* Posts by Uncle Slacky

2131 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2008

Honda to build reusable rockets to sling sats, but won't scare SpaceX

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Boffin

I wonder if Dr Musha is involved?

Might be a use for this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hondas-gravity-modification-research_b_7531260

2FA? More like 2F-in-the-way: It seems no one wants me to pay for their services after all

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Online French banking outside working hours - fuggedaboutit

In my experience, online French banking knocks off work when the staff do (I suspect every transaction still has to be approved manually), so forget about buying stuff in the evenings, at weekends and often on Mondays. They still put the verification pages etc. up, but it's only for appearances.

If anyone can explain why Jupiter's Great Red Spot is spinning faster and shrinking, please speak up

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Joke

Re: Reg Units

Never heard of "Global Britain"?

Nothing works any more. Who decided that redundant systems should become redundant?

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Re: What's inside? Pain?

> the ones that are ok with a UK 'physique' are DIM.

C&A ones aren't bad either.

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

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Re: Virtue signalling

Just because they call themselves communist doesn't make it so - unless you think the DPRK is democratic? It's more like authoritarian state capitalism.

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FAIL

Re: Virtue signalling

Communism is stateless and moneyless, so whatever you're describing, it's not communism.

You walk in with a plan. You leave with GPS-tracking Nordic hiking poles. The same old story, eh?

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Re: Blind Faith anyone?

See also the cover of "Virgin Killer" by the Scorpions...

Not too bright, are you? Your laptop, I mean... Not you

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Re: Ah, a first time user

There's a modern clone (WordTsar) if you miss it: http://wordtsar.ca/

A speech recognition app goes into a bar. Speak up if you’ve heard it already

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Eat up Martha

As title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M

Can we talk about Kevin McCarthy promising revenge if Big Tech aids probe into January insurrection?

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Re: i.e. he confesses there is evidence

AKA "Y'all Qaeda" or "Vanilla ISIS"...

Microsoft does and doesn't want you to know it won't stop you manually installing Windows 11 on older PCs

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Re: Works for me

Someone on the /r/Dell subreddit got it running on a 14-year-old Precision M4300:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/pcf6yj/14_year_old_precision_m4300_laptop_upgraded_to/

Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

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It was all right as long as you had Me drivers and didn't just upgrade from 98. I had a PC with Me preinstalled and it ran without problems for years.

Oh the humanity: McDonald's out of milkshakes across Great Britain

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Re: Milk Shakes or just Shakes?

"You promised me dog or higher!"

British teachers' pensions set to be released from Capita's grasp after nearly 30 years

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...or pub landlord.

Linux 5.14 had plenty of commits, work has gone smoothly – and it should debut next week

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It can make your ears burn, I hear.

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, professor warns

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Re: re: this seems like a sensible middle ground.

> People who have committed apotasty

Mmmm, sacrilegious...

D'oh! Misplaced chair shuts down nuclear plant in Taiwan

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Re: Confirmed

And Servalan!

What is your greatest weakness? The definitive list of the many kinds of interviewer you will meet in Hell

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Re: A couple of funny ones I can remember hearing from mates

I thought that was the Heisenberg compensators?

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Thumb Up

Re: That Meme

Reminds me of this classic SMBC cartoon:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140817.png

Google fixes 'Chromebork' one-character code typo that prevented Chrome OS logins

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Re: "All three mitigations, however, clear local data on the device"

IIRC EULAs have no legal force, at least in the UK. That might concern only the "by opening this package, you have accepted the EULA" kind of thing, though.

Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together

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Re: Your headline reminds me...

Jasper Carrott famously did a whole standup routine about Australian Durex:

https://youtu.be/5SdbEfueBY0?t=1110

The lights go off, broadband drops out, the TV freezes … and nobody knows why (spooky music)

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Re: Supply pipe location

I had something similar when I moved into a new build. It was the middle of a row of 3 terraced houses, the three water meters were grouped together in the road in front. The meter reader would only read the meters for the other two houses, even though the third meter (ours) was clearly visible alongside the others. We wrote to the water company several times to alert them to our existence (and to avoid any future accusations of avoiding payment) and after a couple of years they eventually added us to their system and made us (over)pay by installments to make up for the lost time (how kind of them!).

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Boffin

Satellite TV is the more reliable option...

...however, in the south of France (like me) you'll need a 1-metre dish (minimum) to get a good signal from the Astra 2 constellation, and they often turn the power down in summer.

Still waiting for that fibre broadband, they laid the cable in the road outside the house almost a year ago, but they haven't actually got around to connecting anyone yet, though.

This page has been deliberately left blank

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Re: I have a friend

#susanalbumparty

(party for Susan Boyle's album, of course).

Boffins find an 'actionable clock' hiding in your blood, ticking away to your death

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Re: Thoughts

Was it Rod Hull?

The world is chaos but my Zoom background is control-freak perfection

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Re: I must have been lucky

We had one of those too, she used to handle telephone VAX/VMS support from our Bristol office in the late 90s. In retrospect the VAX knowledge should have clued us in that she was a bit older than we thought...

