Re: Talking about "idiot proof"
Whatever floats your boat
1302 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2011
Ah, yes. My old and very highly respected Bob xxx. Known as Bob Whispering Death xxx. A truly lovely guy to work with: gently spoken, good humoured, immensely patient and sufficiently technical not to be given the runaround. BUT customers were never able to pull a fast one. He remembered and would take notes, accurate notes to back himself up and he was always ready to gently guide the client back onto the True Path and get them to agree the cost impact.
The project managers project manager. He would lead a client gently by the hand, all the time keeping a very firm grip of the clients wallet.
Many years sinceupon, the company for whom I was working got slightly involved with a London hospital, who wanted a real-time system to gather the status of individual beds, from a basic 3- or 4-button terminal at each bed.
I don't think the nursing staff had a very high opinion of the intellectual capabilities of Fire Service personnel. I was endlessly amused that one of the criteria dictated by nursing staff was that whatever we came up with had to be "fireman proof"
I've just had a butchers at the product website. - https://www.shm-afeela.com/en/ (which is just as awful as most automotive company efforts, but don't get me started on that).
At the very least, I was expecting something along the lines of my old Espace - a veritable lounge on wheels, complete with armchair comfort. God I miss that car's comfort and sheer practicality. The EV equivalent at the moment is, I suppose the VW ID Buzz, another comfortable looking lounge on wheels but sadly that's way out of my price range.
So, all in all, a bit meh.
Ah analogue. IBM will never take it further: analogue is so old school. I remember in the 1970s setting up flow computers - flow=√(head X pressure / temp), based PID controllers and some specialised analogue. calculation devices doing glass batch float layer thickness and glass furnace power control, all using analogue tech.
None of this new fangled digital stuff, just 741 op amps (and maybe the odd CMOS device if huge input impedance was needed, capacitors and patience.
"Otherwise, it won't remain relevant to the readers of his site"
Since when has targeted advertising actually been relevant to anyone? The best they can offer us ",ooo, this looks a bit like what you've just been looking at, but it isn't really that close" or "people have been buying this too" or "people in<insert your general location> have been going crazy for this"
And there are still folk who wonder why people use Adblock etc.
A young lady I know well worked for a time with the MOD police, wandering around with an automatic pistol and a rifle, providing security at AWE Aldermaston. Occasionally, for a variety of reasons, the main gate would be unavailable for use. Not very often but it did happen from time to time. Most people simply sighed and used one of the other entrances.
She was, however, amazed at some of the allegedly clever scientists whose reaction was "but how an I going to get home?" And making it necessary to have the solution explained to them. Time after time.
Well, a little digging and I can say it's called Jabroc, invented and manufactured by Jabroc Ltd and is definitely a highly compressed laminate of beech veneers. My great grandfather, Wallace, was making templates to produce pressings for aircraft consoles, possibly for De la Rue.
"Linn’s all-new Bedrok™ plinth technology; formed of orthogonal layers of beech placed under extreme pressure to create an entirely new, solid and massive material."
H'mmm. On my desk I have a really posh coaster. It's made from an offcut of basically extremely dense plywood - I think beech layers that have been bonded and compressed under high pressure. The material was developed in WW2 for aircraft parts, notably control panels, to reduce the need for metal, which could be better used for other bits.
I'm blowed if I can remember the name but if I come up with anything I'll pop back.
The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm. He came along the street of Green Town, Illinois, in the late cloudy October day, sneaking glances over his shoulder. Somewhere not so far back, vast lightnings stomped the earth. Somewhere, a storm like a great beast with terrible teeth could not be denied.
Thanks Ray Bradbury. Here's a pint for you, wherever you are