Posts by SirDigalot

Hope to keep your H-1B visa? Don't become a QA analyst. Uncle Sam's not buying it: Techie's new job role rejected

much of our QA team in a us bases SaaS company were barely literate, some of them, however could turn a computer on.

some were promoted from customer service, other were "rock stars" hired on to compliment the team ( the previously mentioned barely literate ones) There we possible 2 or 3 longer term QA people who were brilliant, the rest ran scripts and signed off, so when production day came and the entire platform went to hades in a cornucopia with real world users, it was IT operations ( our team) who were blamed.

i had a moment of weakness once and looked into joining the QA team ( they got better perks then us mere tech-monkies bashing servers with hammers and such) but was told we were not smart enough and it needed specific skills and knowledge of the (in house built) platform (which we had extensive experience with having to actually support it and deploy it, but, whatever)

i used to make a point to the department heads thereafter about all the hairbrained tickets we used to get from their crack team of experts.

probably why i no longer work there, i would't say i burned my bridges so much as carpet bombed my whole career with the company.

but that's water under the (definitely destroyed and washed away) bridge now.

Re: Not *entirely* unreasonable?

i still live here, have done for nearly 20 years now, it seemed a lot easier back then, but i got the old spouse type sponsorship.

half the people i used to work with were on visas and when they were not approved the company let them work from home, often back in india, the joys of those support calls.

but yes I have actually considered selling up and moving back with wife in tow, of course, if we could simply move the uk down to the say the Mediterranean where it is a nice and warm

Operation Desert Sh!tstorm: Routine test shoots down military's top-secret internets

that sound you get when...

the n00b* forgets that soft bypass on the ups is not actually full bypass and they cut the power to do inverter maintenance

or should i say, the sound you don't get

from anything

server rooms are really quiet when things are not powered on.

*this may or may not have happened to me in a former incarnation, but seemingly at my last job it was a rite of passage for everyone no matter how well we trained them and documented it

Your FREE end-of-the-world guide: What happens when a sun like ours runs out of fuel

so am I the only one heading to the horse and groom for some liquid relaxant and protein replenishment then?

>>>>>> it's a towel >>>>>>>

FYI: Get ready for face scans on leaving the US because 1.2% of visitors overstayed their visas

Back in the day..

Pre 2001 ( when i moved here) i was in and out all the time (every couple of weeks) on a visa waiver courting my (now) wife, the only time i got any greif is when the airline forgot to remove the green waiver card thingy from my passport on exit, so when i came back a couple of weeks later, the border guard asked me a few more questions, and told me to make sure they remove it next time.

Roll forward to the week of september 2001 i entered and never went home, got married, did the usual, even during my greencard interview ( i had lost my passport back then and had a fresh unstamped new one) the INS officer was not too concerned he rolled his eyes when i told him i remembered my old passport number by heart, and, trying to test me later he asked for it when he was pulling up my entry information on his terminal, after it checked out and he saw the multitudde of visits, he concluded we did not get married for convenience, and stamped my passport, nearly 20 years later here i am a legit septic-citizen still married to the old ball and chain, talk about life without parole.

Things were much easier in the day, but then, I am the correct skin tone, speak a variant of the correct language and have held down good paying white collar jobs since being allowed to work ( and even paid taxes when i was not allowed to work) generally what most visa over stayers actually do, at least all the ones i knew, there were quite a few because of the large irish contingent in Chicago at the time.

Guess its like the Aussies and Kiwis in the UK, could walk into a pub without the bar staff talking in weird accents.

Heatwave shmeatwave: Brit IT departments cool their racks – explicit pics

cooling is for wimps!

I have an 8 port POE cisco pro-sumer gigabit prosumer switch acting as my core switch in my (unconditioned) loft/attic here is toasty old Florida, solid as a rock, the temps up there get well over 100 F every day, been there untouched for a couple of years now, i know it is still working because if it stops i get text alerts at work from the W.E.W.S (Wife Early Warning System ) and also more alerts from the U.K.W.N.I.S (Upset Kid With No Internet System)

If this laptop is so portable, where's the keyboard, huh? HUH?

we too are 100% laptop

Our entire company except maybe our National Sales Cold calling desk jockies.

