Words that rhyme with orange:
by: Lloyd Worthnone, hobby farmer

Don't mess with the IT department guys. Although their office might look as messy as mine, they are a force not to be screwed with.

It all started one day with this guy, the origional Etherkiller, developed with a few misc parts to warn new users that the IT department is not to be messed with. You too can make one at home, connect the transmit pins of the RJ-45 to HOT on 110VAC and the recieve pins to Common. Modify to suit tase by varying pinout.
This led to some general discussion that this particular device really is in a class of devices, now called the "killers", which need to be made.

https://x.com/RealDonKeith/status/2012537106443145506

That cat gifting a mouse to the other cat

Re: for all those who say "it shouldn't be this difficult". apparently it is.
A previous vehicle I owned would tell me to take the turn for "Go Dall Ming". (Godalming ["goddlming"])

Of course, English pronunciation of names is often obtuse (apocryphally, to confuse foreign spies into giving themselves away), for example:

• Mainwaring ("mannering")

• Cholmondeley ("chumley")

• Featheringstonehaugh ("fanshaw")

• Mousehole ("mowzle" [ow as in cow, not as in tow])

• Worcester ("wooster")

• Towcester ("toaster")

• Leicester ("lester" [not lie-cester])

• Loughborough ("luffburraw" [roughly])

among many others.

Re: for all those who say "it shouldn't be this difficult". apparently it is.
Having grown up in East Anglia with regular family holidays on the coast, the journey often passed by such fantastic places as:

Happisburgh ("Hayesborough")

Postwick ("Pozzick")

and Wymondham ("Windam").

My better half has english as a second language, but is very much fluent. As far as they're concerned, brits seem to just make up the words and how they're said as we go along. Probably not untrue.

Also further away is Bicester ("Bisster").

Of course, there's the somewhat old joke about the american tourist calling Loughborough "Loogabarooga"

Try Deepl:
Reindeer length is an old unit of measurement of length used when moving reindeer. Reindeer length is the distance a reindeer can travel between (reindeer) urination breaks. Reindeer cannot urinate while running, and running too long can cause them to become paralysed. The maximum distance a reindeer can run is up to 7.5 kilometres.

Re: Try Deepl:
Nobody said they couldn't urinate while flying. That's why I stay inside on Christmas Eve.

Now let's meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Rob" who at the time of Y2K worked for Sun Microsystems in the UK.

As a global company, Sun had an early warning system for any Y2K problems: Its Australian office was 11 hours ahead of the UK office, so if any problems struck there, the company would get advance notice.

Which is why, as midnight neared Down Under, Rob's boss called Sun's Sydney office … then heard the phone line go terrifyingly silent as the clock ticked pas midnight. Rob said that "scared the hell out of my manager" – at least for a few moments, because the phone soon rang.

"It was the Australian office, laughing their heads off," Rob told On Call. ®

The Federalist is here with a step-by-step guide on how to properly load a dishwasher and end your kitchen nightmares once and for all. //

Plates and bowls scattered across the wheeled racks at random. Silverware senselessly jammed into one or two of the many available basket pockets. The entire ensemble is so wretched that it resembles some trashy piece of modern abstract art.

But what’s a man to do? How is he supposed to get the woman in his life to stop loading the dishwasher like a cracked-out squirrel storing away nuts for the winter?

A simple proposal on a 1982 electronic bulletin board helped sarcasm flourish online. //

The emoticons spread quickly across ARPAnet, the precursor to the modern Internet, reaching other universities and research labs. By November 10, 1982—less than two months later—Carnegie Mellon researcher James Morris began introducing the smiley emoticon concept to colleagues at Xerox PARC, complete with a growing list of variations. What started as an internal Carnegie Mellon convention over time became a standard feature of online communication, often simplified without the hyphen nose to :) or :(, among many other variations. //

Between 2001 and 2002, Mike Jones, a former Carnegie Mellon researcher then working at Microsoft, sponsored what Fahlman calls a “digital archaeology” project. Jeff Baird and the Carnegie Mellon facilities staff undertook a painstaking effort: locating backup tapes from 1982, finding working tape drives that could read the obsolete media, decoding old file formats, and searching for the actual posts. The team recovered the thread, revealing not just Fahlman’s famous post but the entire three-day community discussion that led to it.

