Posts by Big_Boomer

Musk: Tesla's doing great. I mean, have you seen my Twitter follower count?

Car crash

Of course he has lots of followers. Everyone LOVES to ogle a car crash. Next thing he'll be changing his name to tW@ and having his face striped to prove that he is ambivalent. The countdown continues. <LOL>

Techies ask PM to 'prepare UK chip strategy as a matter of urgency'

Pointless

We had a chip manufacturing infrastructure but then we left the trading block where the fabs are located and now we have to trade on the open market for chips. Yet another "win" for the dumbfcukery that Brexit has been shown again and again to have been. <sigh>

As for competence and politicians, they seem to be mutually exclusive under our current electoral methods. All we end up with is people who are good at getting themselves elected. They mostly have little else to offer the nation and seem to be very much out of their depth in most aspects of government, other than lining their pockets of course.

Twitter tweaks third-party app rules to ban third-party apps

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire!

("Sway" by Coal Chamber)

Now, where did I put the marshmallows? <LOL>

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Standards?

I can and quite happily do work using any damned measurement system available so long as I have a clear definition of the values and ideally a fairly accurate conversion factor. However, the problem with a great many people is that they simply cannot be arsed to do conversions so they want everything presented in their favourite standard. The standard used is therefore defined by the laziest people and they are fiercely resistant to change as it would mean that they would have to learn to THINK and calculate. The rest of us do the conversions needed and suffer the pointless mishmash of irrational measurement systems daily. Even in one of the most modern industries (the IT industry) we use Metric but because a lot of it was US/UK originated we have 19" racks for the servers, 2.5" hard-disks, etc. I guess what I am saying is that we can bitch and belly-ache about this until the cows come home but it will change NOTHING. Just learn to do the conversions.

I grew up in mainland Europe so I prefer and mostly think in Metric, but I live in the UK so handling the mess of "standards" here means I can deal with anything that comes at me, although the other day I had to explain a Gill to someone and I couldn't for the life of me remember if it was a quarter of a pint or eight cubic inches, or..... ahh thanks Google. <LOL>

Finally, when communicating with Americans I use the date format 23 Jan 2023 as it is unambiguous.

Intel, AMD just created a headache for datacenters

Obsolete datacentres

If the datacentres cannot cope with the new requirements, then it's time to build new datacentres and perhaps add a bit more expansion capability this time rather than going with the lowest quote. This is nothing new, nor is the fact that idiots still expect to be able to carry on adding more and more processing power into the same space. If they have run out of space or cooling capacity or power supply or available bandwidth then they have to move somewhere that has what they need.

BOFH: It's 4ft tall, heavyset, has optional fax. No they didn't take the toner!

Re: The Boss departs for the liquor store…

I agree but Simon is from New Zealand so it may be set there, and they do have Liquor stores rather than the UK's Off-Licences.

Half of environmental claims about products are full of crap, says EU

Lies, Damned Lies, and yet more Marketing Lies

Ahhh yes, the great Greenwash. "Vague, misleading, unfounded, spin,...." or Lies as any sane person calls them.

I know that this article is about the EU but the same holds here in the UK, if not worse. Aren't the ASA supposed to be policing these? I remember when many companies were slapped down for claiming Broadband speeds of "up to" that they hardly ever delivered, and yet every day I see adverts with claims for EV ranges "up to" that they simply cannot deliver in the real world.

Disruptive innovation's like a party. It's always happening elsewhere

Funding is the root of the problem. These days every investor wants to know when their funding will give them a return in cold hard cash. Very few companies do any "blue sky" research any more because they are all run by accountants and all accountants can understand is monetary profit, so what we end up with is creeping research but nothing truly innovative or original. Additionally patents and copyright run for so long now that very few can afford to pay for the searches to make sure that they are not stepping on someone else's patent/copyright so they simply don't bother and then get their work stolen by some patent farm's lawyers.

As for the paper chain padding, that reminds me of the latest fashion in SF novel writing. You have a nice idea for a story, but to make any money you will have to stretch that single novel story over a 12 novel series. I can't begin to count the number of such series I have given up on half way through due to sheer boredom. I have gone back to re-reading the old masters. They are so much more enjoyable since they manage to tell the story in one novel or at worst a trilogy, and if it was popular then they wrote sequels and prequels.

Engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

Re: But Why?

Does your UI run on thin air? Are you happy trying to run your shiny new UI on ancient hardware that is worn out? No? Then you need hardware engineers as they are the ones that design the new chips, new motherboards, GFX cards, network cards, monitors,....and also the ones that design the production processes to mass produce them so that you can afford them. Does that explain it simply enough for you?

Microsoft patent eyes ads in streaming online games

Metaverse?

Don't you mean the Adverse? The only reason Zuckdroid is pouring cash into it is because he sees a future of 3D ads pouring even more money back into his bank account. Minority Report anyone? Hopefully I'll be dead before it happens.

YOU WILL BUY.....

We will drill holes in your eyes and pour in our adverts. YOU WILL BUY WHAT WE WANT TO SELL YOU! Anyone else getting sick to death of all adverts? What ever happened to the idea that we would get "targeted" adverts for stuff that we may actually want? Utter arse-gravy of the stinkiest runniest kind. All I get are adverts for stuff I have already bought or stuff I already decided not to buy. I now habitually mute the TV when the ads come on, I look away when my tablet pushes an advert at me, and avoid websites that have overly aggressive adverts on them, especially those crappy "local news" sites like Kent Live which only seem to exist to spew adverts at you and otherwise have the journalistic integrity of a winnet. No wonder people are going more and more offline when the online experience is just one long vomit stream of advertising.

Elon Musk to step down as Twitter CEO: Help us pick his replacement

Ye

I can't believe you all missed the obvious candidate. Ye is so obviously magnificent and wonderous and so full of himself that Ye could do anything Ye set Ye's mind(?) to. Oh wait, isn't Ye banned from Twatter for being a twat? Perhaps Ye would be the ideal candidate simply BECAUSE he is banned from posting?

I have to agree with some of the commentards on here that there is a certain joy (schadenfreude) to be had from watching the demise of Twatter. I take back my previous comments about too many Musky articles on El Reg. Bring 'em on! It's like watching an episode of Destroyed in Seconds only it's gonna take months/years.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Compulsory? <LOL>

That ship has sailed, and the sooner the deniers adapt to the new work environment the better. I used to be a smoker and I got most of the best company gossip/news from other smokers, so are we going to make smoking shelter attendance compulsory too <LOL>?

In the office I was constantly interrupted by people too selfish/rude to understand that I might be concentrating on something and that they were disturbing my work. I was surrounded by constant noise, people walking past, people holding shouted conversations across the office, and of course the stench of 10 different people's microwaved dinner all mixed together with the stink of stale coffee and body odour in an office that was way too warm for me and too cold for the person sat next to me. No thanks, at home my only hassles are attention seeking cats and deliveries for my better half & neighbours. If someone wants to talk to me, they email/message asking me for assistance which I can ignore until I reach a natural break in my work. If it's urgent then they can still call me but they have learned that they'd better have a damned good reason for calling. They still get the help they need, but on my terms and when I am ready.

I can see where for some roles being in the office is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that everyone should have to go back to the office. In ye olde days you could build relationships by being in the office and use those to get ahead in a company, but these days even that is mostly useless as you are far more likely to get ahead by moving to a different company.

Tetchy trainee turned the lights down low to teach turgid lecturer a lesson

Digital Dice

I built a digital dice using the exact same method. There were 4 circuits (for up to 4 dice) and you could select D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, or D20 for each circuit. It would count 1-4 or 1-6,... or 1-20 and then start over at 1. The output was displayed on a 7segment LED for each circuit. The clock ran at 330kHz and it counted for as long as you pressed the roll button so the time the button was pressed was the "random" element as there is no way you could stop the clock when you wanted to. Our DM was a college lecturer and he asked me if he could borrow it one week to test if it was truly random. He had his students test it for compliance with the principles of randomness and it completely nailed the test. I still have it in a dark cupboard in the garage somewhere.

Understanding is where it's at!

