Posts by Robert Carnegie

The developer who came in from the cold and melted a mainframe

Re: HVAC settings

Do penguins like snow, though? You never seem them flying in it. :-)

Re: Always rather it too cold than too hot

Tricky to investigate, but your clean room new hires (if not in the storeroom instead) may have misunderstood what clothes can and can't be worn inside the clean room worker suit.

There's a slightly tall tale of a traditionally minded Church of England priest, "High Church" with full church robing, who invited a much more liberal pastor to co-host a church service. Then the host asked his guest about the experience, and was told that the guest appreciated being able to put his trousers back on afterwards... which, in fact, he wasn't really meant to take off.

Re: Always rather it too cold than too hot

It's probably hormones, which have a complex relationship to gender and sex these days.

I could ask someone who may know more, but I'm inclined not to.

But it's commonplace that menopause makes your personal thermostat misbehave - then again, I think I remember a Victoria Wood character played by Julie Walters who found that her dog had somehow changed the HVAC setting, it wasn't hormones at all.

Security contractor blew the whistle on support crew's viral indifference

Re: Lazy by design.

Perhaps if one rule was set aside for a high workload, then the other was meant to be still applied. Unless it was set aside as well.

Researchers didn’t want to glamorize cybercrims. So they roasted them

Re: Hollywood was long glamorized them

I think you may be mistaken about movie audience members identifying with the criminal hacker who does not "get the hot girls". I think the general population thinks that the hot girls are making the correct decision.

And it's irrelevant anyway, because the hot women available to criminals are liable to be bought and paid for. Or perhaps I should say, rented and paid for. It's a significant difference, but either way, the criminal hacker that we're presuming to be male would either buy female company, or their criminal employer would arrange it. For comic relief, the hacker might be shown as unaware that it's a business arrangement.

Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo

Re: The junior kept his job.

Lydia had just finished speaking when this happened. That isn't "later".

Re: Bah!

A large robot "Powerless And Fell Over" is probably noisy.

Re: Junior was more than lucky to survive.

Tell the ED-209 robot that the employee is fired. IYKYK

Re: Makes sense

You're really not helping.

Re: the one thing it isn't

If you want what to did to be a warning to others, instead of keeping him employed it's cheaper to get a photograph of him and lose the employee.

With creative presentation you can make it look like he died.

Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out

Maybe junior has a good trade union. And now also a broom. Still employed, still paid, not going to TOUCH the important stuff any more.

Gmail celebrates 22 years by finally letting users change their addresses

Re: gmail names not unique

I thought that at one time, it was that dottable.name and dottablename were two accounts, they were separate, but if only dottable.name exists then it receives dottablename's e-mail.

But it's described as you say at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en-GB

(applying to gmail.com domain only - dots are meaningful if you're using GMail at name-of-school.edu for instance.)

And probably was risky if it ever was done the way that I thought.

Brilliant backups that kept data alive for ages landed web developer in big trouble

It says DNS, but it could be the in-office "hosts" file. A minimal office configuration would not have an internal DNS. And I think that all "hosts" have to be hard-coded?

I also suspect that the web site is on an external hosting service. The old and new sites perhaps are on different hosting services. That could make it difficult to "suspend" the old site. And you might want to have it online either quickly or continually anyway, as reference or as backup - at least after a migration to a new site, you may want to be able to drop back to the old one in a hurry.

Or the web server could be owned by Neil or by Gerald, but in either of those cases, I'd expect the new server for Gerald's web site to be given the IP address of the old server, with the actual old server moved to a different address. And in that case, using the old IP address would get you to the new server.

While you're here, could you go out of your way to do an impossible job?

Re: "Security" bags

A limited set of people do photography from space, though.

Blustering Blackbeard's PC was all at sea, sysadmin got him shipshape in seconds

The inventor of the blue LED has a lot to answer for. :-)

Yes, it's clever and it's useful. Yes, low-wattage lighting would look weird without it. But nevertheless...

Work experience kids messed with manager's PC to send him to Ctrl-Alt-Del hell

Re: cabbages

Their joke. And a bit of a challenge for Paul Merton, team captain of a team of two, the actual tub of lard being the other team member.

In Windows you probably can hold down Alt and type 62 on the number pad - the "ANSI" (code page 1252?) code of symbol >. Or, get a new keyboard. Or maybe pull out a key that you don't use - I'm beginning to doubt the story is strictly true.

US state laws push age checks into the operating system

Re: Stay Chill?

I don't know about fridges, but a television capable of "general" computing - I'd say basically if it has a web browser then anything can be run in the browser - they'd make every TV run in "parental control" mode until you input a PIN.

