Posts by BostonEddie

Re: I called the cops

Many years ago when the local telephone system around Boston was first set up, as an inducement the first customer was given lifelong free phone service. In error this included both local and long distance phone service. Also unfortunately the grantee was not only very long lived but had a hobby of genealogy, which involved lengthy and frequent international telephone calls. A subsequent legal case proved that the telephone company was indeed bond by it's initial legal contract and the customer chatted happily for many years.

Re: All Roads Lead To Amber

I want to see the miniseries of first 3 volumes of the Amber series! Tomas Covernant would be fine too!

Re: Have not read much of his work

I have Web of the City and Memos from Purgatory, both heavily influenced by Nelson Algren (Man With the Golden Arm and others). As Elison tells the tale being 5'2,he was easily able to run with a teenage street gang. In later years he would occasionally impress onlookers by whipping out a switchblade.

Re: Floor drains

Perhaps you've heard about the Holy Cross football team of a few decades ago? As there were no backflow preventers, a drain pipe allowed standing water to be sucked into the cold water system. Result was that the majority of the football team were stricken by long term intestinal complaints and the season was cancelled.

'Nother tale: Once upon a time in a town not far away, there was a local who scorned the necessity for requiring licensed professionals and decided to (loudly, that being his habit) show that after all anyone of reasonable intelligence could do a similar job. He decided to do some plumbing of his house and then have the job professionally inspected to show that his work was on par with that of a professional. (Sneer sneer) The pro did the inspection and issued a large "Condemned" tag, commenting that the guy should tear out the job and start over before he poisoned his family. I do recall a few of the issues: no backflow vales, no lead free solder, several other deficiencies.

Re: Ex designer of military kit

PIND and ESD. Did them both. The idea was to do a big enough sample size to assure a certain specified level of quality. So for example you might allow a lot with a certain number of failures to pass depending on the Acceptable Quality Level

Re: Ex designer of military kit

"without the harsh environmental specs of the military." Environmental tested COTS ICs for over a decade. Difference between commercial and military stressing per MILSTD 883 was that commercial ICs procedures were stricter than the requirements for military. example: where 883 required, say, 8 shocks, commercial procedures required 10-12 shocks.

Re: Dunghill

OMG--really? I might still have my 2 emergency packs of "H&B" sitting in a desk drawer from 25 years ago. Got them as "healthier" replacements for my 2 pack/day Camels. Really preferred Old Gold Straights (unfiltered). Oddly enough I was one of the few people who quit after a session of hypnosis.

Re: Storage media

You know you can buy a wafer battery from your local dimestore for like $1 or less instead of the few bucks the OEM wants? If you're not into electrowelding, use heat shrink to keep a good connection. Works for me.

Re: Would they allow it if...

Alas, there is no longer a Pennsylvania town named Blue Ball. It is now Blue Bell.

Re: 1988

"Then: De-fluffing your mouseballs..." Hey--I did that yesterday!

Re: 'Twas in the year of '88

OMG--am I that old? (I wont mention my exposure on the IBM 360 Mark 1965, fresh out of the box; I have a Certificate of Competence on the IBM 026 Duplicating Keypunch) I remember the Eternal Summer when the internet went to hell...and even the comp.women debate. At the time I had a DEC terminal that I could connect to the internet; there was a local ISP that I could connect to for free after 5 PM. During the day Ed Featherstone would extract and email usenet postings. I later did field circus on Nat. Weather Service weathermap receivers controlled by tone controls over the phone lines

Re: Alternative 2018 floppy disc put-down

I have a AUTOCAD 11 on 5 1/2 floppy with the drive for 386, complete with two drawing pads and the templates for drawing schematics and text. No USB; sorry. Probably have the xternal power supplies for something or other. I keep it under my workbench with my Data General One laptop and my Sears 1922 Neutrodyne.

Re: Starting on the Museum exhibits, ending on them.

COBOL? That new fashioned thing? I trained on IBM languages Autocoder and Snoball

Re: Starting on the Museum exhibits, ending on them.

When I trained on a IBM360 Mark 1965, complete with a card sorter, mag tape storage and, I do believe a thundering 256K of RAM, I obtained a Certificate of Competence on the IBM 026 Keypunch Duplicator. Whadda thrill that was.

Then there were the weather map machines, fascinating technology involving chemically treated paper, a spinning glass cylinder, an IP26 PMT, various tone activates relays to set the drum sped, and several SAMOS earth satellites. Oh, and a modem eventually upgraded to 1200 baud. My piece of the action was still tube technology.

Re: If somebody does not understand... Children and relativity

Mimsy were the borogoves--a similar story but not that one. I'd bet it was by the same author who's name I'll remember as soon as I close.

Re: FTFY

Land grab...? after the collapse of the Roman Empire c 600 more or less), Western Europe was pretty depopulated, as shown by birth/Baptismal records. Some 500-odd years later population rebounded caused by several factors. By the time Charlemagne came up, there was sufficient population pressure to allow expansion of population into new or previously abandoned areas. In the near eastern areas the Avars and (Southern) Saxons were slaughtered; meanwhile the Cathusians (bear with me, I'm doing this from memory) expanded into the German forests and the Estonians, etc expanded into the northern Baltic areas. While Islam and Europe coexisted in Spain for the time being, the reconquest and expansion of Spain continued until 1492 One can guess at the fate of the disorganized pagan tribes of the conquered areas. In summary both Islam and Europe expanded and added land/population until they collided.

Re: "and gloves were forbidden"

Back when I was in college a all knowing under grad chem major would mix ammonia and Iodine to produce Amonium Iodide, a low level contact explosive used mainly by students to amuse unsuspecting visitors. One day he set a batch on the windowsill to dry; a breeze came up and scattered the sample over his dorm room, producing unexpected small and occasional larger unexpected explosions until the room was thoroughly cleaned.

In high school the teacher demonstrated the effect of a small amount of adding Phosphorous to a small beaker of water--mainly bubbles, hissing and similar low level effects. This was mildly amusing so the next day a student decided that if a little was amusing, seeing a large amount dumped into a nearby pond would be a most spectacular sight. Unfortunately in haste he grabbed the wrong sample bottle--it was not Phosphorous but Sodium. The most unfortunate part of this episode was that the resulting explosion broke all the windows of the assistant principal's apartment building. The student might still be in the detention room

Re: 'gloves were forbidden'

Sure. Mars Bars. My lab had a burn-in oven, purged using several good sized tanks of LN2. The usual habit was to freeze the candy bars with the LN2 and then slam them down on a bench, resulting in handy sized fragments.

In the old days film for the instant photo head of the macrocamera needed to be coated with a preservative. The preservative would be packed in a one time use sealed tube about the size of your thumb. Load the tube with a few CCs of LN2 and carefully chewed up fragments of paper and place it in an inconspicuous spot. The pressure would build up and eventually the tube lid would pop off with a loud POP and a shower of confetti would fill the air. "Veddy Bootiful" to quote the Three Stooges