the NHS (the UK's government health insurer)

I think you will find that is very far from the case. The NHS is funded out of general taxation. Whether or not that is the best way to do it in the current climate, that is certainly the way it is currently done.

M.

Agreed.

Terribly worded phrase. It's the National Health Service. The way it's written makes it sound like it is there to cater for government staff only.

I'm starting to think I need to find other places to find my IT news'n'stuff that still stick to their roots.

but where to go? The Inquirer? Wired? Ars? They've all fallen a few pegs in the past 10 years or so.

It's also a provider, not an insurer.

And yes, the UK's government is in poor health at the moment.

That was the first thing I also noticed about that article. Come on El Reg, at least get YOUR facts straight.

Oh - and bring back Dabbsy.

Heard a story of a film scanner in a TV broadcaster. Converts 35mm film (what's that) into TV pictures.

Lots of whirring machinery for finger, hair & clothing entrapment.

So the device has a microswitch on a bracket detecting whether the door was open, and powering off if so.

Bracket is made of bent mild steel, and has progresively bent backwards as people have shut the door, possibly a bit too enthusiastically.

When it came to starting the film for broadcast , it would not roll. Quick thinking operator kicks his foot against bottom off door, and microswitch decides it is safe to roll.

Operator has to hold his foot against the door for the whole of the reel, otherwise his error will be "seen" by millions (big name film, national holiday time, pre cable/FreeView).

I think we've probably all done the "half click" move, and most of us have probably done the move to see if the capacitors are good enough as well. I would dispute

the late 1990s, when computers were made of metal however; many "proper" computers of the day (that is, even if you ignore the likes of the ST and Amiga) had plastic or glass-fibre cases. Personally I had a RiscPC (after an Archimedes which actually was (mostly) metal), and many of the Macs of that era were also plastic. Didn't seem to make them much lighter!

A similar thing which happened to me was at a funeral of a young child at our church. As you can imagine, the place was packed out with friends, relatives, teachers and the like and muggins here on PA... with a desk which had an external power brick, connected via a stupid multi-pin connector (it was a Soundcraft) which was beginning to have problems. I spent the whole hour with my hand around the back of that desk, because every time I let go of the connector the power would disappear.

Worked fine up until the end of the service, but I'd been asked to help carry the coffin, so the last few minutes were silent. Seemed appropriate somehow.

M.

I was building PCs for a large UK OEM in the early 2000's and our PCs still had metal cases

Only reading this, the pain kept creeping back into my index finger - a numb finger from feeling a button that seems to be pushing back with increasing strength, And slowly losing the sense of how much of a push is really needed to keep the button pressed....

Yes, been there, pushed that, and simultaneously heard «DON'T!!!» It wasn't the NHS though, only some local server for the CAD. What I cannot remember though is whether is was a colleague or my own brain who shouted the «don't».

I did the same it was the main file server for the building and was a compaq unit on wheels,

Had to pull it out for some reason and pressed the button, the springs on those power switches get stronger the longer you hold them….

Had the same problem at a major investment bank in 1993. First contract job at 21 years old, IT break/fix for dealer positions and supporting infrastructure. In one of the many distributed IT rooms throughout the building with networking and server kit, I had been sent to powercycle a Novell server. There were two with pretty much identical names next to each other. I read the label too quickly and had already pressed the button in when I realised it was the wrong one. Cue me, scrabbling to hold the button in and reach the phone with my foot to call someone to get the server shutdown before my finger gave out. We managed it and the server was shutdown remotely so I could release the button. Brought it back up, luckily no impact. Then on to fix the one I'd originally been sent to work on.

Regarding the rapid toggling of the power switch...

For a while I ran an HP Proliant DL385 2U server as a desktop machine in my office, fed from raw mains. No UPS or anything like that. Our house gets occasional power cuts, usually only for a second or so at a time. I noticed that the server was always absolutely the last machine to turn off due to a power cut. A blip in power that would reset every other device in the house, from the microwave to other desktops, that machine would just ride out. I can well believe that an older server with a hard-power button would run right over a quick toggle.

Older kit would have been over-specced to ensure it ran OK. With experience and cost saving measures, the capacitors were trimmed down to the bare minimum to make them work, so I doubt a similar "click-clack" recovery would work on a modern system. I know I've done the double click to save powering off at the wrong time (only on my desktop, not a server) so know it was possible.

There but for the grace of goes I.

(originally spelt diety , but realised that I am not praying to loose weight)

Thank you for consulting $deity network. Your prayers are very important to us.

We have evaluated your typo and come to the conclusion that $diety may be appropriate. You are advised to limit your intake accordingly. Thank you again for consulting $deity network.

It's ok, the articles no longer care about correct spelling so the comments shouldn't need to either.

I imagined Jerry from Disenchantment while reading that, which only make it the more enjoyable.

15 minutes? Surely 23.67 mTruss is the correct version according to current standards.

I had a customer who ran an early version Microsoft’s Small Business Server on a 486 desktop PC (I know. The boss preferred to spend the business’s money on his leased top of the range V8 Ute instead of the Server which was responsible for all of their income). It had a "Turbo" button to increase/reduce the clock speed. I sat down next to it to promote a user to a higher SQL Server group in our software, and noticed that the Turbo light showed the slow speed. I reached down to change it, and in the next ohno-second, managed not to release it when I realized that I had pressed the nearly identical Power button next to it. Fortunately all of the 12 or so users were within shouting range, so I asked them to save their work and log off. I managed to use the keyboard with the other hand to shut the Server down.

After restarting everything, and apologising, I went to my favourite coffee shop down the street and had 2 large flat whites and 2 chocolate Bouchees before I felt strong enough to go back and carry on.

Not exactly the same situation, but once had to spend close to an hour holding a damaged USB memory stick in exactly the right position while I copied all the data off.

Needless to say, the person I did this for showered me with prasie and gifts for rescuing their un-backed up work. Not.

Jerry was never Tom's able bodied assistant... He may have double crossed him a few times, but never was he the assistant for long...

The National Health Service is the state health care provider for UK citizens, it ids funded from general taxation but is under huge pressures, the far right have suggested that the only way to rescue the NHS is to move to an insurance based service as in the USA. As a very well paid but self employed IT consultant, that would probably bankrupt myself and many others. My wife has a lifelong health condition requiring regular blood tests a raft of drugs and annual consultations with one of the world wide experts in the condition. A recent hospital stay of my own would have cost us tens of thousands of pounds, I'm still awaiting the results of the tests taken during a post stay diagnostic visit and, whilst i have worries about my long term health, I have no worries about the cost of future treatment as there will be no cost (other than parking charges at the hospital).

It is essential that reporting on the NHS reflects it's true status and it is completely unacceptable to describe it in US terms as this is normalising the idea that such a change to its status would be acceptable. Please correct the working in the article to reflect the true position.

"the far right have suggested that the only way to rescue the NHS is to move to an insurance based service as in the USA"

This is an alt-right lie. Clever of you to claim it's the far right who say what in fact every sensible person does, and then twist it a bit.

In fact, everyone who knows anything about it agrees we should move to an insurance based service as in Scandinavia, Europe, and so-on.

"the far right"

Sigh....

Just because the NHS works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone. My local GP surgery (and remember they are private businesses funded by the govt) is still not taking appointments for anything non-emergency and even then if you are able to get yourself to A&E you won't get an appointment. It is an utter shambles.

France and Germany have health insurance based systems and they seem to work out better than the mess we have here. I don't know where you get the notion about going to a US system but your use of certain phrases gives me a hint.