Who would cross the Bridge of Death? Answer me these questions three! Oh and you'll need two-factor authentication

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Re: Ceci n'est pas une robot

You could also interpret it as "I am not a food processor" as French tends to overload its nouns.

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Re: What crap security

I once got around that by uuencoding the encrypted file and sending it in a plain text email. I had to instruct the recipient how to uudecode it, but it worked (eventually).

Ouch! When the IT equipment is sound, but the setup is hole-y inappropriate

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Re: Laptops are good for this

They're clearly printed in black, on a black background - what's the problem?

John McAfee dead: Antivirus tycoon killed himself in prison after court OK'd extradition, says lawyer

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Stop

Re: Colourful?

You have to show evidence that you've paid all your taxes before you're allowed to renounce, though.

US Navy starts an earthquake to see how its newest carrier withstands combat conditions

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Windows

Re: Odd Name

But can it sail and chew gum at the same time?

(Icon represents age of people who will get this reference)

Windows 11: Meet the new OS, same as the old OS (or close enough)

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Re: home shouting your rage

Or GBeebies...

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

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Re: Headphones

Yes, things like the Bone Fone were being sold 42 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Fone

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Re: Romanes eunt domus

Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic inat.

Whatever you've been doing during lockdown, you better stop it right now

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That "family" movie review site...

Reminded me of NTK's favourite "Christian" movie review site http://www.capalert.com - which to my surprise still exists, in all its Web 1.0 goodness!

See for example their review of LOTR:TRotK: http://www.capalert.com/capreports/lotr-returnoftheking.htm

Apple ditches support for pre-2015 MacBook Air, Pro laptops with macOS Monterey

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Linux

Linux?

It'll probably run a (light) Linux distro reasonably well, still. I'm running Trisquel Lite on a 2007 Core2Duo MacBook (MacBook 2,1) and it runs well enough for light browsing.

Flying dildo poses a slap in the face for serious political debate

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Joke

Life imitates...

...Second Life?

BOFH: I'm so pleased to be on the call, Boss. No, of course this isn't a recording

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Facepalm

"He's apparently moved to his daughter's place in Spain."

Missed the chance to say "Dave's not here, man"...

How many remote controls do you really need? Answer: about a bowl-ful

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Facepalm

Missed opportunity...

...for this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djGap7oLgvE

The common factor in all your failed job applications: Your CV

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Re: CV's top tips

> Candidates need to be more honest about simply wanting a salary and not caring who they're working for (within reason). The whole process needs to be less delusional.

Reminds me of this classic cartoon: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3454

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Facepalm

What really gets my goat...

...are those sites where they ask you to upload your CV, and then you have to retype the whole lot again in their own format (or worse, have to correct a form that they've attempted to auto-fill from your CV). I guess it's a way of filtering out those who don't have a capacity for pointless additional work...

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Re: Tech CVs might not be understood

Also, if you're applying for jobs in a foreign country with a minimum expectation of a qualification that you don't (or can't) have because you were educated elsewhere (looking at you, France, with your "BAC+5"), bury it in white text on white background somewhere on the page so that it gets picked up by the scanning software but is invisible otherwise.

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Re: Vb, c, cOO, fortran....

I pride myself on being able to write Fortran in any language.

Reports link Bill Gates' departure from Microsoft board in 2020 with probe into employee affair

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Re: Always the ones you least expect

And avoid eggs...

Guy who wrote women are 'soft, weak, cosseted, naive' lasted about a month at Apple until internal revolt

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Headmaster

Re: Tolerance

You need to read up on the Paradox of Tolerance:

"if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

The Wight stuff: Marconi and the island, when working remotely on wireless comms meant something very different

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Boffin

Re: Inspiring review

Not only radio, but Bell demonstrated long-distance telephone calls from Osborne House, and Vicky was so impressed she tried to buy it off him:

https://www.onlygoodnewsdaily.com/post/queen-victoria-and-the-telephone

Samsung stops providing security updates to the Galaxy S8 at grand old age of four years

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Re: Imagine my S5 feeling lonely

It does (depending on the variant): https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#samsung

File this next to Mars bars under 'things that should not be deep-fried': Marks & Spencer's Colin the Caterpillar

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Re: Corby

As a frequent rail user, I always assumed "Corby" was short for "Kettering for Corby".

Bitcoin is ‘disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization’ says famed investor Charlie Munger

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Stop

Bitcoin analysis (stolen from Twitter)

"Imagine a child's concept of an evil businessman. He plugs in his pollution machine to make money. It doesn't do anything for anybody, just pollutes and then he gets money for it."

Brit MPs and campaigners come together to oppose COVID status certificates as 'divisive and discriminatory'

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Re: requires both data about an individual's health and, linked to it, confirmation of their id...

F-Droid also has Aurora Store, which enables you to download some/most Google Play apps anonymously.