everyone else is on a less than 3 year old laptop, most are less than one year old, all desks are the trendy sit stand monstrosities, dual monitor, dock, keyboard, mouse, some people use the laptop monitor and the other 2 others just use the 2 monitors and keep the lid shut, it is honestly a lot easier to deal with, and when they play the desk shuffle game, they pick up their laptop and move to another desk no issue, no need to call IT to plug (the blindingly obvious) plugs back in to their colour coded holes either. Also when there is an extreme weather occurance such as hurricanes here in good old Florida, or 2 plus feet of snow in our northern offices people can easily work from home ( though they do complain a bit about working on one monitor or just the laptop, however we even gave out all our old 22 inch displays to the staff, for free when we had our floors rebuilt with the new swish desks and such.

given that our company is a SaaS and most of the stuff they do (sans office apps) is in a browser a laptop is just peachy, especially since they all have m2 drives. The only big whiners, are the Devs because they want to put our entire SaaS platform that runs on beefy server pools and solid state superfast fibrechannel SANs on their laptops and wonder why it might be a bit "pokey"

Laptops should be the way forward tbh for most companies

Man asks internet for $1k for pebbles. INTERNET SAYS YES

I use these

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1b4e/?srp=2

because i am geek-chic

and i am also a loser

American bacon cured with AR-15 assault rifle

Re: See? THIS is why there can never be...@flatpackhamster

eaten is some of the best places in NY and Chicago

but we are not talking haute cuisine here, we are talking greasy spoon, or the equivalent of a roach coach, i can without a doubt go back to my home town, find the same trailer that served tea and bacon sarnies and it would be better than ANY equivalent i have had out here especially on a brisk morning, don;t get me wrong i have had many good meals in the us, they do things with beef that is amazing (they are light on the lamb though... maybe too fluffy or something) but when it comes to an artery clogging tour de force there is no country in the world that can compete with blighty especially not for breakfast.

dammit now i need to go and spend lots of money for a fry up....

Re: See? THIS is why there can never be...

sadly "canadian bacon" is not like uk bacon, canadian bacon is more like french bacon...

british bacon is exactly that strips of sexy pork loin sometimes with hair!

not belly fat that this stuff is

The Bacon is not so bad.

As has been mentioned if you cook it yourself, my wife likes it crispy (read: burnt offerings) i like it less so, the good part is that you can cook a bunch crispy and leave it out all night and snack when you like.

It is also easier to weave the streaky stuff, so you can make bacon bowls, cover large flightless birds, the occasional grass eating milk factory etc, or just more pork product (the bacon explosion is pretty epic)

Finding a real rasher is more troublesome, luckily we have lots of ex-pats in our (red)neck of the woods, so there is actually a British import store! though it is a bit pricey still good for a treat.

Then there is the tea, (I source imported stuff again) at least the coffee is generally nice, and better than that freeze dried bat guano we had in the motherland, cheaper too per pound (not including Starbucks or any other mochaphukalatte serving hipster joint which is just vile and strong)

But al things given i understand why people need to squeeze off a few round to ease the frustration of never being able to easily have a proper fry up and cup of tea, or the joys of a decent Indian after a night of excessive imbiblification (yes made up word) Though the roach coaches and hole in the wall Mexican joints normally take the place of one, and result in the same flaming hole of fire the next day.

grits though... yeah, kill it with fire, lots of fire, napalm, thermite, i don't care, it has the look taste and texture of vomit (i believe we called it semolina pudding back home, but this stuff is worse)

Yes! New company smartphones! ... But I don't WANT one

the geek in me is dead

I have a S4 and it is a great phone, it really is...

I use it for work email

texting ( but only because the kid has a phone and is preferred method of contact)

looking stuff up

maps

that said, I could live happily without any of those things I can read a map, I grew up in the 80's where we used real phones or shock horror! were out of contact for a while when we did something outside the home!

I can read a map/road signs, which are water proof and does not go flat

I might miss the ability to easily tap the boobytubes for information on the fly, which means I would have to commit most facts to memory instead of indexing where they are and pulling the full details up later, but that is a small price.

there is nothing that has been released since I first got a blackberry that has impressed me enough to be excited about a new model from anyone.

in short if my job did not require me to have a phone, and supplies one, I would not have one.

