Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

Re: slighly off-topic rant time.

We got charged by a small squadron of dragoons

Lancers would have been worse - the psycological aspect of 1/2 tonne of horse charging at you at 30mph with a vary sharp metal pointy bit in front can't be underestimated.

Which is why the PBI[1] in Napoleonic times spent so much time in training on how to form and hold a square[2]. Because if the square broke then you *all* died[3].

[1] Poor bloody infantry. As coined by the cavalry types who all tended to be la-di-dah rich boys.

[2] Just as it sounds - the unit is formed into a hollow square with the wounded and officers in the hollow centre and all the others in several lines, facing outwards. With bayonets fixed and most horses are noticably averse to charging straight onto the pointy bits. And, once the bayonets were properly developed, the muskets would still fire so the incoming cavalry had to face lead shot coming at them as well. Then the cavalry developed horse artillary which was simply unfair since infantry squares were very vulnerable to cannon fire..

[3] If a square broke then most of the fleeing infantry would die from attacks from behind. Even a tired horse can run faster than a human and the cavalry all tended to have curved swords that they could swipe with. The curve meant that they were less likely to get stuck in bone.

Re: As was said a very long time ago...

Against mans' stupidity

And remember, the IQ curve has as many below the median line as above..

Re: Small point

Ignorance is an unwillingness to learn

*Willing* Ignorance is an unwillingness to learn. Ignorance per-se can be cured but only if the ignorant one is willing to amend that state.

In the dim and distant past (when I used to assist with the technical part of the interview process) I was always more happy with the candidates that said "I don't know but I can find out" rather than the ones that tried to bluff and pretend that they knew when they obviously didn't..

Re: Small point

flail mower is a drum with lengths of chain hanging from it

Sounds like one of the early mine-clearance tanks[1]. They had a somewhat indifferent success rate but some success was better than trying to drive though without the flails..

[1] Possibly one of Hobarts' Funnies.

Re: Could it be

maybe a stew

Or maybe my famous[1] speciality - glop.

(My wife objects to the name, prefers to call it 'pearl-barley chicken risotto[2]'. I prefer the term glop..)

[1] I'm a legend in my own lunchtime.

[2] Take leftover roast chicken, the jelly/stock from roasting said chicken[3], carrots, potatoes, mushrooms plus whatever else you have that needs using up. Except members of the allium family - they should *never* be added to glop. It's my recipe, I make the rules. Heat the stock, add copious amounts of pearl barley and diced-up potato and carrot. Simmer for a while. Once the pearly barley is cooked and the potato is very soft, add chopped up roast chicken and mushrooms. Leave to simmer for another 5 minutes then turn off the heat and leave to sit for five minutes or so. Serve in a big bowl with sides of your choice (crusty bread is good).

[3] T'wife does a Devon roast - the bird[4] sits on a trivet in a roasting pan with water in it. The juices drip down into the water and make wonderful stock that jellifies nicely when cold.

[4] The chicken, not t'wife.

system is piggybacking the system messages that mobiles need to make to/from cell towers to stay connected

Which (originally) was a tiny amount of bandwidth (in the order of a few k/sec). That changed in the days of Cellnet when the mobile telcos discovered that the otherwise wasted (for them) bandwidth could be used to generate almost pure profit.

(When I was employed by formerly-large batwinged-logo base station manufacturer, one of my friends helped write the first SMS messaging gateway for Cellnet - which was hosted of one of our big Solaris boxes. Cellnet were prepared to pay us an eye-watering fee for hosting it because that was pretty much the only expense involved. Later incarnations of the base stations were adjusted to give more bandwidth to the control channel)

Re: Etiquette when in Court

must be a shock having to present actual facts

.. and not to have the judge defer to her because she's a CEO and has lots and lots of money..

pattern of behaviour here that would make the Politburo proud

Oh come on - she hasn't had them taken under 'protective custody' to Siberia yet - a custody that always seems to result in an unfortunate accident with a gun..

(But that's only because HP doesn't have access to Siberia)

Re: Re Choice of words

some very fine English to please us bystanders

..and confuse the Yanks. Here's to Queens[1] English!

