Posts by Peb

Re: ... Have you read "On the beach"?

The later film version is crud. But I always find it difficult to read the book because everyone is so damn British “oh I say, it seems we are all going to die. More tea?”

Re: Haunted messages...

One Christmas many years ago, everyone in the office was playing *their* favourite Christmas song on their state of the art XP desktop. So of course it was bedlam... until I wrote a task to get everyone’s pc to play Fairytale of New York (unfortunately they were all slightly out of phase of it sounded even worse)

Re: Glad I am not the only one

“the entire queue behind you is watching for the light changing ” I wish to god they did this here (uk) to counteract the number of times I’m sat in a queue watching a green light and shouting ‘just what colour do you want it to be! Move!

Re: Write the app, somebody ...

Well there used to be such a thing

"Anderson, who works in the telecom industry and has a better understanding of how telemarketing call-in techniques work than most, first created a call-answering robot that tricked autodialers into thinking there was an actual person answering the phone. So instead of the machine automatically hanging up after ten seconds, a simple pre-recorded “hello?, hello?” message would have the call sent to a telemarketer who would waste a few precious moments until they realized there really wasn’t anyone there."

http://gizmodo.com/todays-hero-made-an-ai-that-annoys-telemarketers-for-as-1756344562

Re: Don't worry...

I always wondered just how many lung diseases would be reported after such a 'seeding'

Re: Costs

Five staff? Yes but most if them are talking to each other about cool fscebook/twatter stuff thst you have to interrupt to get served

Re: Shock news!

Is this the best use of "Defenestration"

"The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" by Arthur C. Clarke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenestration_of_Ermintrude_Inch

Re: Am I right in assuming that...

I was hoping for an asteroid that would turn everyone in L.A to dust, except two hot valley girls

Re: so without any need to 'play nice' what will they do with both of those things?

Re have already diversified their holdings all over the world

So till recently America has needed Saudi (for their oil) more than Saudi needed America

But now it seems we are entering a period where Saudi needs America (because they have investments there that they need to preserve) whereas America’s interest in Saudi is minimal

Which is not only an interesting reversal of fortunes, but also has interesting implications for global stability

and answering my own question... it is

"when it switches on a 330-foot (100-meter) digital billboard wrapped around the front of the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Broadway between 45th and 46th streets. "

re and old duffers get very confused!

And therein is the big problem with this system!

We encountered ANPR + Car park on a recent visit to Weston Super Mare (also known as ‘by the mud’) and found the new car park using this system. Out of season WSM has a high percentage of older customers (!) and the confusion at the pay points had to be seen to be believed. Just while waiting (in the 15 minute queue) I saw people trying to enter six characters (for the required ‘enter the last three characters of your car reg’), people unable to read the screen (I hope because of the sun! these people were about to drive off) and intense discussions ‘just what is our car reg?’

The confusion was helped not at all by hand written (scrawled) signs telling people they did not need a ticket, and no explanation of what ANPR was… and what it meant to the customers

Major FAIL