** I still write with a fountain pen and paper ( or pencil when required)**

Is your IT department too tough on users?

sure let them have at...

but make sure they sign the nice bit of legalese that says IT is not responsible for supporting their own devices, nor responsible for keeping PI and PII off their devices and or any data/security breach that occurs from every tom dick and harriette from using their own equipment, in short our responsibility ends at the server room door and walls what happens to the data after it leaves the last switch or wireless access point is not our concern we coddled and loved that data, kept it clean and secure, it is then time for it to fly out into the big bad world and sink or swim on the multitude of platforms and policies that the new owners will see fit to impart on it!

fly my babies fly! you are free!

What is the difference between a drone, a model and a light plane?

One thing i prefer about models

The subsequent "learning" bit which generally involves miscalculating a certain aspect of physics, and therefore succumbing to gravity is (usually) a lot less fatal for the pilot.

yes there are exceptions and they do recommend you actually have insurance for any model ( dropping on innocent bystanders/ramblers or killing the odd family pet is often to be frowned upon.

but in general safer, and easier to store then the real thing, also with the advantage that below a certain size which is subject to regulation, pretty much anything goes!

I love my micro RC choppers as has been said, I can fly them indoors, I have a small electric park flyer epo jet too, nothing like those beauties by a long shot, bit still bloody good fun. I think that's the best thing about model flying is you can start really small and learn and progress, instead of going out and buying a 20k machine and wrecking it straight off, it really is accessible to all people with some space and a few pounds/dollars to spare

NSA alleges 'BIOS plot to destroy PCs'

A little confused..

we all know and have known for a long time our respective governments have been spying on us, even before we had an unhealthy fascination with shiny things that go beep and ping.

It is also ok for us in IT to snoop and watch our fellow workers "to ensure they are not doing anything bad" but it is not ok for our governments who are charged with our overall protection to do the same? Want privacy drop off the grid, it can be done, but then you have to ask, why are you being so secretive?

If you want an IT job you'll need more than a degree, say top techies

everyone in my team

'cept yours truly of course, has degrees of some standard in IT.

me being the black sheep has diddly and squat. That said, none of them really use the degree part since we have lots of push for the vocational training mcse ccna cissp etc so in that regard it is meaningless.

I have heard so many people say of late ( because we have offspring in that college attending age brackets) that you do not have to know what you go to college for, you find that out while you are there, and that most people do not end up working in the area they went to college for, just get the degree.

In my mind that diminishes the point of the degree, and also seems like a really expensive gamble ( especially these days) but while employers are dumb enough to think that someone with any degree is better then someone without any, but experience, it is unfortunately the way to go. Personally having thousands in debt and a liberal arts degree is a waste, those types of degrees should be the type you do in retirement or on the side for personal betterment, they type you pay for up front per credit hour, NOT get in 40+k of debt to achieve.

On another note, why is it that they think the only IT jobs these days are to do with programming? the artcle says that they want more programming in secondary education, OK I understand there will be a need for programmers, but what about all the other aspects of IT not everyone who works in IT is a programmer and not every programmer is a full on sysadmin type, to me it seems this is less about IT and more about training a new gen of code monkeys

Martians yet to retaliate after Curiosity's 100,000th laser strike

star trek TNG

"Home soil"

They win, since picard is now relegated to posting twitter updates thanks to austerity and budget cuts

Boffins devise world's HARDEST tongue-twister

not a tongue twister

I said it in my native british no problem, then converted to American and it was still piss easy

maybe I was still thinking british like.

my wife and MIL used to spoonerise certain things so much it sounded wrong when they said the right

the words bird poop ( bood pirp)

and head of lettuce (lead of hettuce) were the normal offenders

i could never say the sheik one, and when i was younger had a big problem with the lorry one because i never pronounced my R's correctly (wed lowwy yellow lowwy ) which sounds impossibly cute for a 3 year old and f*cking retarded as an adult so I corrected it, and the small stammer i used to have which is why i tend not to have a large issue with many tongue twisters i think, (except the afore mentioned sheik dude) the stammer really only comes back into play when i am overly exhausted which generally leads me to freeze up rather then struggle with the words ( probably all in my head a good neurosis whiles away the hours when i am alone !)

