Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

Re: Apple fix it or people will move

The Surface is a standard laptop which will run any OS

Except MacOS. Or any variant of linux that requires the SecureBoot enclave to be unlocked..

Apple won't licence OSX to run on it, despite being compatible

Two things - how do you know it's compatible? You can't test it.. (and look at the various Hackintosh forums to see the pitfalls of trying to get MacOS working on non-Apple hardware). Secondly, Apple did license their OS out to other vendors many years ago and it nearly killed the company. Apple were (and are) primarily a *hardware* company (which makes the current situation all the more baffling - they've let form dictate function which goes against their design philosophy) and they make their money off hardware (and the services associated with that hardware - the OS isn't one of them since they give it away free to anyone who has their hardware).

Since their focus is selling hardware, allowing others to undercut them will again imperil the company. Why would anyone pay £2500 for a top of the range Macbook Pro if they could get a knockoff clone for £1200? Even if the knockoff clone came with serious reliability issues (ha!) then there would be enough people who would go for that option to seriously undercut Apple. Ditto for iOS.

Re: Huawei's biggest threat? - @DougS

Barring Huawei from the world's largest market

I thought that they could sell in both China and the EU? (Both bigger markets than the US).

Railway booking office staff are not necessarily as painted

Indeed not. But sometimes they do have their moments.. Many years ago in a place far, far away (Barnet) there was a ticket agent at the local main-line station who, while otherwise a splendid chap, seems consitutionally incapable of telling the difference between Plymouth and Portsmouth. Since I wanted to visit Plymouth (my then-girlfriend, now wife lived there) it was a tad disconcerting to realise that he'd sold me a ticket to Portsmouth..

I got into the habit of watching which keys he punched and got fairly adept at realising that he was about to sell me the wrong one.

Build a large edifice on an unstable swamp

The whole of the Queens Sqaure area in Bristol is built on a former swamp. With predictable results..

Re: Don't give your opinion!

legislating on what voters can do in their private lives

Why would politicians want the public interfering with their private lives?

Re: I Caused A Small Fire In A VMEbus Rack

One jumper -> two? Somebody got lazy with the PCB layout

There was probably some customer somewhere that demanded it. The failure is that existing customers were not informed (preferrably by release notes and a damn big sticker on the back by the port(s)..)

tip half a cup of coffee into a CRT monitor

At one site, we had a rack in a nice warm place for drying keyboards that had had various beverages spilt on them. And several set of rubber gloves for using when washing said keyboards.

As long as you washed them before said beverage had dried (especially if containing sugar) then they worked fine afterwards - as long as they had plenty of time to dry.

This was in the days of proper keyboards when replacements were a non-trivial cost.

toddler that's not your own away from the sandpit?

Fortunately (for all concerned) we don't have, and never have had and likely never will, any of those (either toddler or sandpit). If we did, I'd make every effort to keep him/her away from sandpits because I know exactly how cats use sandpits and even sieving out the solids isn't going to make them safe..

(Most schools are going to be near houses that have cats that go outside. And, unless you keep plentiful supplies of spare, clean sand and inspect, clean and refresh the sandpit before use, it *is* going to have been used by cats. And any other local mammals that operate similar elimation standards and methods).

"What should we do if the printer is smoking?"

We[1] have a Morris Minor car - converted to negative earth and with an alternator fitted. At one point, the petrol pump failed (they last, on average, about 10 years).

So, being a good husband, I located, ordered and was delivered, a new one. That weekend, I took off the old one and fitted the new one - not a difficult job since the pump is easily accessible on the back bulkhead of the large-and-fairly-empty[2] engine compartment - although you do have to make sure that you don't let the petrol pipes drop to the floor since all the petrol in the tank then syphons itself out under the car..

New petrol pump duly fitted, petrol pipes reconnected (the right way round) and all the wires mostly done up firmly, I asked my wife to fire up the car to check the new pump was working. After a few seconds, I heard the pump ticking away, thus proving it was working. Then my wife stuck her head out of the side windows and asked me whether smoke should be coming out from under the dashboard..

One hurried turn-off later, I discover that Morris Minors are *very* sensitive to how well the earthing is done and that not doing up the earth connection tightly enough will draw enough current to make the old rubber-and-fabric-covered wiring get hot enough to smoke..

We cleaned the wiring up, applied liberal amounts of insulating tape and duct tape where appropriate and that petrol pump is still resident, ticking away and delivering go-juice to the mighty 1098cc A-series engine[2].

[1] Nominally "we". In practice, "my wife has".. I drive a car with modern luxuries like power steering and proper braking. And a working heater..

[2] Which has now done well over 115K miles. And has an in-line fuel catalyst module that uses tin as an anti-knock agent. It's entirely appropriate for someone who had an ancestor that was the captain of a Cornish tin mine now drives a car partly powered by tin..

Re: I recall even my mum (a bit like Dilmom) telling me a fire story

Only real school fire we had was a small one in the woodwork room

Not a fire but I once dropped a bottle of concentrated ammonia in the chemistry lab. Sadly, not inside the fume hood..

