>non-stop circus type music to keep 'undesirables' from kipping there
Yeah, that'll get them to Fucik right off.
Posts by David 132
5507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2010
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McDonald's pulls plug on Wi-Fi, starts playing classical music to soothe yobs
Wednesday 1st February 2023 00:45 GMT 
Re: print car number plates on takeaway bags to discourage customers from littering
>remainder is cigarettes and soda/beer cans/bottles
Do they not do money-back deposits on cans & bottles in the UK any more?
Here in Oregon it's 10¢ or 5¢ per item, and there are easy-to-use machines at Costco etc that will accept the items and give you cash or a voucher back.
Putting my armchair psychologist hat on for a moment... when it comes to law enforcement, punishing people will only ever deter the law-abiding (and I say that as a self-confessed member of the hang-em-and-flog-em brigade).
The real trick is to make people not want to commit the offence in the first place. Leverage self-interest, greed, whatever - those characteristics are universal and will always be with us, so you might as well make use of them for societal good.
Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000
Saturday 28th January 2023 23:28 GMT
Re: Harmony by disharmony
>I may have to generate an example for myself.
Takes about 30 seconds in Audacity. And it's quite unpleasant. Why anyone would want to use it in an advert is beyond me - it's akin to thinking "hmm, if I begin my advert with the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard it'll get people's attention and help sell my product". But then, hey, that's advertising people for you. Bill Hicks was right.
Saturday 28th January 2023 21:54 GMT
Re: Harmony by disharmony
> Nothing worse than driving around a roundabout and hearing sirens and trying to work out where they coming from.
I read, maybe about 20 years ago, that research in the UK had shown that people are really bad at spatially locating normal siren sounds, meaning that a typical driver will waste valuable time looking around and trying to figure out where the noise is coming from. White noise, however, is much easier to place, albeit much less of a "get the hell out of the way" imperative.
And so there was talk of modifying emergency sirens to incorporate a few seconds of white noise - sort of "nee-naw, nee-naw, fsssssh, nee-naw, nee-naw, fsssssh" (I had fun typing that) to blend the advantages of both types of sound. "Get the hell out of the way! I am approaching from BEHIND you!" as it were.
Did anything come of that? Do sirens in the UK now "fssssh" periodically, other than when they're on the blink from lack of maintenance?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Saturday 28th January 2023 05:25 GMT
Re: Harmony by disharmony
To the downvoters: I once drove from southern CA (Palm Springs) back to home. It took me ~15 hours, and that was at 70+ on the interstate all the way, pausing only to refuel every 400 miles.
If anyone can kidnap a child down there, and be likely to get to Oregon in time to justify an Amber alert 30 minutes later... it's not phone alerts you want, it's anti SR-71 Blackbird missiles.
An analogy for our European readers would be: you get an alert siren on your phone in Nottingham to tell you that a child has gone missing in Sarajevo.
Friday 27th January 2023 20:29 GMT
Re: Harmony by disharmony
Oh, you and me both. Being woken twice in succession at ~2AM in Northern Oregon for an Amber Alert about a missing child in southern California did not put me in a good mood.
OTOH, you've just given me an idea.
The EAS tone would make the most annoying ring-tone ever. <Evil cackle>
Lockheed Martin demos 50kW anti-aircraft frickin' laser beam
Tesla eyes Nevada for Semi electric truck plant, battery factory
If your Start menu or apps are freezing up on Windows, Microsoft has a suggestion
Thursday 26th January 2023 01:24 GMT
Wait, what?
FTFA: According to Barco, ClickShare's maker, when the app begins to read the Outlook Calendar, the Start menu may ignore mouse clicks, the Windows key may not work, and the desktop Search feature may ignore mouse clicks on the Search button as well as the Windows+S key.
What the heck does the Start menu have to do with Outlook?
That is classic Microsoft right there. Tight integration between things that really, really don't need to be integrated, to the point of ridiculous failure modes like this.
What next - if you have a floral-themed wallpaper, Notepad will refuse to open?
Well that escalated quickly: India demos homebrew mobile OS
Wednesday 25th January 2023 20:52 GMT
Re: They're screwed ...
It varies. I had occasion recently to work with a team of Indian devs (redbaron.in, for those who want specifics) and I found them to be really helpful and quick to respond with new builds that met my requirements. Although the 11-hour timezone difference between us made for a lot of very late-night debug sessions!
(I'd have done the dev work myself, but the scenario was: "we need 6 separate apps written, in time for a hard deadline. Which is 2½ weeks from now." Something-something failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part, but hey ho.)
