Posts by Graham Butler

'What's up, Skip?' asks paraglider – before 'roo beats the snot out of him

Re: Attack?

The Aussies already learned their lesson about engaging the emus in hostilities.

Sure, we've got a problem but we don't really want to spend any money on the tech guy you're sending to fix it

Re: Weekend Breaks

Tangentially related - I was backpacking for a few months and decided to hire a car on Vancouver Island to get from Port Hardy down to Victoria. I went for the basic of the basic (budget was tight) but when I got to the Hertz or whatever it was, they said they had a Mustang that needed to be in Victoria and would I mind awf..../grabs keys

Wasn't a penny pinching thing, just a pointless day. Back in the heady contracting days of the late 90s, I was working for a company that provided telephone switch management and logging software. We'd provide a PC with the programs on it, connect a terminal to the RS232 on the switch and link them together over the existing LAN.

One such customer was a "leisure facility" famous for their red coats and this particular instance was in Pwhlleli, north west Wales. Basically, any further and you're in the Irish sea and onto Anglesey.

So I drive up there with the relevant kit from Reading. It took me 6 hours thanks to flooding - this was the year Shrewsbury got badly hit - and when I get there....no BT Switch. It was a new site and they hadn't had that installed yet. So, turn around and come home it was. I actually decided to visit my girlfriend of the time, as she lived in Cardiff. It STILL took me 6 hours to get to hers because of the lack of decent roads in the middle of Wales (in retrospect I should have left the country and taken the M6 down to Bristol).

Driving over Snowdonia was nice, though.

Particularly with Edinburgh being quite small and Waverley well serviced by cheap buses. I can be there in 15 minutes, hope on the train and get off in Kings Cross onto the tube 4 1/2 hours later.

Re: Travelling to client sites

Lived in Boston for a while and I completely agree. Flights out would just extend the day a few hours. Coming back, however, would usually be an evening flight, but early enough to not be sleepy, then landing at 6am local in Heathrow.

Along with seemingly every single other flight in the world.

Now you've got another 16 hours or so to get through. Joy...

Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster

Re: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same

It didn't. He probably watched Clear & Present Danger recently or something

Sniff the love: Subaru's SUVs overwhelmed by scent of hair shampoo, recalls 2.2 million cars

Re: This is what happens when you implement diversity and equality...

>And those damn hair grip things.

I've lived in my current flat for 7 years. Alone. I still find at least one bobby pin every couple of months from the previous owner.

'Occult' text from Buffy The Vampire Slayer ep actually just story about new bus lane in Dublin

Re: "Tolkien wasn't the only guy to invent languages"

I was always under the impression that LOTR, the Silmarillion etc were an "excuse" to give the languages - his first love - a reason to exist.

(Whereas The Hobbit was a bedtime story for his kid(s))

What did turbonerds do before the internet? 41 years ago, a load of BBS

I read it the "wrong" way too at first - not unlikely given only downloading mail daily or whatever back in those days. Like receiving a letter from someone who died between posting and delivery.

Re: BBS Days and Links386 Golf Simulator

It'll be 26 years in a couple of weeks.

For me, it was sitting in rural Berkshire connected to NASA's photo archive via my Amiga and Mosaic, and downloading a picture of the moon.

Re: Simpler Times Indeed

I got hooked on a dialup MUD before vPoPs were a thing. Reading to London wasn't local....ouch

Came with a little ringbound, incomprehensible manual as I recall. I had NO idea what I was doing :D

Re: The concept is not reall dead if you ask me

>How likely are you to meet people who hang out at a subreddit?

Pretty likely if you're on your city's sub. I've met quite a few folks from /r/Edinburgh (where I live) and /r/Boston (where I was seconded for a couple of years)

Bloke thrown in the cooler for eight years after 3D-printing gun to dodge weapon ban

If he'd have machined the remaining parts, this wouldn't be a headline. At least, not outside of the court record.

It's the 3D printing part that's "sexy" and attention grabbing.

Re: Because

Would anyone notice? Place is a furnace already.

Crash, bang, wallop: What a power-down. But what hit the kill switch?

Re: Placement of kill switch and other quirks

The server room in the old offices of a certain banana coloured directory in Reading had the kill switch next to the door exit switch.

I think it was around incident 12 that management deigned to finally move it.

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

Crowley probably had a hand in that, after the M25

Mumsnet data leak: Moaning parents could see other users' privates after cloud migration

Re: Dangerous

I did back in the day when I was active on Pistonheads. There was a bit of a rivalry there, albeit pretty one-sided in terms of vitriol (hint...it wasn't the motoring enthusiasts). It's a weird place.

Tell NASA to grab the margarita mix – a sextillion-kg salty ring found floating in space

500 years ago? If it's 1500 light years away, wouldn't it be 2000 years ago?

Um, I'm not that Gary, American man tells Ryanair after being sent other Gary's flight itinerary

I have the exact same issue with Gmail, being an early adopter and getting the fullname version. Although the most prevalent cocker-upper is an actor with the same name as me. I got copies of Penny Dreadful scripts a couple of years ago. And Banforth season 2 ones last month. The production assistants who send them out are always a bit mortified and I promise to delete them but it's still a pain in the arse that he can't get it right.

Millennium Buggery: When things that shouldn't be shut down, shut down

Mine was pointing east. Toward Winnersh/Wokingham. I seem to recall they were based there too.

Microwaves...Thames Valley...late 90s...I think I was a customer :D Began with T, ended in 2. I was trialling it at home in Earley though rather than for work. Download ALL THE THINGS (was 2 megabit as I recall - nearest comparable "not a dedicated telco line" was bonded ISDN at 128k

Techie basks in praise for restoring workforce email (by stopping his scripting sh!tshow)

I took out a Sun Solaris server with a looping bash script. Thankfully it was development, not production. I stupidly appended a line to the logfile I was grepping with the result of finding an entry (rather than a separate file) and, more to the point, used the exact phrase I was grepping FOR. Something akin to '<search term> found on line xxxx".

It took about 5 seconds to blow up like the Hulk and take the box down.

Former headteacher fined £700 after dumping old pupil data on server at new school

Maybe with the intent of contacting them/their parents when of eligible age to enrol in his new school? I don't know what the usual processes are for "marketing" schools, but I imagine there has to be some level of "we're great, come to us" going on.

Marriott's Starwood hotels mega-hack: Half a BILLION guests' deets exposed over 4 years

Address AND reservation date? Wonder if there's any correlation with burglaries....

Shock jock blames Britain for hack attack

That confused me...

Never heard of the guy, so the title "shock jock" implied a pissed off Scotsman. The ban on entering the UK was particularly perplexing.

Microsoft nails retail store logo and locations

There is a closer Apple Store than the Scottsdale one

Although it's still 5.8 miles away west - 2430 E Camelback Rd.

Wonder if someone just saw the respective addresses on Camelback Rd and didn't really appreciate how bloody spread out Phoenix is :D

US parkies in 'burrow-buster' marmot detonation campaign

Firey gas, rodents, holes...

Only one thing for it...

Armageddon!