(Freshly-washed hands, carry bottle to fume cupboard, managed to knock my hand against the frame of the fume cupboard while not looking. Bottle started to drop with the top firmly on. In trying to catch it, I managed to knock the cap so it became loose. Bottle then hit the floor and spread conc. ammonia all over the floor. That chemistry lab was closed for about 4 days while they dealt with the spill..).

Mind you, we also did plenty of stuff that involved pyrotechnics (after all, that's mostly the reason why teenage boys do chemistry - in my experience anyway). Including melting the polystyrene ceiling tiles by vastly exceeded the amount of chemicals in the thermite reaction, scaring some 4th-years silly by shooting 2-litre empty lemonade bottles into their chemistry lab from the prep lab, making nitrogen tri-iodide[1] and painting it on cycle-paths[2]..

[1] Don't try this at home children. No really, don't. Nitrogen tri-iodide is *very* unstable.

[2] As did my father before me..

Re: Human rights

People should either be forced to service all people without exception

That is one of the fundamental requirements of conducting business in the UK. You *can* refuse service, but not on the basis of the severally-defined categories.

So, you can refuse to serve someone who stumbles into your shop blind drunk and swears at the staff, but not on the basis of their skin colour, sexuality or religion.

It's not rocket science.

And if you don't find that legal requirement fits your princliples then you are free to do something else.

Re: Human rights

Should Christian bakers be forced to make cakes

Well - the law says that they have to offer their service to everyone and cannot discriminate on a number of factors (sexuality being one of them).

So, as good Christians they have two choices:

1) Obey the law of the land as commanded by Jesus or

2) Decide that the law offends their conscience and so cease the activities that trasgress the law if those activities are optional (as running a cake business is).

The point being that, if they were following the letter of their Christian principles they should also refuse service to those who are not married but are living together. Or those who are rude, vain or boastful ("have nothing to do with such people.."). But, instead, they have decided that 1 aspect of human behaviour is a 'mortal sin' and refused to have anything to do with it while ignoring all the others.

In summary: "wherever possible, as long as it lies in your power, live at peace with everyone".

(Commentards might have discerned that my variey of Christianity is somewhat different from theirs.. and one of the core princliples is "do not judge others or you too will be judged - the judgements you use on others is what will be used against you" (loosely paraphrased))

Re: They'll grow up

hasnt ghot that apple-sweet-overdose flavour of normal cider

That's not 'normal' cider. Normal cider is slightly cloudy, has unidentifiable bits floating in it and isn't too sweet.

No - what you are talking about is a random selection of chemicals masquerading as cider (or what the mass breweries all cider). It bears the same relationship to proper cider at Watneys Red Barrel did to proper beer.

Re: Demographic change a factor?

Trust me, the only alcohol problem I have is that a decent bottle of the wine I like costs £12.99

Buy online, in bulk. It's cheaper that way..

(Hic, haec, hoc)

Re: Demographic change a factor?

I just never understood why I would want to turn myself into (more of) an idiot if it were purely optional

Alcohol doesn't have that effect of everyone y'know. I can drink most people under the table (thanks to fortunate genetics!) but have never, ever been in a situation where I don't know what I'm doing or done stupid things that I then can't remember..

(I did once pour a pint of water over someones head after I'd played draughts with whisky and then had some Mild and cider to wash away the taste. But I knew exactly what I was doing when I did it and would probably have done it even when sober..)

So, in conclusion - sadly, I can't attribute stupid things I've done to alcohol :-(

You've been born at a time when houses are expensive

We bought our first house in 1989 and sold it (at a loss) in 1997. We then moved into the house where we now live - which has more than doubled in value in 20 years..

I well remember the days of 15% mortgages - it took the whole of one of our wages just to pay the mortgage. The various bits and pieces that went with the endowment (life assurance etc etc) took up about 20% of the other salary. And, being fairly young, we didn't have significant savings to offset the mortgage.

I don't miss those days at all.

Demand implies someone wants somewhere to live

And, as all economists know, if there is a demand that there is insufficient resources to fulfill, then the price for the resources that do exist will go up in price..

Then where is the demand coming from

Lets put it this way - you grow up in a family home (with your 1.4 siblings). Sooner or later, you and your siblings want to leave home - which means that another 2-3 houses/flats are needed.

In previous generations, people only tended to leave home in order to get married - which means the demand was ~50% of what it is now.

Thatcher's bargain basement sell off of nearly all England's social housing

Which is still on the books - Right to Buy still has legal force. Which is one reason why councils are so reluctant to build housing (also, years of cuts means they don't have the money) since any housing stock that they do build and own can legally be bought by a tenant after a certain amount of time.

Which is why most of the low-cost housing is owned by housing associations - being private bodies they don't come under the RtB scheme.

It was a relatively common business occupation for widows

Indeed - ditto for married women (which is why they called them 'ale-wives' - one of the essential skills was the brewing of small beers or ales - it was what everybody drank since it was a lot safer than the water because the brewing process and alcohol killed off the bugs).

