Posts by BongoJoe 1327 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Apr 2010
Farmers use it here to fertilize their crops which is why we only end up with one set of tramlines through fields rather than half the crop chewed up by Jethro driving erratically whilst pissed up on cider.
GPS is everywhere now. I passed a surveying team the other day with a GPS do-dah thingummy which seems to have replaced a bloke with a pole and Captain Cook's navigation aid.
It's also useful for ambulances and things to get to the right spot: particularly if one isn't in the middle of an urban area and can't use street names and house numbers to navigate.
And, I guess you lot also like a bit of Cheese yourselves, Cheddar, Wensleydale etc...
So the British are now a bunch of Cheese eating surrender monkey's QED.
Chedder and Wensleydale. As opposed to that stuff that comes out of squirty cans?
Who can forget that delicious moment when James May was reading out the ingredients of something that he was trying to eat and came across "Imitation American Cheese"?
'Nuff said.
Before Schengen i used to drive across Europe a lot. At the German border a huge customs post checking stamping stopping. On the Belgian side, a bored official waving yiou through.....
I had the same experience and it was a case of getting the passports out, waving them at the guard as one went through at around 10mph.
The only drag was taking the train from Belgium through to Germany as the thing would stop at Trier and then the officials would pop onto the train, do the check and then the train would carry on. This often meant a pause in the journey of around 45 minutes. But often, as with continental rail travel (assuming one wasn't on a Russian train) it was a comfortable experience and this just went along with the glorious haze of relaxation so it wasn't a problem.
> LeahroyNake
I have no idea why you received a downvote. I, for one, don't disbelieve a single word that you wrote so there is surely no need for a downvote from me.
I have noticed throughout, however, these pages that any positive comments about Wales receives downvotes as a matter of course.
There is no reason for yours to have been downvoted at all.
Leahroy, when it worked in Wales it worked well.
However, when I was in my local doctor's surgery in North Wales on Pen Llŷn (I don't know where you were) , I would consantly be the one to reset the touch screen to enable it to work. This was down most days due to cookie or JavaScript errors and the practice would be reluctant to call the engineer out because it would take time and a hefly call-out fee.
So I would do it as I was passing the practise.
You are fortunate in that your dentist having your notes because my experience is otherwise. The notes would be fine and handed around if one was in the same area. If I went to the hospital at, say, Bangor then some of the notes would be available to the hospital, most of it would be missing. Any prescriptions from the consultant would be given to me on a yellow slip of paper and I had to personally go back to the practice and hand that over and then they would type that into the system.
If one had to go to a consultant outside of the Trust area or, worse, outside of the country to England then no information would be following and one had to make sure that you took all of your patient's notes with you and then anything new would have to be copied and added to the doctor's notes back on the Peninsula.
In another part of North Wales there is a sort of shared directory between units (called 'drive z': which may give a clue as to how its set up) and one's data may be on that somewhere.
You may have been in a better Trust area, say South Wales, and you may have had no experience with taking your data out of the Trust area and into another or over into England.
My experience is the complete opposite of yours and, as a full time carer for my wife who suffers from an auto-immune disease, I can say that I have seen a lot of the NHS in North Wales, particularly the Betws Cadwalader Trust.
One day I was with my wife for a cardio examination. We watched the scan on the screen in real time (sitting in effectively a broom cupboard at the top of the main stairs) , watched her heart leaking (the disease) and also watched the technician take screenshots for the records.
None of this information ever reached her records. Not one of the pictures and there's no provision anyway of the video to be stored with the notes anyway. In fact her visit that day wasn't even registered in her notes and we have to tell every practictioner that she went that day and what we remember was the result.
From talking to other out-patients using Betws Cadwalader this isn't an isolated case.
One day it was my turn. I had an 'emergency' appointment to see a brain consultant because it was feared that I had a stroke. Never mind the fact that the appointment to see the consultant was given as a date three years into the future but when I finally got there, he opened my data records and it was empty.
Three years that appointment took and they still couldn't get my data collated in all that time.
I think, Leahroy, you were very fortunate.
So, basically, you three are all saying the same thing: that the movers and shakers, the captains of industry, are all easily hookwinked as a four year old watching a birthday party magician?
I really wonder how these managers manage to find their way home in the evenings. They can't be all this thick, can they?
When I was doing my last stint working for someone and having to be shoehorned into a suit and tie I would often come across these announcements.