The recovered messages, which you can read here, show how collaboratively the emoticon was developed—not a lone genius moment but an ongoing conversation proposing, refining, and building on the group’s ideas. Fahlman had no idea his synthesis would become a fundamental part of how humans express themselves in digital text, but neither did Swartz, who first suggested marking jokes, or the Gandalf VAX users who were already using their own smile symbols. //

Others, including teletype operators and private correspondents, may have used similar symbols before 1982, perhaps even as far back as 1648. Author Vladimir Nabokov suggested before 1982 that “there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile.” And the original IBM PC included a dedicated smiley character as early as 1981 (perhaps that should be considered the first emoji).

What made Fahlman’s contribution significant wasn’t absolute originality but rather proposing the right solution at the right time in the right context. From there, the smiley could spread across the emerging global computer network, and no one would ever misunderstand a joke online again. :-)

But vanity plates can get you in trouble. One security researcher found this out when he ordered a plate that read, "NULL" — also the word the computer system entered for a ticket whenever a cop left the license plate field blank. Similar results have happened to drivers who opted for "NO PLATE," "NOTAG," or "VOID." They ended up receiving thousands of dollars in tickets for things they didn't do.

This was a [Solar] company that was not only economically unviable but was also conducting outright shady business practices. ///

That's breaking the laws of physics for a solar company to conduct shady business practices!

Nephophobia, or cloud phobia, is an excessive or irrational fear of clouds that can evoke intense emotional responses and substantially impact an individual's overall well-being.

The first multi-spacecraft science mission to launch to Mars is now on its way, and catching a ride on the twin probes are the first kiwis to fly to the red planet. //

“Rocket Lab has a tradition of hiding kiwis in many areas of its design,” said Lindsay McLaurin, senior communications manager for space systems at Rocket Lab, in response to an inquiry from collectSPACE.com. “The birds have snuck onto our rockets and satellites since the beginning of the company, reflecting the New Zealand roots of the company and as a challenge among our designers and spacecraft builders.”

The birds, which are native to the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, appear as graphics on twin plaques attached to Blue and Gold. The metal plates, which adorn one of the two solar panels on each probe, also feature the Rocket Lab logo, the company’s motto (“Non Sufficit Hic Orbis” or “This World Is Not Enough”), and a similar icon of a bald eagle.

“To represent our company’s global presence,” said McLaurin, referring to the American icon. //

GFKBill Ars Tribunus Militum
21y
2,658
Subscriptor
*pushes pedant glasses up nose"
As a Kiwi myself, I need to point out that the Maori language doesn't use the "s" to denote plurals, or even have a letter "s", so it's two kiwi, not two kiwis.

Also, go Rocket Lab!

winwaed Ars Scholae Palatinae
9y
711

GFKBill said:
Maori language doesn't use the "s" to denote plurals, or even have a letter "s", so it's two kiwi, not two kiwis.

So the plural of "sheep" is "heep"?

GFKBill Ars Tribunus Militum
21y
2,658
Subscriptor

winwaed said:
So the plural of "sheep" is "heep"?

Well, we do have heeps of them.

SiberX Ars Scholae Palatinae
15y
1,249
Subscriptor++

GFKBill said:
Well, we do have heeps of them.

We just went over this; heep of them.

The Tax Poem

Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table at which he's fed.

Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes are the rule.

Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries tax his tears.

Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways to tax his ass.

Tax all he has, Then let him know, That you won't be done till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers, Then tax him some more, Tax him till he's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he's laid.

Put these words Upon his tomb, 'Taxes drove me to my doom...'

When he's gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply the inheritance tax.

Not getting off “Scott” free.

An Alabama police force playfully exacted revenge against a group of high schoolers who had covered their department headquarters — along with the rest of the town — with toilet paper as part of an elaborate senior prank.

Heflin Police Chief Ross McGlaughn vowed to get back on the Class of 2026 when the students launched their overnight TP attack across the small Alabama city.

The Gilwell Park Weather Rock always has the up to the minute weather conditions and has been placed here for your convenience.

