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The Boring Thread

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At work yesterday I needed to order some diodes. I should have ordered SK56CHV6G but I copied the line above in a spreadsheet and got a pack of LL4148 instead. What* am I like, eh?

This morning, gathered round the office kettle, I had a long discussion with two colleagues about the relative merits of Precision, Jazz and Musicman bass guitars.

This evening, I’m meeting our new cat-sitter.

What tedium have you been involved in recently?

(*) Dull, that’s what.

5

Comments

  2. It’s been wild this afternoon in sunny Singapore…..

    I spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the metadata and adding cover art to a bunch of downloaded BBC Glastonbury files and then transferring to my networked backup NAS drive (after deciding that I would skip loading them to the iTunes server with associated DAS drive that powers the Apple TV streaming around the house).

    • How could I forget….. I also extracted the multi channel and stereo DSD files from an SACD ISO image and then converted the stereo to Apple lossless (at 24 bit / 88 KHz) for use on the media player.

      I bet you are jealous. Singapore – the new Cairngorms

    • Subaru keep badgering me to have the same thing. To have it happen involves a one hour drive to my nearest main dealer. They have declined to pay me my daily rate for making this effort, so it’s not getting done. First world hassles, eh?

      • @vulpes-vulpes If this badgering is in any way related to the exploding Takata airbag phenomenon (24 deaths in US so far), you’d be well advised to suck up the loss of daily rate. Subaru is definitely on the affected list – my stepson’s Outback was recalled in Oz.

        • Blimey … that’s a coincidence. I’ve just had a letter from our Subaru main dealer recalling our car about this airbag business. I was going to just ignore it …. but maybe I shouldn’t.

        • Oh, I’m sure there’s some real reason for them to offer to carry out a three hour procedure gratis – they are arse-covering of course. The failure that Subaru are concerning themseleves about isn’t an unexpected explosion, by the way, it’s to do with shoddily manufactured airbag components that in rare situations may eject metal fragments with the bag on deployment. Perhaps the deaths you mention are to do with an even more serious fault? Thanks for your concern anyway, and for taking the time to respond.

          However, on an evidence based scientific approach, I factor the number of such airbag installations out there (I’m guessing well north of a million or two) against the number of problematic failures – a couple of dozen in the USA, maybe the same number elsewhere across the globe – and my fag-packet arithmetic tells me I’m not very much more likely to suffer from an airbag disaster than I am to win the lottery. It’s not as if all of the airbag installations have caused an issue when deployed – it’s a tiny proportion, as the advice note makes clear – the failures represent a very small percentage of the number of airbag operations that have taken place.

          I aim not to go through life worrying very much about these things – life’s too short.

          • Yes, explosion was too vague, it’s being riddled with shrapnel that’s the problem. And I don’t think it’s just head-on collisions.

            Heat and humidity exacerbates the problem, which is why they’re taking it so seriously in Oz. But I don’t know how much heat and humidity.

            There’s no doubt Tamara has a serious quality-control problem. But you’re right: the odds are still in your favour. But they were in the favour of the folk who were killed too, no? My cars aren’t affected, so it’s easy for me to pontificate of course, but I think it would niggle away at me too much to be able to ignore it.

          • Surely the comparison should be between the number of airbag deployments and consequent fatalities, not just the number of airbags installed?
            Probably there are still reasonably good odds that you’d be safe but it’s not millions to a double-digit number.

            • I too have a Subaru – is it the Afterword vehicle of choice? I have had the airbag replacement and a fuel pump thingy. Local shoo was excited that my car was actually one with the fuel pump problem. Burnt out wires or something.

  4. I’m just doing the professional fees budget for our DB pension scheme for the next 12 months, to agree it with the Chair of Trustees. It was closed to future accrual 2 weeks ago, which was a long and tedious process in itself. Life as an accountant, eh?

    I surely can’t be the only one wondering now what on Earth an LL4148 is, if it’s not a diode?

    • Yep, a LL4148 is a diode (in a surface-mount package), based upon the old classic 1N4148 silicon diode (itself an update of the ancient 1N914).

