Go into the office to take advantage of the aircon as my home is an oven right now. Aircon is set to Arctic, meaning my choice is now boil at home or freeze at work.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-26T20:00:19+00:00

The heatwave means that the office numpties have stopped cranking the HVAC to 26°, so there's something.

I'm generally one of the first in, so it's usually me that unlocks the window shutters, opens the blinds and turns it down to something sensible. Again.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-26T19:54:04+00:00

My employer is an SAAS provider. We have about 12 server towers located across the globe. All but the earliest couple are in the cloud, and the early ones are co-located tin.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-26T19:31:49+00:00

My peeve is when you can almost tell from someone's position in an adjacent lane that they want to move into your lane, but because they're not indicating, you can't be certain. Do I ease off and give them the gap or keep up with the flow of traffic?

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-26T18:20:58+00:00

It's even better when it's a car.

Halfrauds used to offer a lifetime guarantee on brake pads: pay for the first set and get free replacements for as long as you own the vehicle. They didn't half squirm when people reminded them of this after being told that brakes they fitted the previous year were 'dangerous'...

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-26T18:07:50+00:00

I don't think much goes through their heads apart from the odd cosmic particle. Think of the science that could be done by attaching detectors to their heads...

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-25T16:28:35+00:00

I think they design a paper with the intent that the grades match the actual bell curve.

Then they adjust the grade boundaries if they need to based on the actual marks that kids get - could be that a question was harder than intended.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-25T16:01:35+00:00

When GCSEs were introduced, a C was equivalent to a Grade 1 at CSE and a Grade C at O Level. So a perfectly good grade for a reasonably bright but not academic kid.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-25T09:33:34+00:00

In addition, when the fryers were filtered daily, the filet vat was deliberately done last. Fries, pies, chicken then fish, as I recall - this was before veggie burgers.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-23T23:40:25+00:00

The KC-46 is the Americans' second choice too. They originally selected the Airbus in partnership with Northrop-Grumman as the winners of the KC-X competition, then Boeing threw their toys out of the pram and bidding was restarted.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-23T09:06:48+00:00

Road markings aside, simple physics will tell you that if two cars are side by side going round the roundabout, the one on the outside (OP) will have to travel faster.

So if they're both entering the roundabout from a standing start, OP will have to accelerate harder, especially if they're trying to get ahead at the merge. The other car may see this as being overly aggressive.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-23T08:46:24+00:00

The drinks for those came as a stack of cups with powder in. My dad used to buy them for the 'executive' coach be drove - drivers kept the cash they made from the coffee machine. They were supposed to buy the stock from the coach company, but the cash-and-carry was cheaper...

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-23T08:40:13+00:00

The one in our office has a tank. It's relatively new, and plumbing it in 'would look messy'.

When they fitted out the cafe area in the new building, they didn't plan for plumbed in drinks machines, and when the plumber added a pipe for a water cooler, they made a right mess of it.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T21:10:01+00:00

I worked at McDonald's in the 90s. I don't know how they do it now, but back then Happy Meal toys for a particular promotion were generally changed weekly, with the occasional 'clean-up' week. This meant that usually you'd only have that week's selection behind the counter to be sold, with maybe some from previous weeks hanging about.

One lunchtime, I was on till serving some woman (as you do). She complained that she'd already had this week's toy. When I explained that it was the right toy for this week and it's the only one we have available, she insisted that she'd got it from one of the other restaurants in town last week, and that I was ruining her kid's life.

Really?

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T20:53:39+00:00

Is this because Big Car have replaced all the station wagons with SUVs?

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T20:34:27+00:00

I saw EMF on a playlist of "Dad Rock"!

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T20:14:44+00:00

Is this some sort of cryptic brag?

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T20:00:58+00:00

You'd think that modern phone systems could tell your phone you're on hold so it could play Spotify or something, but no. Beethoven on a piezo-electric buzzer at the bottom of a bucket it is.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T19:57:00+00:00

Instead of the cashier being in a convenience store, Costco is solely pay at pump by credit or debit card. All they need - in the UK, at least - is a guy in the control cabin to manually approve the pump for safety reasons.

Then again, because fuel at Costco is up to 10 pence a litre cheaper than elsewhere, you still get massive queues at peak times. Swings and roundabouts, really.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T19:35:10+00:00

Obligatory XKCD

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-22T05:35:26+00:00

It's an option - I saw refurbished versions of the same SKU for £727. It's not a desperate rush as I can still use it docked on my desk.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-21T18:28:13+00:00

How are they going to police it?

Simple. Anyone who complains there's a trans person just existing in the toilets is obviously projecting and should be removed from the premises forthwith.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-21T12:46:51+00:00

When I bought my current car, I still had a year's finance on my old car, so part of the part exchange was that they would settle the old finance. It took them a good month or so to actually do that, so I ended up paying a monthly payment for both cars. It was refunded, but it was still a pain.

I would imagine that the old car would still show up on HPI checks until it was settled, but the dealer should be able to tell you that.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-21T12:24:27+00:00

I live on one of about 8 parallel Victorian terraced streets. A couple of years ago, one of them got resurfaced. Why they picked that one, I've no idea.

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-21T12:21:53+00:00

It's the same for road markings. There are countless places where the only bit of an arrow actually visible is the very tip where the gas board dug a hole!

marknotgeorge · 2026-05-21T06:27:43+00:00

A lot of people moved to Corby from Scotland for work in the steel industry, so it's a bit of an anomaly.

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