I always wondered who they were for. Most techies would look at this and give up the will to live and, I would have thought, that most marketeers would know the rules of technobabble and wouldn't be swayed by this.
So, exactly who is this zero information-content drivel actually for? And, furthermore, is anyone actually impressed (or even vaguely understands) this stuff?
Goodness, I met my ex in Belgium too: a left-pondian whom gave me mental scars for years afterwards.
What is it with that place? Is the lashings of free flowing De Koninck which addled our senses?
Nonetheless, I would love to return there and see out my days in that wonderful, but utterly bonkers, country.
Repeat after me, Embassies aren't foreign soil, they're just buildings that have been accorded diplomatic status.
Wasn't there a thing years ago in the America's Cup where in (I think) Australia a team (again, I think the USA) needed a keel rebuilt and were told that they had to do this on American soil so they beetled off to the Embassy to get it done within the grounds?
This was approved and given the litigitious nature of the America's Cup, where most of the action takes place in a courtroom, I am now surprised that this keep rebuilding wasn't allowed.
Mind you, not that I have an opinion on this matter: I am just milldly interested.
If Facebook disappeared tomorrow it would actually solve a whole raft of social problems in this country.
I can see two things happening if Facebook and the rest vanished.
First, new phones wouldn't have a camera setting, "Food Mode".
Second, fewer knobs with selfie-sticks rouming around unsupervised.
Neither, it seems to be, would be a bad thing
Ah, your IT Hatted persona is correct. But sometimes this is needed.
For example my medical records going from Wales to Scotland isn't a handy simple transfer and all the useful bits are lost. The same between England and Wales because if one is registered with the local abattoir (that's the Betws Cadwallader Trust) and the consultant is in England then no data whatsoever goes between the two.
I've a useful blood group (O neg) and there is no provision for transfer of data of my blood milking between England, Scotland and Wales.
Hey ho. It is the twenty first century, so what can one expect?
In Wales there's a scheme where one could sign up to register for such a thing for gas and/or electricity. Then every six months or so this outfit would go around to all of the suppliers and say "Whatcha got?". Then the cheapest offer would be reported back to the subscribers to this service.
Often the price offered would be cheaper than shopping around oneself as the utility companies realise that they could have thousands more customers arrive overnight.
Having moved to Scotland after a year travelling on the road, I don't know if there's such a scheme up here or even if it's still going in Wales. If you're living in the Principality it's worth checking out.
The Register contacted Wileyfox to find out how long this stay of execution might last but has, as yet, received no response.
If you ever hear from them, could you ask them why they are still refusing to pay our promised rebates from when we bought our Swift phones years ago?
Doctor Syntax: I almost went down the SCO route as I was developing with it just before it well all funny and strange. That was in the days when Windows 3.x was rearing its head and was causing more problems than it initially solved.
If I did go down the SCO route then I would have perhaps have landed with Linux but, at the time, I couldn't find the stuff that I needed. Perhaps it was there or perhaps it wasn't: but I couldn't get the stuff at the price that I could afford.
Anyway, I am here now and I wouldn't mind hanging on just a little longer so that I can retire to a motorhome of my choice.
I really hope that's tongue in cheek. F'rinstance I make my living now from my own bespoke applications none of which remotely resemble anything that MS offers.
With the sole exception of using MS Word, via COM, to write oodles of reports daily. But as for the applications themselves then, sorry, nothing that Microsoft produces comes close. Other than that I made the mistake of using Visual Studio to write the code in the first place. I wish now that at the time, when the whole process started, that Linux were as it is today.
From (bitter) experience not all of IT stuff is software related. Or, to be precise, Microsoft software related.
What about getting third party applications to fit into the enterprise system. Stuff like, for example, clever printers, contact management systems and other stuff that firms may use. Because, like it or not, not everyone's business starts and stops with Microsoft Office and [bleedin'] Edge.
These applications need to be integrated. Bespoke applications need to be written and all these have to be done under the watchful eye of a locally based IT department.
Further, when it comes to issues not every issue is software related. Or, to be precise Microsoft software related issues. What about when a router starts to spout noise down a wire? Who is going to track that down and re-route the cabling? What about when a UPS starts to fail, who is going to check that? Who is going to do the off-site back-ups and data storage/destruction? Who, in actual fact, is going to replace the ink cartridges, get the right paper. Who is going to go to regular work-orientated social meetings with similar companies to discuss issues, requirements, vendors and future progression? It's not all going to be upgrade to the latest version of MS Word or Excel as the sole answer.
