Nah... just take away their 5G-enabled phones
Posts by PB90210
82 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Dec 2015
The last mile's at risk in our hostile environment. Let’s go the extra mile to fix it
Forget TikTok – Chinese spies want to steal IP by backdooring digital locks
UK minister tells telcos to share telegraph poles if they can't lay cable underground
Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep
Re: "captive hunting operations – aka shooting sheep in a barrel"
Then there was Napoleon and the rabbits...
A guy wants to set up a bunny hunt so Napoleon and his pals could have a little fun, so he rounds up hundreds bred by the local farmers... but they don't scatter, as wild ones would do, they advance on the king and his nobles expecting to be ticked and fed carrots... Napoleon retreats to his carriage
Climate change means beer made from sewer water, says North Carolina brewery
Re: "Climate change means beer made from sewer water"
Bud has a bad effect on me, but luckily my (former) local kept a stock of bottled Budvar... until AB leant on the suppliers to enforce their 'trademark' and they could no longer supply Budvar to pubs that had Bud/Bud Light as their main beer.
Yes, 'former'...
BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again
They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut
Cops visit school of 'wrong person's child,' mix up victims and suspects in epic data fail
Re: Thats ok then
"Since your signature won't change"
When did you last sign something?
I had enough trouble remembering the PIN associated with my swipe card that I use day-in-day-out on a 'foreign' door a while back... figuring out how to duplicate my own signature is a nightmare
On the other hand, I once watched a woman sign a cheque by simple going left-right-left-right a few times leaving a thick line... she could have just used a thick felt tip to save time
Multiple billions up for grabs as UK government launches cloud services tenders
BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies
A Maria's bacon sandwich was to die for... soggy white bread; catering bacon cooked by her husband, in stained 'white' vest while smoking a ciggy; smear of catering 'butter'; cut by the fearsome Maria herself using a ancient knife like a stiletto due to years of sharpening... heavenly!!!
The place, just off Warren St, is sadly long gone, but it did sustain many a worker back in the 70s/80s
Google Maps leads German tourists to week-long survival saga in Australian swamp
Re: Danger maps
I was walking the Thames path and noticed that when I got to Hammersmith Bridge, to cross the bridge, Google said I would have to go up a side street and make a couple of hundred yard detour rather than climb the steps in front of me
(The whole bridge disappeared a couple of years ago when it was closed to traffic due to metal fatigue, leaving just a pier in the middle of the river... now the bridge is back and although it doesn't appear to say it is still closed to cars it does route traffic over other bridges)
Are you ready to back up your AI chatbot's promises? You'd better be
Judge slaps down law firm using ChatGPT to justify six-figure trial fee
Nokia brainwave turns cell towers into cash cows with backup batteries
Developer's default setting created turbulence in the flight simulator
Standards-obsessed boss ignored one, and suffered all night for his sin
The New ROM Antics – building the ZX Spectrum 128
Re: Stories give context
There's an excellent episode in the Cautionary Tales podcast, 'laser v parchment', about the BBC's reboot of the Domesday Book. It was distributed as a laserdisc.
Fast forward a few decades and they were virtually unreadable as the required a BBC micro with Phillips videodisc player, a combination as rare as hen's teeth.
A guy took on the task of deciding the custom format (a mix of analogue video plus digital data) and after years of work finally managed to publish it online
Unfortunately he has subsequently died and no one was able to keep the site up and running, so the info is lost for a second time!
WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager
Cutting-edge microscopy reveals bottled water has 'up to 100 times' more bits of plastic than previously feared
I think it's the Law of Unintended Consequences...
A while back I went to pick up a plastic bag containing old documents, only for it to disintegrate in my hands.
Back in the '80s folks were complaining that plastics were being dumped in landfill that would take centuries to break down and people came up with biodegradable plastics as the answer... now the stuff breaks down in decades into microparticles...
And now we have starch-based plastics that are 'compostable' but have to be kept separate from domestic rubbish...
Need to plug in an EV? BT Group kicks off cabinet update pilot
How the tech toy century has troubled Santa's sack
‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’
The sports bar thing reminded me of the edict from on high banning smokers from congregating round the (hidden from the road) front entrance.
Unfortunately this was swiftly followed by another because the smokers had had found a sheltered spot round the side of the building... right in front of the inlet for the building's air con!
(luckily we only had a couple of smokers)
FTC wants to crack down on Big Biz profiting from kids' data
BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required
'The computer was sitting in a puddle of mud, with water up to the motherboard'
A friend had a job to paint the toilets at a bookies in Kilburn. He got fed up with people ignoring the sign on the door and barging in, so he locked the door.
He later discovered the shop's clientele had got around the problem by sideling up close to the carpet-covered counter and... erm, watering the carpet.
Tesla says California's Autopilot action violates its free speech rights
Cloud engineer wreaks havoc on bank network after getting fired
Veteran editors Notepad++ and Geany hit milestone versions
Re: I love Notepad++
Same here.
Add in support for DOS, Linux and Mac line endings and ANSI, UTF and other codings that helps when project managers sent 'plain text' files that MS Notepad doesn't load correctly
Got majorly annoyed when IT support started supplying updates without the 'compare' plug-in as it meant either comparing files side-by-side by eye or having to load another program to check differences (at least they actually allowed NP++, but it was generally a couple of versions behind as they seem to only update 'optional' programs after a major bug/security issue)
It's ba-ack... UK watchdog publishes age verification proposals
Interpol makes first border arrest using Biometric Hub to ID suspect
Re: Tales from BioHub
A few years ago a cartoon from an issue of Private Eye was used in a racist manner and sent to a member of police staff. DC Plod put in a request to PE for a list of subscribers to track down the culprit.
PE said go boil your head, we don't give out the list to anyone.
DC Plod went to a judge to get them to hand over the list but the judge also sent then away with a flea in their ear, pointing out that their request was too wide, that the magazine it came from could easily have been read/handled by multiple people... and that the magazine was freely available, without subscription, at most newsagents.
Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness
USB Cart of Death: The wheeled scourge that drove Windows devs to despair
User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work
Had a colleague call me over because Excel was just showing a blank screen. Reopening Excel gave the same blank screen.
It was eventually discovered the the default sheet had been windowed and somehow the window had been dragged out of sight... reloading just 'opened' the same out-of-sight sheet
(View > arrange sheets)
How to give Windows Hello the finger and login as someone on their stolen laptop
Lawyer guilty of arrogance after ignoring tech support
Bug hunters on your marks: TETRA radio encryption algorithms to enter public domain
ICE faces heat after agents install thousands of personal apps, VPNs on official phones
CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it
Ask a builder to fix a server and out come the vastly inappropriate power tools
Re: Most-Inappropriate Computer Repair Tool
Used to work with signalling unit that used Reed relays. The reeds had gold plated tips they had a nasty habit of 'welding' together if the relay was energised for more that a few months.
The cure... put the card out of the rack to the full extent of the runners and slam it back in to place... contact broken... clear code: reseated card