[1] No - not the Borough of Nu Yawk..

if you can't make up your mind, you can hardly run a business

One hopes that the process of "making up your mind" takes reality into account rather than what one hopes or imagines reality is..

But then, given what has happened at HP (and IBM), clearly my hopes are somewhat dashed.

Re: Watch this!

I always take off my wedding ring when working on electrical stuff

OldestBrother (tree surgeon) has two wedding rings - the normal one for when not swinging from branch to branch and a very thin fragile one for when working up trees - one that will snap easily if he gets his fingers caught.

One of his previous colleages no longer has a ring finger on his right hand because it got too badly broken after being trapped and crushed and his wedding ring was what trapped the finger.

Re: BANG!

bloody big squirrel cage motor using three-phase) and let the smoke out

But was the squirrel OK? If not, was it tasty when consumed with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?

Re: BANG!

My electronics teacher: former electronics engineer

At polytechnic we had one lecturer that *everyone* respected - he'd spent 30+ years as a GPO engineer and was also a major in the Territorial Army (as it was then).

He knew his stuff and was also a very, very good lecturer - he made the digital electonics and signalling courses enjoyable and we actually learnt stuff.

His colleages however - one had all them empathy and teaching ability of a lump of granite and the other one was doing his masters and seemed more focussed on chasing the female students than actually bothering to teach.

Which is (one reason) that I failed the analogue electronics part of the course and ended up dropping out. Which was a shame because the computer modules I was averaging 90% and about 70% in the signalling modules.

Re: POP

floor tiles in a comms room to pull a cable and your hand comes out wet

It's even worse if your hand comes out wet and then you notice copious rat droppings are now stuck to your wet hand..

I know of one datacentre where they (very, very unofficially) have a pair on on-site cats since their rat problem couldn't be solved by the usual exterminators (fumigation would have done it but that would involve shutting down the whole DC).

Took the cats 3 months to clear the rats - the problem was that cats (generally) won't eat rats unless they are very, very hungry. So there was an amount of checking under the raised floors to clear up corpses until the place was clear.

(Turns out that there was an old drain in one corner of the site that had crumbled where one of the new walls rested on it, leaving just enough space for the rats to get in. And rats seem to like the taste of cat-5 insulation..)

Re: Not an explosion, just my own daftness...

They also had this nice conductive paint

My dad used to regale us with tales of what he got up to at Uni - one of which was to make nitrogen tri-iodide[1] and then, while still wet, paint it in thin strips across the cycle-path.

It would then dry[2] and, once dry, make a nice bang[3[ as someone rode over it. He was politely[4] asked to desist by his course tutor.

Pharmacy students eh?

[1] Don't try this at home people. It''s incredibly unstable and, in sufficient quantities, can do serious damage.

[2] Sometimes. Other times the rain would wash it away. He went to Uni in Birmingham.

[3] In small quantites it's pretty benign. In larger quantites, not so much. Please don't try this at home, no matter how much you dislike cyclists..

[4] The first time. The second time, not so polietly with a distinct overtone of "do this again and you are out". He didn't do it again.

Re: Not an explosion, just my own daftness...

capacitor to 200-300v and tossing it to a classmate would elicit a satisfying howl

As does wiring up a Van der Graff generator to the classroom inside brass door handle and then turning it on. Which only works if it's connected to the outside door handle by a nice metal bar of course.

Err.. allegedly.

I will admit to trying to impress girls by using a VDDG to light Bunsen Burners by standing on a milk-crate, putting one hand on a running VDDG and then pointing a finger at a turned-on bunsen at close range. It lit the bunsen but that's about all it did..

I'm amazed that I survived childhood.

Re: Not an explosion, just my own daftness...

The first exploding capacitor was accidental - the rest were not....

Ditto for 12v transistors. The first time we accidentally put 415v through one was an accident, the following times not so much.

They can glow like an LED for a short while - before the top departs upward at high speed. We were made to replace the suspended-ceiling tile above our bench as the sight of several transistor tops embedded in it wasn't thought to be good as it might encourage others..

Re: Not an explosion, just my own daftness...