      Trouble is, it is rated at a maximum of 0.3 Amps, whereas the SK56C is rated at 5.0 Amps. So if I put the LL4148 in my power supply circuit, it will behave as a diode for a fraction of a second, after which it will behave as a fuse. A blown fuse.

      Hilarious, as I’m sure you will concur.

      • I surely do concur, Steve. That’ll keep me giggling to myself all day.

        @Black Celebration
        The two terms are commonly used as synonyms, but there is a subtle difference.

        A defined benefit scheme is simply one where the benefit (i.e. pension) you get at the end of it is defined. Normally (wish I could work out how to get italics in here) for probably 95+% of such schemes, this is related to a formula that involves length of service, fractions and your salary on leaving the scheme (hence the term “final salary scheme”) but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could have a DB scheme that promises a pension of £2 a year for every day you’re employed. Thus if you work there 10 years, and then retired, your pension would be £7,300 a year (ish). That would be unusual, but is perfectly possible. That is a DB scheme (the benefit is the bit that is defined), but not a final salary scheme, as it’s got nothing to do with your final salary.

        Strictly, a “final salary” scheme is a (admittedly large in practical terms) sub-set of the universe of “defined benefit” pension schemes.

        Compare and contrast to a “defined contribution” (“DC”) scheme, where what is defined is the amount you put in it (italics again) and what kind of pension you get out of it depends on all kinds of factors such as time, sheer number of £ put in, investment performance, charges, macroeconomic factors like inflation and interest rates, the “type” of pension you want (annuity, drawdown, lump sum) and whether you’re an ardent smoker/drinker/bacon sandwich consumer etc.

        You can also have a bit of a hybrid, known as career average revalued earnings (“CARE”) scheme, where you accrue a pension each year based on your salary for that year only. So, when you come to retire, you have to work out every year’s contribution and add them up to get the pension you receive.

        I could (and frequently do) go on…

        • Thanks @bobness – That CARE formula you mention – I need some help with that concept. You’re working out a career-average final salary….but then it’s “based on that year only”? Do you then choose the higher of the two?

          Personally I am amazed there hasn’t been a thread about pensions on the afterword before. Fluctuating Emoluments had always struck me as a great title for a prog album.

          • @black-celebration – re CARE – in stead of using your final salary to base your pension on, most CARE plans average out your salary over your time in the plan.

            A final salary plan would often pay a pension of 1/60th of your final salary for each year in the plan. A CARE plan could pay 1/60th of your average salary for each year in the plan. Most CARE plans are more complicated but that’s the underlying concept from the plans I’ve seen.

            • The LGPS currently uses a CARE accrual rate at 49ths of annual salary.
              So year 1, I earn (let’s make it easy) £24,500, I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 1. £500.
              Year 2, I get a pay rise to £24,990, I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 2. £510.
              Year 3, my salary is £25,480. I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 3. £520.

              Thus after 3 years, my accrued pension is (1/49 x £24500) + (1/49 x £24990) + (1/49 x £25480) = £1,530.
              Or….
              3/49 x (24500 +24990 + 25480)/3 = £1,530. (This explains the A in CARE better)

              The issue with this is, for me, if you stay at the same job for 30 years (let’s say, and also ignore inflation) your pension after 30 years will be effectively 30/49 of your final salary (which is the same as your initial salary) rather than 30/60 (as above, a common final salary scheme accrual rate) of final salary, so the pension you accrue under a CARE basis is 22% bigger than under a final salary arrangement.

              Clearly, if you go “up the tree” over your working life, a CARE pension will be more likely lower than a final salary one.

              I told you I could go on.

              • I’m really sorry about this but I have a follow up question and you’re going to love it. Ready?

                Isn’t the CARE formula just an alternative definition of final salary? It’s common to have the average of the best three years in the last 10 years, for example, so a CARE formula is an inferior version of that – isn’t it?

                • @black-celebration
                  Apologies for the delay.
                  I think I’ve understood what you’ve asked, but please let me know if not.
                  Yes, it is to that extent, but if you have significantly longer service and have moved up the ladder, so to speak, an FS scheme will be better, generally. With an FS scheme, that common “average of the last 3 years” applies to all the years you’ve been a member.
                  If you have stayed in the same job at the same pay, CARE accrual rates are generally better (I guess the thought is that people do tend to move up) so you’d get a better pension, but if you move up the ladder, FS schemes will give a better one.

