b3ta.com qotw
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Question of the Week » DIY Techno-hacks » Post 506406 | Search
This is a question DIY Techno-hacks

Old hard drive platters make wonderfully good drinks coasters - they look dead smart and expensive and you've stopped people reading your old data into the bargain.

Have you taped all your remotes together, peep-show-style? Have you wired your doorbell to the toilet? What enterprising DIY have you done with technology?

Extra points for using sellotape rather than solder.

(, Thu 20 Aug 2009, 12:30)
Pages: Popular, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

« Go Back

Very little techno
but it's the best I've got, and I'm bored and haven't posted on QOTW for a while.

Imagine, if you will, a fresh-faced and innocent 17 year old Berk, with a driving license so new and clean it still has the squeak in it, pootling around in her pride and joy: a 998cc 1986 Mini Mayfair.
Driving back from college one evening, I was pulled over by the police and asked to step in to the back of their car. Shiny driving license is duly examined, stern questions asked about the car (which was in my mums name), and finally one of them growls out 'Do you know why we've stopped you?'
Now complete with evacuated bowels and trembling bottom lip, I stammer out 'N-no...It's just been taxed and MOT'd, I got it done when I passed my test last month. You've got my license and insurance, and I know I wasn't speeding...'
'Yeah, well. Your brake lights are too orange, so that'll be a £30 fixed penalty.'
Protests that my car passed it's MOT a mere six weeks ago and that there shouldn't be anything wrong with it fall on deaf ears; as do my pleas that if they give me a fine I won't be able to afford to have the work done. Sniffling, I am handed my paperwork and ejected from the police car with a reminder to pay up within 14 days.

Which I did. I fixed the car by getting some red plastic wallets - about 60p from Woolies - and cutting out two brakelight shaped pieces and sticking them to the car with heavy duty clear tape. They lasted another two years til some twat drove in to the back of me and I had to have the brakelight casings replaced.

As for technical things, I hate to conform to 'girls don't do computers' stereotype, but I follow a process similar to this:
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tech_support_cheat_sheet.png

I even usually get away with it, too...
(, Tue 25 Aug 2009, 10:25, 5 replies)
Wow
That sheet sums up my job to a T.
(, Tue 25 Aug 2009, 10:54, closed)
Sums up mine too.
Hence me sending it to all of my colleagues...
(, Tue 25 Aug 2009, 11:14, closed)
^^^ Group email

Just sent, came back to say thanks

I quite often use the letmegooglethatforyou link that featured in the newsletter a while back

lmgtfy.com/

I'm not a proper IT person just the only person in the office that doesn't have apoplexy if they accedentaly knock their mouse cable out. So I get all the dumb questions
(, Tue 25 Aug 2009, 14:51, closed)

How is it that as a loyal xkcd reader for a number of years now, I can count on one hand the number of people I know that are aware of it's existence or the number of times I've seen or heard it made reference to until now, whereupon pretty much every person I've met in the past couple of days has been brandishing that flow-chart?
(, Tue 25 Aug 2009, 22:53, closed)
No, I've been reading xkcd
for a while now - that and phdcomics. Procrastination ftw.
My favourite one is this:
xkcd.com/150/
(, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 9:30, closed)

« Go Back

Pages: Popular, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1