But, as you say, it was mostly the widows - women who had experience of brewing for their household but no longer had a man around earning money.

but it does give you quite the tolerance for alcohol

I've never played rugby (at school I was most emphatically not a rugby type - being tall and skinny, with glasses) - basketball was more my thing. For one thing, it was indoors. Secondly, physical contact is frowned upon..

Didn't stop me having a large tolerance for alcohol[1] though. I put that down to genetics since by Dad also did - and so does my nephew.

[1] Of certain kinds. Red wine I can drink bottles of with little apparent effect. Ditto cider. Beer makes me throw up.. Spirits - I can drink vast quantities of rum but vodka affects me very quickly.

Re: Well, as a Citizen of the Former Colonies

with the surname Bullen

ObInterestingFact[1]: A lot of the surnames that start with 'P'[2] are of Welsh origin. The tales goes that a recently-appointed English magistrate who had been foisted on the Welsh soon got tired of their genealogies[3] and decreed that, from henceforth, only one level would be allowed in his court. So "Iuan Ap Arri ap Iuan ap Iwan" (and so forth)... became Iuan Ap Arri. Which, over time, mutated[4] to Iuan Parry.

[1] Which, to quote the MMQB, may be of interest only to me.

[2] And not in the Bob sense.

[3] Wales, like the Scandanavian countries and the Gaidhlig areas of Scotland, didn't use surnames. Rather, people would be classified by their genealogies - So I would be Anndra mac Phol (ans a'Ghaidlig)

[4] But not in the Welsh sense. Croeso i Gymru and all that.. Cornish and Breton do similarly. The P-Celtic languages do mutate (mor becomes mhor for example - which changes the sound since a mv is a 'v' sound) but not to the same extent.

Re: Well, as a Citizen of the Former Colonies

subject to the Norman Yoke

That hasn't been true since about the late 1400's..

(The Tudors are classed as Anglo/Welsh and had very few legitimate links to either the Angevins or the preceding Norman dynasties. And English had been the Court language for a century or two by that point..)

Re: We are currently experiencing large volumes of customers

first in the queue to open an account at the Nationwide today because by the time we left there was quite a queue

I'll bet that Nationwide[1], as the last of the great Building Societies, are laughing all the way to the cash-tills..

[1] Of which I'm a member, having had an account since about 1987. Which was about when I started getting utterly disillusioned by banks, having been royally shafted by them as a student. And I've used the Natwe as my only banking facility since (other than saving accounts at various other building societies).

Re: We are currently experiencing large volumes of customers

The call volumes aren't unusually high, it's just that the call centre is under-staffed

This.

It seems that no-one in the many consumer-facing industries have heard of the phrase "capacity management" (which doesn't just apply to IT - it also covers the squishy meatbags of mostly water).

Or rather, they have heard about it. And realised that implementing a proper system would require money and *gasp* might result in some of their minimum-wage phone answerers not being 100% busy. And, in an MBA world, we can't have inefficiencies like that! Why, it'll reduce the management bonuses and, if some $MORE_SENIOR manager should happen to see one of the $LOWER_MANAGERs staff sitting idle might question their skills, parentage and budget!

Sadly, it's no use getting angry with the poor saps that have to answer the phone - they don't make policy or set budgets. And you can bet that the ones who do the policy and budget stuff are not readily available to be talked at.

Re: "How difficult can it be?"

"How difficult can it be?"

I've had that said to me many times (mostly by sales types) when the systems don't work how *they* think they should..

Ignoring the fact that, for most of them, even turning on a toaster in the morning would be a significant technical achievement.

So no, we don't have any magical pixies that can carry the information from your (non-3G enabled laptop - because you are too tight to pay the extra £100 for one and the £8/m the contract would cost) to our CRM. And no, our corporate wifi doesn't work in Starbucks (because, again, your director had a better use for the budget that was going to pay for a proper remote access system as his office needed refurbishing).

Re: Loopy.

I casually reached out and toggled a loopback switch, thus fixing the link

Many years ago I looked after a small network (2Mbit serial lines!) and one office kept dropping off the network (particularly when the weather was warm) - thus meaning that the office couldn't work since all the admin systems were centralised.

After much investigation the flaw turned out to not be equipment heat related (as was my first suspicion) - rather that some of the local staff were tired of their stuffy, overheated office and wanted to go out for a nice ice cream..

Apparently, flicking the router on/off switch rapidly for a few seconds would convince the router to go into 'lost config' mode and it would cease to be a router until the config was re-applied. Which had to be done locally since the only link to that office went through that router and the router wasn't..

We replaced that router with a more robust one and the site manager had a quiet word with some of the local staff (along the lines of "we'll forget that it happened - unless it happens again")

Re: Angry client rolled over the Ethernet patch cable with his office chair

elfin safety have a point

Especially in an ork-place.

(And it's usually lots of small, fast-moving points. Attached to wooden sticks and propelled by a device incorporating wood and some exotic string..)