                  Example.
                  I start in a job at £20k, and get a £1k “real” (i.e. above inflation) pay rise each year, and retire after 30 years. My final “real” salary is thus £50k.
                  My CARE pension is (on a 50ths accrual rate to make it simple) 1/50th of £20k, plus 1/50th of £21k etc = £15.8k (ish).
                  An FS version of that at 60ths would be 30/60 of £50k = £25k.
                  If visualising things helps, rather than a pension that looks like a triangle when you plot pension for that year over time, you get one that’s a rectangle (and the area of the rectangle is much greater than that of the triangle). That’s a lot of the reason why FS schemes are expensive. If you get promoted significantly for the last few years of your employment, the effect that has on your pension promise can be very large, and that has to be funded by the scheme (effectively the employer).

                  In the same example, if the £20k real salary just stays at that for 30 years, the CARE pension is (effectively) 30/50 x £20k = £12k, whereas the FS version is 30/60 x £20k = £10k.

                  • Thanks @bobness that’s very clear and well explained. I can’t help imagining what that would be like to calculate manually, as we did in the 80s, longhand on graph paper and have someone check it manually. I assume/hope that is now a thing of the past.

        • Ah, I can’t help with pensions but I can with HMTL. Did I mention I was dull?

          For italics you want:

          {edit: FFS, it keeps italicising even when I get the code deliberately wrong. Try again:}

          pointy bracket (shift – comma)
          the letter I
          pointy bracket (shift – fullstop)

          words to italicise

          pointy bracket (shift – comma)
          forward stroke (under the ?)
          the letter I
          pointy bracket (shift – fullstop)

  5. We have recently made the move to register our football club membership records from backs of shinpad packets to one of those online data-leak platforms..

    We’ve got 40 teams aged 8 – 18, boys and girls and their parents.
    My job has been to wade through the lists , make sure everyone has enrolled their team by the deadline and correct inputs such as the many parents who signed up as players for their kids’ teams..
    On the ( Ted) Ditchwater Scale of Nerve – Rattling Tedium, it has been like watching Arsenal play against Arsenal..
    Bring on the proof-reading of the GDPR policy !

    • GDPR is straightforward.

      Find out exactly what data you hold that is attributable to an individual person – the data “owner”.

      Ask yourself if you have a legitimate reason for holding each bit of data – a reason to need it for some operational purpose that serves the owner of the data.

      If you can’t identify a legitimate reason, bin the data, if you can, make sure the data’s secure and only accessible to those who will use it for whatever that legitimate reason is.

      Seemples.

      • Yep. Previous regulations related to your use of the data for the reason it was supplied (so, for instance, you were already prevented from selling or giving the kids’ addresses to a sportswear firm who might wish to market to them). The new regulations mean that even when you can share the data legitimately you are responsible for any misuse the new owner commits, although you might be entirely unaware of it.

        Some of it is waiting to be tested in case law, and of course as well as wanting to be responsible data owners no one wants to be the own who is made an example of for breach of the new laws.

  8. I’ve still got three sets of CD shelving to put up. They’ve been sat in the garage for the best part of a year. Trouble is, the garage roof has fallen in a bit & I can’t decide what to do with it….

    Sorry… What was I saying? I think I dozed off for a minute there.

  10. Mrs Japanese and I have a six-month old labrador. In the last thirty minutes, she has brought in twenty-eight rocks/stones/pebbles from the garden. I counted so she didn’t have to.

  11. I recently asked my wife to get two spare wheel nuts from the Auto Parts store. When she came back she said they were very expensive and had bought two complete wheel lugs sets. How we laughed when she realised her mistake. Never a dull moment in our house. I’m thinking of writing a Danny Baker style memoir.

  15. I must confess I misread the first lines of this thread and assumed we had acquired a new star poster who, in the course of his work yesterday, ordered some dildos.

    In an inquisitive frame of mind, I did wonder briefly how many dildos one requires.

