Posts by John Nuttall

I was contacted by someone passing themselves off as Talk Talk, complete with call centre noises in the background. They had my name and telephone number and were ringing from an 'unavailable' CLI. I have withheld call blocking so I assumed that it really was Talk Talk. They said that there were some technical problems with my line/router and, as there had been some issues, again I believed them. They got me to download what eventually turned out to be spyware. At one point I asked them for proof that they were actually Talk Talk and they produced my account number. They then started trying to obtain bank details at which point I terminated the call. I contacted the real Talk Talk who confirmed that it hadn't been them but would not take responsibility for any consequences. I got my local PC shop to remove my data, wipe my machine and reinstall data and OS at a total cost of £70. I then asked Talk Talk via e-mail chat how they intended to reimburse me. Their 'advisor' seemed completely unable to grasp what I was telling him and kept saying that they wouldn't compensate me as it hadn't been Talk Talk that rang me. I then rang Talk Talk customer services and was put straight through to a supervisor who immediately admitted their failure and compensated me by reducing my next twelve months bill by around £200. As I believe that everyone makes mistakes, even me, I accepted that and am staying with Talk Talk

I was at a millenium party near to an RAF base and got talking to a pilot from there who was part of the rapid response team whose job it was to investigate intrusions into British air space. I asked him if they ever came across UFOs and he replied that they encountered them regularly. He said that recently they'd been scrambled to investigate a fast moving unidentified object that had been detected by radar, as they approached it accelerated to a speed well in excess of a velocity achievable by any plane that he was aware of and vanished. Of course he could have just been having a bit of fun with me after a couple of beers but he was so offhand rather than sensational that I believed him.

Let's hand over the economy to the people that designed Windows

"So we just keep our heads down and get on with what we really do know how to do: coding, running large and complex systems, and, you know, just in general demonstrating competence and knowledge while those without either are the only ones who put themselves forward to try and run the world*.

this from a programmer? Absolutely hysterical, at least the banking system only crashes every few decades

actually there is an alternative

There is technology that transforms organic waste into gas which can either be cleaned and injected into the grid or used to power a turbine and produce electricity. Whilst, like wind turbines and nuclear reactors, this technology isn't free, it can and should be using food waste as fuel. Less than 5% of municipal food waste in the UK is utilised in this way. So instead of 'investing' billions in nuclear, just put an Anaerobic Digestion plant in every town and solve the waste problem at the same time as the power problem. Why not pay for it with a windfall tax on the energy companies?

farm Gates

I grew up in West Yorkshire not far from Halifax and Gates' ancestry comes as no surprise to me given the local prediliction for sheep shagging, indeed some years ago the local paper featured a front page article on a local man caught in an embarassing situation with a cow. Perhaps those horns on Bill's head aren't necessarily demonic after all