* Posts by Admiral Grace Hopper

1013 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2008

As of today, iThings are even harder for police to probe

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: No Siri, I said 'googly'

"Belgium, man - BELGIUM!".

Naughty sysadmins use dark magic to fix PCs for clueless users

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: No quite wizadry but...

Many years ago, in simpler, more direct times, we used to keep a cricket bat with "USER EDUCATION TOOL" magic markered on the back in large, angry letters.

Admiral Grace Hopper
Terminator

We are all servants of Landru

Bloke launches twinkly range of BBC Micro:bit accessory boards

Admiral Grace Hopper
Coat

Re: “I’ve designed my own connector, a 40-way pin item.”

Mine's the one with the lump of BluTack in the pocket.

Annoyingly precocious teen who ruined Trek is now an asteroid

Admiral Grace Hopper

No space though, presumably because that's how they do things.

Ah, space. The final frontier.

IT team sent dirt file to Police as they all bailed from abusive workplace

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Uhhhmmmmm

Well, for what very little it's worth, I can understand how this may have come about as I experienced an echo of the situation.

While working as a waitress in a West Midlands restaurant we were progressively hacked off by the behaviour of a recently arrived new restaurant manager, lately a bar steward on the Royal Yacht Britannia. After a couple of weeks, conversation revealed that the whole front of house staff and and the kitchen staff were sufficiently disgruntled to have sorted out other jobs or to be ready to walk and find something else rather than work another day. We looked ahead for the night in the next week with the most bookings (this was in the run up to Christmas) and on the last shift before that Saturday we all handed in our notices, with immediate effect indicating that we wouldn't be turning up again any time soon. Some times working in an effectively casualised industry has its advantages. This left him with a full restaurant, no staff and no chance of hiring anyone to cover that night at least. We were all in work fairly soon after and while I'm sure that he had a full staff fairly quickly, the restaurant was closed down during one of the busiest periods of the year.

So while it may not have got the point over to TOWF, I know that collective action like can happen and feels quite satisfying at the time.

Admiral Grace Hopper
Pint

I want this to be true as much as I would like to buy the teller one of these ->

Chelsea Manning sentence slashed by Prez Obama: She'll be sprung in the spring

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Assange v Chris Grayling

@macjules

Off the to of my head, I can't think of anything more disgusting than being in Assange's shoes.

Being female, I can imagine at least one worse thing about Assange than his shoes.

RIP Eugene Cernan: Last man on the Moon dies aged 82

Admiral Grace Hopper

Vale

I remember my Dad taking my brother and I into the back garden and explaining how there were men walking on the moon as we looked at it. I still feel somewhat privileged to have been alive at a time when we did that sort of thing. Once more, the passing of a great man diminishes us.

British military laser death ray cannon contract still awarded, MoD confirms

Admiral Grace Hopper

No word on the possibility of fitment to sharks?

MacBook killer? New Lenovo offering sexed up with XPoint booster

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Hardware's half the story

Absolutely.

I have a MBP to run commercial software that I don't want to/can't run under Linux, plus I quite like OSX .. errmm .. MacOS. I only use Windows when I'm being paid so to do.

What to do come replacement time if Apple continue on their present course is a question I have yet to address.

Support chap's Sonic Screwdriver fixes PC as user fumes in disbelief

Admiral Grace Hopper

Overheard conversation about a new server

"So why do you need a four processor machine?"

"I've got poor circulation.The single processor one didn't keep my feet warm enough."

(The server lived under his desk).

You want SaaS? Don't bother, darling, your kind can't afford it

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

I use the same approach, which has the benefit of being true, if not completely so. When asked if I don't use Windows at all, the entirely truthful response is, "Only if I'm being paid to". This tends to pre-empt the inevitable follow-up questions.

LAKE OF frozen WATER THE SIZE OF NEW MEXICO FOUND ON MARS – NASA

Admiral Grace Hopper
Mushroom

A propos of nothing

I really like New Mexico. Lovely state, lovely people. The desert gives you space to think.

Icon: Los Alamos.

Job ad asks for 'detrimental' sysadmin

Admiral Grace Hopper
Devil

I resemble that remark

I am pretty sure that I can find someone to write me an entirely truthful reference with evidence to show that I meet the criteria for this role.

What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)

Admiral Grace Hopper

"beige box"

Nothing wrong with a beige box. I'd quite like to be able to get my musical equipment in brushed champagne gold still.

Kodak teases smartphone

Admiral Grace Hopper

The Yellow Sign

I still feel a small twinge of nostalgia when I see a yellow Kodak sign on the side of a building.

Cabinet bare of Apple Watch

Admiral Grace Hopper

Pob

Gove's endorsement is the end to any desire that I might have had to sport an Apple Watch. It's like Steve Coogan killing the Ford Probe with his Gareth Cheeseman character.