Creepy US spy agency flings WORLD SLURPING OCTOPUS into orbit

at least they are being honest about it now

could be worse they could have a unicorn and stuff and pretend they are our friends

When the lights went out: My 'leccy-induced, bog floor crawling HORROR

While still a young nipper

compared to the author ( being born at the end of the 70's) I do not remember rolling blackouts, however we have been in a few situations where the power was out for a number of hours ( one time was when an exceptionally smart individual wanted to chop down the local power pole, with an electric chainsaw) Back in the day, for us poor kids, there was no such thing as computers and such, so we whiled away the hours, reading, playing some sort of game, that never seemed to have all of the pieces, or something else as inane sometimes just seeing what will burn in the candle flame, it was not really a big deal, aside from the lack of being able to put on the kettle, and the stove being electric ( though I can imagine after a few more hours the lack of something to dunk digestives in would have started a small war)

So fast forward to the new millennia, I have family of my own, we live in an apartment somewhere in Chicago, and the power goes click ( it always seems to go 'click' and there is always a REAL silence, the same sort of deathly silence you get when the power drops in a server room, the sound of silence, or more accurately it seems like the extraction of sound) anyway after the initial "oh crap" the adults bump around the place trying to remember where we put torches and candles and the kids think it is all exciting.

Candles are lit, some dusty tome is recovered and life continues, for us at least.

However, now, the sudden realization that NOTHING is working has infiltrated the younglings brains, as they attempt with futility to get the TV and VCR to work, the computer does not turn on, not even the bedroom light will obey their constant switching! ( they obviously thought we were just strange reading by candle light, you know that thing OLD people do).

So now a new game starts... find the batteries!, the frantic digging in drawers and under beds, the cursing because the torch has D sized and the tape/cd player needs C or AA.

Then the submission, submission to the fact there is no hope of being entertained by anything other than 'legacy' devices, unfortunately the inability to find any games to play, or even a book to read, or pencils to colour with ( thanks to the previous mad search for portable power devices) so they give up and go to bed early.

win-win for the old people

my latest ploy is to ensure the remaining homebound childs laptop only has a battery capable of sustaining power for approximately 5 minutes,.

Oh no, RBS has gone titsup again... but is it JUST BAD LUCK?

They don't make them like that anymore

could one of the issues be the fact that the old stuff was so robustly built and designed to last a lifetime (with the associated cost) and the fact for the most part these industries never really have ground breaking new discoveries be the actual downfall?

we are always buying new stuff and trying to adapt our infrastructure to maintain parity or comply with new standards, it can be very frustrating to always be trying to change, but at least we do not have the legacy issue as of yet, although I am willing to bet in a few years as company size increases further and there is a larger requirement for profit, we will hit the same trap.

Women crap at parking: Official

SWMBO

does not drive much any more, she always has some excuse, so it is down to me to chauffeur her about the place... fine I guess.

however...

she insists on being exactly like hyacinth bucket from keeping up appearances

they are stopping

mind that car/sheep/cow/house/object that is far far away

don't drive so fast

don't drive so slow

I hate your driving..

that and the invisible brake pedal, or the clutching handles etc when she gets startled by something I saw ages ago.

when (eventually) she drives no matter how bad, I am sitting there silent, sometimes due to abject fear sometimes because I have already run through the possible combinations of conversations that would be said and the resulting lowering in quality of life on my part for saying them.

SWMBO's mothering unit also was so proud at her driving skills despite managing to knock of wing mirrors in the garage ( drivers side mirrors) then blaming someone in the local store parking lot ( there was a neat mirror height dent in the garage frame!)

got really offended when I mentioned that just because you have been driving for 30 or 40 years does NOT mean you have been driving well or even correctly for any of that time.

the only multitasking I do these days is finishing a beer, while getting a new one from the fridge... and it is about all I need to think about really.

though I must say, if men are so crap at multitasking, how do they drive exactly? especially if the consensus is that they are better drivers, last time I looked even in a regular automatic, you have to do multiple things at once, if women were so superior then they certainly would be much better at driving then men

IT MELTDOWN ruins Cyber Monday for RBS, Natwest customers

Its only money

The tax payer will...oh, yeah, haha! I see what you did there...

so I should send a note to the bank saying, "due to an unintentional IT related incident, I will not be able to pay my mortgage/loan this month, but am working to resolve the issue"

I am sure they will be absolutely peachy with that.

when you put more focus on profits than infrastructure of any kind, bad things eventually happen.