If you had these issues with mumbling lecturers, poor screen displays, inability to write whilst listening, etc. why didn't you raise that fact with the lecturer? If I attend a lecture and cannot hear them, then I ask them to speak up or use a PA system. If I cannot see/read the screen I say so and refuse to let them continue until I can see/read. Yes, you will mark yourself out but most teachers/lecturers WANT their students to learn and will take an active role in assisting those who actively show an interest, so long as you don't make too much of nuisance of yourself. If you just sit there like a blancmange hoping to absorb the information by osmosis and gain understanding by some miracle, then you are failing the teacher, yourself, and whoever is paying for your training. Get involved, ask questions, speak up if you have an issue or don't understand. The whole point of them and you being there is for you to learn. If you are there just to pass an exam and then forget it all, then you are wasting everyone's time, your own included.

I had a deaf mate who had major issues in lectures because whilst he was an accomplished lipreader that didn't help if the lecturer was marching up and down, often facing away from him. He was one of the first people I ever saw who videoed his lectures (with permission), mostly so he could watch them back and pause/rewind whilst making his notes. He also asked all his lecturers to face forwards when talking, which most did. He did better than most of the "tourists" because he gave a damn and paid attention and wanted to understand. We used to read each others notes and it often astounded me what he got from each lecture that had gone right over my head,...and vice-versa.

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Re: Awwwww, poor Microsoft

<LOL> My garage PC is the one I had prior to the current i7-4790. That is also running 21H2 but on a Q9550 with 8GB RAM. I only use that to play music and access service manuals etc. No idea how old that is but I think I bought it in Dec 08 so it's probably 14 years old. I installed an SSD and upgraded the the GFX to a 750Ti, about 5 years ago.

Awwwww, poor Microsoft

It is pointless them whining that nobody is using their new OS when they have effectively limited it to new (or nearly new) PCs. I'm certainly not going to upgrade to it on my home PC as it's a 7 year old i7-4790 Haswell and Windows 11 is incapable of running on such a venerable antique piece of crap,... that somehow seems to manage to run everything just fine under Windows 10 (21H2) including a variety of PC games. If they insist on putting such stupidly restrictive requirements into their latest effort, then hardly anyone is going to upgrade to it. By the time I get around to replacing this PC Win12 will be out anyways. <LOL>

You get the internet you deserve

GIGO

My problem isn't that I get the WWW that I deserve. No, what I get is the WWW that click-happy morons deserve. The morons don't care because they have no taste so to them any old piece of garbage tastes just like a fine steak. Before the WWW there was an inherent cost for printing and distributing garbage, but now it's instant and super cheap, so we obviously get deluged with it. But like we had with Spam, once people recognise the problem filters will get developed and the garbage generators will find another way to project their arse-gravy at us. And so the circle turns once more in the eternal war.

Just 22% of techies in UK aged 50 or older, says Chartered Institute for IT

I'm in my late 50s and where I work does not seem to discriminate based on age/gender/race or anything else for that matter. There are experienced technical people here in their 30s that earn the same (or similar) to me. However the pay scales for technical (non-managerial) people is low compared to the managerial scales. If these companies REALLY want to recruit more technical staff, then try paying more. They never seem to have any problems recruiting sufficient Sales, Marketing & Management staff. I wonder why that is?

I almost went down the manglement route, but swerved at the last minute when I was asked where I thought I would be in 5 years. In my head I saw me sat at a meeting room table stuck in a mobius loop discussing the whereness of the whichfore,.... and I bailed as fast as my feet could get me out of there. Best decision I ever made!

There is also still this olde worlde mindset that IT Specialist = Engineer = dirty coal shoveler. That needs to change.

Man wins court case against employer that fired him for not liking boozy, forced 'fun' culture

Optimists

I intensely dislike working with Optimists. You know, the "Everything is AWESOME!" types who are full of gush and spray it around like they can infect everyone else. That whole "positive attitude" guff smells of fermented egg-yolk & cabbage excrement to me and often seems to be used to cover up incompetence. I have been accused by them of being a Pessimist but I have always considered myself a Realist. A Pessimist is always down on everything, whereas a Realist is down on what is obvious guff and up on anything that improves life. As a Realist I take life as it comes and deal with it but I will ALWAYS call bullsh!t when I smell it. I have declined 2 jobs before now because my bullsh!t detector has sounded off at interview stage.