This, even if it works (in terms of not falling over) is going to restrict advancement and progress in the workplace.
There is not a single upside to this that I can think of.
What happens if one has legacy code which won't run on the latest version of Windows due to incompatibility issues with the compatibility mode?
Will Microsoft magically rewrite all one's code, as a part of all of this service, to the latest version of .Net before charging for a subscription model that replaces the paid-for model which, er, just works?
I know. These inner city problems caused by the Danes in their ghettos, the Germans taking over all of our jobs and the Austrians coming over and getting their free 84" colour televisions and free iPads on the DHSS.
It was time to stop. Stop, I tell you!
Icon: yours in the white coat with fastenings around the back.
This is why I'm frantically researching my Irish heritage, in the hopes I can get my Irish passport before Brexit.
I've found a way to get a French passport and citizenship. The only drawback is that I would need to spend three years in the French Foreign Legion first...
Could be handy for translating between Cymraeg Gogledd and Cymraeg Da -- that'll be North Welsh and South Welsh, which would be handy for those BBC dramas who insist on using the wrong language (not dialect) when they're doing productions up in Snowdonia.
Though, of course, I wouldn't say that Cymaeg Gogledd is a rare language: unless, of course, one is using the numbers given to us by those in Whitehall which seems, strangely, a lot less than the actual figure spoken.
Yours in the pub speaking Welsh well before you walked in the door. And I mean about 2,000 years before you walked in...
Didn't a famous pop star once, with a failing supposedly 'raunchy' book on her hands which failed to sell, report it to the authorities in order to have it banned so that the scandal of the work would drum up trade?
That failed too.
You're joking, surely.
Wiley Fox had Cynogen "because it cared about our security" then it went over to Android and the first thing we saw on boot-up was a Russian newsfeed sucking up our preferences.
So, sod that.
And now on my Wiley-Fox I have the diseased spyware called 'TrueCaller' which is something that I had never asked for and certainly wasn't part of the original Wiley-Fox ethos.
So, fuck them and their partners. Hell's teeth I may as well get a bloody Samsung.
They don't want to give up drugs. Shelters don't work because they often have rules. Like 'No drugs'. And in dormitory-like shelters, the people who most want to avoid heroin addicts are other heroin addicts.
Cart before horse episode here.
One of the main reasons why most homeless are dependent on alcohol and drugs is because that's the only thing that gets them through the abuse, the beatings, the cold nights, the discomfort, and the perpetual hopelessness of their situation.
A good proportion of the homeless, it turns out, happen to have mental health issues and need proper care and support and not being turfed out onto the streets.
Making vulnerability and illness illegal is something that I would expect from North Korea and not North America and the United Kingdom.
So you ARREST them, FORCE them to leave town, and it'll stop.
I saw this sort of thing in one of Sylvester Stallone documentaries. You know, the one where he's a Vietnam vet going to a small town to pay a visit to his comrade and the local authorities thought it wise to arrest him.
That bio-pic didn't end too well, as I recall.
Local radio. I found the local radio in a hired vehicle early one morning and I picked up whatever the BBC considered to be the local topical stuff that people need to digest at that time of morning.
I got two presenters talking about what they used their mobile phones for. The level of inane wittering was in insane and, worse, they got people to call in with their idiotic uses for their phones.
If this were local radio, I thought, then I am having no more of it and managed to find the CD player and for most of the rest of the journey I had my own music. Until I made the mistake of hitting the wrong button and hearing the new Jo Wiley and Simon Mayo programme on Radio 2: that's gone all local radio "what, listeners, are your life hacks to getting your teenage bedrooms decorated? Call us on .... and let us know".
Bloody hell. The BBC doesn't need funding - it needs bloody well harpooning.
First rule of gambling: "The house never loses".
Not so. I have known plenty of bookmakers to go under owing me money.
Secondly, just because the house 'never' loses it doesn't equate to the wise punter never winning in the longer which is never considered when people reel off this tripe.
One has to consider the house as being the broker and that one is actually competing against the other punters. So, considering that the house is the broker it should never be the case (but sometimes is) that the house never loses. When one is punting one has to make sure that the odds are in your favour and the other punters' odds aren't.
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