* Posts by Anonymous Custard

2789 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008

Office junior had one job: Tearing perforated bits off tractor-feed dot matrix printer paper

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Lost count...

Whilst my zen for creative accountancy on expenses and travel requests may be fairly advanced, I think even I might struggle to get approval on that one.

Although it would be fun trying, and even more so if it succeeded.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: out of paper!

Also brings back memories of university days (a quarter of a century ago, eeek!) and the shared old HP laserjet which people were forced to use. Normally not much of an issue, except when some puppet tried to send a postscript image file directly to it, where for certain files rather than printing out an image on a nice single sheet, it tried to print out a few random characters per page on every page in the tray until it ran out.

Of course by sods law this always happened out of hours, and when you had something you needed to print urgently. Especially annoying when they just bunged the paper back in again after sorting things out, so your print-out ended up with various random characters superimposed on it.

Still it did end up with me being given admin rights to the print queue to help kill off such jobs, which I never ever used to queue-jump my printing rather than wait half an hour, honest guv'nor.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Lost count...

@Richard Gray - I take your highlands and raise you a Japanese HQ, where some of the minions think that "Europe" is one country where any location can be reached from any other in a matter of a couple of hours.

Best one they tried was a morning appointment in Sicily and an afternoon one in Newcastle...

A ghoulish tale of pigs, devs and docs revived from the dead

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Secret is out

That's swans.

Ducks just bob along peacefully and then suddenly disappear completely by diving underwater for no apparent reason before popping up randomly a few feet away.

Although I've known projects where the latter would actually be more of an accurate description...

Your mouse can't reach that Excel cell? Buy a 'desk extender' said help desk bluffer

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Have you solved a problem with a lie?

Just be careful not to overdo it and end up as a politician instead...

Android P will hear no evil, see no evil, support evil notches

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Polo Mint

Well they are allowing notches, so why not holes?

Sysadmin left finger on power button for an hour to avert SAP outage

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

The hardware version...

I take your server shutdowns and offer you a colleague doing it on a semiconductor manufacturing machine (of course in the middle of running 150 production wafers). Needed to power down machine A in a bank of them to work on it, so goes around the back and accidentally hits the power button on machine b beside it. Bye-bye 150 product wafers towards the end of their production flow, in all worth a many thousands of dollars.

We are now strictly verboten from even touching any machine which doesn't have clear ID labelling (customer responsibility to add those, the ones above didn't) and even then we have to point and say plus buddy-check. This is not to say that it hasn't happened since these measures were introduced of course, given some of my colleagues and the old adage about idiot-proofing...

Another day, another meeting, another £191bn down the pan

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: "... meetings that they weren't invited to"

The key distinction being that the person making the promises (and attending the meeting) is rarely also the person who actually has to keep that promise and actually get things done...

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

Re: "all a meeting achieves is a mass downing of tools"

Ah yes, the trusty old engineer* standard response to management -

"Do you want to spend the time having a meeting about how to solve the problem, or should I just waste the time actually doing so?"

If I had a dollar for every time I've had to say that to sales and management types, especially those who like to get involved with both success (and take the credit) and failure (to distribute the blame without a hint of taking any themselves), then I wouldn't have to avoid so many of the damn meetings in the first place...

*engineer being of course the poor mug who actually has to keep the dreams and promised that came from a previous series of management meetings that they weren't invited to nor had any say in the outcome of.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Telephone sanitisers anonymous

Anyone else read today's masterwork and have an overriding need to go watch/read/listen to Hitchhikers again? I'm sure there's some decedents from the B-ark crew around the table.

Oh how we miss thee dear Douglas. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean my telephone...

IT peeps, be warned: You'll soon be a museum exhibit

Anonymous Custard
Thumb Down

Re: What job will last forever

Manager - computer says no...

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Back in the day

I recall a conversation I had with my kids a few weeks back, as one of them was doing "modern history" at school.

They seemed amazed that when I was their age (early teens or just coming up to them) the Internet/WWW and mobile phones basically didn't exist for the common man (I'm mid-40's), we only had 3 or 4 channels on the TV, and if we wanted to change between them we had to get up and push a button.