  16. Two hour webinar on Charity Accounts this morning, I still have my ironing to do and I need to replace a button on my suit jacket before taking it to the dry cleaners. Dizzy with excitement.

  17. I had a dentist appointment this morning. My appointment was for 10.00 and I arrived a little early to find a good parking spot. But when I went in they told me that the dentist was running late and would I mind coming back in an hour? I did mind, but I said I didn’t and went back home. When I returned 50 minutes later I found a parking spot not that far from my original one! True story!

  18. Repairing and restoring a pair of huge, wardrobe apeing transmission line speakers.
    They were gifted to me after spending over 20 years at the back of a friend’s garage.

    Last night the wife was off to bed early leaving me in the kitchen surrounded by cable, waddling (the correct lambs wool…of course), soldering iron and drivers.

    She may have had her “come and get it” underwear on but I was oblivious…

    Testing them at realistic volumes well after midnight I discovered I had wired a bass driver out of phase….tch.

    Today my back hates me……

      • Very well made from a kit design….maybe Rogers, but the only pics I could find on the net showed a ribbon super.
        They mimic the driver layout of Cambridge R50s…Kef B139, B110 with T27 tweeters and Coles 4001 supertweeters.
        The T27 and Coles were US in both cabs so I had to improvise with some nice Audax cloth domes and a pair of 80s Celestion titanium domes for the supertweeters.

        Fitting and gluing the waddling with Evostick was a bitch…non of yer stringing up here.

        Tested them properly today and the bass is smooth and low….really low.
        I think they are pretty linear down to 40hz.
        Have noted a slight squark in the upper mid but given they, and the replacement bits were free I can live with it.

        Did I mention they were big….a proper two man lift….hence my back pain.

        • Nice.

          One* of the best setups I ever heard was active Linn Isobariks (using a pair of KEF B139 in isobaric loading), a pair of B110 in transmission lines & a pair of T27) driven by Naim amps. One day I’ll buy a pair s/h and test Mrs F’s resolve (she has already vetoed similarly cavernous PMC MB2s).

          (*) the other being active BBC LS5/8s driven by Quads in an after-hours acoustically-treated BBC radio studio.

            • At a 40kg lift each, I’d be waddling too.

              I blame Linn for my hi-fi addiction. I was working at Arcam at the time and popped into the Linn exhibition room at lunchtime – I didn’t come out until evening.

            • Curse my spellchecker…..it’s of course wadding.
              The purpose of which is to absorb all but the lowest bass frequencies emanating from the rear of the driver……these are of course out of phase with the front output and the tuned “pipe” (typically with a slot on the front of the enclosure) returns them in phase, thus reinforcing bass output.

              Lambs wool was once considered best, but being non supporting has to wrapped and hung from string anchored inside the tuned section….

              This pissed me off no end so I cheated and resorted to lovely smelling Evostick.

              If this wasn’t exciting enough….the absorbed frequencies are turned to heat…..

  19. Just spent 30 minutes looking for my prescription safety glasses. I’m slightly long-sighted, but had to do a bit of soldering just before lunch, so needed my ‘readers’. I pushed them up onto my head after soldering, but they had gone by the time I went for lunch.

    Turns out they’d fallen off my head, into the bin next to the soldering bench. I’m now considering one of those bathplug chain thingies. Did I mention I’m nearly 50?

    • In the past few weeks I have acquired reading glasses (lenses only, thankfully I never throw old specs frames away) and prescription swimming goggles (surprisingly cheap), and am now awaiting my newly-upgraded sunglasses: bifocals. Funnily enough I hit 45 later this year. 👵

    • I spent £3k on laser eye surgery in the late ’90s but no bastard ever mentioned that 12 years later I’d need reading glasses – so much for “no more glasses”.

      Needing them to be handy essentially all the time I took to wearing them around my neck using sports-type retainers i.e. the ones that push on the glasses as I wouldn’t be seen dead with the type where the arms go through a little loop.

      You can get all sorts of types and colours. Silicon is especially great as they don’t break and come in very loud colours if you fancy it (and I do). The reading glasses themselves, however, get caught on things with some regularity so I find less expensive pairs are best (although I draw the line at the very slim ones). Still prefer replacing them rather than getting frustrated because they’re never EVER where you want them.

