Insert smutty joke here...
Given the age of the patent, that comes from the era of 3.5" floppies - 'nuff said !
(Coat, because El Reg doesn't have a "We've wounded people for better jokes than that" icon)
1153 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2009
I used to live near site on my last job - like two or three minutes walk to work.
This was normally a very peaceful, sleepy little rural town, the sort of place you can drive through and miss it if you blink, but one night the high street turned into a riot zone...
One of the local "ASBO families" (getting your first one was a rite of passage for this lot) were celebrating a wedding, and the reception spilled out on to the town's main road.
At the same time, a server died on site, and I decided to wander down to campus to sort it out - I could have done it remotely but I had to pop out anyway to get some milk.
As I opened my front door, a bar stool shot across my line of sight - had I stepped out a second or two earlier, it would have hit me at head-height.
I could hear screaming, shouting, alarms, sirens, and breaking of glass. Okay, I'll nip out the back door and take a different route.
Returning a few minutes later, I saw various family members being bundled into police vans - they had to call in cops from other nearby towns to assist with this mini-riot, and there was broken pub furniture everywhere in the street.
Bride and groom spent the first night of their honeymoon in the cells at different police stations, from what I could gather.
"I admit I got a kick out of telling The Doctor how to resolve his technical difficulties."
I got him to do me a new answer phone message last year - a little perk for backing a play he was in at the Edinburgh Fringe.
He's there again in the same show this year, alongside Robert "EMH" Picardo.
Yes, there is a "Doctor, Doctor" joke in there, and McCoy plays the spoons. Picardo bounces round the (minimal) set like a five-year-old that's had way too many fizzy drinks just before bedtime.
"Never underestimate the power of CHRIS especially if he owns an impressive selection of hammers."
This Chris was given a baseball bat as a leaving present from his last job. "We heard you've got more clients in the new job, so we thought this might come in handy - you'll have to add your own razor blades and rusty nails though !"
I have even used it in anger on one occasion - nobody was injured but it made a hell of a racket when I smashed it against a table to break up a fight in my office. Peacekeeping Through Superior Firepower, you could say.
...but a cautionary tale surrounding fixed-term contracts.
It you have two employees approaching the end of such contracts and you only have funding to extend one contract, make sure you remember to complete the paperwork for the one you want to keep...
Early on in my career, I found myself in that situation - I had hit the top of my pay scale and the post would have to be re-graded to keep me on, the other person was one point off the top of the scale so they just could extend her contract for a year. Simple financial decision, bye Chris.
I found myself another gig and moved on, but about a month later $EX_EMPLOYER rings up asking for help. Seems that they had forgotten to do the paperwork for the other person, and she found another job during her notice period.
Apparently she had cleared her desk on her final day, and walked out as though nothing was wrong. They only realised what had happened when she phoned in the following Monday morning to say that she wouldn't be in work that day - or ever again - because she had a new job.
Did I mention that this was a three-person team before I departed, and (my now former) boss was on holiday at the time ?
Those sound like Micropolis disks. No need for a space heater in winter when you've got a couple of those in your workstation.
That, or Quantum Fireballs. The most aptly-named disks I ever used because they always felt like they were going to spontaneously burst into flame after a few hours use.
Icon, because toasty disks - AIIIIEEE !!! hot hot HOT HOT HOT !!!
"It took about three hours and I still the guy is a legend."
What you had there was an "old school" engineer who actually understands how telephones work, rather than an "appeasement" engineer who just plugs in a JDSU (the little machine that goes "ping!"), can't find a fault and reports the line as "right when tested".
This happened to me three years ago, when my line got dumped into a "hot" VLAN after an exchange upgrade, and peak speed/latency went down the toilet in the evenings. BT sent out multiple SFI engineers, including some poor sods who didn't even know WHY they had been sent out ("Have you got a problem with your line, mate ?")
Fortunately, I'm with AAISP, and they gave BT a jolly good kicking (as is usual for them). They took it up to High Level Escalation and eventually got it fixed.
Even the MD got involved with that one
Yes, they're bloody expensive, but if something breaks, it gets fixed. Or BT/TT get another kicking.
One thing is certain, those researchers won't be getting an "ology" for that bill,
"Why I did this, I cannot say, especially given my poor experience of Google Maps' walking routes in the past"
Preach it !
