Posts by TimWardCam@c.im
(DIR) Post #AzRgZLmIRd10pFqq7E by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-10-21T20:55:04Z
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@Nonilex Yeahbut the USA has what sounds to the rest of the world like rather a strange definition of "national historic place". We stayed in a hotel so designated once which had been built in ...... wait for it ...... 1904.
(DIR) Post #AzZSPTkG7jpwXtybCK by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-10-25T14:54:04Z
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@Nonilex So the US military has now been privatised?
(DIR) Post #Azq3mBSZAzoaSUu4ga by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-02T15:08:06Z
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@stux I still do.
(DIR) Post #B0DNdDZ6aXSdXOuyye by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-13T21:08:58Z
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@stux Not me. In my day anything that was within living memory didn't count as "history".
(DIR) Post #B0NsDtybh6goGAX2OG by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-18T22:38:52Z
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@futurebird @MxVerda @benh Only for water?I remember as a student boiling an egg in my kettle because I couldn't be arsed to walk to the kitchen, or maybe because someone else was using the cooker.DO NOT try this at home, children.
(DIR) Post #B0XIeZ4s7RqXAGeq5w by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-22T17:21:43Z
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Security theatre episode 917:Can I make a payment of more than £20k? Nope, over the limit ...... unless ...... confirmed by biometrics.So, I register biometrics by getting my phone to take a picture of me. Then I verify the transaction by getting my phone to take another picture of me, two minutes later, and decide that the two pictures are of the same person.Approved. Money transferred. Job done. But WTF was all the hoop-jumping supposed to achieve?
(DIR) Post #B0XIebrVlZwRnhQiBc by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-23T11:44:08Z
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@BillySmith @cstross Yeahbut it's still nonsense that I can take two pictures of myself a minute apart and somehow the fact that they match is supposed to add security.
(DIR) Post #B0XIedj4puNpa7V0Jk by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-22T17:23:50Z
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Still, the alternative, going to the bank branch, would have been even more hoop-jumping. IME that involves sitting for an hour watching someone type numbers I've given them into a computer, they then say "OK, all done".Here, I've worked out what's going on: If you've actually stuck it out for the whole hour, and haven't chickened out and run away before the police have time to turn up, then they assume you're not a scammer.
(DIR) Post #B0XTGRKmMA5Ph7nTgO by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-23T10:22:38Z
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@miffyhelen Why would anyone ever buy anything like that?First rule of buying IoT gadgets is that they should fall back to manual controls if all the smart stuff fails.
(DIR) Post #B0XTGSHGqgsGcXABqy by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-11-23T11:35:47Z
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@miffyhelen Hmm. Though there is an obvious counter-example - we have for years now accepted television sets that can't be used if the remote control fails.
(DIR) Post #B0nvW2BWp5kffLvnIu by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-12-01T12:18:15Z
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@futurebird The nearest I'm usually likely to get to "RTFM" is "oh, sorry, I thought I'd documented that adequately, which bit is unclear that I need to work on?"
(DIR) Post #B0sEj5D3Z2gmZZQBJw by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-12-03T14:12:20Z
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@futurebird All I had to do was refuse to specify my date of birth when they demanded it. I'm now locked out.
(DIR) Post #B0u77vK13LePpRvjxw by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-12-04T11:56:40Z
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@futurebird The cardboard box that a filing cabinet comes in can make a den for several small children - just cut a door and a window.
(DIR) Post #B0wyjzbrF8pw1BEWxM by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-12-05T21:06:51Z
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@tomjennings Yes well, the days of knowing every byte of code in the machine are long gone.To my view the rot set in with the introduction of on-CPU memory cache: from then on you could no longer verify everything that was happening with a logic analyser on the bus, so that was the point at which you no longer knew what the computer was doing.
(DIR) Post #B1k53kLY5VfNPXCOBc by TimWardCam@c.im
2025-12-29T13:38:29Z
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@Nonilex Will it be worth any more than the security guarantee given by the US (and others) in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons?
(DIR) Post #B1sRl4kFsIqTNrV5LU by TimWardCam@c.im
2026-01-02T14:30:30Z
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@futurebird To me "grok" means Stranger in a Strange Land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok
(DIR) Post #B1uH1Z2EJaiemQUICW by TimWardCam@c.im
2026-01-03T11:39:39Z
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@futurebird It's only Americans who ask in a bemused voice "Why do they hate us?" - everybody else knows.
(DIR) Post #B1uTds5p6aEALECXCq by TimWardCam@c.im
2026-01-03T14:01:02Z
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@lowqualityfacts Entirely believable though.
(DIR) Post #B2I2C7G5loGLLvtomW by TimWardCam@c.im
2026-01-14T22:46:31Z
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@Nonilex All part of Putin's plan to divert European resources away from the defence of Europe.
(DIR) Post #B2eW0fuJpcdqUkOFiy by TimWardCam@c.im
2026-01-25T10:42:03Z
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@futurebird "Show your papers"?That's something you only have to do in repressive police states, no?In the UK there is no requirement to even *have* any "papers" that you could "show" (not everybody has a passport or driving licence).