      • The wearing of tee-shirts, jumpers etc. is handy when you frequently need to take your specs off. Just fold ’em and tuck one of the side-arms down the neck of the tee or jumper at the front. Not nearly so in the way as having them on a lanyard. Also good for sunglasses when you’ve come indoors. Obviously this will not work if you’re in a collar & tie, in which case a shirt with a reasonably deep breast pocket is handy.

    • My eyesight is actually improving. I’ve been short-sighted since childhood because my eyeballs are rugby shaped. Now, my lenses are less powerful, so light comes into focus closer to the retina. Won’t be long before macular degeneration sets in.

    • A pub contains the possibility, if not often the reality, of beer and other stimulating beverages – which is far too exciting for this thread, especially if they are consumed transgressively in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

      And crisps. Crisps!

  23. I routinely have to put stuff away, the dullest items are cables, lots and lots of cables. Sometimes I have to tape them in a coil.
    Working up the enthusiasm for annual PAT testing next month. Every mains cable and piece of equipment must be tested and the results recorded. It usually takes me a solid week of ten hour days.

    • Your mention of PAT testing reminds me that a few weeks back an electrician was sent round by the letting agents to PAT test the portable appliances belonging to my landlady. Of which there aren’t any. Just as he did last year and the year before, he tested the microwave, the kettle, the washing machine, the tumble drier, the fridge and the freezer. All of them my own property.
      I’ve been living here since 2007 but they’ve never done a full electrical test in that time. The recommendation is to give a full test every 5 years but that has no legal force.

      • Is ‘PAT test the portable appliances’ the shortest clause one can make where either every letter of the acronym or every letter of the explanation is tautologous? This has been my boring contribution. You’re welcome.

  24. In a previous life working for a calibration/repair firm I PAT tested a brand new 30grand plus Hewlett-Packard all singing, all dancing touchscreen scope.
    A small crack, a whisp of smoke and the cooling fan did a turn or two…….fucked it.

  25. Forget the formalities, give Fentonboy his hamper now. A brilliant riposte, cap duly doffed.
    I had a box of screws but can’t find it. I’m thinking a nail and a hammer will do the job but the cat needs feeding and then what with all this heat the garden needs watering but if you think I’m going out there in all this heat , did I tell you it was 43C last week, the grapes are literally burning on the vines and my neighbour engaged me in his usual patois ( a mixture of French, Catalan and Swahili) and I didn’t understand a word but I can nod for Scotland and say oui and non in all (well almost all) the right places but I’m pretty sure he said we’re all doomed and the battery in my watch has gone. It’s a maelstrom here, a maelstrom

  26. Having recently decorated we had the hall floor restored and a coconut mat inserted into a hole by the front door. I decided after the work was complete to edge the hole with something to protect the edges of the wood. After several days of pondering and trips to B and Q (I’ve been there so many times lately that I can now say with authority that I know where things are in B and Q and as such can enjoy the song on a deeper level, but I digress) I settled on using the edging strips that tilers use on the edges of tiles, you know like in a bathroom or kitchen? So, I bought a length that has a chrome effect with a slightly brushed finish (£17.50) but here’s where it gets interesting, it wasn’t long enough to edge all three sides.
    So I went back to B and Q but they didn’t have any with the same brushed finish left in stock. I must have been there for 20 minutes checking each piece, some were easy to dismiss as they were plastic, some were a T shape and others were much wider than the piece I wanted (which is 8m/m. )
    So, long story short, we have two sides with edging and one without (I suggested we simply use a piece that isn’t brushed finish but my lovely wife can’t go for that.) So the search goes on. PM me for updates

        • These are the key phrases that made me think triangle: “we have two sides with edging and one without”; “it wasn’t long enough to edge all three sides.”

          I am fascinated by your edging story, but am struggling to visualise the reality ‘on the ground.’ Feel free to provide lots more boring detail.

