* Posts by Rodderstoo

12 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Sep 2018

Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

Rodderstoo

Re: "The .. crime we uncovered here could threaten the integrity of our wildlife species in Montana"

Don't tell the Yanks that they are allowed to hunt politicians! Oh, wait..

ASUS recalls motherboards that flame out thanks to backwards capacitors

Rodderstoo

Re: OS reactivation

This honest person had trouble.

Attempting to reactivate Windows by phone. The recorded message was of a woman with a strong southern US accent who spoke too fast and who, after I had input the long string of characters that she read out, wanted me to hit the (unintelligible) key. I played the recording back many times and never managed to determine what key was required. I had to give up and install Linux instead..

Fix five days of server failure with this one weird trick

Rodderstoo

Re: Bent pins

I used to do that on Blowpipe Surface to Air Missiles - with a non-conducting screwdriver..

Canadian province's supreme court orders Dell to pay nearly $500,000 to sales rep fired in his twilight years

Rodderstoo

Re: 64 years old, $390K retirement package

I would assume that, like English law, you have to make best efforts to mitigate your losses when making a civil claim.

We don't know why it's there, we don't know what it does – all we know is that the button makes everything OK again

Rodderstoo

Re: Illicit contols

No, the turning up late for a meeting is disrespectful..

Rodderstoo

Re: The light..

Unless it's the light at the end of the tunnel, in which case it's the enemy carrying a flamethrower.

The server is down, money is not being made, and you want me to fix what?

Rodderstoo

Re: Constantly, in a fashion.

But then how would you ever find the things that'll 'just turn up'?

Takes from the taxpayer, gives to the old – by squishing a bug in Thatcherite benefits system

Rodderstoo

Re: Freedos

When I started work in the University of Oxford four years ago I was delighted to find that one professor's office smelt of cigars, expensive aftershave and old books; just as I imagined it should smell!

Trump fires cybersecurity boss Chris Krebs for doing his job: Securing the election and telling the truth about it

Rodderstoo

Will Krebs care?

'Fired by Trump' has become a sort of badge of honour of late..

Vote rigging, election fixing, ballot stuffing: Just another day in the life of a Register reader

Rodderstoo

Re: side issue of green beer

There is a green beer called 'Rites of spring', which looks somewhat odd, but tastes absolutely wonderful..

Never let something so flimsy as a locked door to the computer room stand in the way of an auditor on the warpath

Rodderstoo

Auditors..

They come along after the battle is over and bayonet the wounded.

First it was hashtags – now Amber Rudd gives us Brits knowledge on national ID cards

Rodderstoo

Even if I did trust the Government..

Let us assume for a moment that I do trust the government’s motives and intentions. Let us similarly set aside the fact that a future government may be less trustworthy. The past (indeed, current) performance in the creation of large IT projects at a government departmental level (e.g. universal credit) suggests that they could never complete a central government project which would be the largest ever attempted in this country.

So, the best that they would achieve would be a cobbled-together system, that would aggregate multiple databases and datasets – all containing inaccuracies. Would you trust a system, which could decide your entitlement to a pension or to healthcare or even citizenship when the data has been input by a (many?) badly paid, poorly trained and un-motivated civil servant?