Posts by Refugee from Windows

Wrong result

Did they really do this? They used a trained sheepdog, that has been taught to herd them into a group. No if they'd used any old dog, it would have done a good job of just scattering them. Perhaps they'd like to repeat the test over here, I will give them the selection of bad tempered rare breed tups (rams) that enjoy (or not) their summer away from the ewes here. They are sort of the ovine equivalent of pit bulls, known to chase dogs, shearers and especially anyone armed with the wormer dosing gun.

If they used Herdwicks, they see the dog coming from half a mile away and hoof it, that's why Cumbrian collies have to be ruddy fast, or know how to sneak up on the wooly backed maggots.

Days long gone

When you were collarred by the long arm of the law at midnight, got a night in the cells and then appeared before the bench in the morning. No chance to vanish into the night, or give your name as Michael Mouse from Florida (who's incidentally wanted on 5 counts of murder, and you'd be out of the country smartish perhaps).

Alas I don't think the Ministry of Justice cuts the mustard, possibly too similar to the Orwellian "Ministry of Truth". Maybe they ought to use the "Ministry of Sound", a night of incessant house music would drive them mad enough to not want to repeat the experience.

Loco has been stabilised?

The majority of the UK's steam locos came from a scrapyard in Wales, where they'd only been left unused for not a great number of years. The description that this one has been stabilised sounds like it's a rusting hulk not far from collapsing into a pile of rust, it's not even been cosmetically cared for. Engines like that were not built for speed but to haul heavy loads.

Possibly the best one to try for the record is somewhat newer - may we suggest our own "Tornado"?

Unlimited restricted?

I seem to understand that if you grab more then your quota in 24 hours than some suppliers then you'll be down to a crawl for data rates, which for me would be a killer, all it needs is a couple of updates and you could be goosed for a while! Want to update from Ubuntu 11.10 to 12.04? Make sure it's topped up and leave it overnight - you hope.

Mobile Broadband is for me the only access, it's faster than the wired version here simply because there's not enough of a customer base for them to do anything about it, and of course it's nice to not pay a fortune when using it out and about.

Updates turned off

As they seem to charge you so much for your connection, why waste your time and money updating abroad anyway? A bare bones machine for going away with seems to be the order of the day, with nothing much installed on it.

Not taken in

When I kept getting offers to work from home, it was good to start asking questions about their business and why the 'eck they'd need anyone to handle their payments in the UK, when one lot had an address up on Tyneside. They wanted someone to do their payment processing, yes, but when I offered to do their VAT invoicing and PAYE as well they stopped sending me emails! Possibly they suspected I was actually in the UK.

Sounds awfully like an accident waiting to happen

It's back to the 80's folks. Welcome to the world of cloned phones and goodbye to your (electronic) cash.

Considering the phones will undoubtedly be made in some country where the data protection is somewhat more lax, I would expect there to be a certain leakage.

Oh dear!

Serious

Must have been bad - seems our leader here actually got a full night's sleep, not being disturbed by by that infernal device. Has put her is a better mood.

More down time please.

Meters

When I worked for the leccy board, if your meter reading changed by more than 10% they'd schedule you for a meter change.

As for EDF, well submit your meter readings on line, and then you can try in vain to actually access your bill on line, cos it won't let you register, and they say it takes 2 weeks to reply to their on line enquiries.

Unreasonable claims?

How about making them, like the car adverts, state actual customer speeds. How about a nice "at least/greater than X kB" service metric? Possibly only being able to claim speeds that at least 50% of their customers for 50% of the time might help, but then this would deflate their marketing departments.

If they had to declare a service level that they had to keep for at least 50% of the time and beyond that they get into enforceable penalties, but as this would hurt several ISPs in the wallet, it'll never happen will it?

Just copper coated steel

Alas my magpie friends. Much of what is in the air is actually just copper coated steel, and worth a lot less than just pure copper. Even then the copper content may not be as useful, although it may contribute a little in terms of the skin effect (even with the blazing data rates they don't have) but has more of a use as to reduce the corrosion.

Recipe for failure

Who's actually going to watch it? Local radio is struggling, the local content is going from a lot of the one's that are really regional ones with local adverts, and we've enough shoestring TV to choose from already.

I'm just waiting for ITV's local coverage to be quietly dropped myself.

Time frame

With HMG they take so long to go through all this tendering process that by the time the job starts the equipment is virtually obselete and so you're paying over the odds for the hardware.

Network connections? Not sure if they require Token Ring or not.

Must dash, there's something coming in on the Telex machine.....

Really are saving it up aren't they?

All it takes is another big splat in our direction during Cycle 24, lose some satellites, and the whole thing goes belly up. Never mind, equip some Scouts with bicycles and they'll do the messaging for you.

Not a good idea. Don't think they'll be any takers myself.

No it's not a price war

It's a "eliminate any competition in rural areas" campaign. Nab all the customers in remote areas who've got their own provision that doesn't come through their wet string, then back to the usual fleece the customer pricing strategy once the competition has gone out of business.

Eliminate pockets of resistance, like in Upper Ribblesdale, and then see how much you can make the pips squeak.

HM Prison Service

Come on guys, this is what you've been waiting for. Nick all the lags' credit, than you won't need to keep searching for the illicit phones. Unless you've already done this.

Nuff said, I'll leave quietly in the van with dark windows.

Free upgrade

The best way would have been to offer a free upgrade to W7 after the fiasco that is Vista. This is the one that had it dragged on could have killed them. We hope they learnt from their mistake this time. They possibly haven't and are saving up a fresh version of misery as they seem to do in alternating releases?

Penguin- as Vista drove many over to the other side!

Of course

The bean counters never factor in the exodus of customers when you stick up your prices beyond the competition, or the "race to the bottom" factor in customer service. To them, customers just sit there and pay them more money when they put the prices up.

Bit of a hurry

Considering FF4 hasn't yet hit a lot of Linux distro's, isn't this putting the cart before the horse in terms of deployment. Take it home and and iron out more glitches before bringing it back please.