* Posts by philpem

5 publicly visible posts • joined 6 May 2011

Royal Mail fights to address website outages

philpem

Can't say I'm surprised...

... given that in the past month they've:

1) Lost nearly £300 worth of kit, and are trying to get out of paying by whimpering that the "insurance" on Spec Dev is for "damage only, not outright loss"

2) Basically stuck their head in the sand -- an interesting way of fielding complaints. Contacting Customer Services is pointless (lots of kind words, bugger all action). The local delivery office either doesn't answer the phone, or someone answers it, utters a choice of "colourful adjectives", hangs up, then leaves it off hook for the rest of the day.

These assclowns need to get their act together, and fast.

Tony Sale, 'Colossus' crypto machine rebuilder, dies at 80

philpem
Unhappy

RIP.

Today the world has lost a truly great engineer.

I'll never forget seeing his talk about the Colossus rebuild at VCF-GB a few years back. That had to be the highlight of my visit.

RIP, Tony. You will be missed.

Cable thieves cost UK rail £15m a year

philpem
Joke

Electrified cable jackets

If signal cable is a "multi-dozen core custom-made mess" as previously stated by Smitty, why not tweak the design a little?

Add a few high-voltage, high-current pairs. Call it "a preliminary upgrade in preparation for the potential installation of new signalling equipment which requires a high-voltage power supply."

At the least, you'll damage or outright ruin their tools. At most, you cook the scally in-place and weld them to the cable.. along with their bolt cutters. I'm sure the local rat (and possibly fox) population will appreciate the free, pre-cooked meal. We're saving the environment in two ways -- replacing smaller sections of cable (if it's even necessary), and feeding the wildlife. Win-win!

Elite coder readies £15 programming gadget for schools

philpem
Thumb Up

Who says history doesn't repeat itself?

Seriously though, fifteen quid for a 700MHz Linux box with USB, HDMI, what appears to be a little camera, and OpenGL-ES? I'd buy one just to have something "unusual" to play with...

Programming is a great skill to learn -- especially for dealing with those mindless, repetitive tasks that computers do well. Far too many kids are leaving school knowing how to type a document and put together a quick spreadsheet, but not knowing how the computer can really help them...

I really can't see a downside to this. You go, David!

PC rental store hid secret spy hardware in laptop, suit says

philpem
Boffin

Easily fixed...

Gaffer tape to the rescue!

A wee bit of tape over the camera, and they won't be able to see a damn thing.

Except, of course, the screenshots from your bank's Online Banking webby-sitey thingy. Oh, and that nice little key-logger dump of you logging into online banking in the first place.......