RE:err..

I have a laptop in the living room that is constantly plugged into the mains because I use it for developing when the missus gets home... It means I can be a little less ignorant than disappearing into the office and leaving her on her own

Drop test

My WD portable (can't remember the model but it's less than a year old) had absolutely no problem when I forgot it was in my jacket pocket and said jacket suffered a sizeable flying impact into a brick wall

The case broke (the outer edging came away and I can't get it back in place) but none of the data was missing/corrupt and the unit has been working as new with no issues

It's also suffered a few nights out with me where my attraction to the floor has overwhelmed me

Am I just lucky or are HDs just not as impact-sensitive as they used to be? Incidentally I've dropped my Vaio so many times the chassis has actually bent, but still no HD damage

Maybe I should just stop dropping things :-|

Misread

I misread the title as "Connecticut officer forced to shoot chump"... I was wondering where the news content was for a minute...

@Mike Crawshaw

Brand told *jokes*? I always thought he was just used by the vacuous members of my other half's family as a cruel form of punishment towards me

Mine's the one with the petition to outlaw Brand as cruel and unusual punishment in the pocket

@stu

Total Recall

"See you at the party"

RE: [url] weeooo_ooeeeoo_woooeeeooo

What did you say about my mother? She was a saint!

@Posers with personalised number plates should...

There's a similar one (or there used to be unless Gangsta Vehicle Leasing Inc has repo'd it) round here... I think it was P15 0EF with the plate screw partially covering the lower part of the E (or maybe the owner just got done for that... probably screws with ANPR or something)

@That's Horrific!!

You forgot to say "Won't somebody think of the children!"

Totally agree, though

I don't discriminate

All browsers have their quirks and bloody irritating bugs... I've seen CSS and Javascript discrepancies across FF, Opera and IE... I've had to adjust portions of code to accomodate either of these browsers while the other 2 work fine

Unless a single rendering engine is developed and forced into all browsers (which never will and never *should* happen) there are always going to be issues that trip up a single browser (or group of browsers)

Besides, rather than blame my own code it's much nicer to be able to swear at browsers until I figure out the [usually] braindead mistake I've made

Such is life... Rather than complaining about the inconsistencies I think we should be thankful that at least we have one area of choice the UK Gov't hasn't restricted

Not stolen

I find the problem of having my handset on a verticality-challenging evening out is more to do with it surviving intact rather than being stolen

I lost an SE K750i one NYE after dropping it while texting someone and a fat heffer stepped on it

My XDA Orbit was my own fault as I put my keys in the wrong pocket then experienced a gravitational fluctuation which altered the orbital pull of a nearby wall (nothing to do with the beer, guv) and caused a fatal (for the phone) collision

Mine's the one with the fragmented touchscreens in the pocket

Flying train

"That’s what we’re playing with, the effects on gravity, electro-magnetic disturbances, tsunamis, earthquakes, a high-speed train getting airborne at 200 miles an hour"

If that's what it takes to get a train airborne it's no wonder we don't have flying cars yet

USB -> 3.5mm adapter

I'm sure no-one here would pay for an own-brand adapter so I thought I'd link to the one I bought for a wee bit cheaper

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/12552.htm

@Stu

Oh thank the stars for that... I thought I was the only one (although based on my misreading I do now wonder why I clicked to read the story)

@Why?!

So let me get this straight... You have only one game which you say is great but the console is no good?

Maybe try another game and see how that is or are you working on a University funded notoriously low sample-base survey?

I'm not a Nintendo fanboy and got a Wii because 'er indoors wanted one... I think it's great and is the only console I've played on more than twice

@It'll be 'hee hee hee' from now on

Can't be 'hee hee hee'... That's sexist... it would have to be 'person person person'

Hmm seem to have lost my medication

@why?

Only if they have sensitive triggers... (the tin-openers that is... not the dogs)

@Anonymous

I *like* that idea

@James

Well, this is an avenue we will be taking as well further direct contact with Halifax themselves

I'm just wondering if there's any way I can cause them some pain and possibly prevent, or at least deter, them from trying it on other, potentially less savvy, customers

That's not to say that I'm particularly savvy otherwise my loan would be housed elsewhere

PPI

I'm currently having an argument with Halifax over this exact issue... We were sold a single-premium (no longer allowed) policy with PPI... The PPI in question only covers me but not my partner... A fact we were only made aware of when I went to claim after she had to take 6 weeks off work with an injury

After going into our local branch to have the PPI removed we were told we'd have to take out another loan and leave off the PPI... No real problem there until they told us that our 8.9% APR (high anyway) would mystically rise to 16.9% costing us an extra £1000 over the life of the loan (equating to a monthly payment increase of £3)

Unbelievably, while they were giving us this 'wonderful' offer they tried to hard-sell a bank account to us... I think not!

A quick word with the financial ombudsman is in order I think

RAM

If RAM so rarely goes wrong how come MemTest still exists?

A RAM stick won't 'blow'... It will simply develop errors reading and/or writing (much like a bad sector on a HDD)... Plugging a duff stick into a different motherboard won't damage it! (would a sector-dropping HDD?)

Incidentally I had a brand new matched pair of 1GB Corsair sticks that had allocation errors out of the packet... In this case testing that it wasn't the motherboard was easy as swapping the sticks show the allocation disparities in MemTest

Also many RAM errors won't illicit a BIOS bleep because they report their correct size and speed

Just my ten penn'orth

PS What the hell is up with the comments page? Halfway through typing this all the CSS went MIA!

1st rule...

...Leave your high horse at the door (hitching post is next to the taxi rank)