southhamster

Just finished watching. We thought it was really good - better than the rather leaden House of the Dragon. Quite low budget but good acting and script and a bit of humour, grimness and crudity in places. Hopefully they will make a series of the other 2 novellas as well!

Ok. My "Derek" was a hidden espresso box... For those of a tender disposition, espresso was a sort of local web cache to serve frequently accessed pages in the days when internet bandwidth was laughably inadequate, think ISDN 128K. I started work as a network manager and engaged new broom mode by clearing out the server cupboard. What's that PC at the back there hidden behind all the random stuff? An old espresso box. Huh, they won't need that, they're on a really fast 2mb line; I'll rip it out. Some time later, "the internet's broken" Ooops... Frantic race to change the proxy settings to redirect to the ISP, not the espresso and a lesson learnt. Until the next time when I disconnected a redundant and not recommended overhead cat5 cable only to find there was no fibre link between buildings..

We'll need to fill up in the next few months and dreading the cost. The price is so random. Oil is truly the devil's fuel, along with King Coal it's even filthier brother. Then you have the hassle of a smelly oil tank in the garden, higher servicing costs and the noise and fumes of the pump, fan and burner. Would love a heat pump, but Mrs. SH would really hate the disruption.

Really looking forward to this. The first 3 series were excellent.

We had a lovely wireless charging trolley for some Learnpads and even then people would put them the wrong way up or jam them in at an angle, or more often than not, just leave them on the top. Sigh...

Interesting image of the eclipse on our neighbour's house.

Could wine be classed as a fruit salad?

Stick on cork tiles? Might be worth a try.

Worth checking any third party ones are made with fire-retardent plastic, some of the cheapies may not be.

Well then, you sir are clearly not a gentleman. Begone!

Just watched the Ipcress File on Disney. Great script and very clever with lots of 60's style.

Also old cars were often pretty light. I could bumpstart my old MG Midget by running alongside with the door open , jumping in and putting it in gear and away we went.

Depending on what the hardware is, is it worth scouting around for secondhand units or likely failures eg a PSU or 2? I reckon dave@ictdirect could be your pal here!

When's it due? #getmecoat

Best excuse *ever*

We always used to say it was the person who came late into the meeting when all the other teacher roles had already been handed out....

Well. What goes around comes around. Back in the day, in the time of dinosaurs aka the 1990's, RAM was so expensive that we had thieves breaking in and wrecking PC's just to get at the Ram and steal it! Our Putney head office had loads of RAM stolen one weekend and we had to rush new kit down to get them up and running. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ram-raiding-is-the-crime-of-the-nineties-1598147.html "Modern PCs require at least 4 megabytes of RAM to function, but Microsoft's new Windows 95 operating system requires at least 8Mb, and some users have installed 16Mb or more, worth hundreds of pounds" And this was for 8MB modules, not GB!

Just watched the latest season 5 of Slow Horses on Apple TV. I think it's probably the best thing I've seen all year. Even better than last season; full of surprises and whip smart dialogue. Surprised there's anyone left in Slough House with the body count though. Mrs. SH and I are currently enjoying Smoke (also Apple TV) about arson investigators in America. Took a few episodes to get going but some fine acting and we are hooked now.

Exactly. As a Home Assistant user of several years I've found it completely reliable, well supported and connects with everything I want, including bin collection days! However that is as a home user/tinkerer. If it's in school it would be another platform for you to support, although it's not hard to find online help. IOT hardware on the other hand, I've found very mixed. A lot is poorly made/borderline unsafe, unreliable and no or intermittent updates and support. If you have a BMS, could you get some devices added to that? If not, maybe get some quotes so you see what kit installers might recommend? Good luck!

Brilliant! This is worthy of Viz top tips!

No longer at the coalface, but moved my old home i3 laptop and i5 desktops to Linux Mint. No drama, faster and avoids the MS treadmill of random "upgrades." I also think some older hardware is just nicer to use - lots of useful ports and aesthetically pleasing.

All printers are evil and cursed. I'd agree about the laser - I was reasonably impressed with those HP 32xx in school offices, but at home we've been abusing an Epson devil-in-one workforce 4725 for about 6 years as we do a fair amount of copying and scanning as well as printing. Small footprint, quick, quiet, double sided, network, autofeed scanner and reasonable quality colour prints. Because Mrs. SH prints test artwork on it as well we use the original cartridges and bear the horrendous cost as the compatibles aren't quite as good and do fade. Mrs SH does also have the Epson 3880 A2 Giant Evil Printer ™ which although producing stunning quality prints is a bit more steampunk and not exactly a home printer