My glass is neither half-full, nor half-empty,.. it is at 50% capacity. Here's a 100% capacity pint for all my fellow Realists.

Study suggests AI cruise control could kill traffic jams by cutting out the 'intuition' factor

In SE UK if you leave a gap of 1.00001 vehicles length in front of you a van it invariably fills that gap. So, you leave a bigger gap behind the van because now you cannot see what the cars ahead of it are doing which was previously allowing you to drive smoothly,.... and 2 vans fill that gap. Pretty soon you have a typical M25 traffic jam. For many years I commuted by motorcycle which meant I could filter and traffic jams were just a slow section. Makes for a way less stressful commute until that truck turns right across your path and you end up in hospital. Personally I have found the perfect solution to the traffic jam. DON'T COMMUTE!

Humans are generally pretty crap drivers. Too easily distracted, lazy, temperamental, entitled, prone to over-react, and most are incapable of considering the consequences of their actions. Yes, I DO include myself in that but I do try to think ahead and consider the effects of my actions on those around me.

Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time

Time is not real

Time is a human invention to give us a mathematical handle on our reality (or what we perceive to be our reality). Therefore whatever changes we decide to make (or put off until someone else has to decide) are just changes to something that does not exist outside our minds. Agreeing to a common standard would be ideal but what possible difference does it make if the sun rises where you are at 06:00 or 12:00 or 23:37:12.842? So long as we know what the "offsets" are we can do the calculations (or our computers can) needed to get on with our lives. The problems we are having are because of decisions made previously that "bind" us to a particular convention, and now they want to change/not change that convention. Either way we will end up with another Millennium Bug level mess that will require time and money to resolve/avoid at some point so who cares what they change/don't change. Trying to base our definition of time on a variable (rotation of a planet, rotation of planet around star, pulse rate of a Pulsar, etc.) is like chasing shadows. Since we have no "fixed" frame of reference we use those as the next best thing, but they are inherently variable so that needs to be taken into account.

Starlink purchases 'Twitter takeover' ad package, Musk dismisses it as 'tiny'

What is an overdose of Musk called?

5 separate articles on the main page of El Reg about Muskytwit. SpaceX I've always admired, Tesla I'm ambivalent about, Twatter is anti-social media of the worst kind.

I'm happy paying Twitter eight bucks a month because price isn't the same as value

With those side pods,... Sikorski S-56 or a Sea King,... but a black one of course <LOL>

Twitter begs some staff to come back, says they were laid off accidentally

Stupidity Incarnate

Exactly what I described here https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/11/04/twitter_warn_act_lawsuit/ just yesterday. Sounds like they followed the usual takeover playbook and as usual ****ed up bigtime. <LOL>

Sizewell C nuclear plant up for review as UK faces financial black hole

Re: Why overbudget? Why behind schedule?

Ever heard of inflation? Do you have a magic ball that can predict future material & fuel costs and all possible difficulties? No, well neither do they. ALL such major projects are expected to cost more to build than is originally budgeted for. Then there is the problem caused by companies underbidding to get the supply/work contract, and then adding additional costs in so as to make a profit. No plan EVER survives contact with the enemy, and in these cases the enemy is the real world!

Microsoft feels the need, the need for speed in Teams

The "One" True App

Teams suffers from MBCS (Microsoft Bloatware Conglomeration Syndrome). It is defined as trying to make one App do everything for every possible user. So, Teams will soon swallow that other victim of MBCS, to whit MS Office, just as Office once swallowed Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Outlook/Access and prior to that each of those in turn grew bloated with irrelevant drivel that is useless to 99.9% of their user base. Of course it's slow. It's dragging around so much useless bloat it's a miracle it ****ing moves at all.

I also do not understand why every single piece of software out there has to have millions of different "Notifications" to spam you with, and require you to spend an eternity disabling them. Are they afraid that you might forget their awful software if it isn't constantly bugging to react to the message that Jim in accounts has a new slightly lighter gray jacket? Why not supply software with ALL Notifications turned OFF, and allow us to select what we want?

