Posts by Apathy101

BOFH: The greatest victory is that which requires no battle

Re: Who knows a future AI Boss could be in play?

I had an ebay account nuked as well. Not a high value or business account, but one I'd had for years and bought/sold through reliably, no problems or complaints etc.

It was nuked because I logged in from the same IP address that a fraudster had used. The fraudster was an employee of one of my mates and had been offering items for sale that he never delivered, (also some that he did sell and deliver but didn't own - kit he'd been issued with for his job for example, so he's now an ex-employee with a criminal record).

I had visited my mate and connected to his wifi to check on a bid I had running, then a couple of weeks later my account was gone with no warning. It was very difficult to find out why as I hadn't heard of anything similar. It took a while but I finally managed to get in contact only to find out that it was final and there was no appeal (or appeal process or anything).

My mates account was nuked along with his then girlfriends account - she really wasn't happy.

I did consider trying to pursue it but just went 'meh' after a while. Haven't used ebay since.

Developer's default setting created turbulence in the flight simulator

Re: sort of on topic...

I knew one of the blokes who maintained the simulator in Leuchars.

That one even had a power station with twin chimneys at the bottom of a valley. If you got the angle right you could get the "plane" between them, if not you came to a jarring stop and had to buy many beers.

Ask a builder to fix a server and out come the vastly inappropriate power tools

Anti-static precautions

I logged a PC fault with a supplier, the name of whom may or may not rhyme with Hell, and they sent out a new motherboard and a tech to replace said motherboard. I knew most of their field techs for my area and had a good relationship with them to the extent of switching the kettle on as soon as reception called me to say they'd arrived, so I was slightly surprised when a new face arrived in my cupboard. He introduced himself and proudly said he was getting into IT after leaving the RAF (I think he'd been a ground controller) after 22 years and had had the full training for his new job the week before. He carefully spread out his anti-static mat and smoothed it down, whilst advising me what he was doing and that it was to protect the fragile components from "random electro thingies". Okaaay, fairly good so far thought I. He put on his wristband and made sure all was connected properly. Then he placed the PC squarely onto the mat. On its rubber feet. That are not conductive.

Techie with outdated documentation gets his step count in searching for non-existent cabinet

5 minute jobs...

Whenever I setup for a "5min" job I know fine well that it's going to take several hours, but when I organise to do a job, setting aside the time, etc, that I think will take hours, I'm always finished within minutes saying "Was that it?"

Phased out: IT architect plugs hole in clean-freak admin's wiring design

Don't get me started on Architects who know best...

New school built near me. 2 years after it's built the admin offices flood badly during really heavy rain.

On investigation it was found that the single 100mm drain in the flat section of roof above the offices that was put in to collect ALL of the water from the surrounding area (~400sq meters) was blocked by fallen leaves. The water had followed the path of least resistance, as it does, into and down the walls of the offices below.

According the the drawings we had there should have been another external drainpipe running down the outside of the building as a backup. This pipe was conspicuous by its absence. Turns out the architect had removed it as "it spoilt the look of the wall".