Posts by Kool-Aid drinker

NatWest IT cock-up sees 600,000 transactions go 'missing'

Re: Nationwide

I've been with Nationwide for over 20 years without any major problems. I don't work for them either, but they do seem to be less prone to glitches than the rest of the muppets.

So do we know the cause yet?

I'm guessing it was a failed batch-processing module upgrade, but someone out there must know what happened, so please tell the hungry readers of El Reg.

Can we also be advised whether the 'glitch' was caused by an offshore team please?

Want to remotely control a car? $20 in parts, some oily fingers, and you're in command

Re: @ Eddy Ito

I had an old Astra that got nicked and used in a burglary. Unfortunately for the crooks, it wouldn't start when they tried to leave the scene of the crime just as the bill turned up. Burglary 101: leave the car engine running to facilitate a fast getaway.

Post-PC world? POST-MAC WORLD more like

@jason 7

You can burn through quite a few Fiats for the price of one Bentley.

Gov IT write-off: Universal Credit system flushes £34m down toilet

Re: Reshuffle off this mortal coil...

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

Aesop, circa 600BC

SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix

Re: Corporations are people, my friend!

"C. Slavery is illegal."

Not where I work it isn't.

Corporates! Bring in all-purpose filler for IT skills gap, thunders Steelie Neelie

Oh, how we laughed....

As one whose career is currently on the fast train to the job centre, courtesy of yet another offshoring decision by a group of enlightened senior managers, I can still manage to laugh at the industrial-strength stupidity at work in Brussels.

The IT jobs market for UK staff is heading down the pan faster than a donkey down a lift shaft. If anyone of younger years asks me how to get into IT, my answer is "don't", unless you plan to be an offshoring consultant.

What Compsci textbooks don't tell you: Real world code sucks

Re: I try to write clear code

"And if coders don't understand a ternary operator, you need better coders."

Any C coder who can't/doesn't understand the ternary operator needs to be fired. Quickly.

@AndrueC

"I don't get paid for writing good code. I get paid for writing an application that sells."

I'm in my third decade as a developer, and this has been the case everywhere I have worked.

What did Capita ITS staff get for Xmas? Elf 'n' safety training

What???

"In order to ensure the best practice, employee complete a series of 'refresher' training modules across a hot of topics on an annual basis."

Was the spokesperson located in Mumbai by any chance?

Voyager 1 arrives on ‘magnetic highway for charged particles’

Re: Good engineering

Take an upvote Sir; Very well said.

Cawing retail vultures circle dying Comet, might rip some chunks off

Re: @K 08:40

I hope you get a pay packet this side and the other side of Xmas. Having this hanging over your head must suck.

Sorority girls gone wild: '1 to 3' casual sex 'hookups' every month

Re: Oh for glod's sake!

Actually, the summer of love was 1967. I'm old enough to remember it.

Ballmer predicts 400 MILLION Win 8 Surface and Lumia fumblers

@RICHTO Re: 400 million

Yes, it was probably Microsoft that bought them to make the sales look better.

So, just what is the ultimate bacon sarnie?

Re: You don't fry bacon, you grill it...

Not around here you don't. The smoked streaky bacon is fried in a non-stick pan without additional fat or oil, then when the bacon is cooked, you very lightly fry one side of both slices of bread in the same pan until the bacon fat is absorbed. The sarnie is assembled by turning the fried sides to the middle. No other condiments are required.

Hong Kong has fastest broadband on the planet

Re: Stop this nonsense

Amen.

Deadly pussies kill more often than owners think

Re: Biggest thing my cat ever brought in...?

In our case we had a cat that would bring live birds home and release them in the house. Chaos doesn't begin to describe it, especially if it was a decent-sized bird.

BT to fibre up another 98 exchanges, puffs 'FTTP on demand' offer

Re: Somerset?

If it's any consolation, rural Lincolnshire is just as bad.

Dating site eHarmony plays data-breach me-too

Re: "and have a week password"

10180m1nute5, 604800s3c0nd5. That last one is almost secure :)

UK music-rights collection: Where does all the money go?

Re: According to the PRS 2010 - 2011 figures...

The law is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Google for "ripping CDs for personal use UK"; you'll get plenty of info back.

Re: Where is the Off Topic icon?

My wife and I got rid of our TV during a long drawn out house move a few years ago, and didn't renew the TV licence during this period. Oh the hilarity of trying to explain to the TV Licensing authority that we didn't have a TV...