          • It’s a pretty boring detail that under the circumstances I’m ashamed to have left out. Visualise a rectangle. Along one of the long edges visualise a door. Now, visualise the remaining three edges, two short and one long. Those are the edges that need edging, but of course, as we know only two, one short and one long have been edged so far. And I know I don’t need to point this out, but to save any further misunderstandings I will, it’s a short edge that is missing it’s edging.
            An easy way to think of it and a handy visual aid is to think of an elongated ‘u’ – no. wait that could be even more confusing. There is a symbol on my phone keypad that I don’t know how to access on my computer. So what I’ll do is post this now, and then reply shortly with the aforementioned symbol using my phone keypad/keyboard, that should help with the visualisation. Back in a minute.
            Possibly less, it shouldn’t take long.

              • The scales have fallen from my eyes. Everything is clear now – boringly so. Silly me. I was imagining a hole entirely contained by the restored floor. I realise now you are talking about a rectangular recess behind the front door, where the coconut mat goes.

                Brushed chrome though. Are you sure?

                And I assume you’re doing mitred joints at the corners?

                • Phew! I was a bit worried “a coconut mat inserted into a hole by the front door” was something special I didn’t know about.

                  You know, the kind of thing Moose would have to explain to me once the big boys had stopped sniggering at my ignorance.

                • Re: brushed chrome. I know. It was doomed from the start. I told my lovely wife that we’re not living in that London, we’re not even living in a city these days, so perhaps we should just set our expectations a little lower. She said no, she can’t go for that. And of course the corners are mitred.
                  It was much easier to get a good join than I had anticipated. As I had anticipated it to be much harder than it was.

                  • Update – Today I managed to procure another *length* of the 8m/m brushed steel trim to complete the job!
                    I gave up on B & Q and tried Wickes, but if you’re thinking that I just walked in and purchased it in an easy and pleasant transaction then Whoah Nelly! Think again.
                    I had of course checked their stock levels on the World Wide Web and my local [Warrington] store was showing 4 *lengths* in stock, but when I got there and tried to find one I failed. Part of the problem was a that I had forgotten to take in my readers in with me. I returned to the car and collected my readers and went back in to try again. They had 6m/m, 10 m/m, and 12.5 m/m [which surprise me because B & Q don’t do 6 m/m] How I wish I had used 10m/m in the first place and I confess that I considered starting again with 10m/m, but just then an assistant came into view. I asked him if he could check because the website was showing 4 *lengths* of 8m/m [fun fact – Wickes call it ‘Stainless Steel Effect] ‘If we’ve got it, it will be out here’ he said, ‘Oh’, I said.
                    He had a good *root* around and in about 24 seconds he had found the correct item for me!

                    Hurrah!

                    I was intending to fit it when I got home, but by the time I had stopped off at Tesco, for some bits and then Lidl for some suncream it was very sunny out and I am now going to spend the afternoon in the garden instead – I will report back once the job is complete and will probably post some pictures on Insta.

  27. I went to Croydon on a train for a meeting that was due to start at 3pm. At 2:40 the meeting was cancelled.

    I left Croydon on a train, that looked just the same but WENT THE OTHER WAY, soon after.

  28. I have spent most of today reformatting Process Documents – basically a day of Copy, Paste Special and error checking.
    There was some light relief later when updating the Cost Models when I forgot to add the FALSE variable to a VLOOKUP formula. Oh, how we laughed

  29. This morning, getting dressed, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to wear navy blue socks or gray socks. In the end, I went for neither, deciding instead on a new pair in sky blue, which I thought was a good compromise.

  30. As a pensions manager you can imagine how my eyes lit up when I saw ‘Boring Thread’ and then utter bliss when there was a full, and dare I say , very accurate description of defined benefit vs final salary. Sadly no one mentioned actuarial reduction or trivial commutation but I have now. I trust this will be only time that my dull professional life will ever cross with my sparkly AW alter ego.

    • I think I read in the NME in the 80s that you could commute a “trivial” pension to a lump sum as long as it was under 104 quid a year? I believe those rules have changed since then.

      But – and this is possibly veering into “interesting” territory – when I started in pensions you could declare a normal retirement age of 35 if you were a footballer or a pop musician. Naming no names we had a policy for a headband-wearing virtuoso guitarist who should have retired by now.. He’s obviously struggling to make ends meet because he didn’t retire and still makes music now (I think). You see, in the early 80s a pop star over 35 was rare. You could only really get away with it if you were a Beatle or a Stone.

