Posts by Anonymous Custard

Part didn't fit so techie got out his screwdriver. Then something flew off the motherboard

Re: Where did that go?

I'm sure we can induce you into making one though...

Demoralized developer's desperate hack came back to haunt him on LinkedIn

Re: Once again ....

ln -s monday friday

Oh how I wish...

Sysadmin summoned to explain italics – to a user with at least two degrees

Re: One Trick Pony's

It's one of the abiding memories of my time in academia (7 years picking up various degrees along the way).

The number of professors I met in the department (Physics, which probably explains a few things in itself) who were pleasant chaps (at least all the ones I encountered in this category were male) and world experts on their particular specific field who you wouldn't trust to do something like make a cup of tea was frightening.

Their own worlds and reality on planet Earth only had very occasional cross-over and interaction.

It really underlines it, doesn't it?

And the river floweth onward

Reminds me of a training course I did once for a group of customer engineers (all with at least one degree, many with doctorates).

I was explaining gas flows in a system and used the word "downstream". One guy looked at me and said "what do you mean?".

A bit strange I thought, but whatever and I explained in terms of where the gas flow was coming from and where it was going to.

More confused looks, so I tried with the example of a river, and got even more confused looks back.

A third try was then had, at which point I could see the rest of the class was getting restless (not sure if it was frustration with the guy or just trying to hide laughs) so I carried on.

It's a story that's still told to this day (the event was a few years ago), and comes up whenever I go back there to do the same training for newer customer engineers.

Aforementioned guy was very much one of the "I already know everything, and am better than you" types, and for some inexplicable reason, no longer works there...

Techie lured out of retirement to support software only he remembered

I can empathise (from the other direction) - I'm a few months away from being the same age as when my late father took early retirement.

And in my case, I've still got about 13 years to go to the standard retirement age (I'm possibly about the same age as the good Doctor's kids ;) ).

Brighton gig screen goes One Step Beyond with an update pop-up

Re: Code

And not forgetting that they're saved to be performed at shutdown whenever you need to leave in a hurry...

Re: That’s just

Or maybe it must be love for his commentards?

It'd be a grey day without such opportunities in this house of fun.

Web app turns your old phone into a new smart display

Re: Reason why the phone is lying about

Just also remember that metal cutting saws in contact with those non-removable batteries could also lead to some interesting fireworks...

Windows 95 detected installers by looking for magic words and hoping for the best

Re: "looking for magic words and hoping"

I think you probably just managed to offend and insult half the denizens there.

I'd carry a sock with a half-brick in it from now on if I were you ;)

when every developer had their own ideas of how stuff ought to work

Which is fine except they all seem to have tried implement them in isolation, without talking to any co-workers on the same project.

Left hand, please meet right hand...

Microsoft's operating system engineers had to make do with what they had someone else on another team in another nearby room has written in isolation.

Small reinterpretation from the real world.

The term "self inflicted wounds" hardly begins to cover it, but does explain a lot...

Microsoft flips Windows Backup to on by default unless you're in the EU

Re: Every week...

Only MS could take something as desirable and positive as a backup and turn it into something that nobody wants through implementation...

Apprentice developer defied orders – then got a job supporting her weird code

Re: Sensor characterisation

Or a fun one I get sometimes with sensor outputs at customer sites - their control limit is 0.23525 and the reading was 0.235 and so the validation failed.

The fact that this particular sensor has a resolution of 0.001, and anything beyond that is probably random electrical noise or similar always seems to fall on deaf ears...

User swore hacker called General Failure had invaded his PC

Re: Rank

And can lead to Corporal Punishment

Re: Linux problem?

In such cases, you're better off sitting corrected (maybe with an optionally added h).

BOFH: Vibe-coded solutions arrive for problems nobody has

Re: No BOFH on the front page.

I'd also highlights the useful alerts feature of the website.

You can use that to send you a notification email (with a direct link) for whenever an article with the given criteria is posted.

It can do keywords and (optionally) author, but unfortunately not tags (at least explicitly).

I have one for posts by Simon, and so routinely get a link to fresh BOFH articles (and very occasionally others when he posts them) in my inbox.

Used to do the same for Dabbsy and Lester, both sadly no longer appearing here for various reasons.

Re: No BOFH on the front page.

I invite you to pour yourself your favourite liquid refreshment and enjoy what the commentards think of the redesign.

