Mikes!
Which one of you is Mike Hunt?
Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll get my coat....
261 publicly visible posts • joined 14 May 2018
"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?
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!
"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!
(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.....
"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!
"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.
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.
@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....
"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