please switch off the lights". The Boeing bosses pretty near shat themselves but they couldn't admit the stunt wasn't part of their plan and they couldn't even sack the pilot.

IME stories like that, where there's a tinge of natural justice, are usually wrong.

Drunken Korean attempts to cook landlady's Chihuahua

Darkside
Thumb Up

@ Mark Roome

Great ruse, thanks for that - I too hate cooking for the gang on away weekends.

BOFH: Insecurity complex

Darkside
Coat

@ Pedant

Jim will have the satisfaction of knowing he died Right - the open riser *was* a safety hazard.

Thanks - pass me the hi-viz one with Kevlar stab/dog bite protection, transceiver for finding me under the rubble, built-in bouyancy aid and UNION SAFETY REP on the back.

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