Many years ago - had a phone call from a user asking if it was normal that her CRT monitor was leaking smoke out of the top and that there was a funny smell..

Before I could say the immortal words "turn it off!" I heard a large bang and a very loud squeak from the user. Her CRT had just imploded..

Luckily, her phone was off to one side so she hadn't been caught by any of the bits of coil that were ejected post-implosion. We did have to replace her PC though - the (onboard) video card was utterly fried. She also got a shiny nice new CRT as well - and a very, vey clean desk as we thought it was a wise idea to clean up all the brown-grey residue..

needs to include a 5Kg hammer to ensure any listening/spying devices is reduced

Or, alternatively, a long, thin insulated screwdriver. That way, the unit looks intact but is still borked.

Re: Did HP ever get what Autonomy is Really All About? Methinks Not. That's an Epic Corporate Fail

Why do the paths have to get real Rocky from here?

Because it gives you the chance to sing (very loudly and very badly) the main theme from "The eye of the tiger".

Lawyers have friends?

Do persons of negotiable affection count?

If so then yes.

Re: Anecdotal datapoint...

but I'll never use Emacs

As is entirely right and proper. No-one who is anyone[1] uses emacs!

[1] ..that I'd like to associate with..

Re: Anecdotal datapoint...

not like I suddenly have to expect someone to throw a Solaris

Just as well - most of them were built out of cast-iron angle brackets and pure solidium.

Very much not lightweight throwaway. Much though those of us that used to herd them might have wished to..

Re: What about the antisocial?

another tripwire that can be used to summarily throw them out of the country

"Give me six lines written by an honest man and I can get them hanged"..

(Paraphrase of Cardinal Richelieu)

Re: Hello darkness, my old friend

I have a facebook account that I never use

Probably similar to my twitter account - only ever used to post reviews of Prog albums and then, finally, a short video of my wifes' Morris Minor mileometer rolling around to 00000 again.

Yes, I know, what a wild and exciting life I lead..

Re: Hello darkness, my old friend

online footprint was very small for someone who worked in IT

I would have thought that a techie working in IT was *far* more likely to avoid social media - after all, we *should be) far more aware of how the information is collected and used..

I blame the red tops.

Oi! Not *all* gingers are evil y'know..

Or so I've heard.

Re: Childish Dick Move.

Cornwall hasn't been a country for a 1000 years

Well - up until the 1750's they had their own Parliament (The Stannaries) which I would say fulfills at least one of the requirements to be a country..

And they most certainly have their own language[1] - a sister-language of Welsh and Breton.

[1] Yes, yes, I know that it died out and was revived - doesn't make it any less real.

Re: Well there might be a bright side

I'm 80 and so full of arthritis I can hardly move

You don't have to be 80 for that. Which is why I have blood tests every two months - to make sure the various toxic anti-arthritis drugs haven't killed my liver and kidneys..

Re: Only a fool writes for anything other than money

They Stihl make good chainsaws

According to OldestBrother (he of the tree-monkey habit) they are OK for lay people but serious tree surgeons use other brands.

Not that I can remember the ones he mentioned - I wasn't *that* interested. My tastes run more to cameras and optical devices..

Re: Dabsy, not just you

Art is..

.. in the eye of the beholder.

Much like music (s/eye/ears/*) - even with my famous love of prog music there are various genres (RIO et. al.) that I don't really consider to be music..

Most laptops are solid enough to cave a skull in

My old 17" Macbook Pro certainly is. And able to withstand an almost-full bottle of wine falling on it (fortunately the cork was back in so I didn't waste the wine!).

Re: airport security

Victorinox Swisscard in my wallet

We had a manager at Galileo who was on secondment from SwissAir who, when he left, gave us all SwissAir branded ones of those.

My wife still carries one in her handbag some 20+ years later. She says it's the most useful thing she has - apparently I don't qualify..

Re: Target

To be fair, "middle of nowhere between Wales, Bristol and Birmingham" covers a fair bit of western[1] England..

It could even be Leominster!

[1] I am forbidden by Royal Decree to refer to anything north and east of Exeter as "the south west". According to She Who Knows, that's where the south-west stops. Cos that's what she was taught at school in Plymouth.