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* Posts by Ol'Peculier

605 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009

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Samsung trolls Google, adds adblockers to phones

Ol'Peculier

Adblock have an Android browser in Google Play that is, in the main, pretty good at blocking ads.

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Flock of sheep ends NZ high-speed car chase

Ol'Peculier
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Re: NZ Rally

It's on YouTube, with both an in-car shot and from a helicopter, and it didn't go through the windscreen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlDWeAsaBg4

Starts at about 4:50 in.

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Ol'Peculier
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Kiwi cops have second jobs being sheep farmers, that's diversity. Either that or he's fleecing the system.

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Boeing just about gives up on the 747

Ol'Peculier
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A bit OT

Flew from Manchester to Boston, via Shannon - well sort of. We landed, and the tannoy reminded everybody that if they weren't flying to the States, it was best to get off now.

I was the only one. Talk about a walk of shame as I went down the aisle!

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Ol'Peculier

Transatlantic

Shame to see them phased out. To me, there's something wrong about looking out to the plane that's going to take you over the Atlantic and it only having two engines.

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Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Ol'Peculier
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I disagree about the central heating IoT - the ability to turn it on if you're going to be home early or stop it turning on if you are going to be late is something that is practical and a money saver. And easler to program than the boxes fitted to most boilers*

* That's reminded me, the next time I'm having a beer with my landlord I'm going to ask if we can go halves in fitting one.

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BBC News website takes New Year's Eve break

Ol'Peculier
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Re: It's not just their website

Radio 2 seems to be fine here.

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T'was the night before Christmas, and an industrial control system needed an upgrade

Ol'Peculier

I had a client ring me up at home on Christmas Day demanding I went to his office to update something in my code. It was about mission critical as trying to find a better joke in a Christmas cracker.

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Sysadmin's £100,000 revenge after sudden sacking

Ol'Peculier
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Mushroom

Re: ISDN

I had a photographic agency client that had hi-res images on a server in their office, connected to the outside world via ISDN. The website, search, thumbnails and the like were all hosted externally but called in to get bigger images for logged in users. Looking back, pretty advanced for it's time.

Then Code Red came along. Because there was no way of filtering calls in, every couple of seconds their IP address would get pinged, opening a connection.

ADSL wasn't an option then, but they became the first company on their exchange to get it when it was.

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Microsoft Windows: The Next 30 Years

Ol'Peculier

SPV

I had one of those phones, Orange SPV. Very good it was too IIRC, although playing Doom on it was decidedly difficult. Only problem was I went to America shortly after getting it and forgot the charger.

Gave up going into the likes of Target, Radio Shack etc. to find one pretty quickly, realising it was going to have to survive on one charge. Didn't half impress the American sales people I showed it to though.

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UK government looks to harness the potential of open data through APIs

Ol'Peculier

Obvious reference...

I can't be the only one that expected the quote "Government data is no longer a forgotten filing cabinet, locked away in some dusty corner of Whitehall" to end with "with a sign saying 'Beware of the Leopard" am I?

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TalkTalk downplays extent of breach damage, gives extra details

Ol'Peculier
Mushroom

Less than 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes

21,000 too many.

Less than 28,000 obscured credit and debit card details (as previously stated, the middle 6 digits had been removed)

Less than 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes

28,000 too many.

Less than 15,000 customer dates of birth

Less than 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes

15,000 too many.

Less than 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers

Way, way too many.

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Why was the modem down? Let us count the ways. And phone lines

Ol'Peculier

Wire photo scanners

All of this has reminded me of when I used to work for a photo agency that had a wire scanner to send photo's to newspaper. Painfully slow, and as for transmitting colour...

Different times...

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What upgrade cycle? Tablet sales crater for fourth straight quarter

Ol'Peculier

I'm still using my Playbook almost 4 years after buying it (for next to nothing). It's a well travelled little gadget, although it's really only used for video. Yes, it's shite for everything else, it's heavy compared to modern tablets but until it dies I see no reason at all in splashing out cash just for the sake of it.

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Lotus F1: 38°C? Sand in your Vblocks? Must be building a data center in Bahrain again

Ol'Peculier

Stress?