The Official Weather Rock is located on Gilwell field and may be used in the following manner:

First -- Observe the rock for motion

The Rock is not moving- 0-3 MPH ligh breeze
The Rock is moving slightly - 4-10 MPH Mild wind
The Rock is moving in a small arc - 11 to 20 MPH Wind
The Rock is moving in a medium arc - 21 to 40 MPH Wind-Gusts to 50 MPH
The Rock is standing off to one side by 15' - Gale Force Winds
The Rock is standing off to one side by 30-45' - Big Blow Coming
The Rock is standing off to one side by 60'-Hurricane!!
The Rock is standing at 90'-Tornado!! Get to a root cellar! Take Toto!
The Rock is bouncing up and down-Earthquake !!
Second - Touch and Look at the Rock

The Rock is cold, dry and easy to see- Clear, Fair Weather, it's Cold
The Rock is cool, dry and easy to see- Overcast Weather
The Rock is warm, dry and easy to see- Clear, Fair Weather
The Rock has a shadow - It's sunny
The Rock is hot & dry and easy to see - Clear Weather, It's Hot
The Rock is warm and white - Chase the birds away
The Rock is cold, wet and easy to see-It's a cold, wet, day-Dress warm
The Rock is wet on top and dry on the bottom- It's Sprinkling
The Rock is cool,wet, and easy to see-It's rainging. Get your poncho.
The Rock is dripping on all sides-Its a downpour-Too late for poncho

A case of oops rather than UPS

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'd better be going

That was a powerful joke

The sort of thing that could spark a pun-off: a current trend at El Reg.

We Volted at the chance to have some pun

4 days
jakeSilver badge
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Locking MollyGuards.

Available at a sparky supply shop near you; usually under $CURRENCY20 each. //

Sorry for Molly? Nah.
She has a story to tell that nobody else does.

Many moons ago I took my daughter to SLAC on take your kid to work day. At the ripe old age of 9, she had been there many times before and knew the ropes, but I figured she deserved a day out of school.

She told me as we were walking in that it'd cost me ten bucks for her to not push any buttons. I gave her the money.

On the way back out, I told her that it'd cost her ten bucks for me not to tell her mother she was running a protection racket. She made a face and paid up ... and promptly told her mother as soon as we got home. They both still laugh about it :-)

Lost Legend
These legends aren’t really lost — we’ve known where they were the whole time! We created The Repository of Lost Legends (TRoLL for short) for those of you who don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. If you have a taste for the unusual and arcane (and can suspend your disbelief just a little), sample some of these precious gems.

ben_s
Any half decent IT department would get an alert if they couldn't ping an AP, and they would have a look at the switch to see that an interface was disconnected, then go and take a look.

They'd then notice a pattern, take a look at the records to see who was connected to any nearby APs at the time, and because you'd have to do it when the office was quiet, fairly soon work out who it was disconnecting them.

Anonymous Coward
You think we don't have a vm on that network that will easily accept additional network interfaces, created with the access point's mac address and ip addresses to fool the monitoring system? Some of us weren't born yesterday.

rIf you really want to confuse people, you can use a $250 spool of fiber and make their computer, which is 50m from the network closet, appear to be 25km farther away. If you can't get your hands on a spool of fiber, but have a box of patch cables and a spare 48 port switch, you can connect the user to port 1 and the upstream switch to port 48, and then put ports 1-2 in vlan 1, 3-4 in vlan 2. 5-6 in vlan 3, etc, and cable ports 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, etc, making his computer 25 hops away from the actual network.

anon for legal reasons.

The IOCCC, as it's familiarly known, is back after a four-year gap, giving the entrants more time to come up with some remarkably devious code.

This week, the results for the IOCCC 2024 were announced, with a record 23 winners. It's the first IOCCC in four years, but you shouldn't take that to imply it's as regular as the Olympics. In fact, almost nothing about the IOCCC is regular: this was the 28th edition of the event, and celebrated its 40th anniversary.

We confess that we have not yet studied the source of all the winners closely, but we have already got some personal favorites. Adrian Cable won the "Prize in murky waters" for this magnificent effort:

Dr Cable offered this 23 second Youtube clip by way of explanation. The chances are that you may already be familiar with it, but if not, it won't take you long. We also confidently predict that it will not help in any way.

Whatever you think the code does when run, you're wrong, but you're not going to believe what it actually does generate. Don't try to copy and paste it from the above, because as well as flagrant abuse of the C programming language, it also contains flagrant abuse of Unicode encoding. The IOCCC organizers have their own explanation, which will show you what this infernal masterpiece does in fact do.