Posts by EVP

Duelling techies debugged printer by testing the strength of electric shocks

Re: Obvious reply ...

Positively.

Re: It Works both Ways

”None - it's a hardware problem!”

I wouldn’t be so sure… cue IKEA TRÅDFRI et al.

Learn the art of malicious compliance: doing exactly what you were asked, even when it's wrong

”... go out and buy a dishwasher.”

That’s exactly what I did. Works great to this day. Highly recommended.

Bringing the first native OS for Arm back from the brink

Re: 64-bit port

Make one more cup for me, with a dash of milk, please.

Bringing cakes into the office is killing your colleagues, says UK food watchdog boss

Re: What a load of cobblers

”He claimed to be one, because he didn't eat red meat, only chicken or fish.”

Well, chicken and fish are sort of vegetables.

Microsoft axes 10,000, already breaking bad news to staff

Re: Microsoft will lay off 10,000 people, is already notifying some today

”They don't just hire for productivity reasons. They hire to stop the competition hiring.”

I wouldn’t object being hired for a position like that. Terms being that I can ’work’ from home, fixed 10 y contract and no need to report anything bar monthly report I’m not doing work for a competitor. I’d settle for meager 60k per year.

Re: Microsoft will lay off 10,000 people, is already notifying some today

Rise the bar high enough, and one doesn’t even have to flex knees to go under it. Perhaps that’s their plan?

Apple's M2 MacBook Pros, Mac Mini boast more cores, higher clocks and bigger GPUs

Re: Grr!!!!

"I'm too tired to have to learn new stuff to do simple and mundane things anymore."

A thousand times this, and then some more. Imagine if you had to relearn your cars controls every year again, or even more often. You're not alone with your thoughts!

Apple just cut Tim Cook's pay by 40%. How ever will he get by on that $50m?

I've heard rumours that one can burn money on social media companies, too.

Second-hand and refurbished phone market takes flight amid inflation hike

Re: Drugs and alcohol powered

Mee too. The thing elsergiovolador descibed happens for sure, and not only with phones. Dunno what those people mainly want to fund, though. Probably booze, some perhaps blingy clothes, and some even food.

Mixing an invisible laser and a fire alarm made for a disastrous demo

Re: Button activated sprinklers?

That’s the way sprinklers are designed, for a reason. Cue the current case.

If button release was used, we’d enjoy water damage stories on ’Who, me’ and ’On call’ every other week. Why wait for fire damage, if you have human stupidity available?

Button activated sprinklers?

Hmm… if the fire alarm button released sprinklers, it was quite a queer setup. It’s either heat that breaks the red tube, or in some special cases, smoke that activates the system.

Cleaner ignored 'do not use tap' sign, destroyed phone systems ... and the entire building

Re: Clarence?

Regomiser must have been subject to Resource Action(TM) and was replaced by an AI. The new system then scraped the Internet for ’South Africa’, and come up the obvious solution.

Meet the merry pranksters who keep the workplace interesting, if not productive

Re: The best 'mosquito'

Don’t throw away such a treasure! You’ll find someone for sure to collect them.

When we asked how you crashed the system we wanted an explanation not a demonstration

Re: Unanswered question

“Press any button”?

Re: A simple solution

With an 110 db siren, the violator would instinctively do it again to make it stop. But it’s all good: the alarm just informs witnesses that someone is about to get sacked.

Server broke because it was invisibly designed to break

Re: A service provider that doesn't bill because their attempted fixes failed?

Indeed, a very good point you have. It was probably the former one, though. There was no mention of bosses going ballistic over the incident and having everybody to drop whatever they were doing to fix it, but just mere "three days into an incident that deprived the company of an important application Kris was under more than a little pressure."

Logic clearly dictates that PHBs' spreadsheets were not affected >:)

“nobody should be electrocuted while working on a server”

Where has all the fun in the world gone?

Re: A service provider that doesn't bill because their attempted fixes failed?

”Surely this is a service provider which no longer exists”

My thought were that this story is improbable, if a service provide doesn’t even try to bill. Maybe there were some pre-emptive yelling by the company’s directors?

The article says: ”at least it didn't cost Kris's employer a cent!” but the server run a piece of important software. The incident probably cost the company quite a lot of money.

Boss installed software from behind the Iron Curtain, techies ended up Putin things back together

Ummm, I can recall of a couple of guys who brought something nasty home from their business trips… like bugs, one could say. Their mistresses didn’t appreciate much the debugging procedure.

Re: When they own the business............

You could’ve told the guy that installing the filter was requested by his wife. When he would’ve continued screaming, you would’ve asked “Shall we go and ask her?”

If this has happened in today’s Russia, the boss had committed suicide by jumping out of an hospital window, seventeenth floor, three times,

A brand new Linux DRM display driver – for a 1992 computer

Re: Falcon, ST, AmigaOS et al

Guru Meditation, oh how little we miss ye.

Neither do I miss it, but I miss very much the humour computer industry had back in the day!

