Re: Sticky fingers
Or even creaming off the profits?
Posts by magickmark
315 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2012
Birmingham sperm bank pulls plug after just a handful of recruits
What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)
Invasion of the virus-addled lightbulbs (and other banana stories)
'Please label things so I can tell the difference between a mouse and a microphone'
Friday 7th October 2016 09:40 GMT
Re: Engineers!
So did he then complain that he could not find the "Any" key?
I use to train new IT users back in the day and I've actually had that happen to me!!!
Spoken instruction to class:
Me: Do [some task] then press any key
Inevitable User: Where's the "Any" key?
Me {thinks}: Now how do I respond without embarrassing [Inevitable User] in front of whole class?
The wait is over: MoD releases latest issue of Ship Paint Monthly
Naked, drunken Swede assaults chicken shed after 60th birthday
Apple iPhone 7 launch hysteria? Not in Viking land
We live in a world where a 'Hamdog' burger hybrid is patented
Indefatigable WikiBots keep Wikipedia battles going long after humans give up and go home
Two Sundays wrecked by boss who couldn't use a calendar
Dear sysadmin: This is how you stay relevant
Thursday 15th September 2016 11:04 GMT
Re: Ummmm
"The truth is that most organisations today are IT organisations"
I think the point of the argument for the above quote is that most businesses may not be selling IT for its own sake but they are selling a service that would not be able to function without IT, effectively selling an IT service to facilitate the delivery* of their end product. None of the businesses you mention "retail, banking, logistics" could function without IT, just look what happens when a banks IT goes tits up.
* By delivery I mean the wider business sense of providing a product or service, unless you are a logistics company then your deliverable is a delivery of course!! And just try to manage that without IT!!
Assange returns to Earth
Self-stocking internet fridge faces a delivery come down
A plumber with a blowtorch is the enemy of the data centre
Phoney bling ring pinged by Tolkien's kin
Sysadmin sticks finger in pipe, saves data centre from flood
Bloody Dell! Is EMC going to drop its logo? Answers on a postcard to Brentford
What wedding cake would an engineer make? A LEGO one
Excel hell messes up ~20 per cent of genetic science papers
Thursday 25th August 2016 08:06 GMT
Re: Pet peeve
I have a similar grumble, I regularly have to export datasets from an online application to use in Excel (in this case they are proper .xls formats at least) and there are a number of tick boxes that export as True or False but rather than being logical values they are exported as plain text. Not a big problem as I now expect it and have a routine worked out but still a PITA having to go through and convert them all.
My headset is reading my mind and talking behind my back
Friday 19th August 2016 10:30 GMT 
Sunglasses After Dark
"To this day, I fail to comprehend how anyone could be convinced that wearing sunglasses after dark helps you see better. All it does is make you look cool, as already famously demonstrated by the Blues Brothers a decade earlier."
Actually, Dabbsy, the problem was recorded a few decades earlier in 1958 as evidenced on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S07rl68DMD8
Enjoy!!
Cops break up German sausage fight between pair of Neubrandenburgers
Baffled Scots cops call in priest to deal with unruly spirits
Viscous liquid oozing down the walls? You must have hives
Thursday 18th August 2016 12:48 GMT 
Honeywell?
Maybe they should have left them there to harvest the honey?
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/09September/Pages/Bacteria-found-in-honey-may-help-fight-infection.aspx
If I recall honey was historically used to treat cuts and wounds?
Honeywell/Honey well - see an IT angle
Update - just found this
http://www.surgerysupplements.com/historical-use-of-honey-in-wound-care-through-the-ages/
Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Update tweaked to stop you disabling app promos
Friday 29th July 2016 13:43 GMT 
FAIL!!!!
My main tower is still on Win 7 and staying that way but the last few days I have been looking at laptops and was thinking of getting Win 10 to try it out and get used to the idea of using it. But this has made me think again!
It seems to be be getting more and more intrusive over time and makes me wonder where it will stop, if at all. Think I'll look at Linux or a Chrome Book!
