* Posts by Wingtech

14 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2015

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

Wingtech

Double Glaziers

Kind of refers to Windoze and the fact that it takes more than one go to get anything right

Thunderbolts and lightning very, very frightening as loo shatters, embedding porcelain shards in wall

Wingtech
Alert

Re: Cloud Processing

You're lucky you know where it is.

Out here in the sticks, my septic tank is under a neighbouring field. The istructions we have for location is on a line due west of the Telephone Pole by the gate, take 50 paces and the 6-8 feet down.

OK as long as the pole is there. The guy who built it was a short-arse, so, is it his pace or a sort of standard pace?

Anyway, designed for zero maintenace and has been functioning for >20 years without any intervention.

Common round here, but it can all get confusing. Down one road in the village all the old houses had their tanks under the field opposite, so under the road. When they developed the field most of the new owners found that they had someone else's dunny-store under their front garden. In the old part of the village it is common to find the tank under the neighbours garden.

The perils of rural life, I suppose.

Oblivious 'influencers' work on 3.6-roentgen tans in Chernobyl after realising TV show based on real nuclear TITSUP

Wingtech

Re: Can someone explain...

"If you are around animals a lot (farm kid etc) then you don't need MMR, just the measles jab. In fact, many of our "industrial" diseases are because we stopped living around animals."

Cowpox exposure may have helped reduced the seriousness of Smallpox, but was not itself trivial. People did die of it.

Jenner's ideas let people have the benefit of cowpox without the infection being serious.

With regard to other conditions like Rubella, Mumps and Measles, I have yet to hear of that, so would appreciate being pointed to corroborated, peer-reviewed information.

Sounds more like a confusion of history and myths here.

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

Wingtech
Facepalm

Oh, the fallability of the BBC!

In their report about the failure, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46464730, they quote a lady in Norwich

"I'm disabled ... I'm in a wheelchair," she told the BBC. "So having no data but also no calls as well means I can't contact anyone if I have a fall or if I need anything."

It makes you wonder if they used telepathy to contact her.

Sad Nav: How a cheap GPS spoofer gizmo can tell drivers to get lost

Wingtech

GPS - Not in Rural Areas

Here in Cornwall it is the non-locals using GPS who end up asking the way.

Our Postcode is pretty large and has several farms and a Solar Farm in it. The trouble is you can't reach the solar farm from the centre of the PostCode. Since that is mostly trucks, and even articulated lorries, on occasion, it causes much humour seeing them trying to reverse up single-track roads with high banks. I found a driver outside once with his artic. He had clipped a tree down the lane and got it stuck horizontally between cab and trailer. It stuck out 1 metre either side. For much of the last 500 yards he had had 50 cm clearance. What a mess. He was in tears!

Part of the problem is that even transport firms are not equipping lorries with satnavs which know about such issues. Another is the relatively coarse nature of the Postcode system in the countryside. I wonder which comany might be the first to licence the 3-word navigation system. (https://what3words.com/) Different codes for front and side gate, for example.

BT bets farm on consumers: Announces one network to rule 'em all

Wingtech

Re: Makes a mockery of the CMA decision that EE and BT operate is distinct and different markets

" Living in the Republic of Kernow has its advantages, but it's full so don't even think about moving here any time soon."

I quite agree. Keep out the incomers - now that I am settled!

Sadly I am just too far out of my village to get fibre, but c.20Mbps is OK for most functions. I'm not greatly interested in streaming 4K.

I thought about Devon, but the broadband coverage there is about as good as it is in the Irish Sea. Many towns seemed to have a maximum speed of 2-4Mbps when I was looking to move. Cornwall, with EU money, is far better provided. No fish, but better broadband.

RIP... almost: Brit high street gadget shack Maplin Electronics

Wingtech

Friendly... Pah!

"not being allowed into the shop until you'd said hello to the sales staff who were under pain of death to greet every customer with an uncheery "Hello""

Well not entirely friendly.

Went into a South London branch a few years ago wearing an open-faced crash helmet.

I was asked to remove my crash-helmet. No problem you might say, except for the half dozen youths in there with hoodies and scarves around their faces. It wasn't winter and it wasn't a robbery!

I asked whther their hoodies were being removed. hen they answered no, I left saying that it was clearly a racist and prejudiced policy - which it plainly was as all the other customers were of the same apparent ethnicity as the staff.

Not sorry to see the back of them finally.

Another day, another British Airways systems screwup causes chaos

Wingtech
Unhappy

Re: I feel sorry

I very much agree with you that Customer Service should have custormer retention at its core.

What I hate is something I have been through recently where, after reporting problems to the technical team of an organisation, with no reply, I finally reached out to Customer Service to see if they could do anything. The reply was, as you might expect, along the lines of "here are the complaint procedures" and suggested lack of interest and came across as "Here's the Black Hole we point nuisances to"

When there are alternative suppliers, vendors or providers of services readily available it is easy to walk, but we all ahve a lot of time and practice invested in preferred products. To be treated casully by Customer dis-Services is at the least galling. Whether it is always worth switching supplier/product is another question and depends on your level of irritation after some solemn reflection.

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

Wingtech

Re: Can you hold down the power button

Reading some of these comments I wonder how many are forgetting that on many PCs there really is a 'Power ' switch around the back on the Power supply. Some users might think of that as the 'Power' button and the on-off switch as being the one on the front or top of the chassis.

I tend to agree that it could be considered to be jargon. I also think that the original hell-desk operator in the story made an unwarranted assumption about the comprhension of term by the user - not quite the same as not understanding jargon.

Have a nice weekend

Mystery black hole hides by curbing its appetite

Wingtech

Re: isnt it obvious?

"possibly they use it for rubbish disposal too."

Maybe the debris from the construction of a hyperspace express route through a nearby star system.

Visiting America? US border agents want your Twitter, Facebook URLs

Wingtech
Mushroom

Re: I guess it's good then that I'm a citizen and not a visitor....

If The Donald arrives in Washington will you be able to tell where the asylum starts?

There has always been a strange dichotomy in the YouEss between those with knowledge and the legislature.

Found out the hard way that if you air-freight a vehicle to there you have to empty the fule tank - 'cos gas\petrol is explosive, isnt it?

Just ask a fire expert which i more dangerous, a full fuel tank with no air-space, or a recently emptied tank. Perhaps that should read a fule tank in the YouEss.

Maplin Electronics demands cash with menaces

Wingtech
FAIL

Maplin Staff

"The staff though are better than Currys/PCWorld/Carphonewarehouse etc."

Not really, they just have more time to read the boxes while customers don't come in.

They used to be better when they were hobbyists.

I agree with others. Out of date products at inflated prices.

Hmm, I can think of a few defunct PC makers who operated on the same principle.

They are dying, but the staff don't yet know it.

If The Register made reality music TV, this is what it would look like

Wingtech

T-rex Bake Off

Imagine, if you dare, a collection of late and near-late glam-rockers competing to cook some fat-containing baked goods.

Additional prizes awarded for Sprinkles and glitter (NO, not him!)

DON’T add me to your social network, I have NO IDEA who you are

Wingtech

Re: LinkedIn is for people worried about their job security

So what is twitter?

If you are worrried about not being on-trend.

That always assumes you know what that means or even care.

Personally I think the first letter of Twitter's name is redundant.

N