You think his job is stressful, Red Bull advertised for their IT guy to also act as the rear jack man

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After Burner: Sega’s jet-fighting, puke-inducing arcade marvel

Ol'Peculier
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Happy

What is it with Poly SU's and this game? That's three now.

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Ol'Peculier
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Pint

Re: re: make play easier, get extra lives etc.

At least it kept us away from the bar...

...oh, wait...

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Ol'Peculier

There was one of these in my SU bar too - one day they left the door open so we swiped the manual that was inside and worked out what DIP switch changes to make play easier, get extra lives etc.

Happy days indeed.

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GCHQ's exploding doughnut threatens to ooze into innocent field

Ol'Peculier
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Re: there's an opportunity here

Get with the Times.

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Boeing builds British Airways 787 Dreamliner in 4 minutes

Ol'Peculier
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Re: If you are quick off the ball

I flew LHR > YUL (Montreal) with BA and ORD > MAN back with American earlier this year. Guess which was the best experience?

The plane on the way back didn't even have a in-flight entertainment system fitted, just screens up in the bulkhead. Horrid experience, but it wasn't unexpected. (didn't have any realistically economic alternatives)

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Ol'Peculier

Tail fin

Wonder why the tail fin arrives already painted, when the rest doesn't?

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WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Ol'Peculier

After the laptop rebooted unexpectedly, there was no data lost. Because Jesus Saves.

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BOFH: Press 1. Press 2. Press whatever you damn well LIKE

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Re:

If I need to work over the weekend, yes.

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Ol'Peculier
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Re: Re:

Although if you do break something on the Friday, you get to go in over the weekend.

On overtime.

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All in all, it's just another hit in the stalls: Roger Waters The Wall

Ol'Peculier
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Re: "The Wall" was never the best Floyd IMHO

If Gilmout stopped touring how come I saw him play a 2 1/2 hour set in Brighton last week?

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Ol'Peculier
Happy

Cameras

Camera's were NOT banned from being taking into the show. At both shows I went to, Birmingham and Wembley, there was an announcement that cameras were allowed providing flash was turned off as it would ruin the performance. At Birmingham I saw venue staff telling somebody off for just that.

An amazing experience. Shame my local cinema isn't showing this and there is no word of it turning up on DVD.

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Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?

Ol'Peculier
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Re: "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot"

Actually don't need to do anything nefarious: it's still available on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01m3kfy

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Ol'Peculier

I voted for Eccleston, not because he was the worse (and for those slating 6 & 7, that was more down to the writing and the declining budgets than acting style) but his continued reluctance to do anything connected with Who.

Highly recommend finding "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot" - one of the best things to have come out of the 50th birthday celebrations.

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WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Ol'Peculier

The Register is currently testing a Python script to stop people installing AdBlock.

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'A word processor so simple my PA could use it': Joyce turns 30

Ol'Peculier
Pint

Thanks for making me feel old...

"so had no networking or internet access" Well, net access wasn't that great 30 years ago...

I know somebody that still uses one of these, although as he's retired not as much now.

I remember developing a system for an insurance broker (really, 30 uears ago - jeeze) using dBase II and I'm sure we attached an external hard drive attached to the thing. Strangely happy memories...

Beer, because I wasn't legally allowed to drink back then!

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Wileyfox Swift: Brit startup budget 'droid is the mutt's nuts

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Dammit

+1 for "Should I answer" - plus it can pull details from their database to show you information such as if it's a call centre, nusance call etc. which shows whilst the phone is still ringing.

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Earth wobbles on axis as Google rebrands

Ol'Peculier

I wonder how much this will cost them, reprinting stationery, business cards, logos on the outside of their buildings, and I wouldn't be surprised if you found an old logo hiding somewhere on Google's websites in a year that they forgot about.

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Scrapheap challenge: How Amazon and Google are dumbing down the gogglebox

Ol'Peculier
FAIL

I had somebody tell me that YouTube had stopped working on her TV because "Google had sold it".

I think there may need to be an intelligent test to see if the telly is smarter than you before purchase.

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Antiques in spaaaaace! Retired space shuttles cannibalised for parts

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Bah!