Also when I was at university (25 years or so ago) I can remember the first 1GB hard drive appearing in the building, and when I wrote my PhD thesis (in LaTeX and CorelDraw) the whole thing fitted on two floppy disks. Kinda sobering to consider that I have more storage and processing capacity about my person as I type this than we had in the whole department back in the day.

Christ I feel old now, so get off my damn lawn, young whippersnappers!

Mars is red, Earth is blue. Here's a space laser story for you

Anonymous Custard
Alien

...cos there's bugger all down here on Earth..

Sorry, had to be linked after a comment like that.

OK any excuse to play it again really...

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Nope - I also thought it sounded like something you'd end up noshing after a heavy night on the sake in downtown Tokyo...

Anonymous Custard
Alien

Amateurs

Everyone knows for this kind of work you need an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

See that over Heathrow? It's not an airliner – it's a Predator drone

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Buy one, get one (or two) free?

So far nobody has yet demonstrated anything superior to the Mk.1 eyeball and pilot

One would have hoped the two came as a package, or else it gets rather icky...

Morrisons launches bizarre Yorkshire Pudding pizza thing

Anonymous Custard
Pint

Re: To be served with chips & curry sauce obv.

Half-half of chips and rice to make it sheer perfection - the joy of chips plus the absorbency of the rice to stop the curry sauce going everywhere.

Hmm, dinner plans a-brewing...

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Cosmopolitan or Klingon?

Anonymous Custard
Angel

Memorial

I would eat it in loving memory of the dearly departed and much missed Lester of course.

In a salute to some of the post-pub nosh he introduced us to over the years...

Anonymous Custard
Joke

I was wondering if you meant doner meat, but I'm not altogether sure yours isn't more accurate :)

Anonymous Custard
Pint

Re: it’s the first Sunday of February, which would make it the fifth this year.

So does that make it a blue super blood pizza pudding?

As for me, I'd serve it with beer, following on from a beer starter and with beer for dessert. Possibly a crate each of Peroni and Black Sheep to be in(n) keeping.

So you accidentally told a million people they are going to die: What next? Your essential guide...

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Re: Cyber-attack

Quick, let's invade Thespia!

Crowdfunding small print binned as Retro Computers Ltd loses court refund action

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: One down, hopefully many to go!

I sometimes seriously wonder if there actually has been one IndieGoGo project which actually worked and fulfilled its promises.

The PiTop Ceed and the Fing Fingbox both spring to mind as ones I've backed and been very pleased with. But I also admit that probably says more about the quality of the companies themselves rather than anything to do with IndieGoGo.

To hack Australia and learn its secrets, buy second-hand furniture

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Re: Not that uncommon, simply you don't hear about it often.

I think I'd be too afraid of whatever else I might find to go poking about under an old mortuary floor with just a torch...

User stepped on mouse, complained pedal wasn’t making PC go faster

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

There's a lot to be said for letting people learn through their mistakes.

Very true, but there's even more to be said for teaching them to learn from other people's as well...

Ever wondered why tech products fail so frequently? No, me neither

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

Re: Appliance Failures

Nah, I think Dabbsy should just give up this pretence of being a mild(ish) mannered journalist and admin that he actually is Superman...

'The capacitors exploded, showering the lab in flaming confetti'

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: "Who Me?" should be the RSS feed title as well.

Or better yet, how about a specific feed and/or email with just BoFH, On Call, SFTW and now Who Me? So it can be specifically marked as high importance, must read immediately and a possible solution to get me through until beer o'clock on Friday?

All aboard the Vomit Comet: Not the last train to Essex, but a modded 727 for weightless flight

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Reassurance?

The 42-year-old 727 is "built like a tank"

Very reassuring words, at least until you stop and think quite how well the average tank flies...

UK.gov puts Suffolk 7-year-old's submarine design into production

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Or if you're of a slightly practical nature and want something to make with the kids, there's always the classic cartesian diver project.

Just needs a soda bottle, a pen lid and a bit of blu-tac or plasticine.

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

OK, we'll standby for action then...

Self-driving cars still do not exist even if we think they do

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Rock n Roll

Michigan?

With WPA3, Wi-Fi will be secure this time, really, wireless bods promise

Anonymous Custard
Pirate

It's standard for some hotel chains and conference venues. They de-auth personal hotspots and the like to force you into their expensive, slow and insecure WiFi where they can also keep an eye on you and "tailor things" like served ads and services to your needs.