Moore's Law has ten years to run, predicts physicist

Re: He was talking about Silicon, though...

Aye, the stone age didn't end because the stone ran out or we exhausted its possibilities, it ended because something better came along, and so it will be with silicon.

iPhone con man knifed to death in knock-off mobile brawl

"Feng brandished his chopper and they dispersed..." <snigger>

Nearly one in 10 Brits 'fess to shower phone faux pas

Re: Nokia with deathwish?

They were properly made in those days. I had an old Nokia company phone fly out of my pocket and bounce down the platform at King's Cross when I was running to catch a train. Didn't even scratch it, and it carried on working until the company supplied me with an "upgrade" a year or two later.

Re: I took a Samsung A300 swimming once.

I put a Motorola L6 through the washing machine on the 40 degree cotton setting. It worked fine after being dried out on the radiator for a few hours, and still works to this day, although it has long since been relegated to backup duties.

Bonkers MS security update flags Google.com as malign

FAIL

That is all.

Indonesian train roof fare-dodgers given the brush off

A title is not required

The rail company could try making the train roof more commuter-friendly and allowing people to use it, then the freeloaders might become paying passengers when their income increases a bit, especially in the rainy season.

NHS unfurls condom app – for iPhone-toting teens

I hope you used an iCondom?

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

+1 for that ^

McDonald's punters offered sex in exchange for Chicken McNuggets

@Zimmer ^^

I'd like to nominate that for CoTW, now please get my new keyboard and monitor in the post...

Online Christmas orders from retailers go titsup

@Mike 125

Yeah, ASP speaks volumes. The site's as slow as a slug in treacle too. You'd think F & M could afford a decent system from a decent supplier.

Ofcom grills pirates, loses report under fridge for two years

@MacGyver

Libraries are not free; I believe they're paid for by council tax, of which I and most others on here pay copious amounts.

'Why the hell are we paying elite crypto crackers £25k?'

@Sir Runcible

Me too. I still can't figure out how I got it so wrong.

Oedipal shower romp wins crap sex award

As a hearing-impaired person

After many years of innocence, I shall now wonder where the bone conduction headset has been prior to it being placed upon my head by a smiling female audiologist....

Headmaster freezes schoolkids for Gaia

@At my school in the 60s...

Yup. Did you get frozen school milk too? Those were the days; these youngsters haven't lived.

Snowbound Alaskan survives on frozen beer

Re: Re: Beer

...but a nice single malt can enhance its problem-solving capabilities.

Fake doc cuffed in concrete arse shocker

A quick search suggests around $3500

Colossal dead black neo-sphere approaching Earth

Optional

The truth is out there NEO.

Coat on, door open...

HSBC UK systems major outage

Veritas Cluster?

Face, meet palm.

UK CB radio crowd celebrates three decades of legality

Goodness gracious me! Thirty years? I'm starting to feel really old now...

iCloud Communications ditches Apple lawsuit

@FatsBrannigan

Yes, lots and lots and lots of it.

Post Office banking collapses in computer fail

Ditto

Mine dates back to that era too. I had the account made up after decimalisation at which point it contained the princely sum of 5p. I wonder if it has earned much interest during the intervening 40 years?

Apple eyeing Hulu acquisition, insiders say

Apple TV

Thanks you for your interest in Hulu. Please purchase an Apple TV from your local Apple Store to watch this content.

MS to WinXP diehards: Just under 3 more years' support

@Balls!

Absolutely spot-on. You clearly work in the real world. This process applies to all hardware and software expenditure in all companies where I have worked. The only exception is that the veto occurs lower down the food chain in larger outfits (CIO rather than CEO for example).

Mozilla pushes out final Firefox 5 test build

Agreed

VMWare running WinXP = 40.8MB

Firefox 4 with four tabs open = 604.5MB

Revealed: Secret security plan should Kate leave Wills at the altar

@PLAYMOBIL

Me too!

Wrinkle-faced smartphoners demand 'BlackBerry Botox'

@Wheaty73

Couldn't agree more. Anyone who cannot read the text on a smartphone without squinting needs glasses in a hurry.

UK tech retailers are rubbish

@Thomas 4

Yes, they'd have sold him a monitor that gets bigger as time goes by, so he'd never outgrow it.

Microsoft sends Windows 7 SP1 to OEMs

and then...

Take the HD to the crematorium. It's the only way to be sure.

@And look what I found today

I'm sure it's OK. When did MS ever release an update that did any harm?