Re: Want
Yep, me too
133 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2008
There, indeed, are - I worked for one.
I am pretty sure their two main cluster incarnations have been since 1990 (I recall rewriting some ancient C++ code that run there where the previous edit had been done in 1992 and this was five years ago).
They also did a full data centre move, mainframes and all, in a weekend which was pretty bloody impressive.
OpenVMS really is spectacularly resilient, the only downside (apart from debugging which was hideously slow) was the boxes puny network cards.
That reminds me.
Years and years ago my department's intranet web server lived in the same office as the network manager (next to mine) as there was nowhere else to put it and it had a dinky UPS to keep it alive just in case.
However, when the time came, and some Thames Water workers accidentally cut the power cable for our building.
1. Everything goes dark with just the sounds of dying fans piercing the silence.
2. There is a loud explosion
3. The slightly singed Network Manager stumbles, coughing, out of his office in the midst of a cloud of smoke.
4. Smoke alarms go ape (thanks to PP3 batteries)
I have been wary of UPSs ever since
Many years ago the company I worked for was merged into our parent and, as a result, we moved into the parent company's office building.
The whole move was organised by the MD including a nice little goldfish bowl for said MD.
Rather callously the MD's prize for the smooth office move was getting fired on the Monday morning directly after the weekend of the move itself.
I arrived on the office on Tuesday morning to find crime scene tape all over the ex-MD's office complete with chalk dead body outline and oodles a fake blood.
We never did find out who was responsible...
I am with you on that, the BBC is too important to leave to (quoting Robin Day) "here today, gone tomorrow" politicians.
The charter renewal should be the responsibility of a non partisan body and this should lead it to be less open to party political abuse.
Also the license fee is becoming increasingly anachronistic (even if it is a simple and cheap way of collecting revenue). I think it should paid from general taxation BUT there should be legislation to protect it from the grasp of the Treasury.
The idea that it should not attempt mass appeal TV is ludicrous and a pretty transparent ruse to make the BBC a lesser broadcaster therefore easier to take to pieces politically (having said that - The Voice is still shite).
Had this last year when they tried to convince me that they had to install a smart meter for safety reasons. I said fine but can i have a dumb meter instead if safety was their concern. They said of course and, 18 month on, have heard nothing more from them on the subject.
I just cannot fathom how fitting a smart meter will magically reduce bills by 2% (unless they fit external insulation for free as part of the service).
It happens quite a lot to me (use it for javascript debugging and css work) and have learnt to live with it as the dev tools are good. Two things are really irritating though.
1. It appears to be impossible to clear the file cache - clearing the cache manually rarely works entirely and the options to stop caching while the dev tools are open is flaky too. Incognito also caches files. This is bloody annoying if you are debugging js includes and Chrome is keeping hold of stale files.
2. Whoever thought "Aw Snap!" was amusing needs a knee in the nads.
... IDS doesn't do trivial things like deadlines and project plans. He was on Radio 4 earlier on this week reiterating this very point. Apparently deadlines would represent an existential risk to the project as they are invariably unrealistic and compromise delivery (i.e. they will always be missed).
Rubbish
EE and Vodafone need no outside help when it comes to brand reputation and Phones4u were certainly no worse.
That phones4u did do, however, was offer a variety of handsets that the networks sometimes didn't carry themselves and (from my experience) undercut the carriers using a like for like comparison thus breaking the carrier cartel.
Consumers will be poorer as this is another supply route cut off.
That was Starbucks best wheeze.
When buying all their UK coffee beans from that famous coffee growing country Switzerland wasn't enough the UK arm gets charged a whopping sum for using the Starbucks name. Hey Presto! Profit turns to loss.
Quite how that got past the transfer pricing rules is a mite baffling.
As an ex HTC One user i absolutely concur.
Looks fantastic, great screen and toys.
But...
...terrible call quaility (drop outs and random voice volume), iffy connection, almost impossible to hold (too slim and slippery and frankly blummin uncomfortable). If anyone has worked out a way of putting it down without dropping the thing I'd like to know how.
Still, it is very shiny - Mmmmmm.
Got one of these little beauties too for a princely £220.
Excellent keyboard, plays HD video, battery lasts for yonks and surprisingly good speakers.
With a clean WIndows 7 64 bit install (thanks to work) and 4 gig of RAM it doesn't run all that shabblily either.
Am going to miss it when it goes bang.