Foldable smartphones crawl to one percent of global market share

Re: Phonebling

I have a Samsung tablet with a 12" screen but I don't need that when I am out and about. A regular 6" phone screen is more than adequate and the combined price of my phone and tablet are under HALF of the cost of either of the Samsung flip-phones. As I said, if it makes you happy, then I am happy for you. All of my statements are my opinion.

Phonebling

Foldables are about as useful as a phone covered in Swarovski crystals. Shiny and sparkly, but they just add bling and cost a small fortune. If that's your thing, then good for you, but don't expect it to become mainstream at any price. I will never want a shiny, sparkly phone, not will I ever want a foldable, but then I am an olde codger who couldn't give a flying **** about what my phone (Poco X4) says about me. It does it's various jobs adequately.

Twitter employees sue over lack of 60-day layoff notice

Takeovers

I have been through several takeovers by US/CDN companies and the SOP is to immediately make 1/3 to 1/2 of the staff redundant. Later on when they realise that they laid off people that they needed and that most of the best staff moved on under their own steam before potentially getting laid off, they then realise that they have crippled the very company that they bought. Now if they were buying them to kill competition, then that works fine, but if they expect what they bought to make them money then they need to be a LOT more careful about how they go about dealing with layoffs. It'll be interesting to see what the markets think Twatter is worth in 6 months to 1 years time. We know what it was "worth" at the end of October 2022. Who knows, maybe this process might make his Muskiness learn to think through and censor his own pronouncements in future, rather than waiting for the SEC to muzzle him again. Nah, who am I kidding? <LOL>

Multi-factor auth fatigue is real – and it's why you may be in the headlines next

Login fatigue

Whatever happened to single-sign-on? Since the advent of the everything-online-cloud-obsession I now have to login to 5-10 different systems every single day, and that is before I even start to remote access the customer systems I support. I am not even remotely surprised that people are MFA weary, and login weary. I long for retirement so I will no longer have to consult my Password Manager 30+ times per day. I am all for securing systems, but when the system is so secure that it is preventing legitimate use or considerably slowing down access for legitimate users, then there has to be a point when someone says ENOUGH ALREADY! Otherwise we will all end up on standalone systems with no wired/wireless networking and powerline filters in an underground nuke proof concrete bunker.

UK comms regulator rings death knell for fax machines

FaxSpam

At a former employers we used to get a lot of FaxSpam in the days before decent e-Fax software. We would have to replace the toner cartridge every month just to be able to receive 20 or so faxes from customers & suppliers. So, we used to keep a stack of black and white diagonal striped paper beside the fax machine and anyone who spammed us got 20 pages of that sent back to them (now they get to replace their toner as well) with a final sheet telling them that if they faxed us again we would send Big John around to insert their fax machine somewhere dark and smelly. Over the next few months the FaxSpam storm declined to a light drizzle. Eventually we got a fax machine that could be whitelisted so we ONLY accepted faxes from a validated list of customers and suppliers. I think the companies initial mistake was publishing the fax number on their website.

As for the death of the fax machine, bring it on. They are an archaic PITA and need to die!

UK facing electricity supply woes after nuclear power stations shut, MPs told

Yet another OBVIOUS problem that all our incompetent governments just "missed".

My Dad worked for Westinghouse Nuclear Europe from the early 70s until the late 90s. He got laid off due to successive governments of both hues, and on both sides of the Atlantic, being unwilling to invest in new nuclear power stations. Gas was cheap and governments are congenitally incapable of seeing beyond the next election, so long term planning was ignored or else setup and then cancelled until now it's too late. I also have every intention of laughing in the face of all the hippies, greens, and nimby's who complain about the power cuts we are pretty much guaranteed to have over the next few years. They believed the pushers of the nuclear "boogeyman" stories and ignored the experts (remind anyone of anything?) and now they get to suck it up.

Personally I'd rather live near a big Nuke than anywhere near a coal/gas/oil/wood-chip/waste burning plant, and definitely rather than near a wind farm.

