Posts by SuperGeek

Meetings in the metaverse: Are your Mikes on?

Mikes!

Which one of you is Mike Hunt?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll get my coat....

BOFH: The evil guide to upgrading switches

Mental health!

Nice bit of gaslighting at the end! "It says 2022!" "Oh, that's for the beans!" I feel sorry for the Boss. He gets gaslit so much I'm surprised he doesn't spontaneously internally combust!

Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest

Re: Without reading the article

"They realised their mistake, paid their licence arrears, put in place a system to prevent recurrence, extensively audited their systems to ensure no intrusion had occurred, write a grovelling apology to their customers and by their quick corrective action managed to avoid being exploited?"

Does Hell freeze over once a blue moon?

Review: ASUS dual-screen laptop may warm your heart, will definitely warm your lap

Any heat...

Can be bad news. Repeated on/off cycles cause heating/cooling thermal cycling of solder joints, which recently killed my Dell G3 3779 gaming machine, even run on a cooling pad and undervolted! And on modern single board machines it gets expensive, as I can guarantee it'll happen out of warranty!

Unable to write 'Amusing Weekly Column'. Abort, Retry, Fail?

Re: Turbo Pascal - Missing Semi-Colon at line 454

"The command to go to the lats line the file was B, however, if you were already on the last line it would print an error message.

-----:B

Bad Bottom"

Is that the program telling you you're a pain in the arse?

Make assistive driving safe: Eliminate pedestrians

Re: Tesla

"If you advertise it as an "autopilot", then it's an autopilot. Switch on, leave it to it. Not a driving assistance. Don't they have trade description laws in the States?"

Apparently it's the same with planes. Autopilot is not self flying, only "pilot assistance"? So why don't they call it Assistpilot? Then it can't be classed as misadvertising! Tesla can use the name too, and it's self explanatory!

Bouncing cheques or a bouncy landing? All in a day's work for the expert pilot

Re: Serial to VGA? All you need is an adapter!

"RS? Recommended Standard or Radio Spares, depending on which RS you mean."

For some customers, they're the kind that don't know their RS from their L Bows!

Big shock: Guy who fled political violence and became rich in tech now struggles to care about political violence

No shock!

"'I recognize that I come across as lacking empathy,' billionaire VC admits"

Like most fatcat narcissists then?

Foxstuck: Firefox browser bug boots legions of users offline

Foxgate? Firewall?

No more DRM-free downloads as Amazon's ComiXology app set to disappear inside Kindle

Ahem!

*cough*getcomics.info*cough*

Sorry, a frog in my throat there!

Canon: Chip supplies are so bad that our ink cartridges will look as though they're fakes

Even more weird...

BMW this week announced due to the shortage of semiconductors they were leaving out the indicator control module on all models...

No, not April yet, just sarcasm. Although they don't get used anyway ;)

Nothing's working, and I've checked everything, so it must be YOUR fault

Knock knock...

Felix!

Felix who?

Felix that 9v battery I left lying around outta the smoke alarm, he'll get a shock!!

Apple custom chip guru jumps ship to rejoin Intel

What they say about grass...

It wasn't greener on the fruity side?

You've stolen the antiglare shield on that monitor you've fixed – they say the screen is completely unreadable now

As a self employed mobile technician....

(WARNING: If you're eating you might want to, uh, not be!)

Not so long ago a customer of mine called me out saying his son's computer was overheating and shutting down. The son's father told me that he'd run the computer with no cover on for a few days as they'd fitted a new component and couldn't get the side panel to stay on fully. After a few days with the cover off they'd got it back on. This was under a dark desk.

Suddenly, it had started overheating. And, they'd not been able to find the family gerbil after it had gone walkabout, three days previous, after making a break for it from its improperly latched cage. I knew what was coming, and still can't get the image out of my head. The family gerbil, headless, decimated by the CPU fan (a high torque Corsair one), splatted all inside the case. It must have been snuggled in there as they put the cover back on, snuggled under the horizontal HDD cage so they didn't see it, where it had come out to investigate the big spinny, draughty thing later on. The guy had gone to make us all cups of tea. I didn't know how to break it to him, as his daughter loved the little furry guy.

I just walked into the kitchen and said, "I don't know how to break this to you, but I found the gerbil.....". He was smart enough to put two and two together. He told me not to bother cleaning the computer. "Chuck it in the bin, we'll buy a new one from you, and tell my son it is unrepairable."