The quicker we can get rid of such actions the better.

The healing hands of customer support get an acronym: Do YOU have 'tallah-toe-big'?

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

OnCall is like chocolate - very enjoyable but having had so much of it in the last week or three it's nice to have a little rest to let the enjoyment muscles recuperate.

Anonymous Custard
Pirate

Re: Meeeeee tooooooo.....

... lump hammer, cattle prod, large and weighty screwdriver, disc shredder, angle grinder, big spiked stick.

The opportunities for “TALATOBIG” club merchandise are endless

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

Windows 10 can certainly smell urgency and desperation.

Whenever I need to leave the office in a hurry for an appointment or just to pick up the kids, that's always the time when it decides it must install an update that it downloaded especially in the background without telling me.

And then to top it off it even says "do not turn off your pc" on the screen whilst sitting there whirring away but otherwise seemingly doing nothing with the percentage counter sat stationary.

Unfortunately that one also does not seem to respond well to percussive maintenance, the other failsafe backup tool of the tech repairing overlord.

Microsoft patches Windows to cool off Intel's Meltdown – wait, antivirus? Slow your roll

Anonymous Custard
Joke

Re: My strategy

So you're risking a BSOD too?

Jocks in shock as Irn-Bru set to slash sugar and girder content

Anonymous Custard
Trollface

Fighting talk...

their beloved national soft drink Irn-Bru

Irn-Bru a soft drink? That's fighting talk right there...

Beyond code PEBCAK lies KMACYOYO, PENCIL and PAFO

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Other more subtle ones are mouse/keyboard driver issue (ie the person using them).

Also for some of our web forum support requests without any information or logs - CBR (crystal ball required).

Meet R2-DILDO: 'Star Wars' sex toys? This is where the fun begins

Anonymous Custard

Re: Calls in to question all sorts of quotes from the films, doesn't it?

Plenty more to choose from:

"...don't get cocky!"

"Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!"

"Aren't you a little short for a Storm Trooper?"

"Put that thing away before you get us all killed."

"Luke, at that speed do you think you'll be able to pull out in time?"

" I can see the tower, but I can't see the exhaust port"

"You're all clear, kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home!"

"Possible he came in through the south entrance."

"Hurry up, golden-rod..."

"I must've hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?"

"I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me."

"Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?"

"Rise, my friend."

"Open the back door!"

"Hey, point that thing somewhere else!"

"I want you to take her. I mean it, take her!"

"Get clear Wedge, you can't do any more good back there!"

'Please store the internet on this floppy disk'

Anonymous Custard
Thumb Up

Re: That farmer...

@Alan J. Wylie

and +1 back for the education on the original source... :)

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

Re: At Paul Shirley, magic.

"the new system is broken and what was wrong with the old way"

And do you have a good answer for that? Fixing what wasn't broken is all too often the tech industry's substitute for productivity.

@Doctor Syntax - sadly all too true, especially when the new way is only done 'cos some consultant moron persuaded people it was better (and took a cut of the sale afterwards), or it features one of the trendy buzzwords (cloud-based or IoT or somesuch shit).

We just suffered a transition here from local server-based email to cloud-based, and it's driving me nuts (as a dumb user fortunately rather than having to support the management-generated mess). Forever getting messages of things being out of sync or additional messages being available on the server (ie ones I've moved and the sync hasn't caught on or caught up) or the whole of Outlook just locking up as it tries to have a deep pow-wow with some server somewhere on the wrong end of a piece of wet knicker elastic in the arse-end of some backwater somewhere.

And from having talked to my helldesk colleagues who have to support it even though they fully agree it's crap and somehow it's "their fault" even though they got no say in it, somehow I doubt it'll improve any time soon. The age old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is still all too true - make sure your updates actually make things better for everyone, especially those who have to live with it on a daily basis.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: That farmer...

To be honest, it seems like a fairly sensible solution to me, at least for the non-tech user. At least it got the photos to where they needed to be.

Brings to mind what my old syshack at uni used so say back in those days of wet string 56K (and slower) modems and file transfers - "never underestimate the data transfer rate of an estate car with a boot full of CDs" (this being back in the day before writeable DVDs and easily removable hard drives of any useful size).