Nokia crawls towards comeback with new phones announcement

Admiral Grace Hopper
Thumb Up

Fit For Purpose

That looks like the sort of thing that I want for a work phone. Work have been trying to replace my Nokia 300 with WinPhone for some time but I've resisted as I need something that will hold charge for more than a day and survive an unscheduled trip below a suspended floor. My brave little Nokia will do that, make calls, send and receive texts and take a photo of the back of a server. Add a screwdriver and the ability to use it as a hammer and it would be my ideal work tool.

The wait is over: MoD releases latest issue of Ship Paint Monthly

Admiral Grace Hopper

Am I missing something?

The article seems to be mocking the subject matter of a magazine because the author of the article finds it funny that someone might find detailed specialised information relating to something outside their experience necessary, relevant or even interesting. This seems to be an unfortunate angle to take on a website aimed at technical people.

I appreciate that El Reg has become increasingly tabloid of late, I wasn't aware that it was reaching for The Sun.

Reg Programming Compo: 22 countries, 137 entries and... wow – loads of Python

Admiral Grace Hopper
Thumb Up

Re: Daley Thompson. BORING?

As soon as read the words, "Daley Thompson", I was mentally transported to the console of an arcade game in 1984 and memories of furiously pounding the buttons in the running events.

'I'm sorry, your lift has had a problem and had to shut down'

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Invalid page fault

"You appear to be traveling up or down. Would you like help with that?"

"Have you ever considered the possibility of going sideways?". I tip my hat to Douglas Adams every time I get into a lift, or Happy Vertical People Transporter.

Business users force Microsoft to back off Windows 10 PC kill plan

Admiral Grace Hopper

It's beginning to look like that MS wants all the home users to go use someone else's operating system

I thought that was the point of Vista? It certainly worked for me.

Admiral Grace Hopper

Meanwhile

There are large organisations with WinXP still fulfilling their needs on the desktop. They might make the leap to Win10, but that remains to be seen.

'I found the intern curled up on the data centre floor moaning'

Admiral Grace Hopper

Laura

During early-morning support calls I've often clung to the belief that most often it doesn't matter what decision you take, just that you take a decision. This mostly works. Mostly.

Render crashing PCs back to their component silicon: They deserve it

Admiral Grace Hopper

Idaho

Use the machine until it dies, it kills itself or you kill it when it threatens you, then create a new version to serve you. Damn clever, these Tleilaxu.

Samsung Electronics reportedly ponders buying Fiat parts

Admiral Grace Hopper

A long time ago, at a stores counter far, far away

The alternator on my Fiat Uno packed up, cause, I soon found out, by worn out brushes. Knowing this to be a simple job I noted down the part numbers and cycled to the Fiat dealer.

"Ah, yours will either have Bosch parts or Magneti Marelli. One is cheap, one one isn't. The Bosch one you can replace the brushes, the Marelli one is more of an assembly. Yours is Marelli - lets's look".

He loaded up the microfiche and started scanning.

"Ok ... ok ... not that one ... not that one ... here we are ... fucking hell, I wouldn't pay that".

£70 for the brush assembly. He pointed me to the man round the corner who did reconditioned alternators for £40 (exchange).

A good spares manager is priceless.

Fun fact of the day: Network routers are illegal in Japan

Admiral Grace Hopper

Aw

I was hoping that this article might shed light on the off predilection that the Japanese have for bridge/routers. I've seen some network designs from that way that caused some head scratching from a UK viewpoint.

Death of 747 now 'reasonably possible' says Boeing

Admiral Grace Hopper

Last Chance To See

I still haven't flown in a 747. I hope that I tick this box before they finally go out of service.

Zero-day hole can pwn millions of LastPass users, all that's needed is a malicious site

Admiral Grace Hopper
Joke

Re: What goes around...

We're cloning eggs? This is all getting a worryingly Jurassic Park

Would we want to regenerate brains of patients who are clinically dead?

Admiral Grace Hopper
Terminator

Resurrection

Some years ago I wound up in a coma following a near-fatal medical emergency. Waking up in ITU from that connected to several machines going "ping" and with a central line hanging out of my neck was disorienting enough, I can't begin to imagine how it feel to to be wrenched back from an even more definite terminal event.

Chaps make working 6502 CPU by hand. Because why not?

Admiral Grace Hopper

A happy thought

I've still got the listing for a B-Tree database that I wrote in 6502 assembler at college somewhere. And the screenscraper that I used to capture the passwords to the course tutors' accounts.

Sysadmin paid a month's salary for one day of nothing

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: shropshire backwards joke

I wasn't joking.

I like Shropshire, it's a beautiful county with some lovely people living there. I spent most of Sunday afternoon climbing on Pontesford Rocks - nice rock, fantastic situation, slightly sparse protection, but you can't have everything. That data centre, however, was something out of the Ark until the day I walked away whistling.