Phew. I didn't fancy cleaning gerbil guts at all! Nicotine is nothing in comparison! The father kept the gerbil decimation a secret, and told the kids he'd escaped out the door or a window. I built them a new PC and had the old one shredded, I wasn't stripping it.....

Windows takes a breather in London's Spitalfields

Not to end 2021 on a bigger downer...

But you have an apostrophe where it shouldn't be!

"and to mark the occasion we present the 12 Bork's of Christmas."

Gah! Drives me nuts! Happy 2022 :)

Thank you, FAQ chatbot, but if I want your help I'll ask for it

Re: How about Toast?

"would you like a toasted teacake?"

Or if you live in Yorkshire, their own breed of golden bread known as a "terst"ed teacake!

Swooping in to claim the glory while the On Call engineer stands baffled

Re: Hands On

"Assuming prodding may involve the use of hammers. Large adjustable spanners may be substituted if you find yourself suddenly hammerless."

Hehe, Photonicinduction comes to mind! "Where's my 'amma?"

Then when he's "fixed" it, "I popped it!!"

He's a crazy awesome Londoner who does crazy experiments with VERY high voltages! I recommend giving his YouTube channel a watch!

Reg scribe spends 80 hours in actual metaverse … and plans to keep visiting

Re: Cultural Appropriation

Fookface?

"The Metaverse doesn't even exist yet and already there are annoyingly self-righteous cyclists in it"

These bloody cyclists, they get where Lycra can't! /s

Whenever automakers get their hands on chip supplies, the more expensive vehicles are first in line – NXP

Re: "[integrated combustible engine] WRONG"

"internal combustion engine, which is itself incombustible."

Try telling that to Vauxhall Zafira owners in the UK :)

Zuckerberg wants to create a make-believe world in which you can hide from all the damage Facebook has done

Re: Waiting for virtual reality

"As long as they are building the b-Ark and he gets a seat, then that would be fine"

Well, Zuckerberg is b-Ark-ing up the wrong tree but we knew that already!

Good Grief! Ransomware gang has only gone and pwned the NRA – or so it claims

"I hope they present the information using bullet points. I wouldn't want to shell out for the full report."

Careful. You might "trigger" more jokes, or was that the "aim" and "scope" all along?

Windows terminates here. Please remember to finish setting it up on arrival

Re: Seriously, guys

Hehe, so you're calling all the adults and professionals who tinker with Pis, children? Nice, we're all young at heart :)

Fatal Attraction: Lovely collection, really, but it does not belong anywhere near magnetic storage media

Re: So what happens...

"Good luck getting rid of them again."

My local SUEZ owned tip loves them as I'm sure they get paid for it. I've even bought stuff off them to repair. Scratch my back I'll scratch yours kinda arrangement. First name terms with the manager-ess :)

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram deplatform themselves: Services down globally

Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

"And for those of us with family stuck abroad in a pandemic won't be able to talk at all. Yay!"

Phones exist. You know, the function of the "smartphone" that is its main feature? Call them, and, you know, use your voice. Hard to understand in these days of keyboard tippy-tappy, I know.

Re: Champagne for...

"A case of finest bubbly, vint, brew, or spirits to the poor techie who "hit the button", and I'm looking forward to the "Who, Me?"!"

It could have been a cleaner plugging in their crappy Dyson! :)

Activision Blizzard to pay out three days of annual profit to settle sex discrimination case

"“I am sorry that anyone had to experience inappropriate conduct, and I remain unwavering in my commitment to make Activision Blizzard one of the world’s most inclusive, respected, and respectful workplaces."

Only cause you've been caught!

Texas cops sue Tesla claiming 'systematic fraud' in Autopilot after Model X ploughed into two parked police cars

"Maybe the police should tone down their lighting, if it's causing accidents due to blinding computer vision systems?"

No. The strobes are designed for human vision. Camera vision systems are a small minority.

'Extraordinary' pigs step in to protect Schiphol airport from marauding geese

At least

The management will feel the numbers go 'down' after a while, this won't seem as quackers a plan. Wing it and see.... :)

BOFH: You'll find there's a company asset tag right here, underneath the monstrously heavy arcade machine

What's for dinner?

Smoked Steve sandwich anyone? Watch the gristle, and those hairs that get stuck in your teeth..... ;)

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

Apple...

