Charlie Brooker was 8 years ahead...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Right_Back
Posts by Iain
41 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2007
Ghosts in the machine learning pipeline will be impossible to exorcise
Laptop option on the way for ortholinear keyboard hipsters in form of MNT Reform add-on
Wednesday 7th July 2021 13:58 GMT
Ahh, just looked at the images, and the original Commodore PET was ortholinear, but at school we had the later ones with the more normal looking black keyboard
Indeed, I'm typing using the Dvorak layout on a Qwerty keyboard.
Makes it interesting in technical tests when I go all hunt & peck if I have to use Qwerty...
Mensa data spillage was due to 'unauthorised internal download'
Hate e-scooters? Join the club of the pals of 190 riders in Austin TX who ended up in hospital
UK is 'not a surveillance state' insists minister defending police face recog tech
Friday 3rd May 2019 13:31 GMT 
Image quality is inversely proportional to the seriousness being CCTV'd
A serious crime on Crimewatch will have been perpetrated by a fuzzy blob
Before they stopped the scam of enforcing minor motoring offences by CCTV, we were furnished with crystal clear, high quality footage of our serious infractions of stopping on a single yellow for five minutes (inconviencing no-one), along with the demand for a fine
Small Brit firms beg for 'light touch' as only half are ready for digital tax reforms due next month
Tuesday 12th March 2019 13:16 GMT
I found a freebie!
https://www.quickfile.co.uk/ free for small accounts (this is just one of the first ones I found looking for 'free MTD software', it was good, so I didn't look further!)
Works well for me as a contractor on Flat Rate VAT, took about an hour to sign up, import the data from my spreadsheet, hook up to MTD, and submit my first return, which all went smoothly
I did look at the developer docs/api, but quickly realised it was non-trivial
As mentioned above, I've got no idea what the HMRC are trying to achieve by replacing a simple form with all this faffing about!
Erm... what did you say again, dear reader?
'Fibre broadband' should mean glass wires poking into your router, reckons Brit survey
Tuesday 17th July 2018 13:03 GMT 
Any connection with some fibre would be nice!
I really could care less!
I can't even get FTTC, and I'm in WC2
BTs cabinet for the next street, which runs up to the building next door does, but not our cabinet
Virgin Media were utterly useless, taking forever to decide that it would cost too much to connect me, even though they've been mail-shotting me saying we're connected for ages, and their checker offers a Quick Connection pack for the building next door again, indicating that it too is connected to VM
If anyone has any ideas of how to get a connection, I'm all ears!
Japanese fashion puts the oo-er into trousers
China claims to have turbine-powered drone carrying 200kg payload
Pornography, violence and JG Ballard: High Rise, the 1970s' internet
Planet-bonking rock hunt armed with humanity's cruellest weapon: bureaucracy
Yahoo! parties! like! it's! 1999! with! retro! billboard! revival!
Monday 10th August 2015 14:38 GMT
Re: "feel free to let us know if you require or appreciate such illumination"
Here's a retro version from 2009, featuring the launch of Fantasy Football, soon to meet its demise.
Let me PLUG that up there, love. It’s perfectly standaAAARGH!
Zionists stole my SHOE, claims Muslim campaigner
Ex-cop: Holborn fireball comms outage cover for £200m bling heist gang
Thursday 9th April 2015 20:47 GMT 
Any grid engineers?
Right, so the fire was by the CAA, about 1/3 the way up Kingsway north of the Aldwych.
So, obviously the cables in the immediate area were damaged, but there's a lot more work that that area going on...?
Can anyone explain why they seem to have been digging up the roads and replacing cable, all the way from Fleet St round the Aldwych including Drury Lane & Catherine St, all the way up Kingsway, and back east along Holborn by the station too?
Doomsday Clock says 3 minutes to midnight. Again
Saturday 24th January 2015 14:39 GMT
Re: Ahh the obligatory
As soon as I see a story about the Doomsday Clock, the jukebox in my head involuntarily cues up '2 Minutes to Midnight'
Then I checked to see when it came out, over 30 years ago in August '84. Feeling old now.
In the style of XKCD:
By this September, the song will be closer in time to what it's about (when the Doomsday Clock was at 2 Minutes to Midnight in September 1953) than it is to the present day. Eeep.
BT Tower to be replaced by 3D printed BT Tower
Chubby-chasing sex trolls ran me offline, says fashion blogger
MPs demand UK rates revamp after Google's 'extraordinary tax mismatch'
How one bad algorithm cost traders $440m
Rifle-waving Yank's premature detonation ruins city's big bang
Call of Duty hacker behind bars after college burglary
Sunday 20th May 2012 09:44 GMT
Re: Did he get caught during TWO separate burglaries?
Yes! The linked article is much clearer - there were the two burglaries implied, plus at least another three, so it seems more like an idiot thief who branched out into computer crime.
He's forgetting the golden rule, do one thing well, see also drug couriers who get busted when they get stopped for a duff light or speeding or no insurance...
Councils spunk £515m in 4 years on CCTV
Wednesday 22nd February 2012 21:08 GMT
Re: I see you in hi-def and crystal clear
Try stopping on a bus stop for five minutes in Camden at 11pm, causing no obstruction. They helpfully give you a link to the crystal clear video that clearly shows the car, and both of us, me driving, my gf popping out to a cash point and back...
Try accidentally making an illegal right turn in Lambeth (although it was safe, it was just there to block a short-cut), and you get a link to a set of nice clear stills from the CCTV.
Spotify v. Pure Music
BOFH: The Cloud Committee Calamity
LOHAN: Reader vacuum pump plans really suck
Wednesday 30th November 2011 00:18 GMT
I'll second that!
Don't have your battery sitting on a nice warm bench (I guess it'll be away from the action), wrap in some more dry ice for double the time the balloon takes to reach 80,000 feet or whatever height it's firing at... then you'll have a test closer to the real thing.
Beer, as you can chill it with the spare dry ice....
Open 'Facebook killer' survives on cash donations
Saturday 5th November 2011 19:35 GMT
*Looks up diaspora*
I consider myself to have a good vocabulary, but I wasn't really sure on the meaning.
Indeed it is a bit rubbish as their name, as although it mainly involves a migration of a population from one place to another, it falls down a bit when you get to:
* A lot of these migrations are forced
*And it generally involves a yearning to return, unless the migration has become permanent
Maybe the down voters should've looked it up first :)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