I wonder if anyone made a living crap ton of money from this "mistake", there usually is someone somewhere who does

El Reg Contraption Confessional No.1: The Dragon 32 micro

got rid of mine too

no call for PAL systems in the US

I had 2 zx81 machines (but only one dodgy 16k rampack... dry joint on a resistor I still remember the fun had getting the right angle or pressure to get it to load whatever tape it was

had a binatone pong system too, had a cool setting between the "football" and "tennis" that gave "football" with one side having three bats, bloody useless though... light gun was fun

had a master system too that go so much abuse, it really was where I learnt to solder components back on

the folks had a amstrad pc 1640 DD ( and later a HD with a whole 20mb drive AND colour monitor)

it took the monitor 20 minutes to actually turn on, never did find out why

most of the stuff I had I used to dismantle and never get it back together

nothing has changed, only now I get paid for trying to "fix" it... usually ends up with someone pulling out a money card of some sort... there fixed!

WTF is the Internet of Things and how insurers will use it against you

insurers do this

At least for cars - modern cars especially in big claims

they check the little black ( yellow?) box for the last few seconds of activity I am pretty sure if you have onstar the microphones all click on too ( though the last words recorded were probably yelled DIE INSURANCE AGENT DIEEE!!!)

Progressive (!?) insurance has snapshot, which screws up your vehicle diagnostics monitors your driving style, speed, times driven, braking etc and calculates your insurance from that ( it was also bull-hooky because it said I hit the brake 5 times in 2 seconds while travelling 70 miles and hour and NOT dropping any speed - oh there went my "discount" )

I thought about the automation of the fishtank, but it seemed like too much hard work for something that took maybe 5 minutes of my life, (well ok 30 if I was doing a partial water change) the rest of it basically I ignored the only time I had issues was when some unknown was introduced... usually from the fish store, it was fun watching the babies get eaten by the adults though - ahh the circle of life!)

about the only thing I used to use any sort of automation for was the webcam pointed at the fridge to catch the kid when she raided it then denied it ( though the constant weight gain was a sort of give away) even that was basic motion capture, email when triggered

I am really looking forward to the EMP/solar flare apocalypse

Undercover BBC man exposes Amazon worker drone's daily 11-mile trek

hard work...

I used to work for a large flagship uk airline, in the "logistics" dept.

Back then I thought it was the shittiest thing to ever be subject to, it was mind numbing monotony, and got even worse after they outsourced management.

We too trudged around a large warehouse ( or three) sometimes we got to drive machines, other times we walked, we had a little cart we put stuff in, it was not the picture of modern stock picking that amazon was.. another place we also had an automated machine ( which had a big habit of breaking)

when we had no real stuff to pick we had to re stock all the stuff that was returned ( quite often a lot of the stuff we had sent out before and was not used)

I thought I was better than that.

now, I work in an office, cube-hell, in a job I would rather bite my hand of daily then go to, but it was "in the career I wanted to be in" - or at least thought it at the time.

rose tinted hindsight tells me other wise though, the pay was fantastic the benefits were fabulous and I never once, ever, had to deal with work at home, knocking off time was exactly that you left the job, at work.

now I am not saying amazon is any better, it is not, this is a company that drives profit they do not pay as well as I had it, and they do not seem to care as much about their people, there is nothing new in this, it may seem a bit of a shock, but honestly seems the norm to me for most retailers now I am living in the US, it is not slavery because you are paid and it is 'voluntary'.

the supermarket I first worked in was a bit sad, but to be honest with that, it was not hard, it would have sufficed, I never would have been rich, but then again, I am not rich now, and I am expected to be always on the job.

Sometimes the grass is greener, but that's because of all the shit involved to make it grow

Hooters, shooters and looters: Eidos’s Tomb Raider

controls

not complicated = win!

games these days... Use left bumper to walk right bumper to grab while jumping or draw a weapon, use X to use something, use X to sprint, use A to bring up a menu of some kind, use B to jump, use left shoulder button to do something else and right shoulder to do the opposite. click the left movement stick to aim, as well as using one stick to move around the place and the other to "look around"

then you need to do all these in a combination when playing at some points.

It is not a game, it is WORK!

I am a PC gamer and I expect on a PC there are a number of functions, that's why I play them! but when I played on a console I found it was not as entertaining, I had to think too much about the controls to enjoy playing, ( and usually spent time running around looking at the ceiling or floor and performing death spins strafing the crap out of the room when attacked).

just because a controller had 60 functions does not mean you should use them.

needless to say I spent most time playing indie games that did not involve too much thought

>>>>>>>>>> ok I am old and cranky, it smells mostly of mothballs and arthritis scream

What's wrong with Britain's computer scientists?

Scrap the whole CS thing

just major in business instead, at least then you will be able to get a job anywhere and employ the other people who learnt to programme.

