"You can't give her that!" she screamed. "It's not safe!"
It's a sword. said the Hogfather. They‘re not meant to be safe.
"She's a child!" shouted Crumley.
It's educational.
"What if she cuts herself?
That will be an important lesson
Posts by Ochib
438 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Mar 2016
Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects
Musk gets approval for bumper Tesla payout but, unlike his robot, there are strings attached
Help desk boss fell for ‘Internet Cleaning Day’ prank - then swore he got the joke
Famed software engineer DJB tries Fil-C… and likes what he sees
‘ERP down for emergency maintenance’ was code for ‘You deleted what?’
Actor couldn’t understand why computer didn’t work when the curtain came down
Alaska Airlines grounded by mystery IT meltdown
Jaguar Land Rover cyber-meltdown tipped to cost the UK almost £2B
Apple goes all in on AI acceleration with M5 MacBook, iPad, and Vision Pros
YouTube coughs up $24.5 million to make Trump 'censorship' case go away
Tuesday 30th September 2025 12:57 GMT
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say:–
"We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:–
"Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:–
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
Security company hired a used car salesman to build a website, and it didn't end well
Army and Navy have both asked for right to repair, now Senators want to give it to them
Wednesday 9th July 2025 12:23 GMT
Will need to make the repairs Squaddy Proof
Think of the most indestructible thing in the known universe. Right? Well, a squaddy can break it. Think of the same thing, but put it through a 20 year 2 billion pound development. Got that thought in your head? Well, the same squaddy can still break it.
The rubber eye piece for one of the old Starlight scopes was thought to be squaddie proof, it's rubber nothing to go wrong...so bored squaddies would eat it. So close but no cigar.
When something that is to be Squaddy Proof, designers should remember that even Squaddies undergo evolution. The old adage "Make something idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot" should be kept in mind here.
Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire
Thursday 5th June 2025 14:46 GMT
Re: Tesla that burned so hot, it melted part of the road
chlorine trifluoride
There’s a report from the early 1950s of a one-ton spill of the stuff. It burned its way through a foot of concrete floor and chewed up another meter of sand and gravel beneath, completing a day that I'm sure no one involved ever forgot. That process, I should add, would necessarily have been accompanied by copious amounts of horribly toxic and corrosive by-products: it’s bad enough when your reagent ignites wet sand, but the clouds of hot hydrofluoric acid are your special door prize if you’re foolhardy enough to hang around and watch the fireworks.
I’ll let the late John Clark describe the stuff, since he had first-hand experience in attempts to use it as rocket fuel. From his out-of-print classic Ignition! we have:
”It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
Trump tariffs ruled illegal within minutes of Musk announcing end of government role
Liz Warren, Trump admin agree on something: Army should have right to repair
Friday 2nd May 2025 12:39 GMT
Think of the most indestructible thing in the known universe. Right? Well, a squaddy can break it. Think of the same thing, but put it through a 20 year 2 billion pound development. Got that thought in your head? Well, the same squaddy can still break it. Squaddy proofedness is thus the holy grail of defence contractors, and any claim to have achieved this state of nirvana is construed as a challenge. No-one has ever succeeded in this challenge.
The rubber eye piece for one of the old Starlight scopes was thought to be squaddie proof, it's rubber nothing to go wrong...so bored squaddies would eat it. So close but no cigar.
According to un-named Government sources, the only item ever to have been given to a squaddy and returned undamaged (i.e. the only squaddy-proof item EVER) was the ball bearing!
Techie solved supposed software problem by waving his arms in the air
Tesla's Optimus can't roll without rare earth magnets, and Beijing ain't budging yet
In wake of Horizon scandal, forensics prof says digital evidence is a minefield
Thursday 17th April 2025 09:39 GMT
Just see the case of the "phantom of Heilbronn"
Investigators had connected her to six murders and an unsolved death based on DNA traces found at the scene, plus traces they found at another 40 crime scenes across southern Germany and Austria.
It was determined that the cotton swabs used to collect DNA had been contaminated accidently by a woman working at an unidentified factory in Bavaria. One company making swabs said they were not intended for analytical, but only medical use, while another said that there had been no requirement for the swabs to be free of DNA.
Musk's DOGE muzzled on X over tape storage baloney
Data doesn't lie, but Microsoft's new Power BI prices might make you cry
Jeff Bezos can now taunt Elon Musk: I'm building a moon rover for NASA, when can Tesla do that?
US Dept of Housing screens sabotaged to show deepfake of Trump sucking Elon's toes
Tuesday 25th February 2025 11:50 GMT
What did you do this week?
1. I went to the office
2. I watched video being played throughout building of Trump kissing King Elon’s feet
3. After management learned all the IT staff was fired by Elon, I was tasked with removing videos of Trump kissing king Elon’s feet
4. I went through the office to unplug 72 TVs playing videos of Trump kissing King Elon’s feet
5. We had a review meeting to discuss how videos of Trump kissing king Elon’s feet ended up on dozens of TVs throughout building and the consequences of Elon firing all the IT people.
Microsoft shows off novel quantum chip that can scale to 'a million qubits'. So far: Eight
BOFH: Engage Hollywood Protocol – because nonsense always looks legit
I was told to make backups, not test them. Why does that make you look so worried?
And now something fun for a change: Building blocks of life in Bennu asteroid samples
Memories fade. Archives burn. All signal eventually becomes noise
How to leave the submarine cable cutters all at sea – go Swedish
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 11:58 GMT
Re: Practice what you preach?
The Swedish Navy confirmed that its ships had patrolled the area in the days before the explosions, but would not comment on why it had done so. An analysis of AIS-data from MarineTraffic by Swedish media Dagens Nyheter showed Swedish navy vessels in the areas on 21 and 22 September 2022, from five to four days before the sabotage.
LA deputies dogged by New Year date glitch in patrol car PCs
Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did
When old Microsoft codenames crop up in curious places
BOFH: Don't sell The Boss a firewall. Sell him The Dream
Win a slice of XP cheese if you tell us where Microsoft should put Copilot next
Another 'major cyber incident' at a UK hospital, outpatients asked to stay away
Wednesday 27th November 2024 15:15 GMT
Re: Mouse take
Wife works at a care home and most of the Staff are not IT literate. For example
The cash system is an excel spreadsheet that they use a calculator to add up the rows and columns and have problems getting the figures to add up correctly. This document is then printed out and faxed to head office.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