<Image>Evil Kitty picture with the text "All your OS's iz belong to ME!!"</Image>
And yes I get the irony of using a Chrome Book :D
Schrödinger's cat explained with neutrinos
Wednesday 20th July 2016 13:27 GMT 
Quantum theory and spatial dilution.
This is from a mock paper by a guy called Michael H.F. Wilkinson. Sadly the link that I found it on seems to no longer work :(
The famous thought experiment of Erwin Schrödinger describes how according to quantum mechanics a cat may be in an indeterminate state between living and dead, until a conscious observation is made. Likewise, Reitz (6) has shown that the location of a cat inside or outside a garage is unspecified until the creature is observed. This phenomenon explains the curious "tunneling" of electrons and even entire cats (6) through a region of space in which they cannot exist. If we take the case of a homeopathic dilution of a single molecule over N flasks of solvent, quantum mechanics tells us that the molecule is not located in a particular flask until a conscious observation is made. In quantum parlance, the "wave function" of the particle is said to "collapse" into a specific state (or flask) due to the act of observing. Incidentally, this is why cats resent people staring at them: the constant collapse of their wave function is a strain on their delicate senses.
Web meltdown: BT feels heat from angry punters
Gaming apps, mugging and bad case of bruised Pokéballs
Tupperware vehemently denies any link to storage containerisation
Thursday 14th July 2016 11:35 GMT
You Sir owe me a new keyboard!!
Unfortunately in eating my apple I'd put away my generic plastic tub with a lid and thus when I read "TUPPERWARE: That thing your arsehole does when you really need a massive shit but can't go and so it keeps popping open randomly and emitting foulness." apple went over my keyboard and screen!!!",
Wannabe Prime Minister Andrea Leadsom thinks all websites should be rated – just like movies
Lester Haines: RIP
Eds off their meds: Does this headline REALLY need to be so astronomically long it can be measured in parsecs?
Developer waits two years for management to define project
Friday 10th June 2016 08:56 GMT
My story is this...
At this point in time I was working as a consultant and had developed and maintained a website for a client. Anyway, one day in October the client contacted me about updating the website, basically giving it a major overhaul.
So meeting was arranged and held at which we went through what the client wanted etc. etc. etc. and the main thing was that they wanted the new version live for the New Year, three months away so no problem. At the end of the meeting they asked for sometime to consider things and that they would contact me.
A few weeks pass and no communications from them, so I email, no response. This went on for a week or two and eventually I gave up and assumed they had changed their minds.
Anyway, being self employed (and busy) I did not really take holidays, except I always took off the two weeks over Xmas. But (and I'm sure you can guess what comes next) I got a call from the client sometime in mid December, lets say the 16th, to say they wanted the update to go ahead and reminding me that I had said it could be done for the New Year!
I politely told them that had been back in October and that deadline was now impossible and anyway I was not going to be working over the Xmas holidays as it was my only time off. And I offered to start work in the New Year.
At this point the client got very aggressive and even offered me physical violence if I did not agree to do the work.
Needless to say I choose not work for the client again and they eventually got someone else to do the work although they made a right pigs ear of it and within the year the website went offline and vanished.
To this day I find it incomprehensible that: a) they could be that slow in making up their minds b) actually believing that the deadline would still be applicable c) so extreme in their reaction.
Some people ehh?
Trouble originating between chair and keyboard caused most UK breaches
Smartwatches: I hate to say ‘I told you so’. But I told you so.
Thursday 2nd June 2016 12:30 GMT
My Wearable
My wearable attached to my wrist with a band of leather, it has one function which it does perfectly. It was made in 1916 (hallmarked silver) and still works perfectly toady.
As I am sure you can guess is a watch. In this case a Swiss made wristwatch and it does exactly as I want, a quick glance way of knowing the time. Anything more complex than that and I'd use my smartphone.
Gillian Anderson: The next James Jane Bond?
Tuesday 24th May 2016 12:34 GMT
If you look carefully, the number plate on the Aston is Skyfall is the same as the one he won in Casino Royal so that's where he got the Aston from. But as to how it got all the upgrades (ejector seat etc) is the real question.
But I think that if you over analyse the films you spoil the 'fun' of them. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