  35. I forgot to report that it was a good washing day today, sun with a breeze, so I washed the spare room duvet cover, sheets and pillow cases then, once dry, put them back on with the summer duvet. Rock n roll eh.

  36. Got a cheery bloke in to fix the toilet, which had been getting lazier and lazier and gave up flushing altogether yesterday morning. Rather amazingly, he replaced every moving part in the cistern, plus installed a new flexible hose to the mains instead of a copper pipe (a good thing apparently, though not sure why). Flusherama – we don’t know ourselves.

    Also went to Waitrose.

  37. My new work phone – a Samsung Galaxy J5 – is unable to connect to the internet because the device is locked down through the Blackberry UEM.

    So I am about to ring work’s helpline to find out the authentication details required to get through our proxy server’s firewall.

  41. I have just cleaned the kitchen. The dish-washing sponge was a bit tatty, so I replaced it with a new model. The old sponge hasn’t been thrown away. It has been relocated to its new position under the sink, and will function as a utility sponge for general cleaning jobs around the house.

  42. I bought some new bin bags a couple of weeks ago. As I was replacing the bin liner this morning I found myself admiring the way the opening on the bag was slightly tailored to fir snugly over the top of the bin. ‘I must remember where I bought these bin bags’ I thought. But I had thrown away the wrapper in a previous bag and have already forgotten where they came from.

  43. I’m going to something really boring today.

    I recently bought a new Wacom Intuos graphics tablet, and have discovered an irritating flaw with it. I use it on Macs. One of the ways on a Mac that you can change a file name is to click once on the file’s name and wait; the file’s name (but not the extension) is highlighted, and a new or revised name can be entered.

    If I put a file on the desktop, I cannot change the name by this method using the pen and tablet; the entire file name including the extension is highlighted, and the cursor arrow does not change to the text tool. Click-and-wait does work if I use the mouse.

    If I make a folder on the desktop, and put the file in that, then I can use the click-and-wait method.

    The previous Wacom tablet and its driver did not have this issue.

  44. Is this thread still boring if it’s had this much interest, or has the purpose of the thread been lost? I think a ‘boring’ thread and any subsequent comments within said thread should’ve garnered no responses.

  45. I’m spending this afternoon re-loading Windows 10 on my laptop. I upgraded to a Windows Insiders preview version last week, but I’ve got some hardware incompatibility issues with the new drivers, causing green screen panics.

  48. From the Dull Men’s Club today.
    A poster writes
    ‘I saw a plastic hub cap by the side of the road today and it made me nostalgic. I also saw an earwig last week, which I haven’t seen since the early 90s (I assumed they’d been phased out). I feel a bit like how those fishermen who caught a coelocanth must have felt. What things of yesteryear that you thought were consigned to the dustbin of history have you seen recently?

  50. Last night I was away from home and my computer. I wanted to show a friend an amusing pic that I’d found earlier on Facebook so I went to Facebook on my phone but I couldn’t remember my FB password. That was the end of that idea.

    • We had f&c yesterday from a place that used to be our favourite but we haven’t used since we moved house five years ago. Still the same three people work there and the food was as good as ever.

  53. City will win the league, Liverpool will finish second, Chelsea third … Tottenham-no-trophies, Arsenal-no-trophies and Man. Utd. will scramble for the sacred (very, very, very exciting and important – copyright) fourth place.

    Still more interesting than summer.
    What is the point of summer?
    It’s boring.

  56. Sorry to bore you with such a tedious question, but where does the ‘hamper’ idea originate from? Does a minor celebrity knock on your door and hand it over? Would I be expected to give a speech at an awards ceremony hosted by Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan at the end of the year?

  57. Ive just spent the last half hour reading about how to change a duvet. Oddly I found it interesting so contra to the point of this thread. However I’m also watching BBC breakfast………

  59. Back to boring, I need to make a lid for the pond filter. Any tips? I have 21 goldfish settling in nicely but they hide under the lilys at the moment. Ponds are lovely.