Enterprises are rolling out more AI – to 'middling results'

Awfully Inadequate

That's my take on AI. Not one of these AI systems are artificially intelligent. At best they are neural networks that have learned to take a trained/educated guess at something and have a high-ish chance of being correct. However, they are often incorrect and therefore utterly useless if the data is to have any value at all. I've seen a lot of AI hype over the last few years and I still maintain that at best what they are selling are Expert Systems and that there is ZERO Intelligence in any of their systems. It reminds me of all those silly psychometric tests that HR types thought were the dogs-danglies until someone actually researched their effect and it turned out that they were utterly useless and it would have been just as effective to just bin every other CV. These Expert Systems do seem to be pretty good at pattern recognition and can process data WAY faster than humans, but the positives still need that trained human eye to confirm that they are correct and THAT is where the Intelligence comes in. One day we may well have Artificial Intelligence but not for some time yet.

Hong Kong wants to be the world’s home for virtual assets

Re: We recognize the potential of Web 3.0 to become the future of finance and commerce

Why not, it seems people pay more attention to unconfirmed drivel than they do to reality these days. The ongoing rise of Homo Stupidi Gulliblus continues. As for Hong Kong, my advice is get out whilst the getting is good.

Your next PC should be a desktop – maybe even this Chinese mini machine

Home office

I work from home full time and am lucky enough to have a tiny 3rd bedroom that makes a decent home office. I have set myself up with such a good work environment that when I do go to the office it feels cramped and lo-tech with smaller desks and tiny 26" monitors <LOL>. I have a 180cm x 70cm desk that is height adjustable, two 32" curved 1920x1080 monitors, a good keyboard and mouse, and a USB switch for the keyboard, mouse, and video camera. For work I have a high-ish spec Dell laptop and a USB-C docking station (both supplied by the company) which is more than adequate for what I do. The work laptop needs to be portable for the occasional visits to the office and to customer sites so a desktop won't work for me there.

For home use I have an old-ish i7-4790 with 16GB RAM, and a GeForce GTX960 with 4GB VRAM, with a big SSD, a big HDD, and a good 5.1 speaker system. The home setup suffices for the games that I play (Fallout4, GTA5, Outer Limits, Skyrim, Half-Life, etc.) and anything else I need to do on a PC. I have yet to encounter anything that would make me want to replace it.

Both PCs use the same monitors, keyboard, mouse, and camera. All the cabling goes down the back of the desk where it is clipped to the underside of the desk with stick on cable clips. I also have an "ergonomic" office chair. It's tidy-ish but highly functional. Total cost outside of the desktop PC, laptop, and speaker system is about £1250 but given that I spend 50+ hours per week here, worth every penny and then some.

Luxury smartphone brand returns with $41,500 device

Loads-a-money

"Shut yor maaaaaff and look at my new shiny-shiny fing!" Yet more bling for those with more money than sense.

How I made a Chrome extension for converting Reg articles to UK spelling

UK/US English

Personally I have worked with UK, US, CDN, AUS, NZ, SA, Indian, and many other "English" mother tongue speakers for over 40 years. Verbal communication can be difficult due to dialect and cultural differences, but written language pretty much comes down to UK and US English. Most of the world uses UK English spelling, apart from the USA. When people from outside the UK/USA see US spelling then they assume that the site is US based and US culture. When they see UK spelling there is no assumption as the site could be based just about anywhere in the English speaking world, EXCEPT for the USA. There are a variety of reasons given for the differences in spelling and they are all valid for the culture they are used in. Most of us can communicate in both with ease as the differences are minimal, mostly ignored, and are at worst a mild irritant.

However, El Reg started in the UK, has always been perceived as a UK based site, and has built up it's readership thanks to that UK culture and humour. Changing it to US spelling/culture is, in my opinion, a mistake, and in the longer term will change how El Reg is perceived outside the US. It may be a success w.r.t. profitability, especially in the short term, but longer term it will become just another US based IT news site, and there are plenty of those already.

CEO told to die in a car crash after firing engineers who had two full-time jobs

Dishonesty

By taking two simultaneous "whole time" jobs and not declaring them to either employer you are stealing from both. If you choose to work two jobs and declare it to both employers and they accept that, then fill your boots. If you cheat and lie to your employer(s) then don't start whining when you get Gross Misconducted out the door. I have worked for multiple employers on several occasions but none of them involved "whole time" contracts and I never worked them simultaneously so each employer was getting what they paid for.

