Paul's inane ramblings

IHD3-PPMID

Posted on 17/07/2020 by snee

OK, so I was sold on the idea of a smart meter by my energy company. Truth be told, I was fed up with having to constantly submit meter readings and my inner geek liked the idea of n in home display (IHD) showing current and historical usage. So, the installer was booked, turned up, and installed the gas and electric meters while maintaining social distancing, showed me the IHD and apologised there wasn’t a manual (manual? ha! I SPIT at manuals…), and left. About 3 hours later I noticed the display wasn’t showing the electricity reading So I did […]

Chasing unicorns down a tunnel

Posted on 24/07/2019 by snee

At work we had some resilience awareness training yesterday which lasted 2 hours and was actually more interesting than it sounds. However, all we seem to have taken from this is to say “Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.” and the phrase “It’s like chasing unicorns down a tunnel.” The unicorns one was so memorable that we decided to use that – I can proudly announce I am the winner of the inaugural ‘Unicorn Champion’ challenge having squeezed that into 2 phone calls, several emails, and countless conversations around the office.

Pwned?

Posted on 01/07/2019 by snee

The other week we had an ‘Information Security Awareness’ week at work – the Polish Cyber-security team were over and spent the week doing workshops and hosting sessions for the whole site – all very interesting stuff, and the live hacking demos were quote frightening with how easy it is to breach the security of a global corporation in minutes (literally). Then, the other day I got an email from a friend (hey Bu’er! 🙂 ) which in turn made me think “I’ve not blogged in a while…”, so imagine my surprise when I found my blog database had been […]

A blog post…from me?

Posted on 10/04/2018 by snee

Been a LONG time, but here it is – a new post 🙂 After dinner we were sitting at the table just chatting about the day and Lisa mentioned the amount of overtime I’m doing at the moment. “I know” said Kira, and looked at me, “YOU’RE the reason I wake up in the morning!” Of course, I took it the right way and said “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me.” Do you know just how much a 16 year old can glare? 🙂

A pox on the gambling revolution

Posted on 14/02/2017 by snee

Friday afternoon at work, 3 of us decided (I talked the others into it) to have a bet on the football: Hull to beat Arsenal Spurs to beat Liverpool Burnley to beat Chelsea We all put in £2 each, and with the treble, stood to get £1500 back if all results came in…sadly, none of them did. We laughed and put it down to experience – £2 each was no big deal, we could afford to take the loss. A key point here though, was I had to go into the bookies to place the bet – I refuse to […]

Home media system

Posted on 30/12/2016 by snee

I previously mentioned how the household now relies on content streamed from the office (aka: Paul’s Pit) to WDTV Live SMP players around the house. Nowadays, we have a number of Android TV boxes running the Kodi media centre. This gives us more options when watching TV/Movies – we can stream from the NAS drives, or stream over the internet. The one thing I’ve so far failed to accomplish with Kodi is to have a centrally accessible library whereby I can start watching a show on one box, and continue from the point I left off on another – this bothers […]

The UK’s draconian internet law

Posted on 28/12/2016 by snee

As we approach the end of 2016, there are mixed views – so many celebrity deaths this year, but more importantly, the passing of the ‘Investigatory Powers Act 2016’ here in the UK means the death of freedom on the internet: Broadband ISPs and mobile operators will tonight offer a collective sigh after the Investigatory Powers Bill effectively achieved Royal Asset to become an Act. The new law will force providers into logging a big slice of your Internet activity, irrespective of whether or not you’re even suspected of a crime. At present ISPs need to see a warrant before […]

HTC – the end of their fuckwittery

Posted on 13/07/201614/07/2016 by snee

So, since my last post regarding HTC’s total lack of respect for their paying customers, there has been some movement. The HTC representative (and apparent resident expert) Ian had touched upon me getting my phone back unrepaired with no charges being made – my response was that I wanted this in writing from HTC before I said yes or no. Imagine my (total lack of) surprise on getting an email on 30th June at 16:55: Dear Paul Bennett Device HTC One M9, Serial No. ************, is now awaiting shipment in our warehouse and should be returned to you within a […]