Two signs in the comms cabinet said 'Do not unplug'. Guess what happened

Re: As Terry Pratchett pointed out...

Uh, I thought I was being funny, but as per downvote ratio, apparently failed. Adam, sorry if it looked like I was attacking your post. I liked your humour, and tried to add my bit.

Re: As Terry Pratchett pointed out...

”Because the last one (the third repetition in these comments) got 5 upvotes.....”

You would have gotten upvoted even more* by adding ”DO NOT under any circumstances upvote me”.

*) In fact, no one could have read your post without upvoting. First upvotes arriving before bits in your post had time to settle properly.

Re: Years ago, working for an airline in Toronto.

”You can't help thinking a torch would cover the requirement or battery-driven light-stand. Such devices are available for Hazardous Areas.”

Why didn’t they just use pneumatic lights if they already had air hoses for their hand tools?

Just 22% of techies in UK aged 50 or older, says Chartered Institute for IT

”we trail the bleeding edge of fads by about 18 months to two years”

It’s not a joke, despite the joke icon. You can count government organisations in. Natural feeding cycle of those parasites is private->government->acamemia->education.

And it’s not more relaxing*, but the opposite when you know beforehand what shit storm is about to be summoned upon you.

*) The joke icon must be for this part. A sarcasm icon, if available, would be more appropriate.

Microsoft 365 faces more GDPR headwinds as Germany bans it in schools

Re: This regulator's no good, I'll get myself another

can continue to use M365 products without hesitation and in a legally secure manner.

Legally secure meaning that they’re confident that it’s leagally safe for M$ and they’ll contiue to shaft you whenever they can.

'What's the point of me being in my office, just because they want to see me in the office?'

Re: When will they learn?

Dye & Durham haven’t updated their website yet:

“We are a high-growth, high-margin business. Our technology drives innovation and helps our clients manage and grow their business. We minimize risk, reduce workload, and maximize efficiency and profitability.”

Joke or not, my sanity was shaken. Just because of what you mentioned about the managers. There certainly are people who send emails like that - and believe in what they write!

Re: ...head explodes

Where is our exploding head icon? These days, there probably is a need for one more than ever.

Japanese convenience store chain opens outlet staffed by avatars and robots

Re: Talking shelves

And much later, there is a faint knock and lonely voice from depths of the aforementioned sir's bedside table: "Could you use me before I expire... please?"

”I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in the parts of my body?"

Someone has to say it: Voice assistants are not doing it for big tech

I like voice controlled driving even better.

”Drive to closest HW store” - “Yes, dad.”

Re: I'm full of it too.

Thanks, I wish you’ll have many opportunities to do so!

Re: Too much complexity

Then your voice assistants sits down and starts to sing about gold.

Level up.

If I'm on Alexa, I can ask for a gizmo, and then what?

Alexa would've worked perfectly in the USSR where there was only one state-approved type of each gizmo available. Amazon, you need to level up and start selling only one type $gizmo. Amazon branded, naturally.

Re: The Apple Home pod thing isn't that wonderful either

Talking about Apple Music, they just increased their price by ~25%. To return a favour, I made a similar dick move and cancelled my subscription. There you go, Apple.

I'm full of it too.

Next time a person tells you "I've got nothing to hide", ask him to hand you his mobile phone unlocked, permission to browse though all photos/messages/everything, and his consent to do whatever you like with anything you'll find. You'll then see if that person's got something to hide or not.

Epson zaps lasers into oblivion, in the name of the environment

Keep it. You newer know if you need it. For example, the power brick (at least the one of the ancient adapter) works with Sony PSP. I just thought to let you know :p

Re: Which environment we are talking about?

And in cases where cleaning doesn’t help, an inexpensive user-replaceable* head. How environment friendly would that be?

*) ”Unthinkable. Print quality! Safety! Blablaa! And think of children.” — Mr. Epson

Elon Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors are coming back

Re: Please keep going!

Tell him “We will, thank you very much, and so will you.”

Re: Very old proverb

Ah, a spot on quote. Musk wants to like the Patrician, but doesn't understand why people don't submit to his whims.

Re: Very old proverb

BTW, if Twitter users are “populi” in this context, guess who is “dei”* then?

* In his own mind, that is.

I don’t see how a purported genius could get things so badly wrong.

Could it possibly be that he isn’t?

Re: “ Machiavelli thought the voice of the people tends towards insanity.”

Machiavelli would probably have been quite amused by the show. He would also have watched closely what happens and learned. Machiavelli’s ideas about power and control are sophisticated ones, and still relevant in today’s world.

France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school

Re: IQ Test

And all of your Windows installations would be nuked from orbit. All of them, EU-wide, simultaneously.

That would be an extremely positive outcome. EU, please proceed.

Locked out of Horizon Europe, UK commits half a billion to post-Brexit research

I hear echoes of £350 M per week...

World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

Re: Friends in unexpected places...

Occurs to me that the Russians would send in their sysadmins to keep the platform up for the US 2024 elections.

With the head of security made redundant, I’m afraid they are already in…