  60. Instead of a day spent watching cricket/tennis/Glasto on catchup, I chose* to replace a fence post which my neighbours’ drunken Saturday BBQ guests leaned against and knocked over.

    They tried drunkenly climbing the oak tree on the park at 1am, too. Going for a Darwin award, some of them, I reckon.

    (*) as in Mrs F chose, really.

  62. This is the most commented thread in the last 7 days, and last 30 days. We only need 200 more views to get it to most viewed as well. Let’s go for the triple! Dull power! Keep pressing refresh.

    ‘Star posters’, my arse…

  64. I never look at those stats. So imagine how thrilled I am to discover that my modest, and modestly commented on, post on the obituary of Norman Stone is neck and neck with a thread on the Fabs for toppermost of the poppermost. Nothing to do with my checking it every two minutes to see if anyone’s commented on it, oh no.

  65. Big discussion going on over on AW FB – is a cherry a Berry or a Prunus drupe?

    If that doesn’t get you signed up to Zuckerberg’s window on the first circle of Hell, I don’t know what will.

  66. Well, after last week’s laptop re-installation, I’m doing it yet again. On Tuesday I downloaded some video manipulation software, based on a website recommendation, but it installed some other unwanted software at the same time – software that likes to send pop-ups to screen at inopportune moments. That unwanted software is proving difficult to remove, and I’m not fully certain that I’ve discovered everything it does. Therefore I’m blowing the whole system away and starting again.

    • My work PC has started to switch itself off again. The first time it was resolved by unplugging and re-plugging all of the connections from the Power Supply Unit to the motherboard, each with a satisfying click.

      This time I’m thinking the PSU itself might be have to be replaced.

      It’s a pain in the arse when it switches off mid-

        • Bang to rights, but I’ll do anything* for a punchline.

          And a return to the top of Most Viewed This Month – there must only be a handful of views between the top 3. Not that this is a competition, but it does prove a point.

          (*) but I won’t do that

      • Twang Jr’s PC slowed down to glacial pace. Periodically it seemed to want to update Windows but it also said it was up to date. I googled and looked at various insane solutions proposed on line but one seemed to know what he was talking about and said to look for a weirdly named temp folder with about 14 levels of subfolder. If there was stuff in the one named some incomprehensible random set of numbers and !etters that meant an update had crashed mid process, and the contents should be deleted but not the folder itself. This I duly did and when I rebooted it completed the update and ran like a dream. I felt like a golden God.

  67. I’m in the market for brass hose connectors. I’ve discovered that you can’t get a pack of four with a threaded tap connector. There’s no way of doing it without ending up with a redundant tap connector. Oh well, a spare’s always useful.

  68. I drive a little old Ford Bantam (silver grey), for which I have great affection. In it I have a little old CD player.

    Anyway, what happens is that it suddenly changes from the CD to the radio for no apparent reason. So, for example, Voodoo Lounge will suddenly be interrupted by the weather report. (Or by the road traffic report, which might be useful, but it’s always about other places far away where they have traffic). I have tried to tell whether it does this because of the many potholes or just because it’s getting too old and wants to be retired and replaced. The funny part is that the CD invariably comes back on again after a minute or so, as if nothing had happened. And by then the CD is on the next song already. Every time it happens I laugh out loud, even when I’m on my own.

    I don’t know why. (I laugh like that, I mean)

    • There’s a setting in the radio part of the car audio system that does that. On mine (A 2003 Saab) there’s a button labelled TP. When it’s on (the letters TP appear in the display) it interrupts the CD player or the radio station that I’m listening to and switches to the nearest radio station that has a traffic news bulletin. I keep it switched off except when I specifically want to catch traffic bulletins.
      Pretty much all UK FM stations that broadcast traffic news bulletins generate a code that radios with the TP function active will detect so they can tune to that station temporarily. The station is supposed to broadcast another signal at the end of the traffic bulletin so that your system can resume doing what it was before it was activated. Often they don’t broadcast the end signal straight away because they don’t want you to tune away once they’ve got you. Very occasionally the end signal is missed altogether and you have to manually switch back.

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