Posts by Rich 11 4584 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jul 2009
the "BCG" is an easy one, because it leaves a scar, and doctors, A&E can tell immediately.
I had both the BCG test and the booster 42 years ago, but you won't find evidence of either on my left arm (or anywhere else, for that matter). If an A&E doctor needs to know whether or not I had that, they'd have to ask me and take my word for it rather than trust to any diagnostic sign.
come up with a way of making explosive using only items readily available in a Middle Eastern supermarket
In the markets of Peshawar these items are commonly known as 'explosives'. You can find them on the shelves just behind the gun racks.
When the details of the first LIGO merger detection was published I sat down and worked out what the wavelength of the gravitational wave would have been at a distance of one light year from the merger. It was something on the order of a metre.
I still can't visualise the effect a space-time compression wave would have on objects at that scale (eg a human body), when it would pass through in just three nanoseconds. Would it be enough to overcome molecular bonds? Probably not. Could it shatter bones or turn flesh to jelly? I really don't know. Would the shear waves dump heat into the object? Quite possibly. Would I want to observe the event from that distance? No.
you should have your systems configured for High Availability
Remember when you forcefully recommended that right at the beginning of the design phase, but it got nixed by the beancounters, and the project manager said there was no way the extra time could be allocated because the business-critical deadline had already been decided, and your boss said there was no chance he could clear someone from another project to help with QA, and the consultant said the guy at his office who was the HA expert had just that morning resigned after calling their boss a lying shitbiscuit? So of course it's your fault for not being able to provide the expected uptime.
Any employer feeling the need to monitor their employees to such a degree is at best only papering over the cracks and not recognising a deeper problem. Most people are good and fair-minded, and show loyalty when treated as adults trusted to do their jobs. Treat people well, with flexibility and understanding of their circumstances, and they will respond well on those occasions when the employer needs a few extra hours at short notice. Treat people with mistrust and hold them to every minute of the day, especially when overworked and under-resourced, and many -- if not most over time -- will effectively end up working to rule and be less inclined to be creative and constructive.
Good managers will be able to identify any slackers taking advantage of trust and goodwill, not least because the slacker's colleagues will soon make it clear they are not willing to put up with parasitic behaviour. Poor managers, on the other hand, are more likely to micromanage and look to a bureaucratic and/or intrusive performance improvement process because deep down they know they don't have the ability to turn a bad situation around by providing good leadership and showing trust.
Well, that's my experience anyway.
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