Posts by Mrs Spartacus

How I made a Chrome extension for converting Reg articles to UK spelling

Re: The King's English

It's bad enough to be considered stupid. Opening your mouth and removing all doubt is a mistake.

Re: The King's English

No, nowhere near. They were all Danish, working in Greece for a while. Close enough for you?

Re: The King's English

No, not even close at all. He was Danish, with no Greek blood, parachuted onto the Greek throne. He did not marry any Greeks, and Philip had no Greek blood at all - as he himself once told an ingratiating Greek visitor who claimed they had common ancestry.

Clear enough for you? I could cut & paste the whole story for you, but then that would deprive you of the pleasure of actually doing some proper rewarding research.

Re: *article paid for by Google

I think you mean "Greenwich Mean Time".. To quote the immortal words of the Pub Landlord, "The French can only sit down to lunch when WE tell them it's f*cking lunchtime". Priceless.

Re: Not wounded pride.

So, if only the Devil is evil, all those people in Hell just got the wrong tickets? Must have travelled by South-West Trains.

I'm sure it already is, in Kaliphornia

Re: The King's English

Ah yes, all those Danish dyslexics spelling it "Cnut"....

Re: The King's English

Where do you get the Greek lineage from? Phil "The Greek" had no Greek blood in him - he was Danish/German/Russian I seem to recall.

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

Re: May not repeat but it rhymes

I'm going to binge-watch all the "Space 1999" episodes... I didn't realize until now it was a documentary. Moonbase Alpha, here I come.

Re: May not repeat but it rhymes

They could get some NHS senior managers to implement the whole thing. They're experts, apparently.

British govt agents step in as Harrods becomes third mega retailer under cyberattack

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

Spot on. Although, being 6ft 4, with longer legs than a normal human being, the standard 'long' legs of 33 inches is no good to me. 'Long' used to mean 34 inches back in the day. An extra inch makes all the difference, so I'm told.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

Ties? Rather plebian, old chap. We VERY senior managers wear a cravat, of course.

Microsoft wouldn't look at a bug report without a video. Researcher maliciously complied

That was my first thought. Reply to their acting-dumb response by seeing their dumbness and raising a dollop of even dumber. Simply film yourself typing out the email to them....

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Re: HP still cheats

That's fascinating, and potentially opens up a whole new avenue of questions. Will those documents print directly from LibreOffice? If not, will they do so if first created in LibreOffice rather than MS Office?

The biggest microcode attack in our history is underway

Re: What is this article about again ?

I hope we are generally a little above average in that respect...

However, many school leavers today sadly only achieve pre-school levels of attainment, and scare rather easily when asked to think.

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

Re: re: more securely than Angela Rayner's knickers

I think it's rather because she is a bit of a loose chav.

Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog

Re: Shafted three ways...

Hang on, I'll just go and get dad's credit card that he hides in his sock drawer. Three ways you say? Oh goody.

Re: Impact on self-hosting and private services?

I'm sure everything will work out fine. I mean, following years of various checks for bladed objects, its now impossible for teenagers to get their hands on a machete in London....

Re: Age verification

Spot on. I also predict a roaring trade in over-18s selling "entertainment" packs on USB sticks to minors. I recall way back in the day an older pupil at school buying our "top shelf" magazines for the rest us rug-rats. We've come full circle, predictably.

Re: Chocolate

Soon, however, Comrade Starmer will require ID checks for chocolate bars. Because, "Think of the children/sugar".

Pornhub pulls out of Florida, VPN demand 'surges 1150%'

the USA is the biggest producer of the world's crappiest porn. FTFY.

So I'm told, anyway...

Apple Intelligence summary botches a headline, causing jitters in BBC newsroom

"Our Head of News is big on verify and truth, etc so [the] BBC will really want to make a fuss.." Don't make me laugh.

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

Re: Lol...

Hang on, are you the Chancellor of the Exchequer? That would explain a lot.

Re: Not bad...

Phew, thank heavens, there's a chap in the US with the same name as me (very unusual surname). So, he can take all the flak.

NHS to launch 'real-time surveillance system' to prevent future pandemics

Re: "prevent future pandemics"

It would seem lots of people who get scared of hurty words actually believe it.

Another 'major cyber incident' at a UK hospital, outpatients asked to stay away

Re: Advised out-patient procedure

As long as these "type writers" of which you speak can bluetooth to a phone, otherwise people won't know what to do with them....

Re: Mouse take

Sounds like a sensible real-time backup system...

The envy of some parts of the third world..

Please only turn up if you're actually dead. We don't want to burden the wonderful NHS...

Having done a very small project for the NHS, I pitty the guys trying to sort out any issue, it's all a mess.

UK councils bat away DDoS barrage from pro-Russia keyboard warriors

Re:. Mattress

Getting a mattress picked up by the council around here is something you have to plan months ahead for....

UK ponders USB-C as common charging standard

Re: What next?

We're already there... one word... Cyclists.

Rust for Linux maintainer steps down in frustration with 'nontechnical nonsense'

Interesting sociology experiment

As a project manager of many years, I've had my fair share of team management issues, but always in a corporate structure.