Admiral Grace Hopper
Windows

In 1999 our data centre was in Shropshire. It's still so far behind the times that I doubt they're in the C21st even now.

Breaking down more IT technobabble: 'Unified' comms... say what now?

Admiral Grace Hopper

Hopefully one of these days I'll work out what DevOps is.

It is best to be vigilant. I used to wonder what an architect was and then all of a sudden I was one (until I waded back onto the shores of software development).

Field technicians want to grab my tool and probe my things

Admiral Grace Hopper

A workmate once asked me for a double entendre so I gave him one.

The Register to publish Mindful Sysadmin adult colouring book

Admiral Grace Hopper
Unhappy

Burnt Tango

I was poised with my 1970s felt tip collection ready to colour in the ICL 2900 Series VME mainframes. I was looking forward to the restful loopy bits on the tape reels.

Microsoft GitHubs BotBuilder framework behind Tay chatbot

Admiral Grace Hopper
Pint

Re: passing the buck

@mythicalduck - this is exactly the sort of the thinking that we need, out of the box and into the pub.

Dodgy software will bork America's F-35 fighters until at least 2019

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Can someone please...

Just don't ask the RAF where Australia is. They tend to be a few hundred miles out.

What to call a £200m 15,000-tonne polar vessel – how about Boaty McBoatface?

Admiral Grace Hopper

Could be worse

Having cleaned up a large number of test installations, I can assert with evidence that 40% of developers will call their file server "Gandalf". No imagination, some people.

Computer says: Stop using MacWrite II, human!

Admiral Grace Hopper
Headmaster

Luxury!

None of your Macs, we were given a BBC Model B to use as a terminal emulator with which to connect to the PRIME. Of course, someone *coff* wrote a screen scraper in 6502 assembler to gather passwords and thereby gain access to the tutor's account and the unpublished exam papers.

Teacher, because he had a similar look on his face when I told him.

Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio may be about to merge laptop ops

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: New brand name

Fuvato.

I say foo-var-to, you say foo-vay-to ...

Windows 10 makes big gains at home, lags at work

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Why keep reporting these stats

That's kinda cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't it?

I'd have called it self-preservation. My support of home users is on a pro-bono basis. Back when Vista was blighting my life I offered to continue support with the proviso that I would never touch a machine running Vista ever again. Many went Apple, some asked about Linux (and are still using it). I met up with the others when they went Win7.

No, Kim Kardashian's plump posterior's pixels did not break the App Store – just this El Reg man's mind

Admiral Grace Hopper

Kardashians etc.

As the much missed Linda Smith said, "I don't really like you saying his name, because it gives him the oxygen of publicity and I'm not happy with him having the oxygen of oxygen."

Not about that family, of course, but the general principle applies.

EE recalls all 'Power Bar' USB batteries due to 'fire safety risk'

Admiral Grace Hopper

Re: Screw that. Cough up the refund.

Where would the fun be in that? I preferred the glorious invective to cold, dull logic.

Yes, bringing facts to a rant fight is always a downer.

Amazon's new drones powered by Jeremy Clarkson's sarcasm

Admiral Grace Hopper
Devil

Dropping random packages in gardens

This could spell doom for many delivery companies whose business model seems to be based on throwing cardboard-wrapped packages over the fence into my garden. One particularly company springs to mind. I shudder when the order-confirming email give their name as the "chosen delivery partner". If Amazon can only automate the unwelcome sexual advances from the driver then they will have removed the need for them entirely.

Remember Windows 1.0? It's been 30 years (and you're officially old)

Admiral Grace Hopper

NT

Windows NT was a good thing. Largely because it wasn't actually Windows as we then understood it and was instead a proper OS that was made to look like Windows.

DS5: Vive la différence ... oh, and throw away the Citroën badge

Admiral Grace Hopper

I like Citroëns

But a big Citroën without hydropneumatic suspension seems to miss the point. My Xantia was the only car I drove from Bristol to Inverness without the slightest hint of discomfort.

Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Admiral Grace Hopper

A good place to start

I hope that your daughter enjoys the experience as much as I did.

I couldn't get near the RM380Z at school as it was monopolised by two boys in awful jumpers (Hi Andy! Hi Chris!) who didn't allow girls into their fiefdom. When my Dad bought us a Dragon 32 it was my gateway to a new world, one in which I have lived and made my living since leaving university. If you can learn how to make something work in BASIC in that sort of restricted environment then you will have a good toolset at your disposal for later life.

I was your daughter as much fun with this machine as I had.

HP creates laptop for SITH LORDS

Admiral Grace Hopper

Aren't you a little short?

I'm sticking to my old MacBook, the one wrapped in white plastic like a storm trooper.