PANIC OVER DROOPING house prices hits MEMBER-shaped estate

Obviously nothing to do with

The great big industrial estate next door...

XBOX ONE ROUNDUP-of-the-ROUNDUPS: Everything YOU need to know

large downloads?

no problem!

needing to download them all the damn time

problem!

pausing downloads while playing

even worse (steam I am looking at you!)

another bloody great box in the entertainment center which I really would prefer not to have anyway because it takes up so much space

bloody stupid

I wonder if I could glue it to the back of the TV or something

incompatibility with previous stuff

well not gonna buy it, at least maybe give a swapsie credit or something,

found my old master system the other day had a blast and actually felt relaxed after playing a game!

I am old.....get off my lawn!

Vladimir PUTIN officially HARDER than CHUCK NORRIS

Technoviking

apparently a bit of a douche

http://www.dailydot.com/news/technoviking-matthias-fritsch-lawsuit-ruling/

but then again so is Norris and Putin too

If you are apparently "as hard as nails" ( funny because when I am hammering them, the bloody things always seem to bend quite easily) you also have to be a bit of a stroppy a$$hat too.

GALACTIC YO-YO: Doctor Who’s trips to Earth... and beyond

cliffhangers?

and previews of next week?

how about no!

I know we all want to be able to time travel but I really do not need spoilers thanks, I am either going to watch the show or not showing me stuff that will happen next time is not going to make me come back if I already like it, and is not going to change my mind if I do not like it.

less like cliffhangers and more like clothes hangers

'Weird' OBJECT, PROPELLED by its OWN JETS, spotted beyond Mars orbit by Hubble

In space...

No one can hear you YORP!

RIIIGHT. Sysadmins: Have you ever even MET an overly suave IT guy?

I fix problems

by creating new ones!

Galaxy is CRAMMED with EARTH-LIKE WORLDS – also ALIENS (probably)

if we are one of the prototypes...

Or early vestiges of life in our galaxy at least, I like to think that instead of being primitive, we are "the first ones" and in enough time we will be able to shape younger races, and walk the stars like angels...

and maybe get in a big intergalactic war with the other ones..

then get kicked out

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the one with the encounter suit plans in the pocket

HTC phone STOPS BULLET, saves Florida gas station clerk's life

at least the battery did not explode or catch fire...

Want to go to billionaire Sun kingpin's beach? Hope you're a strong swimmer

sounds like

a sneaky way to almost get a private beach or at least a very exclusive one.

I agree with water taxi or something preferably shipping thousands of people in.

I am thinking it is not a massively used beach though...

beach party lots of people lots of noise.... oh dear the police cannot get to it to shut it down..

ship some hobos in there also for good measure

Why Bletchley Park could never happen today

Secrets

So the people who read the secrets, generally those in power, usually keep them until the day they die, many of them knowing why certain events happened and what the possible outcomes would have been because of them.

We had many people back in the "golden days" who took what they learnt to the grave also

It only seems recently that world+dog wants to be a whistle blower whether they think it is for the good of the world+dog or not.

So what has changed between those who did ( and still do) keep those secrets with no desire to spill the beans and those who just want to shout it out to the world?

are the new batch holding a higher sense of morals? Or do they just not value the word/promise given (probably numerous forms signed, and possibly an oath said too) that they are going to keep what they find out as hush hush for ever ( or until someone more important deems it ok to talk about it)

yes I would love to know all the secrets that conspiracy theories are about, if I got to see them but had to keep my word until I die would I? I like to believe I would, many on the other hand seem to think that we all should know and damn the consequences ( maybe it is a result of there being less consequences for younger generations then we had, not sure on that but it does seem like it)

How I BLEW my co-workers' HEADS OFF ... without going to jail

NERF!

we had a bunch of nerf weapons, from 6 shooters to air powered multi launchers...

we also had a couple of sniper rifles and 2 chain guns, I modded my chain gun with increased rates of fire...

it was all hilarious and good fun, even managed to chase the owner of the company around, all the cool people knew it was us and enjoyed the fun, no one got hurt.

then the real boss found out... (the ceo)

all toys were prohibited

and we were meant to be one of those cool tech companies too

now we have grey drab cube hell and the cubes are expanding and taking over the place, like the grey goo death of the world...

Hey, how'd that guy get to be a BAZILLIONAIRE?

my company

said sod it and bought 100% all ssd SANs

I wonder if this would help go faster still?