I have no experience of volunteer projects such as this, and the mind boggles at how anyone gets anything done at all with so many different brains all beavering away in (often) different directions. I take my hat off to those who make it actually happen, I'm not sure I'd have the patience.

Such a community based project environment must have been studied by a sociologist looking for a good MSc or Doctoral subject, I wonder if their sanity survived the challenge...

Is it obvious I'm already working towards semi retirement?

Core Python developer suspended for three months

Re: Sad day

It was probably a SJW who was triggered into a red rage that there was someone out there in the real world who doesn't know about their pet project!

Re: Sad day

Indeed. The use of the word "triggering" in their list of whines speaks volumes.

Under-fire Elon Musk urged to get a grip on X and reality – or resign

Re: Take the red pill

All those down voters feeling hurty when they hear the truth. Bless.

"Far right"

.. Anything the far left doesn't like.

Shuttle Columbia's near-miss: Why we should always expect the unexpected in space

Re: Understatement there.

Being English, I'd have gone with "I say !" delivered with a Kenneth Williams drawl.

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Arrrrggghh!

Don't start me -my (older) Lexus displays the current time in 12 hour format (unusual for a Japanese car, or not?)

For my whole adult life I've been using, writing and thinking in 24 hour format. My Lexus does not have an option to display that. It cannot be turned off, and sits at the top of the dash, mocking me with impunity. When it's clearly 1500 hours it stubornly displays 3:00, daring me to beat the crap out of it with a hammer.

But it does have an option to change the length of time the footwell lights remain lit, an option to adjust exactly how much the dash lights dim in bright sunshine, and a setting which automatically turns off the radio as soon as it detects a politician speaking (I may have made up one of those, sadly).

I firmly believe this complete travesty of misplaced priorities is the primary teason I have no hair left.

I Bet you're great fun at parties

Just saying...

Resource burden of electric vehicles set to triple by 2050

Seconded

Spot on. Most cars these days are much less likely to rust into a pile of shavings after 5 years (1970's Rovers and Jaguars, I'm looking at you)

My dearly beloved 1995 Jaguar XJ, by contrast, passed away after a full 25 years and 310,000 miles on the clock. Wipes tear from eye....

A path out of bloat: A Linux built for VMs

Stop it, I'm going misty-eyed

Ah, all this talk of George 3 and MULTICS (at my University in 1979), and the AS/400 (the second company I worked for) is making me long for the days of proper music and flared trousers.

OK, Maybe not the flared trousers, they were always a disaster. Was I the only teenager who thought they looked ridiculous at the time? Was I the only one who said "no, the Emperor's flares are rubbish"?

Time for a coffee and my meds <sniff>.

iPhone 15 is too hot to handle – and not in any good way

Breaking news..

Stand by for the first reports of this latest I-crotch-warmer spontaneously exploding in a trouser pocket and blowing off a bollock or two...

He ain't heavy, he's my brother: Bloke gives away SpaceX ticket because he was over weight limit

Re: 149.6kg?

"Exercise is something that happens to other people" - my new favourite phrase, thank you so much for making me piss myself so much I damn near had a hernia.

Wolfing down ebooks during lockdown? You might want to check out Calibre, the Swiss Army ebook tool

Duplication of files

I agree with many about the interface in Calibre, it's not my favourite. I tend to use it, as several have already mentioned, to convert files, rather than read them.

The one annoying feature I discovered is that it copies any material you point to into its own library. I use a Dropbox folder and a couple of other folders to store books, and registering them in Calibre causes a complete copy to be made of them. Once you've realized that, it can be managed.

Insurance firm Admiral fails to grab phone location data of 'fraud' claimant's mother

Re: A judge suggested checking with the milkman?

My neighbour (lady in her 70's) gets her milk delivered twice a week by a local "milkman" in his car - he's the local dairy farmer. At 5am I'm woken by him screeching up, radio blaring (he likes the news), and whistling loudly (the farmer, not the car).

The up side is that the milk is delicious. Full cream proper milk, and quite unlike the equivalent in the supermarket. And it comes in real GLASS bottles. Remember those? Happy days.

I must ask her how much she pays per pint.

Timekeeping biz Kronos hit by ransomware and warns customers to engage biz continuity plans

Bah humbug !

That's the first thing that irritated me too. Bullshit business-speak always rattles my cage.

Then I came across the standard filler that really set me off - "We took immediate action to investigate and mitigate the issue.." Really? No excrement, Sherlock. As if stating the blindingly obvious will show how clever they are. God, I hate filler guff.

They might just as well have added " our staff took a long and fruitful dump, washed their hands with soap and water, ate a nutritious breakfast and had a shower before arriving at the office."

Nurse? Nurse? My laudanum, and be quick.

Truck, sweet truck: Volvo's Chinese owner unveils methanol/electric truck with bathroom and kitchen

Retirement job

So, a motorhome (RV for Left-Pondians) that hauls freight.... I see an opening for all those touring pensioners.

All they need to do now is fit a 56-inch TV, a small bath, storage for the ski gear, spare room for visitors...

What could possibly go wrong.

'Sophisticated' cyber attack on UK Labour Party platforms was probably just a DDoS, says official

So, my attempt at finding the secret address of Comrade Corbyn's dacha in the forest failed.