back to article Traumatic scenes for car geeks as forum falls over

There were fears of further outbreaks of violence on the streets yesterday when the UK's busiest motoring forum site, PistonHeads.com, disappeared offline. Desperate car geeks were forced to work, make a Victoria sponge and even talk to the wives, or so they claimed once the forum was back up and running. The Reg was …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Consultants & TVR's

    Obviously I'm not charging enough...I've only got a diesel Skoda!

    1. durandal
      Coat

      Be thankful

      At least you know it'll start in the morning and you've a better than 50/50 chance of completing your journey!

    2. IanPotter

      RE: Consultants & TVR's

      At least your Skoda probably starts reliably, doesn't leak, has working electrics and on the odd occasion it does run doesn't need followed by a fuel tanker...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Diesel Skoda?

      Diesel Skoda? Sheer luxury.

      Test engineer here with an ancient Honda, which like the Skoda may not be the height of luxury, but can be depended on to get me to work in the morning!

      The only ones I know with interesting cars are management, and they are usually brief forays into the world of sports cars followed by the inevitable people carrier/SUV when the stork starts delivering.

    4. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Trollface

      Ah yes

      TVR's with doorhandles so well hidden its quite possible those IT consultants are still stuck in their cars.

  2. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    ".... back when all IT consultants drove TVRs."

    I remember it well.

    This was during the brief period between IT consultants becoming able to easily afford TVRs and it becoming generally known among IT consultants what a terribly unreliable stonking POS they really were, at which point they all bought Porsches instead.

    A mate went to test drive one. On pulling away from a set of lights, the salesman disappeared into the back of the car as the bolts securing the passenger seat to the floor had not been fitted by the factory. The salesman suggested that he buy from their stock of recent model used cars as; "some other poor bastard will have sorted out all the problems for you".

    My mate's boss also had one at the time. He was quite keen on it 'til one day the entire dashboard assembly dropped into his lap. Investigation by the dealer showed that it was mostly held on with well-chewed wine gums rather than the more usual screws.......

    1. AbortRetryFail

      RE: Consultants & TVR's

      Always amuses me when you turn up on a client site in a 15 year-old TVR that is worth maybe £8k (ie. less than a small hatchback) and people say "clearly we're paying you too much".

      My attitude is that if you think being a contractor is such an easy life with easy money, why aren't you doing it? You too could be driving an £8k labour of love.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    TMF too

    TheMiniForum was offline (for maintenance, not hacking [potential or actual]) for a day or two earlier in the week too - thankfully Google's cache kept me from feeling the full effects of withdrawal. Their facebook page took up the slack for a while but soon degenerated into recommending tinned spam as a fix for any technical problem...

  4. AbortRetryFail

    TVR

    Oh here come all the tired clichés from people who either knew someone who had a TVR, or else treat Jeremy Clarkson as the Messiah and believe every word he says.

    Still, leaves those of us who actually own a TVR to enjoy them, I guess, whilst the sheeple buy boring cars and trot out their half-baked secondhand ill-informed opinions.

    (Although, I will admit that build quality was variable and they do need a little fettling to be at their best)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In full agreeement

      For an industry supposedly full of the country's best and brightest, outside every IT office will be a fleet of boring German saloon cars, because Clarkson said they are best, and the sheep follow each other to the BMW/Audi/VW showrooms.

      The quality is no better than a mainstream hatchback, they are now a lot less exclusive than a mainstream car (!), the ride is usually far too hard and uncomfortable, and the reliability is not as good as people imagine - a head gasket here, a blown turbo there....

      The Ultimate Marketing Machine.

    2. jm83

      re: tvr

      So you're basically agreeing, albeit begrudgingly?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Ha ha ha

        Ha ha, agree it's entertaining to hear the same old cliches being drudged up whenever TVRs are mentioned - i've had one for years and it's never broken down and is the best £4k i've ever spent buying a car for the fun it offers! Don't need a big salary to own one - but i'd agree maybe you do to keep putting fuel in it ;)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      TVR, reminds me of one of my favourite teachers

      My woodwork/metalwork teacher and the guy who got me interested in electronics and pneumatics swore by his TVR. I used to live opposite my secondary school and I'd often see him and one of the the other teachers in the metalwork cum garage working on their TVRs at weekends, taking advantage of the workshop and tools available!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    bah

    I am desperately trying to find a good reason to get rid of my 5 year old citroen. But the little f'r refuses to be anything but boringly reliable and cheap to run.

    I don't feel like I'm a proper consultant without a shiny german thing or 4x4.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Well...

      ...you could always drive like a complete self important c*** and then at least you'll feel like you own one.

  6. Mexflyboy
    Flame

    WTF, *white* hat??

    This article said:

    "Our source explained the site had been contacted by a 'white hat' - a hacker who offered to share vulnerabilities in exchange for a small fee. The two co-operated to close holes."

    White hat? Sorry, but someone who charges them for such vulnerability information is a black hat/blackmailing bastard, not a white hat! (The white hats I know would reveal the vulnerabilities to the company without requesting payment first!!)

    1. Tom 13

      I'd go with greyhat.

      Blackhats would have just compromised the site to steal passwords and credit card numbers from an iframe exploit or some other such.

  7. jake Silver badge

    White hat? Extortionist, more like ...

    And as a side-note:

    "We have a very technical readership and the site was started by an IT consultant who drove a TVR"

    Why would anyone of a technical bent pay attention to anything that a TVR driver would have to say? The mind boggles ... That includes me, I used to own a TVR V8S (Buick 215ci punched out to 4 liters ... the engine is currently in one of my 1972 Datsun 510s).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      It sounds like you just said...

      ... all generalisations are false.

  8. Petrea Mitchell
    Unhappy

    Bad week for geeks

    I wonder if that's what happened to Anime News Network (and its various international incarnations, including ANN UK) too. Allegedly its hosting provider was down for emergency maintenance and everything would be fine in a couple hours... that was the night before last. Everything but the root page currently redirects to a message that the head of the site is flying from Japan to Texas to personally oversee getting it back online.

    Try this, for instance, which should lead to the forums if everything were working:

    http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/

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