Posts by Stevie

Re: Why would you do this?

Yes, but what is cost when measured against user experience?

Re: Gerber Legend

Though I have to say, the Leatherman Wave (new iteration) and a set of skinny bits to fit the bit holder are more thunderingly useful than the Gerber tool, or any tool with a dedicated driver. The Allen Keys work spectacularly well, as does the Philips - the most positive and easy-to-use folding Philips driver I've ever had in my hands. Even the Torx bits work above expectations.

The only downsides to the Wave are the propensity to gift the user with a really good blood blister if the pliers slip when really giving whatever-it-is a damn good squeezing, the way the cutter jaws can bind up while cutting soft and thinner wire (a problem with all folding pliers because none of the ones I've seen lock in the "pliers deployed" configuration) and the scissors are not great for cutting lightweight paper.

former or current employee

My guess: DFE (Disgruntled Former Emloyee).

Re: personal hygiene shortcomings

Gah. At that same place we had a bloke who had a body odour problem of a scale necessitating a window that was *not* painted, nailed or welded shut in any room in which meetings including him were held. Yes, even in winter.

When the aforementioned network guy with the hammer and cold chisel called a meeting in the factory one time in late August, I discovered that George Smelly was going to be attending and that the room was a converted store-room sans windows or ventilation as we walked into the factory proper.

I expressed my dismay rather sharply and mouth-breathed for about an hour of entirely too close seating, which made my contributions rather nasal - I explained this as hay fever. Mr Brickbolster turned to me as we walked back to the office and quietly said "I see what you mean". No more meetings were deemed necessary, so a partial win I suppose.

George Smelly was, coincidentally, at the other end of the phone during that Bob Newheart-esque call I got every three weeks that I have mentioned before (possibly more than once; trawl through on-call or mi' comments to find) where the answer was always "switch your terminal on".

Bah!

Silly man, I think probably the most embarrassing pix were not going in the rag, they were going to get leaked to the twitteratti where they would do most harm with no legal come-back.

Bah!

Sez you. I happen to know one place where the 1974 Cobol compiler is in *heavy* daily use sans problems.

Your bug problem only occurs in modern release into the wild before it's fully baked deployment philosophy, where its effects are magnified by the twin miracles of late binding and dynamic linking at runtime.

In the old days stuff worked and if it didn't it was fixed by a swarm of people in suits.

Unless you foolishly bought IBM of course.

Re: All fine here

So you think, but that "Intelli-blind" system you installed so you could open and close 'em with your smartphone has been hacked and the windows themselves suborned by Chechnyan Evildoers.

All your lightbulb are belong to them too.

"... the likes of IBM, Google, Uber etc are truly useless at making AI do ANYTHING well ..."

No, I won't have that!

IBM's "Watson" has slowed the loading time of The Weather Channel's app to a crawl while at the same time adding nil to the positive user experience side of the equation.

Re: suggest improvement to DB

"Your problem was the old familar one ........ You thought something was obvious so did not mention it."

Tee hee. I've got one of those.

I once worked for a small bleeding edge firm with a contract to a large cruise line to write a ticketing system. It was not going well. I had just been hired and was rushed to the angry customer with a bunch of their younger, wiser programmer analysts to see what could be done to make them happy.

I was an Old Mainframe Guy. Customer rep was an Old Mainframe Guy. We locked eyes.

"Forgive me if I'm covering old ground, but I'm new here and need to fully understand the problem we are trying to solve" I said in my best humble voice. There were rolled eyes from the younger members of my own team but no reaction from the customer rep.

"Could you tell me, does the SS Saucy Sal always have the same number of staterooms?" I asked. My team groaned and rolled their eyes some more. The customer rep's mouth twitched and, after a suitable pause, he said "No".

You could have heard a pin drop. We were still eye-locked.

"I see. Could you explain how and under what conditions you change the number of staterooms on the SS Saucy Sal? Again I'm sorry if this has already been covered." The customer rep proceeded in a level tone to explain how and why this transformation would come to pass. We were still eye-locked (though blinking was allowed) but I could detect a palpable thaw in the customer rep's attitude re: contracted software "specialists" from Somewhere Not Here.

My own mob were trying not to do the Bonehead Gape Face.

"That's very interesting. Thank you. Now, when you say you ticket up until the last minute, could you tell me exactly what you mean and how you go about delivering that service?" A very revelatory explanation involving servers loaded on beer trolleys, long extension cords and fistfuls of cash and paperwork was delivered, demolishing the model my own team had laboriously constructed from assumptions and guess.

By the end of it the customer rep was smiling and we were on a much better footing with him and about 3/4 of the staff. (I had to impress someone else in their DBA department early one morning by demonstrating mad skillz on the fly before the other 1/4 came grudgingly around).

It took a couple more of these before my own team forgave me for being new and old at the same time, and mired in the mainframe world instead of flying high on a balloon made of PCs, Visual Basic and the Light of Jesus in Their Eyes.

Re: Header pic

Ever tried to smash a whisky bottle?

First you have to find somewhere on the plane hard enough to offer the promise of broken glass and sturdy enough not to offer the chance of broken aeroplane fixtures.

Then the bottle will need a few good whacks to break, which it will, usually uselessly short at the neck.

So now you have a very short Glasgow Pigsticker and the sky marshal* has had plenty of time to get into position for a decent shot.

If your whisky is of the hi-test variety, you might be better off using it to set fire to the seats as a distraction while you retrieve the knife you had an accomplice on the cleaning crew hide on the plane for you.

But your point about screwdrivers is well-taken.

* - Sky Marshals are like Space Force, but real.

Re: Not sure...

Saucer-shaped perry glasses.

Despite the damage done by that clod John Steed to the public perception, champers is properly drunk from a flute - the narrow mouthed tall glass that is vaguely tulip-shaped. Keeps it fzzy longer.

Those saucer-shaped things are for Babycham and it’s ilk, or were when I was having glass ettiquette thrashed into me by Mr ‘udson, the Butler.

Champaign is also an aperatif wine according to the French, but I reckon dentistry shouldn’t come into it at all.

Re:No Display Detected

Headless bootup message to remote network admin console?

I know for a fact that NT4 would not boot in its default outta the box configuration if you hadn't plugged in the keyboard and mouse.

Re: And Ken White has a pony ...

Linked source asks himself a question about "suing for RICO".

You don't sue or prosecute for RICO, you do that under the RICO statutes.

Yes it is overused. But here the "organized" bit would seem to be justified since the case concerns the activities of a gang acting in concert (or we could say "as an organization") to commit crimes requiring a high degree of coordination and pre-planning.

I've no sympathy for the gang members. Take 'em down under any and all laws that can be made to apply.

There does seem to be a lot of victim-blaming going on here. Lots of people saying "he did it wrong" but not offering up the "right" alternative they imply is lurking behind their posts.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes for a minute. Someone lifted 24 million dollars from your supposedly secure crypocash vault. Are you going to say "Fiddle de dee, tomorrow's another day" or are you going to grab a chainsaw, round up your hockey mask'n'chaps-wearing buddies and fire up the unfeasible dune buggies for a spot of takesie-backsies in a World Gone Mad?

Re: Seems legit 4 Waseem Alkurdi

Why do you have to *pay* for doing work?

It is the way of things.