Re: Ahh

The true BOFH response of course would have been "challenge accepted..."

Re: No BOFH on the front page.

Because in a wonderful case of synchronicity, the whole mess of a redesign on this site looks like it's been vibe coded by the boss?

I am so "borrowing" this response!

"It's got AI in it!" the Boss whines, after the PFY and I express our doubts.

"So have the words failure, and painful, and brainless," the PFY points out.

That one is definitely going into the "to use at work" store...

Definitely one of these for such a sunny day ------------------------->

Plex appeal fades as Lifetime Pass jumps to $750

Jellyfin for Kodi

There is, in fact there are two - https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/kodi/

This browser add-in doesn't just hide ads, it tells you to OBEY

Re: Ads

And ads with noise (especially ones you can't mute), ads with extensive scripting (insert malware here), ads which pop-under (or so other equally annoying focus stealing tricks) and ads which pose as scareware or similar to capture clicks from the gullible.

Not to mention the trend that when you buy something online, for the next few weeks you get ads for the same thing.

Shouldn't it be fairly obvious that having just bought something, the last thing I'm going to be in the mood for is to buy it again immediately.

Chew bubble gum

If they were being really meta (with a small m), they'd leave ads for bubble gum alone too.

Icon - as close as I can get to trendy alien-spotting shades.

Lab worker built a fake PC to nuke his lunch

Re: Radiation hazards are often overblown.

And you can measure via the banana equivalent dose.

From the mighty Festival of the Spoken Nerd...

User found the perfect formula to make Excel misbehave

That's mean

Only if the clue-by-four has a nail in it to really get the point across (or in).

Re: Analogue clocks need to die?

I see that, and historically raise you this one

Re: Analogue clocks

Around here, the postal service seems to have more trouble with calendars than clocks.

Our "daily" (or rather weekday, to be more accurate) delivery of anything that isn't signed-for or similarly tracked seems to be now more on a weekly basis.

Painfully ironic given how much the price of stamps are these days.

Re: Analogue clocks

DNA was as prescient as ever...

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

Re: Analogue clocks

And so on downwards - to quote Wikipedia

In 1267, the medieval scientist Roger Bacon stated the times of full moons as a number of hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths (horae, minuta, secunda, tertia, and quarta) after noon on specified calendar dates.[45] Although a third for 1⁄60 of a second remains in some languages, for example Arabic ثالثة (ṯāliṯa /θaː.liθa/), the modern second is further divided decimally.

So in this case, does the concept of a weighted average indicate the heft of the 2x4 or baseball bat you need to use to get the concept across?

Re: Analogue clocks

Today is a good day, something new learned after all these years (and months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds)...

Indeed thanks for that, have a deserved upvote.

PowerPoint punishment sent users into an infinite loop after lunch

Around here, they'd be more at risk of security if they didn't provide the cake...

Re: Re "The law binds none of us unless it binds all of us"

Just be careful, or he'll get Sauron that point...

NASA boss: make Pluto a planet again

Re: Cleared orbit

Only in the absence of suitable cows.

The elephants and especially the turtle are classified as "all the way down".

And it can give you the age-old distinction of knowledge vs wisdom.

"Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad..."

Future holiday horror: ‘A robot lost my luggage in Tokyo’

Re: Airport robots

Yes, although the 1970's is calling and asking for them back.

Greece relaxes Euro biometric border entry rules amid airport chaos

Re: Damn impertinance

Step up to red alert, even if it does mean changing the bulb!

Re: Eurostar

In that case, I'll raise a pint of Guinness to my new passport when I get it, in solice that neither are actually black whilst appearing to be. My vote too would be metallic purple.

Oh and my eyes are either grey or red too, depending on how much of the aforementioned I've had the previous night...

Re: Eurostar

I was going by the pages of the govt and the BBC, both of which refer to it as blue.

To quote the former:

Changes from last version of this guidance

This guidance has been updated to:

• show the design of the standard blue passport books has changed to show ‘His Majesty’
• remove reference to specimen passports for entertainment purposes as HM Passport Office no longer provides this service
• align the terminology used for UK series C e-passport (blue e-passport) also known as new blue passports
• make minor terminology changes

and

The British passport is now a non-EU passport with a blue (soft cover) (blue e-passport) and a gold Royal crest.

(emphasis mine with the bolding).