Parental controls already exist anyway, and I can see parents approving that a TV can't be used at all without an authorised login, either for the parent or for a child. I expect you can limit TV time in hours and minutes, as well. Actually, we have that at work.

The legislation, if not now then soon, may require that only devices which restrict the choice of operating system to manufacturer-approved software, can be made and sold. So you could download Linux but you couldn't install it. Now, a virtual machine is a thing, but probably legislation can be applied to those as well. So Windows wouldn't host a Linux that didn't have government approval, too.

Re: Perspective from America ...

For translations, it's reasonable to consider whether the translator is competent, intends to reproduce the original work faithfully, and in some cases, whether they have any relation to the claimed original title at all. And this isn't only for "political" books. I think I heard that there are some strange "translations" and bootlegs of "Dracula" and "The War of the Worlds", such as transferring the action to the U.S.

Desktop tech sent to prison for an education on strange places to put tattoos

Re: Quit

That language is taken very differently in the U.S.

Re: Novice

The title refers to "strange places" (on one's body, implied) to receive and wear a tattoo, but it could be something about the design instead. Or, both - what and where.

Groucho Marx sang about "Lydia the Tattooed Lady". I suspect that the lyric varied depending on the audience.

The Two Ronnies described a tattooed man who also went for art reproductions, "with a Constable under each arm... and the inscrutable smile of the Mona Lisa becomes a broad grin whenever he sits down."

Re: Not seeing the problem

(Mainly by killing them in horrible ways, IIRC)

Re: Hazing = abuse

I thought you might have been given a garbled report of an incident that happened in another hemisphere (and fatally), but from trying to track "it" down in Google, this is happening a lot, still.

I assume that pointing this apparatus -at- somebody can be almost as dangerous as putting it -into- someone.

Don't do it.

Final step to put new website into production deleted it instead

Re: Ah, the old "rm -rf *" command

If the system you run it on is the system that you're decommissioning. How sure are you?

Tech support chap invented fake fix for non-problem and watched it spread across the office

I think they do have wire inside, but stripping the insulation off may be counter-productive. Particularly if you risk them ending up -inside- the monitor.

Re: More a commuter story than at-the-office but ...

I don't understand U.S. scale, but is that the University of Chicago located south of 55th Street? Does that count as long distance by telephone? Thank you.

Re: Wiggle the mouse

Depending on the OS and on whether you auto-run a lot of software. But yes... but specifically, when the Windows - what version is it now - Windows 11 login prompt appears, there are background services still spinning up. So I haven't timed it but - I propose that the time from an immediate login to seeing the desktop, is longer than if you give it a minute and then log in. Of course, though, I'm not counting that minute.

Re: Astrology Domine

You'd have a fair chance of identity theft by collecting personal information. ...Happy birthday, by the way. :-)

Re: Placebo

It's a good brand name. ;-)

Though I wonder if "nocebo" perhaps is equally good?

To be clear, that's not "no placebo", it is the opposite of placebo.

New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor

Re: Many moons ago now

100 million brain cells is a nice touch, Wikipedia says a typical human has around 85 BILLION. By carefully telling the former, you can get them to show off their heard knowledge and exceptional cranial development where it'll embarrass them.

Re: Quite a rare sight

Interesting. Later "received wisdom" is that it's keyboard use that tortures your wrists - to this day and second, I'm working with a touchscreen and the "FITALY" efficient screen keyboard software since my wrists blew up. Bicycling may have contributed in my case - I've since used various cycling arrangements and eventually an "Electra" non-electric but sitting-back and "cruiser" cycle, so I don't put any weight on my arms any more.

There was that Stargate episode where they accidentally connected to a black hole so everything was pulled towards the Stargate, also time slowed down... I think something heavy did get "dropped" in the scene while they were trying to end the episode but I don't remember if it was a monitor.

Ah, the agony and the ecstasy. ;-)

Re: re: multitasking

However, the stand on one leg thing, with your eyes closed even, is said to - well, the sadly late Michael Mosley recently made one of a series of short BBC radio programmes that declared "Stand on one leg for a longer life".

This series of "Just One Thing" to do for your health actually appears to run to more than 100 Things, but I think that's roping in some other productions. Your tooth-brushing time evidently is an opportunity to remember to do this, and to try not to wonder why it didn't save Michael Mosley, and I expect you get the hang of it quite quickly.

Read more at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/35QytBYmkXJ4JnDYl9zYngb/why-you-should-stand-on-one-leg

The thing about dropping balls or some other object onto a noisy surface as you fall asleep is also told about Salvador Dali.

That sort of story may be not true of Dali or of Edison or others, or may have been made up by either or both of them to deceive their critics into trying it and suffering thereby.

