Posts by Anonymous Custard

Re: Not only two signs...

Oddly enough, the copious addition of duct/gaffer tape to such a situation was my first thought as well.

And failing that, attach it copiously to the iPad (ideally sticking it somewhere unreachable), and if possible also to the idiot owner.

It really is the universal fix-it for anything...

Re: Alternative Lesson: "Never turn anything off if..."

I think in our organisation, that's probably me. Although I prefer the (borrowed) title of Roving Agent of Chaos.

I'm not sure if the organsation actually realises this though... ;-)

Re: Alternative Lesson: "Never turn anything off if..."

It's the old "birds in a tree" image (example).

Whenever management look down, all they see is (their own) shit...

Whenever workers look up, all they see is (management) arseholes...

Ample proof if needed that manuals and procedures have the same survival chance as battle-plans in such scenarios of contact with the enemy (or indeed friendly fire)?

Re: Alternative Lesson: "Never turn anything off if..."

And more often the zero'th step - work out exactly what legacy kit you really have, and where the **** it's been hidden.

Having brought up servers A, B and C, only to find out that they are relying on mysterious servers AA and AAA for various services and data feeds and that no-one knows anything about as they've been quietly humming away in the back of a cupboard/under a desk/behind a partition wall/in some dusty basement for years without anyone actually being aware of them.

And of course by the laws of sod, those are the ones that are the key foundation for everything and haven't been touched for years and so get mugged by the dust bunnies that have built up inside their cases, or when their fans/PSU's just screech to a halt or emit the magic smoke...

Re: "the feature will shut them down when it's safe to do so without losing data"

why did they feel they even need to say that?

Because they like sharing joy, or at least making people laugh out loud, as much as anyone else?

Re: "a process that Lieberman said takes about four seconds"

Yes, Microsoft minutes always have been the temporal equivalent of the rubber ruler for measuring length...

M as x1000000 rather, not x1000

That'll teach me for typing it on my phone and missing the 10 minute editing time-out.

Is it time for these yet? ------>

Re: Milky bars are on that guy over there.

When the world grew small enough that you could hear Swedish, Swiss and Czech accents from here...?

Be careful - you're comparing units and multipliers there.

Kelvin is a unit, but kilo is a multiplier (1000x).

In SI units, 1000K could be written as 1kK for example - although I admit that does look weird.

"Kilo" in common parlance is shorthand for kilogram (as in "a kilo of spuds" for example) - kilo is the multiplier but gram is the unit.

k is something of an oddity overall though, as it doesn't have a fractional equivalent (such as m being x1/1000th and M being x1000 for example) to require the case distinction.

Indeed, although around here it's usually said as planning rather than preparation.

I have even taken to referring to a "spot of PPP" at home, for the piss-poor performance (or sometimes planning if it's something that hasn't been thought through properly) part of it.

And my better half has also taken it up as an occasional exasperated mantra when things go wrong.

Re: Intelligence?

The problem is in Intel it's almost become a language all of its own.

Reading Simon's article was just like reading a transcript of far too many meetings I've been in with them over the years. The only difference is Simon is quite funny with it...

I need a few of these now to clear the mental palette of that thought ----->

Re: When M doesn't mean what you think it means

Yes, but what have the Romans ever done for us?

Re: Pedantic description alert!

My favourite acronyms are SNAFU and FUBAR. Both have military origins...

You can tell, as they both include the F.

A sure sign that the origin is either military or a high school playground these days.

Re: Where is my beloved "SFTW" chronicle?

From what I gathered, there was a parting of the ways a month or so ago.

But you can still get your fix at his site - https://autosaveisforwimps.substack.com/

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments though, the weekend preparation isn't the same without our fix of something for it.

Bring him back!

Re: Scaling laws work both ways

The wafers also cost more as they're more difficult to manufacture, and need more material (they have to be thicker as well as wider, to support their own weight without bowing). That thickness can become a problem, especially if it's a product where most of it has to be removed for rear access (e.g. image sensors).

The increased weight becomes an issue for mechanical handling of the wafers, plus physically limits how many can be processed in one batch (unless you're talking single wafer tools, but even then there are limits) by what the robotics can lift. Also if they need to be spun for various reasons, their weight limits the maximum speed (spin too fast and they will rip themselves apart quite spectacularly).

Fundamentally though, especially for some of the less cutting edge but still large-market applications (power devices or MEMs/sensors for examples), a lot of fabs are only recently beginning to move from 6" to 8", or from there towards 300mm (12"). 8" is something of a sweet spot for them, and in many cases the move to 12" is at least partly due to tool vendors focussing more on that size simply due to market forces from the big boys, so development on 8" toolsets can be limited.

I recall a lot of the discussions back then when all this was proposed, and how much investment and risk was involved (and who was to take the hit on both, and who was trying to offload it onto others). It wasn't a huge surprise when it all went quiet...

As background, I work for one of aforesaid tool vendors.

Re: Windows System Sounds - office hell!

Not to mention certain colleagues who seem to spend a quarter of their lives on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and suchlike, and thus most of the other three quarters are spent with their phones binging, chirping and making other irritating noises when they get replies or posts...

I have a colleague who is so bad for that, her phone has come close to becoming projectile more than once, and on occasions even she gets irritated by them.

Re: Everyone's at it

On the rare occasion when I've caught it, it seems to be the collision avoidance alert, which is the very last thing that should be distracting me at a crucial moment, and often turns out to be incorrect anyway as anyone older than about three can see that there's no way I'm going to run into that hedge, and even if I did it'd hardly tickle the wing mirror.

You are Homer Simpson, and I claim my fi... Mind that chestnut tree!

That probably being the fine line between safety and profit...

Re: Does your neighbour have kids?

To be fair, the volume of the average 3 year old who discovers that the batteries in his favourite toy are too low for him to play with it would probably easily drown out even such loud bleeps and warnings.

Speaking from experience as a parent...

Re: Physical media

Annoyingly, if you want to sell old CDs, you'll probably get about 1p each for them, but if you want to buy that one, specific album from 1993, then the odds are it's going to set you back £25...

The trick is to be the one who buys for the former and resells for the latter...

Re: Before computers we used to make stuff that worked

Ah yes, dear old hire-purchase (aka "the tick" or "the never-never"), where you rented it long enough that you then owned it after the given period of time.

Said period of time of course being slightly less (by a matter of nanoseconds) than it took for it was either become redundant, broken or in such a general state of repair that the vendor wouldn't want it back anyway.

Re: You know you're old when...

Personally I never really got past the concept of wanting stale 12-hour old water boiling (and spitting, steaming and generally making a racket if I remember the one my parents briefly owned) in close proximity to your sleeping head every morning...