Donkey's years back as a student, I was visiting a friend who complained that her cassette tapes seemed to degrade. One glance at her stereo set-up showed she was storing her collection on top of one of the speakers. Not the best place. When I suggested that the proximity to the speaker could be the cause of the trouble, she moved the tapes, and put them on top of her (classic, CRT-based) TV, which I suggested was also sub-optimal. She was certainly smart enough to understand my explanation involving magnetic fields, and found a safe spot for her cassette tape collection on a bookshelf.

"Fixed" by turning it so the "tail" came out the back, not the front.

- Picks up mouse.

- Holds mouse close to mouth.

- Speaks clearly and loudly: "Computer! Oh, computer!"

[If you know, you know.]

How quaint.

Just use the keyboard.

Been there, done that. The user's cheeks turned a fetching shade of scarlet

I ended up with an anglepoise type lamp for the computer desk I had when I was growing up - if I closed the curtains when it was sunny an additional light source was useful.

I don't recall it causing a problem with TVs or monitors, but I didn't use the lamp all that much either - even with a single coil 40W bulb in it the metal shade got very hot. I expect a modern bulb would be better suited.

It still exists. As does its bulb ... which I did just go look at to check its rating.

I still have the Anglepoise lamp I bought when a student back around 1972. It's now fitted with a 7W LED and used if I'm at my desk at night (when there's no natural light coming in the skylight right above the desk). The LED is noticeably lighter (weight-wise - luminary-wise, it's about the same) than the tungsten filament version the lamp had been designed for, so I've had to add a small mass* behind the shade to maintain the counterbalance for the springs.

*One of those reflective bands that snap around the wrist - it was to hand, not needed elsewhere, and does the job without fuss.

I've had to add rubber bands to augment the springs for the heavier LED lamp.

I had a call once which , had the servicedesk relayed the problem in any sort of useful way could have been solved in record time with a phone call simply saying "remove the floppy disk from the machine" . As it was it it took a 15 minute walk to another site to get to the machine and appraise the situation.

They managed did a masterful job of interpreting the users dilemma and gathering the symptoms to aid support guys diagnosis and logged what should have been "machine wont boot , screen says no command.com on A"

as

"User cannot get their email"

I was once woken at an ungodly hour because there was hardly any data coming in from the motorway ANPR cameras.

I spent an hour or so checking all the IT systems, rebooting things and couldn't find the cause of the issue.

Futher conversations after that, I found out there was heavy snow across the region.

The cameras couldn't see any cars because they were covered in snow.

Back to bed I go.

(I think these days they have little wipers and/or better covers!)

Many years ago, people were called out of bed in the middle of the night as no stats were being received from Europe's biggest on-shore windfarm. After lengthy diagnosis from various parties, the root cause was determined:

There are no readings as there is no wind to generate electricity.

The best are when you arrived at said persons desk, they went to demonstrate the issue and it just worked.

Time take 0 seconds

That said, you then got the late Friday afternoon call that on paper and in your head say 5 mins tops. late Friday night and you are still battling away, cursing and thinking "When will I ever learn, the quick 5 mins jobbies at the end of the day are anything but..."

I've seen those described as Crackerjack issues: "It's Friday, it's 5 to to 5...". Part of the reason we don't do deployments on a Friday.

There was a TV program about the Forestry Commission in Scotland, one of the guys said you can guarantee you'll get the quad (bike) stuck on a Friday afternoon when there's no one else around to help.

Simple jobs on paper are sometimes the most challenging in reality.

I don't believe that the coiled filament of an incandescent bulb would produce enough magnetic field to affect a CRT monitor that way. Look at the wire gauge and number of turns a degaussing coil needed. If the story is not BS, as are a lot of 'tech anecdotes' I suggest perhaps the lamp arms and base were made of steel that had somehow become magnetised, or as with one such lamp I had, the base was weighty because it had a 240 volt to 12 volt transformer, and the lamp head had 12 volt bulbs, with a base the same as older car side light bulbs. But I'm still doubtful. PS - I just took a magnetic compass to a lit filament desk lamp. No deflection.

Was anyone else expecting something BOFH-like with that name?