They've told me to walk directly over a busy roundabout and play Frogger with six lanes of live traffic before now, and they've even suggested dodgy walking routes through several towns in what looks like a deliberate attempt to get me mugged.
I'm still waiting for them to plot me a walking route that requires scuba gear and a wetsuit.
"That's why true entrepreneurs show up unexpected and look at how things really work."
Anyone who declares themselves to be an "entrepreneur", "thought leader" or "visionary" is not the real deal. If you have to claim a title, you are usually not worthy of it.
Ah yes, but would an IoT-enabled brick cope with this abuse ?
How long before someone starts talking about PDP-11's and yelling "Get off my lawn, young whipper-snappers" ?
I don't even want to think what 80-year-old SCADA code might look like.
"I'm wondering where they are on the list now, could they combine them all and get to the top again"
Not a chance. Unless you continually upgrade your kit, you'll tumble down and out of the TOP 500 chart pretty quickly - it's not unusual for a machine to debut in a double-figure position, but be outperformed by the 500th-and-last machine on the list within two years.
A previous employer had a very large plasma TV taken from their board room.
Two blokes fooled the Bursar into helping them dismount it, and to help them put it in the back of their unmarked white transit van.
He even waved them off as they drove away at speed, never to be seen again...
...and PTP will be there to break them !`
I was at a conference the other week where PTP were presenting, and their guy broke out the Svakom Siime Eye as the last victim of the talk.
"Accompanied by the usual 'This will take a few moments. Do not switch off your computer' message."
Ah, Microsoft Time. A random number raised by a random number to the power of another random number, updated on an irregular basis... Three minutes to go, two, one, 30 seconds, 10 hours, pack a torch and a sweater because the sun will go out first, done !
Imagine a Doctor Who episode that referred to Microsoft Time. The Earth is surrounded by a Dalek invasion fleet, and as usual the bad guys announce their intentions in advance...
AT-TEN-TION, HU-MANS ! WE WILL DESTROY YOUR PLANET IN THREE OF YOUR MICROSOFT MINUTES !
Three days later, they'd scuttle off, muttering BUGGER THIS, AT LEAST THE CYBERMEN HAVE INTERNAL CLOCKS THAT KEEP REGULAR TIME !
(Well, how else would you keep a hive-mind synchronised ?)
I once went on a trip to the Kelvingrove Museum, and for some reason the coach driver took us through Govanhill.
At traffic lights, a bunch of kids started smiling and waving. Instincively, other passengers smiled and waved back, but something triggered the "what's wrong with this picture ?" part of my brain and I turned to the guy sat next to me...
Me: Do you see what I see ?
Him: Yeah. Piles of stones at their feet.
Me: Big, heavy, sharp ones too. You thinking what I'm thinking ?
Him: Smile and wave, but get ready to duck if they stop ?
Me: Pretty much.
Icon, because possibility of flying glass.
P.S.
No windows were harmed in the telling of this story
Starting at my previous job, I had to stay on late to fix a major network problem, and had closed the student labs earlier than usual.
My PC started to have a bit of a smoke, so I decided to move it outside before things got any worse.
Imagine the scene - the fire alarms go off, and I'm running out of a building with a PC billowing smoke, just as Mr Plod drives through the campus to deal with another incident.
Let's just say that I faced some awkward questions, just as the machine finally caught fire. (It was old and chock-full of dust).
One of the campus security guys then arrived on the scene, ran up to me and asked what had happened. He then grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the poor machine out of its misery, before wandering off to deal with the alarm.
Satisfied that I appeared to have authority to run out of buildings with burning computers late at night, the coppers went on their way.
"I used to work in information security. If I had been asked to do a general review of the security of a location, a ploy was to arrive at reception, and then ask - with some urgency - to go to the toilet. If they were inside the building from reception, this often got you admitted into the building without signing in, without a visitor's badge, and without an escort. FAIL!!!"
I've seem someone use one of these (or a good copy) to gain access to buildings in a similar way.
"I half expected to see a whispering, waistcoated gentleman by the door offering to scent me with a range of aftershaves on my way out."
I was reminded of the toilet scene in one of The IT Crowd episodes...
"I just paid a pound not to go to the toilet"
I usually find that the most pretentious companies have the fanciest toilets. Especially in buildings specifically designed for "customer engagement", i.e. "the punters won't seem so sore about that last price hike because they had a lovely time here".