You're lucky you've still got it after Sandy - it was hidden from public view when I visited a couple of years ago whilst they were sorting a new exhibition area for it. Hope it's back up.

Fortunately I've been to see Discovery a couple of times and they seem to have moved the barriers so you can get a bit closer to it now as well. Bit knackered looking, but there again if I'd been around the world that many times I'd be looking rough as well...

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YouTube bloggers told to slap 'advert' stickers on their vid posts

Ol'Peculier
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You'll see a lot of US programmes crediting various companies (usually tech or cars). You just need to see the number of programmes using Surface to see what's going on.

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Microsoft pushes us closer to the Edge: Test new web browser now in free Windows 10 VMs

Ol'Peculier
Thumb Up

I'm more interested in how 10 works with IIS and all the various stuff that we load on top of that on our local dev machines, so this will be getting a download this week.

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Feeling a physical present: Ten summer games and gadgets

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Ferrets

The obligatory Richard "Mayor of Wetwang" Whitley clip

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Ol'Peculier

Ferrets

After watching that video, I really do wish I could keep pets in my flat.

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Budget UHD TVs arrive – but were the 4Kasts worth listening to?

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Wot not FreeSat tuner?

I believe it's because we use a different DVB-S to most of Europe, so it's not worth making the sets.

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Monster Scalextric Formula 1 circuit to go under the hammer

Ol'Peculier
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Re: Mines bigger than yours!

Where did they keep it, never heard anybody mention it (though I did have a sheep walk into the snooker room in the Sergeants Mess once, you don't get that at the Crucible!)

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Ol'Peculier
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Ooops. My mistake. Need to move some more boxes around in our warehouse now.

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Ol'Peculier

Bit of history, this was created by Sky to promote this years F1 coverage, I assume it was shown as a pre-race but I try to avoid watching their coverage.

More info, and a video of Brundle racing against Telegraph hack is at

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sportvideo/formulaonevideo/11449657/Who-wins-on-Martin-Brundles-ultimate-F1-circuit.html

You'll need a 9ft x 9ft sized shed by the way.

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Susan Sheridan, voice of Hitchhiker's Trillian, dies aged 68

Ol'Peculier

Video of sorts, the trailer for the tour can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6o3t6s0Oe8

This was broadcast last year and was an abridged version of said tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdnn5VrHoIc

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Ol'Peculier
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Happy

Re: radio first?

You are right, and the BBC have made the same mistake on their site too.

H2G2 started as the radio series, but as well as the 5 (some might say 6) books it encompassed TV, a computer game, a towel, a stage show, TV series, more radio with the 3rd, 4th and 5th books adapted and read by the original cast, the film, and the H2G2 Live! stage show, again with the main cast, was, like Douglas' own life, cut short too soon.

What would be nice is if the BBC rebroadcast the Character Invasion recording of the stage show from last year,

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Ol'Peculier
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Re: Wonerful lady

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

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Ol'Peculier
Pint

Wonerful lady

I've had the pleasure of meeting all the H2G2 cast several times and Susan was a very, very nice lady, friendly, warm and unassuming, had a good memory for names and faces too.

Was truely saddened when I heard the news yesterday morning, hadn't realised she was ill.

Icon for 6 pints of bitter and two packs of peanuts please barman.

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UK's first 'DIY DAB' multiplex goes live in Brighton

Ol'Peculier
Coat

Picture

Have to agree that the pic is a bit unnecessary, but it has made me look forward even more to my trip to Brighton in September to see a certain Mr. Gilmour...

OK, I'll go and get my coat.

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Let's all binge on Blake’s 7 and help save the BBC ... from itself

Ol'Peculier
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Go

A friend of mine produced and directed the documentaries, they are well worth watching,

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Ol'Peculier
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Blakes 7

Except that B7 is on YouTube...

But the idea should be welcomed, and preferably - when the rights allow it - be available worldwide.

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Bloke cuffed for blowing low-flying camera drone to bits with shotgun

Ol'Peculier
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Re: 40mm Glock

If that drone had lost power and dropped on someone's head and killed them would the owners be liable for the death. Especially when they intentionally flew it over someone elses property.

So, if the drone fell on somebody after being shot down, would the bloke with the gun be liable?

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