Billionaire vows to turn 007's Lotus Esprit into actual submarine car

salt water no less, the somewhat more conductive stuff

but hey it is still awesome.. yolo

Alarming tales: What goes on INSIDE Reg hack's hi-tech bedroom

why not try

a vibrating pillow alarm clock they are designed primarily for deaf people, since an alarm clock is fairly useless..

Bonking boffins say bacon biters won't breed

I read this article

with my mobile phone in my pocket and my laptop on my lap, while eating a bacon sarnie..

bugger

Double-click? Oh how conventional of you, darling!

at least the gear stick

is in the right place.. my first car was a Renault 4

then I moved to America, and half the cars put the bloody shifter on the steering column the other half in the normal place... so get used to driving the former and get in the other kind you end up washing you windows trying to get the car to move, then upon moving back to the orgional grabbing a cup of hot coffee** doing the same thing..

and then there is the foot/handbrake thing sheesh!

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

In the land of the free...

or more accurately overly free waistlines...

I have never had issue with them, most of our local stores have them and are really useful for quick buys, however if a cartfull of groceries it is better to see a real person, or, if you have contraband..erm...alcohol, which is pretty much every store trip for me (why they cannot simply scan my drives license... oh wait yeah I could have used someone else's silly me!)

Even the large bulk stores like Costco have them, and can be really quick, though it is fun when your purchase falls backward on the conveyor and breaks the magic eye thing again then the machine gets confused and the red light of shame flashes above your station.... there is usually a happy chappy (or chappette) to fix it fast though..

Home depot (B&Q) have the same things and never give me grief I think they disable the weight thing for a good reason, though there is often a "loss prevention officer" present to check your receipt if they think you are doing a number on them, I tend to glare at them while clutching the 3ft long receipt it spits out for a bag of screws...

as for the human operated machines, I always scan my card and enter appropriate pin well before the person has finished ringing up my inventory, then all I need do is smack the green button at the end and I get on my way (I hate the people who either wait till the end and then rummage for the card in a purse or bag, knowing full well they will be expected to pay at the end of the whole thing, or those who do this, then decide to get out their bloody chequebook! I mean c'mon! you have been standing there for 5 minutes watching this person scan your shopping and only at the end of it do you think "oh my! I need to find the method from which I am to pay this hardworking person, now where could I have put it?"

S.W.M.B.O when she used to pay with a check had it out and ready ( and before the days of the cashier being able to fill all the necessary "pay to:" crap in she had it waiting for a total... though she mainly paid in cash.(.A method of payment that can flummox most under the age of 30 when you give them pocket shrapnel to make the change a whole number like $5 )

maybe it is the way America does it, but they seem to be more together than the shopping hell that the uk seems to have now

btw what happened to the Sainsbury scan while you shop thing? I thought it was quite cool myself

Wanna run someone over in your next Ford? No dice, it won't let you

reading what the press release said

the car simply brakes if you do not do anything it does not steer or so weird stuff, I know that is a big thing out here in the ex colonies, since a.) no one can seemingly drive b.) those (especially in large pickups) think they are nascar drivers (physics as usual is just a theory to them and does not apply, until they realize it does, then they usually need that other voodoo thing called medical help when their top-heavy-vehicle-with-no-weight-in- the-back-designed-for-moving-lots-of-heavy-stuff looses control and either rolls crashes or takes out a few of the other vehicles on the road that are not paying attention c.) are on the phone, texting, eating, reading, applying makeup, all of those d.) doing everything I just mentioned, basically avoiding the task of driving!

This does not include large HGV truck drivers who think that doing 70 and sitting 10ft from the car in front of them is sufficient for a 40ton truck to stop (they get all pissy when people are tailgating them though!)

so they are installing it in a lot of cars here... I have noted there is a Mercedes that basically does everything.

The art and skill of driving I feel is lost, and now with all the safety features Darwin also loses out on some prime candidates (though also they seem to manage to pro-create (excessively) well before they get expunged from the gene pool also).