I am thoroughly enjoying working from home and am doing nothing substantively different than I did when I was in the office. I don't work 100% of the time flat out but then I never did in the office either, and if I tried to I'd burn out like many of the over-enthusiastic people I have worked with. My working hours are more flexible than they were but then I'm not wasting 4 hours per day commuting either and the stress levels are WAY lower than they were. Being able to focus with less interruptions is also a huge benefit, both to me and the company. I know that this wouldn't suit everyone or every job, but it works for me and seems to be working for my employers.

Jim McDivitt, NASA Apollo mission astronaut, dies at 93

RIP Jim

So long and thanks for Apollo. My commiserations to his friends and family.

BOFH: The Boss has a new watch – move readiness to DEFCON 2

Nice one Simon

Identify source of irritation, point PFY at it,..... and release! <LOL>

Have a fun weekend all. Beer icon because I won't be getting my coat due to WFH :-)

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Not just in IT

There are plenty of stupid's out there. A friend worked for a car immobiliser company in the 90's (before they were built in by the manufacturers) and got called out on a Sunday to a customers car that the irate and demanding customer could not start. So, he drove to South Mimms services where the customer was stuck to investigate the problem, but it being Sunday he took his 12 year old son with him. On arrival he found that there was nothing wrong with the immobiliser system but that the customer had the cars gearbox in Drive. So he moved the lever to Park and hey presto the car started. As he walked back to his own car his son VERY LOUDLY and easily in earshot of the customer said, "Daddy, did we just drive 60 miles to put that mans car in Drive?" <LOL> He did get a glowing email from said customer about his professionalism though.

Westinghouse sale signals arrival of a new nuclear age

Nuclear Boogieman, woooooooo!!! Be frightened!!

Just mention the word "Nuclear" and half the population has a fit, yet there have been and continues to be plenty of safe, efficient, profitable nuclear power stations all around the world. Yes, there was Calder Hall (Windscale), Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as other incidents you may never have heard of, but there was also Aberfan and a great long list of coal mining disasters that have killed tens of thousands over the years, not to mention oil/gas industry disasters like Deepwater Horizon, Piper Alpha, Torrey Canyon, Exxon Valdez, Kielland, Seacrest, Ocean Ranger, and many MANY more that everyone seems to conveniently forget. If you are talking deaths, injuries, pollution and other hazards to health then even Wind Power is more harmful than Nuclear Power. Don't believe me? Then go do the research yourself.

Re: Nuclear power is neither clean nor safe

Agreed, Nuclear is neither clean nor safe, but then neither is ANY energy production system.

You seem to enjoy spouting such populist drivel, now go research it properly and learn about reality, as opposed to "Truth", or are you too far down the rabbit hole to even consider the possibility that you might be wrong?

People still seem to think their fancy cars are fully self-driving

Darwin in action.

Or at least it would be if the drivers in these "self-driving" accidents were killed. Survival of the Cynical? <LOL> I feel the same about these morons as I do about people who drive off cliffs and quaysides because their SatNav told them to.

More than 4 in 10 PCs still can't upgrade to Windows 11

Good/Bad

WinXP - Good.

Vista - Bad.

Win7 - Good.

Win8 - Bad

Win10 - Good

See where I'm going with this?

Japan tests probe to land on Martian moon Phobos, bring a chunk of it back to Earth

Scary!

If you are scared of Phobos, are you a PhoboPhobe? Phobos was the Roman god of fear and panic. It's gonna be a fun mission to watch.

Brexit dividend? 'Newly independent' UK will be world's 'data hub', claims digital minister

The Tory mantra, "Over-promise, under-deliver".

Oh wait, I didn't say that in 3 catchy words so it'll have to be re-written. "Incompetent, Greedy, Corrupt". There, that should do it, or perhaps "Feckless, Fatuous, Flighty". Please feel free to come up with your own 3 word description of the Tory party.

Google Japan goes rogue with 5.4ft long keyboard

October fools ;-)

Up next, a keyboard in the shape of the infinity symbol (∞), one in classic shape of a cock & balls, and of course never ending MOEBIUS Strip keyboard. <LOL>

Someone's at last helping AI models understand those with speech disabilities

Bawwy wiww be happy

For those who don't get it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhmq7BBnRf4