But as I said, as I won't get one myself until next year, I can't vouch for it with my poor old decrepit eyes.

Plus I'm sure with the government's trend of u-turns, it's probably flipped between blue and black many times since that web page was last updated...

Oh and you are Lt Cmdr Data, and I claim my 5 pieces of gold-pressed latinum

Eurostar

Did St Pancras to Brussels last week (April 15th) and saw the new EES terminals there.

Looked very nice, in their little area behind shutters and completely closed.

Some of the staff were walking around and asking if various customers would care to be included in some pilot tests of them, but other than that the passport control etc to get on the train was exactly the same as it has been previously. The staff also said they didn't have a clue as to when the new stuff would actually start, apparently there's some issue with the software that the (French) suppliers of the terminals need to fix or something (details were vague).

Was a bit worried as to how that trip could go in terms of delays etc given some of the reports mentioned in the main article here, but for once common sense seems to have applied and the whole mess put on ice for a while. And my passport now carries another pair of stamps in it - getting rather full up but due for renewal next year anyway (farewell to the dear old red cover, hello blue!).

Trump to UK: Stop taxing our big beautiful tech corps or face tariff tsunami

FTFY?

...the odd lapse in into coherence...

or is that too much to ask, even by random chance?

To fix this Wi-Fi network, we'll need a crane

Reminds me of an old experience (back 15-20 years or so) of a customer who had just build a brand new clean room at their site for semiconductor manufacture.

Our tools were some of the first in, and were giving some issues with both particles and uniformity.

Particles we worked out fairly quickly was due to the "clean" environment not being so clean, as they'd put up all sorts of partition walls and secured/sealed them with mastic that was merrily outgassing siloxane and all sorts of other "interesting" solvents that got sucked into the tools or just landed on the wafers and screwed things up. They had a clean-up and things improved, and they got better over time anyway as the outgas subsided.

But the thickness (uniformity) problems were more puzzling. Then someone noticed that at certain times of the day (around rush hour) the tools were vibrating, and in the extreme cases were actually swaying (some of these tools are 3-4 meters tall but only a couple wide). Not exactly what you want when teaching tolerances and repeatability need to be in the sub-millimeter range...

Panicked checks were made by the customer with the folks who had built and hooked up the cleanroom and it was discovered that whilst the floating floor was in place (designed to remove such ambient vibrations from the environment) some bright spark had saved a few euro by making facilities pipework connection directly with solid pipe and without bellows. So their lovely floating floor was directly coupled and anchored to the standard floor, and so any vibrations in it.

Now consider that along one edge of the site was a major highway, usually full of big rigs and commuters, with an off-junction at the corner of the site with slip roads down another side of site...

Shall we say I learned a few more entries for my dictionary of foreign language curses and expletives, and urgent work to fix it was put in place.

We got the tools signed off and working in the end, but only after a couple of months delay and some new replacement facilities (and contractors).

NASA reckons the Artemis II heat shield performed like a champ

Re: maneuver

Only if he's recovered by a surfer...

Notepad sheds Copilot from toolbar as Microsoft gives subtlety a try

Whatever it is, it's too long...

BOFH: If the meatbags can't agree on aircon, AI will decide for them

Re: Thermostats

Indeed, never underestimate the benefits of the placebo effect...

Tech support chap's boss got him out of jail so he could finish a job

I had a Dutch colleague who lived there (York) and often had that very question back in the day when he was periodically supporting one of our leftpondian customers by transatlantic business trips.

His stock response was "No, Old York actually".

Doubled on the historic irony in his particular case, as he was originally from Amsterdam.

Re: Major disaster spotted at end of article

Orange is the new black white?

Brentry

One (small) saving grace of the whole Brexit debacle (for reference, I'm an Englishman who voted against it), that the Friday afternoon calls from disorganised and panicking managers in our various European offices of "we have an escalation at customer X, you need to be here first thing on Monday morning" could be simply responded to with "Sorry, I'm not European any more. I'll need a work permit to do that job."

Given said work permits can take anything from a couple of weeks to about 3 months to arrange (depending on precisely which European country, as there is no such thing as a European work permit, they're all still individual), it became a very handy veto. Coupled with the famous quote from our HR team that "oh, Brexit won't affect us at all...".

And always fun to point out to American and Japanese colleagues that even though I work for the European branch of the company, I'm technically no more European than they are in terms of bureaucratic requirements etc.