Brit inventor Dyson challenges EU ruling on his hoover's energy efficiency ratings

i don't care about efficiency

make the gosh forsaken things quieter!

never had a dyson, but cannot really imagine they are any different, our current cyclonic rip off style machine that I just replaced for less that $30 online does a good job... the filters, which also clog up like the toilet in a nightclub, cost around the same to replace... disposable life much?!

but my worst complaint is the noise, they all make this god awful racket. We bought a wet dry vac and it is about 1/2 as loud as the upright and has more suck then a $100 pro...well you get the idea...

the wife hates it too even though we have tile floors, she also insists on using the upright out back on the lanai even though we have the wet/dry vac for that reason! (well ok we bought it because our fridge water pipe sprung a leak one day but still)

I would love a nice quiet vacuum cleaner I cannot hear the washing machine at all even spinning surely they can make something that does not sound like it is about to explode***

*** I think I heard a rumour somewhere that they did once experiment with the whole "quiet" thing, and in a survey people thought that thr quiet one was not as powerful as the loud one even though they were the same power and suck... not sure if this is true but would make sense in a weird trick-cyclist explainable way

NSA data centre launch delayed as power surges 'melt metal, zap racks'

What voltage?

I mean I know of rack density and everything but I thought that they would be using in rack ups and DC to the blade/server boards.

Of course there is absolutely no precedent whatsoever for having a massive building full of custom made servers in a highly dense rack configuration.... maybe they should have *ahem* Googled it...

maybe a bit of a low tech solution, possibly a security guard to watch? or a webcam? as has been mentioned fuses?

increasing the humidity slightly? earth bonding?

I actually have a more conspirational theory (good word that conspirational I think some peoples head have just exploded because of it :D )

I would assume it is part of the "oh sh!t" circuit meaning in the event of a possible breach of facility by certain people/factions/rebellious citizens or nations unknown (seriously UTAH?! good luck with that) it is some sort of supenukeysparkmyrack device that will render the hardware and probably contents of said Rackspace to junk.

Though I think a thermite bucket over the top of each rack would actually be more fun and take care of the building too, though spilling conductive dust everywhere in the even of an accident might also have some undesirable effect on the hardware *L* still that's what intake filters are for right? ;-)

It does smell of some sort of retaliation job though for something somewhere, it is hard to tell whether it is inside or outside the country right now, since I think that the unpopularity is pretty high for both parties.

or just plain incompetents Occams razor and all that

TWELFTH-CENTURY TARDIS turns up in Ethiopia

Call up our Friendly E.T.

or invent FTL travel attach a large receiver to the ship just outside the 50 or so light year range**** and try to piece together the original broadcast... no problem, Elon Musk and Ricky B could do it in their sleep at least we know what we are looking for

I wonder if they have TV detector vans at 50 light years away... maybe something they need to look at Mork and his ilk are getting BBC TV for free!

***I have no bloody clue how far, if we are early we can watch first runs of andy pandy while we wait.

You put up with CRAPPY iOS 7. You can put up with Obamacare too, says prez

living here for a while

and being from a pinko-commie-socialist-facist ally namely the uk I seem to have noticed a few things.

A lot of us out here ( the us meaning Americans, since I am one now) have the attitude of "I got mine forget you" which is part of this whole shebang.

I have health insurance, I do not need it (yet) so ACA does not really bother me, so therefore it is just tough bananas if you do not have your own insurance, maybe you should get a job that has it.

At least that's sort of the way it seems, those who have are shouting the loudest because they think those who have not, or cannot afford, should not a get a free ride on their dime.

The chances are these people already have insurance, and do not think about it, they have theirs...

Many never knew the massive limitations on the whole private insurance system, limited coverage, denied claims ( yes I suppose with the right spin, they could be called death panels, but it is private so it because loss prevention or limited risk or something) the private companies love someone like me young enough, healthy only time I see a doctor is on TV etc.. my insurance is dutifully removed from my paycheck etc...

They hate...my wife, a type 1 diabetic and my daughter... a type 1 diabetic

damn them! they are sick

however, given the amount I pay per month and the amount the insurance pays out, they are still in the black.

sad really.

not everyone is like that of course, but a lot of the people I work with are ( these are, interestingly people with what could be considered a deniable pre existing condition too though workplace insurance cannot refuse coverage only private... well now they can't do that either!

as for costs... yes medical malpractice lawsuits need to be reigned in a lot. Human + sharp things + induced coma + big holes in body are generally a recipe for things to go wrong every now and then.

but the cost of education also has a part to play... doctors that come out of school with debts that would buy a nice house and car.

we need multiple area reform to get the whole system working better, however I feel there are too many people with a piece of the pie that prevents things from moving anywhere but in their favour.