The borderline narcissist that does what it wants when it wants and gets highly emotional when challenged. :)

Dell bids adieu to the era of big acquisitions, concentrates on paying down debt and Michael's new book

I was hoping...

The title of his book would be "F*cking DELL!!! - How to be proprietary in a world of open standards" :)

Apple tried to patch this security hole in macOS Finder but didn't consider upper and lowercase characters

Re: Hey Apple!

CodeGate??

Macmillan best-biscuit list unexpectedly promotes breakfast cereal to treat status

Jaffa cakes ARE biscuits!

Leave one out for a week and you'll see! Although it may be more Gobstopper territory by then! Mmm orange Gobstopper! :)

Electron-to-joule conversion formulae? Cute. Welcome to the school of hard knocks

Yale be surprised what a team can do!

Re: Ask the dog - it has an 80% success rate

I knew I wasn't going daft thinking out loud! Talking to myself? Nah, being logical!

Vibration

Vibration in the universe isn't always positive outcome :)

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81

Re: Fraudulent too...

And modern crowdfunding isn't much much worse?

FTC bans 'brazen' stalkerware maker SpyFone, orders data deletion, alerts to victims

Zuck...

Why do all spying, scumbag arsehole's names start with Zucker?

Notice a pattern?

Cloud load balancer snafu leads to 3D printer user printing on a stranger's kit

"I'm thinking of a scenario where a Custom Adult Toy maker sends a design to a 3D printer, only it's someone ELSE's printer, maybe at a school. That'd TRULY be a "cock up".

And a dil-DOH! moment for Homer!!

See that last line in the access list? Yeah, that means you don't have an access list

Re: For the avoidance of doubt

"I just want to say it wasn't me.

Will."

Then when the proverbial shit hits the fan you'll hear "Fire at Will!"

"Will didn't do it!"

Right to repair shouldn't exist – not because it's wrong but because it's so obviously right

Don't forget vehicle manufacturers such as Deere and Vauxhall. Deere don't want you tweaking ECU's because, well copyright code. Vauxhall don't want you replacing your own control units or vehicle configuration (adding cruise control or extra speakers etc) because of top secret VCI codes you need to do it to program the modules to "see" the added hardware.

We can't believe people use browsers to manage their passwords, says maker of password management tools

Re: password managers

"sharing your info with unwanted third pasties, such as"

Hollands? Greggs? Yummy, make my "pasties" a meat potato, and cheese & onion!

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Re: Some things that would help the situation

@AndrueC "That would be shocking :)"

Add it to the list of "current" affairs "amp"lifying life ;)

OK, OK, I'll get my coat. Mines the one with the multimeter in the pocket.

Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam

Hehe

Hunter...becomes...the HUNTED!

SSD belonging to Euro-cloud Scaleway was stolen from back of a truck, then turned up on YouTube

Is everyone forgetting..

It was unencrypted? Why??!??

Age discrimination case against IBM leaks emails, docs via bad redaction

Re: The old tricks

@RegGuy1: Indeed. I'm 36 and as well as my employer paying in, and me paying for both my employer job and my business, I'm also putting £15 a week into my pot from earnings off my own back.

I'll thank myself when I retire, hopefully. Young whippersnappers, don't leave it too late! Especially with the state of State pensions in the UK (Ha, see what I did there?)

I'll get my coat....

BOFH: Oh for Pete’s sake. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself

Re: Idiot-Sensitive Glasses

".... I have not one but the 3 treat detecting cats."

Would they be Dreamies detector cats? My cat keeps breaking the catflap by cat-ramming his way through it before the solenoid opens it!

Apple's iPad Pro on a stick, um, we mean M1 iMac scores 2 out of 10 for repairability

Re: Recycling is now criminal

"Seriously, should you fish one of these repairable devices out of the skip before it gets rained on, you can be prosecuted. I think for theft, as the recycling company is on a bonus to meet their WEEE targets.

Our local tip has a sign warning of such."

Not always. I regularly salvage stuff from my local SUEZ owned tip, and as long as you ask permission from managers they will often allow you to take stuff, even buy it if you think it has value. Made a ton of money this way from washing machines, TV's, computers etc

Hard cheese: Stilton snap shared via EncroChat leads to drug dealer's downfall

Re: Hard cheese

Brie-liant work. All for the "grater" good!