Posts by Doctor Syntax 42665 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"or never watched/read crime fiction"
It seems that this is where that line of argument really falls down.
OTOH SOCO and fingerprint examiners make their livings from ne'er-do-wells who obviously haven't. One SOCO did send me in a glove-print to compare with a knitted glove. The match of knitting pattern wouldn't have been much good but, oh look, it's also included the odd fibre matching the glove.
Northern Powergrid has an interesting variant. Option 2, fault reporting, asks for our post code then repeats what the recorded greeting told you, i.e. the area they serve, then tells you you don't appear to be in it and aks if you want to speak to an advisor. It understands "yes" with no trouble and puts you through to a human who then asks for your post code and has no trouble in determining that you are indeed in their area.
"I am unable to log in to my account. A help message tells me that I can correct this by logging in to my account. Could you locate the copywriter responsible for your site's UX interactions and punch him in the face for me?"
The last sentence is sufficient on its own and is universally applicable.
One of my prepared lines was to pretend to be "the Microsoft help line for reporting scams" and assume the scammer was a victim reporting a scam, tell him that we work very closely with the police in all jurisdictions in dealing with scammers, it would help if could tell us where he was but not to worry, we were tracing his call right now and the local police would arrive with him soon to check his PC and help detect who was scamming him.
What a pity nobody's rung for me to use it.
I think there is and I think we're on it. Haven't had a call for years. I used to simply ask them to hang on for a moment and then put the phone aside for several minutes before hanging up.
The best one was a salesman from a local double glazing firm (there must have been a collective sigh of relieve from the entire area when they went bust) who rung back for more of the same and then his sales manager rang to say the line kept going dead.
Some telco in the country where the call is received is taking the call from either its country of origin or from some intermediate country. If they can't trace back themselves hold them responsible for any civil liabilities and possibly criminal ones as well. Just watch all of them tighten up their tracing.
"technologies that are relatively mature"
Algae, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to produce carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates plus yeast to produce alcohol.
Alcohol or maybe some derivative such as biodiesel plus ICE produces water and carbon dioxide as by-products.
Fuel is distributed through the existing system.
Some very ancient technology and nothing that's immature.
Part of the time the package demands as a minimum version x.y.z of some library when it's quite possible an older one would suffice. I've seen this a few times where some application wouldn't build because of such a dependency and then discovered a pre-built version that worked fine.
It seems that in the rush to devise proprietary nostrums an existing approach has been forgotten: install the application in /opt where it can sit with its own collection of libraries.
Allowing for the fact that this was functionality of the software rather than the software itself, I was wondering that. However the judge specifically stated that it applied to this particular case; IOW he's saying this doesn't constitute a precedent.
It's a bit alarming that nobody in a room-full of doctors could use a microscope properly. The trickier to spot version is that the trinocular* head is set to the binocular. Unless you notice the glint through the eye-pieces there's nothing obviously wrong.
* Pair of binocular eye-pieces plus straight through port for the camera.
Local water treatment plant built in the 1950s (should have been listed as a beautiful example of what mid-C20th municipal architecture could achieve but now sadly demolished) had two wings each with a set of sand filters, one in use whilst the other was being backwashed. There was a double height central hall which would be called an atrium nowadays. In it was a sink with a set of taps, each connected to one of the filters. With each tap turned on the effect of each filter could be seen as the successive streams of water got clearer. As I lived up the road between the reservoir and the filter works I was quite familiar with it.
I saw the old-style phone of our neighbours' after a non-strike had induced enough current to warm it up a bit. The perspex dial looked as if it had been boiled - it was full of bubbles. Both our electricity and phone supply are underground which gives us some protection. Sometimes I'm still inclined to unplug electronics from the mains if there's thunder about.
1. You cover the header tank.
2. The combi-boiler has largely made this obsolete, for better or worse.
The tank may well still be there. It may have been put into the loft before the woodwork for the ceiling was completed and there's now no way to remove it. If, like me, you live on a hill close to the limits of the head of water in the mains* you realise that that local head of water would probably improve the shower performance if it were still available.
Then you have to take into account all the Canada geese on the reservoir, townies coming over in summer when the reservoir levels are low and letting their dogs crap below high water mark and similar.
* Any time they try to jack up the pressure at the PRV it causes bursts of the mains lower down.