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: I'm not sure what's worse

Even today it happens - I do volunteer work (moderating and support) for the forum of a very well known media player app, which produces a text debug log during operation. When things go wrong, we ask for a copy of it via pastebin or suchlike.

And of course the number of times we actually receive photographs of screens showing it (of course in a similarly small and unreadable font) does sometimes make you despair. And that's not counting the times when they take the photos and then ask how to get them to you...

Telly boffin Professor Heinz Wolff has died

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

Re: What a loss.

Not just educator, but entertainer with it.

He (and a few others of that generation such as Johnny Ball and Magnus Pyke) had the quality to make science a show as well, either fun or at least captivating, so you ended up almost learning stuff without noticing it as you were so wrapped up in the spectacle of it all.

Certainly an eccentric too, which definitely helped the showman side of things. But your sentiment about needing loads more of them these days is definitely spot on.

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Helen Sharman to become the first Briton in space.

They all do, especially in current times of the Russian rockets being the only way to get up there. Everything's labelled in Russian, so you need to be able to read it to use it, and of course the launch control is in Russia (or at least Russian speaking territory) so speaking it helps too.

And Michael Foale also beat Tim Peake as the first male Briton to space (just after Sharman did iirc), but he had dual US/UK nationality and flew as an American as a result. Peake was the first "true" Briton to go up there.

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

A Sad Day :(

Another of my childhood (and indeed adulthood) heroes gone, and as many have said one of the inspirations in getting people (including me) into science and engineering.

Had the honour of meeting him a few years ago at a "family fun" event where he gave a lecture/demonstration on various science bits, including supergluing a hot-dog onto his hand as an extra finger. We must have talked for 10-15 minutes afterwards (he was there for ages talking to everyone and anyone who wanted a chat), and he was one of the most humble, warm, engaging and enthusiastic speakers on the subject I've ever met.

Farewell Professor, and thank you...

Hot chips crashed servers, but were still delicious

Anonymous Custard
Mushroom

Re: My keyboard stupidity.

The one I always fall over when using French colleagues machines (with their keyboards) as the numbers are on the shifted keys there, with the punctuation etc being the "normal" keypress.

Apparently it's designed that the users use the number pad for the numbers and so having them directly on the row above the letters on the keyboard is redundant. But of course this does not consider that a) they're the only ones that do this, so everyone else just gets confused and b) the laptops we have don't have number pads, although the external keyboards do.

Hence when they're doing a lot of number work they use caps-lock (which puts the number row into number mode) and then tend to leave it that way.

These days I just switch the thing over to UK language/keyboard mode, touch-type and be done with it. And of course get moaned at if I forget to switch it back when I finish.

'I knew the company was doomed after managers brawled in a biker bar'

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

Re: Hydrogen baloons with lit fuses floating at the ceiling - you name it.

@AC - This one?

https://youtu.be/2vqgKrJUA3w

If not it's a damn good little documentary on the subject anyway.

Oh an as for thermite and welding - it's how they fix railway track lengths together. Quite impressive to watch it in action.

Anonymous Custard
Boffin

Re: "and gloves were forbidden"

Also brings to mind my old chemistry teacher (and safety officer) at high school, who also had a penchant for making Nitrogen Tri-Iodide (and the fool taught us how to make it too).

He used to enjoy putting small quantities of it under lab stools, especially when the stool occupant was a girl wearing a long skirt so that the resultant draught when they moved set the stuff off.

Apparently in the year after I left the place he got a little overenthusiastic with how much he used at once, resulting in it going off on the bench in front of him and so I'm told he "came flying backwards through the door to the prep-room in a cloud of purple smoke".

He also enjoyed doing end-of-term "chemistry displays", basically all the kind of experiments that would today be utterly banned under health and safety (and probably terrorism) laws. Nothing quite like the red lead thermite reaction to fill the lab with dense acrid smoke ;)

Container-flinger pushes Win 10 transformer for legacy apps

Anonymous Custard
Headmaster

It enables such legacy apps to run in the Amazon and Azure pubic clouds as well

Unfortunate typo of the day, or just in need of extra protection?