Global network outage hits Microsoft: Azure, Teams, Outlook all down
Go to security school, GoTo – theft of encryption keys shows you need it
Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Office installs
Saturday 21st January 2023 20:23 GMT
Or helpfully installs 365 and sets it to be the default for .doc/.xls/.ppt files, in the same way that they keep inveigling Edge back onto systems of people who've had the temerity to install an alternative browser.
"We'll be delighted to allow you to edit your document! But first, let's take you through the product purchase and activation wizard..."
Saturday 21st January 2023 20:12 GMT
Re: "Malicious software removal tool"
I'm running Windows 10 and *will* escape this.
That's because several months ago, after my PC "helpfully" rebooted overnight to install updates - despite me repeatedly telling it not to, and losing me a ton of open documents and hours of work - a red mist descended in front of my eyes and I f*cking nuked the Windows Update subsystem with extreme prejudice (hence ---> icon). Can't even remember what I did now (like I said - red mist), but it involved removing all file ownership/read/execute permissions to the WU stack, obliterating chunks of the Registry, and probably threatening the PC with a baseball bat too. Probably an over-reaction but I was not in a mood to ask nicely.
Now I'm sure some of the holier-than-thou types reading this will tut-tut "but your PC is now vulnerable and out-of-date!" and probably downvote me, as if I care. But I will say that my Windows 10 install has been trouble-free ever since, rock-solid, and still gets Defender definition updates anyway. It stays out of my way and doesn't pester me at all. Almost like Windows 7 of fond recollection.
Massive outage grounded US flights because someone accidentally deleted a file
Bringing cakes into the office is killing your colleagues, says UK food watchdog boss
Mailchimp 'fesses up to second digital burglary in five months
IBM top brass accused again of using mainframes to prop up Watson, cloud sales
Microsoft locks door to default guest authentication in Windows Pro
Wednesday 18th January 2023 08:03 GMT
Re: Observation
Technically what it's telling you is how much more wonderful things would be if you were online and could have a super, shiny, modern, lovely Microsoft account. Tied to Microsoft, of course, and increasing their tentacles' grip around you, but only a jaded cynic would suggest that's their primary motivation. They just love you and want the best for you, honestly.
NASA overspent $15m on Oracle software because it was afraid an audit could cost more
Saturday 14th January 2023 05:24 GMT
Re: Learn guys...
You missed off the next bit, which is just as applicable, as it's Oracle we're talking about:
"...Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the
department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: 'Learn, guys...'
Of course, the comparison is a little unfair. One is the blood-red-hued font of all evil and suffering in our lives, and the other is, um... Hell.
OneDrive back on its feet, but ongoing Skype credit problem hasn't gone away
Mixing an invisible laser and a fire alarm made for a disastrous demo
Tuesday 10th January 2023 06:11 GMT
Re: Alert Audio
I'm sure I've told this story before, but many years ago - late 90s - when I was a mere whippersnapper fresh out of university and in my first job, I downloaded a Father Ted screensaver to my work PC. It blanked the screen and then played a random audio sample from Father Jack - "drink!", "arse!", "girls!", "feck!" and so on, to the accompaniment of the same word on the screen in blackletter font.
Hilarious. For about 5 minutes.
So I moved the mouse to exit the screensaver, and got on with my day. Logging customer issues, playing back voicemails and having to turn the PC's speakers up to hear & transcribe them... yeah, you can probably see where this is going.
I was called away from my desk, or maybe I wandered off to get a coffee, can't remember.
What I do remember is that when I ambled back onto my floor of the cubefarm a while later, that bloody screensaver had kicked back in, and the PC was loudly yelling DRINK! FECK! ARSE! to the entire floor.
Whoops. One more to add to my large collection of "sink into the ground" moments...
CES Worst in Show slams gummi gouging, money-wasting mugs, and other dubious kit
After roasting Nvidia for overheating issues AMD now has its own
FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty on eight charges
Thursday 5th January 2023 08:35 GMT
Re: Seems a bit late?
He spent the last few weeks blabbing his mouth off to any and all news/blog sites that would listen. I imagined at the time that his lawyer(s) were probably biting through their desks in frustration and desperately trying to get him to STFU and stop digging himself deeper.
Ah well. Time to get the popcorn and watch the fun.
Cops chase Tesla driver 'dozing' with Autopilot on
NASA may tap SpaceX to rescue ISS 'nauts in Soyuz leak
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