However, I think it was credited to Dali and then tried for a recent BBC World Service radio and podcast by contributor Anand Jagatia, or someone else in the show, which considered planning your dreams, and which may have been mentioned already further down the comments.

The use in this case is that usually you forget your dreams before you wake up, or soon after (and usually just as well), and this trick has a good chance to wake you up during a dream, so that you can write it down, etc.

I don't remember mention of pop musicians or other composers using it, or of comparison of the sound of clattering cutlery or ball-bearings to the more adventurous compositions thus produced. Or whether they sound like that anyway on a peaceful uninterrupted eight hours.

Anyway, "The Documentary: The dream makers: The experimental new field of dream engineering", running at 50 minutes, apparently can be played or downloaded "for over a year" minus the week or two since it was on, at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct8ywm

However, some BBC audio things are now available in UK only - please report. This one is "World Service", though.

Likewise for the thing about holding the balls. :-)

Marketing 'genius' destroyed a printer by trying to fix a paper jam

Re: During COVID

I realised after a while that sharing a small room with a laser printer gave me cold symptoms when it was actually used. This around 1991, the printer a bit older than that. I suppose either the dust or else the ozone. There was a smell or a taste in the air, when it ran.

Re: Users and printing devices...

"two [2]" is intended, I think.

Re: Users and printing devices...

Well, Charles Babbage did when he was at school? :-)

ATM maintenance tech broke the bank by forgetting to return a key

Re: ex engineer

I don't quite follow this story. If our hero is dealing with bank teller machines (ATM), the Hole in the Wall, or similar machines in shops, then as I'd suppose, staff don't take money out of those machines - that is what customers do.

Though perhaps if a machine is loaded with say £1000, then it gets down to £100, does the service engineer have a pre-filled box containing £1000 more, so takes the box containing £100 out of the machine, and puts in the £1000?

If it's gaming machines, or vending machines - customers put money in: presumably somebody comes to take the money out.

If it's machines that turn change into note denominations, or vice versa - I suppose that the customer puts money in, and takes other money out.

Re: The Key to Everything

A long, stiff wire through the letterbox - or in 2026, probably a small drone - could have your keys out of your house.

High-quality photography is another gotcha - going by comments here.

Re: The Key to Everything

Maybe you shouldn't be telling this to the world? Likewise everyone else here doing so.

Re: Fired

Since the topic was leaving the workplace while still having the keys that you shouldn't take home, or take to the next work site - I take it as doing that. Keys.

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: BS

NO

Re: Good lord

Well, they often claim that something as complex as life on Earth could only be made by God. Or by aliens. Then you have to explain the aliens, though.

Earth's collection of living things is complicated, but I'm prepared to say that it just grew that way.

If the emergence of humanity is a million to one chance, then why are we here? Well - if there are a billion eligible planets in the universe for the million to one chance - not real numbers - then it will happen on one thousand planets. What's the chance that the planet we are on is one of those, out of the billion? It's one, certainty, because on the other 999 million planets, there's no one there to have that discussion.

Why is the Moon the same size as the Sun, so that there are eclipses? I think there isn't a reason but also it isn't something that God claimed to have done for a religious purpose. But in a future religion, it will be included, or perhaps it already is included in some cult or secondary revelation.

Things like that.

Help desk read irrelevant script, so techies found and fixed their own problem

Re: Erm

Isn't it usually done by a bull?

(Or these days, by remote working)

Re: What I really wanted .....

You could tell them that the telephone pole outside has fallen over? Although it hasn't. "Oh yes, I put it up again, it didn't help though."

Re: rddb

"Fire, I'll take you to burn

Fire, I'll take you to learn

I'll see you burn"

(weirdo)

Re: DIY

Recently I looked up the actress in Star Trek who played "Elaan of Troyius" - apparently in 2026 there's a sudden fuss about "Helen of Troy" being played by a Black actress, and I wondered. Of course "Elaan" isn't exactly Helen of Troy. Possibly closer to Achilles. She actually was from planet Elas and was going to Troyius for a political marriage. I think the audience are expected to notice all this. Of course Captain Kirk got involved, that is, "involved". I'm not sure what that makes him. Very tired, I expect.

Anyway, Wikipedia says that "France Nuyen" is a French-American actress, model, and psychological counselor. She's the daughter of a Romani French mother and a father from French Indochina. Her father is widely reported to be Viet; however, Nuyen identifies him and herself as Chinese or Hoa. He didn't stay around. The Hoa people are an ethnic minority in Vietnam composed of citizens and nationals of full or partial Han Chinese ancestry.

I'm unsure of the pronunciation, but I expect that she says it very carefully.

Her notable film roles appear to include "anything vaguely Asian", which I don't blame her for. While the character of Elaan was difficult to like, unless she released her secretion, then it was impossible not to.