Posts by pavsmith

So your [expletive] test failed. So [obscene participle] what?

There is a similar kind of thing that goes on in technical sales where I'd blanch I was forced to give the customer either email or IM trails. "They want [...] what???"

"Dear Sir/Madam, your request for a special discount on the software has just been assessed by our pricing and contracts team, and they have responded: you want what [...] discount on this software? Could you please take a long walk off a short pier, and if you get back go [...] yourself and walk off that pier again."

"Okay, I'll let them know we're not going any further than 30%."

There's also the development of an ability to either remain facially unchanged, or smile politely, when some questions or assertions come in.

USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

A great way to waste morning tea time!

1984? Something like that. Type in 'rn' and then read every single new article from the world before your tea got cold!

As for media, the first one I remember was called "dirty.uue" and used a lot of cursor positioning commands for vt100 terminals and involved some text guy interfering with a lot of text animals. Ah, internet pron ain't what it used to be!

Techies tinker with toilet-topper to turn it into ticker-tracker

Immediate feedback

Does the loo seat, when you get up, animate and say things like "heyyyy! Blood pressure is down today! Well done! I see you're also eating more fibre!"?

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

Re: Great Idea

What was that you were slapping?

Isn't that the model we just discovered Facebook has been using for some time now?

Re: Great...

Yep, we can't find a way to make our autonomous vehicle tech see cyclists so we'll make it their problem and, no doubt, use it as a bludgeon to blame the cyclist in the event of any accident. The determination to plunge onwards to a completely immature technology is positively frightening. Would anyone be doing this if we were talking about passenger jets?

Corking story: Idiotic smart wine bottle idea falls over, passes out

Re: If you want to only drink one glass at a time

You mean like a box with a dozen bottles in it? Yeah, that's about a week's worth...

Ocado to stock cannabidiol-infused water

Given that the country is apparently in the grip of a serious obesity crisis, is it really ethical or healthy to start selling a "relaxing lunch break" drink that is seriously going to give you the munchies???

UK.gov to drive stake through heart of big IT outsourcing deals

Re: Dear Gov Depts -

The thing that amazes me is that here we are with a conservative government and they are re-nationalising the country's government IT services. Did I wake up in a parallel universe?

Re: Snoop proofing the snoopers

A local farmer has taken to keeping a horse (or an incredibly ugly cow...) with one of his herds. This has to be doing DEFRA's heads in even from close up! Perhaps they can adapt the techniques from this to suit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Monty_Python's_Flying_Circus_episodes#3._How_to_Recognise_Different_Types_of_Trees_From_Quite_a_Long_Way_Away

So will they actually appoint properly skilled "CIOs" this time or will they fall back to the time honoured practice of deciding specialists are too narrowly focussed and so need professional "managers" who've had a "more rounded" education and probably have a degree in arts and history some somewhere jolly posh?

Modern-day Frankenstein invents CURE for BEHEADING

OH MY GOD! NOW THE ILLUMINATI WILL HAVE A WAY OF LIVING FOREVER!

Whole farms of healthy young people will be bred specifically to be "rootstock" for our once and future rulers!

That does it. I'm running for the hills...

Florida fisherman bags two-headed MUTANT SHARK

The ubiquitous "flake and chips" in awstraylya is shark.

It's extra evil!

Now just imagine if you could get a frickin' laser or two onto one of those!

BYOD is a PITA: Employee devices cost firms £61 a month

Pay for my own device, and have them lock it down???

I have steadfastly refused to connect my personal mobile devices to work's network, despite internal websites imploring me to do it with pictures of happy, busy people rushing about being amazingly productive and on the move. Why? Well, it is my device, right? So why then do I have my device eviscerated functionally, apps disabled, more security and tracking tools than I cam imagine and having to sign up to conditions of use that effectively mean I am not in control of anything to do with my device. All I'd manage to do is turn my personal device into a useless corporate brick that only functions in a corporate context... but I would be more productive. I guess...

Ofcom anoints broadcaster: Local TV is nearly here

Re: So how is this not going to end up the same?

No, but this is all the BIG SOCIETY stuff in action and it'll transform local communities... oh... hang on... has BS been deprecated?

I've already got 15 channels of sh*t on the TV to choose from...

I can hardly, hardly wait. Given the despair I get flicking through my cable TV guide at night trying to find something that's either interesting or not repeated a million times, I can't see what content they're going to have on these channels that will make me want to turn them on. Community groups with their own shows? If I was interested I'd have joined their group already. Local sports? Good idea, I won't have to turn up to the ground any more - guess that'll help their revenues.

Having said that I must say that I really do miss the old "infinite repeat" shows that are no longer on. I wonder what the rights to Gilligan's Island cost these days?

CIOs: Don't listen to tech vendors on ICT skills, listen to US

IT skills, yes, but who is going to teach it?

When I went through high school in the 80's our IT classes were code, code and more code. We were taught structured programming, data structures, etc. and set us all up well to go to uni and do a proper computer science degree. The best part: our high school teacher was an experienced programmer who turned to teaching when she moved out into our rustic country town. She earned the same money teaching as in IT.

These days though the disparity in money between teachers and experienced IT professionals is such that you simply won't get someone with skills and experience in the teaching profession. So they have barely IT literate staff trying to teach kids that frequently have much higher levels of experience hacking away at home. No wonder they do things like "Office skills" and muck about with applications rather than getting down and dirty and writing code.

Unless you solve the financial aspects of this I can't see how anything will change at the high school level.

Apple granted patent for microphone silhouette

I'm going to patent the bleeding obvious and patent...

...the comment track on websites like ElReg.

All you people here am my lawsuit beatches and I look forward to trolling you relentlessly.

Ten technology FAILS

BOB?

Isn't BOB just Windows 8 in disguise... errr...

Fanbois: The Next Generation. YOUR CHILDREN belong to Apple now

Ah, the ghost of Kevin Bloody Wilson... seriously I preferred my bike though.

A lesser-known new feature in iOS 6: It's tracking you everywhere

Tracking my interest in sauerkraut

I hate focussed ads... went onto my supermarket's website to check if they sold sauerkraut and for the next 3 months all I got on every site that was tracking my behaviour was advertising for various types of sauerkraut. Unfortunately I had bought it later that original afternoon when I visited the supermarket. I opt out to at least get some variety from my ads... :-)

Rover spots 'possibly artificial' MYSTERY SHINY OBJECT on Mars

Look sir! Droids!

Pretty sure we can safely identify the source of this mystery piece of metal...