Posts by CertMan

Knowledge

Einstein said that "if you can't explain it to a 6 year old, then you don't know it well enough yourself."

Can be embarassing

I was conducting an interview a couple of weeks ago when a young woman came in wearing an above the knee skirt (with matching jacket - so obviously intended to be a smart suit). I had to leave a note for my (luckily) female co-interviewer and made an excuse to leave the room. One minute later I returned and the interviewees knees were tightly clamped for the rest of the interview. I have no idea how I could have dealt with it if I was on my own, without all the possibilities of sexual misconduct that could have arisen if I had said anything, or couldn't keep my eyes on hers!

Speed impacted my children's education

Download your homework from the portal (Virtual Learning Environment) - mostly posted as PowerPoint slides, taking up to 1/2 hour per subject.

Upload your answers in the PowerPoint slides at around a tenth of the speed. Obviously it doesn't add up, and the teachers are so IT-illiterate that they don't know how to minimize the file sizes, or accept the answers in anything other than the original format.

I had many arguments with the school when the teachers refused to accept the answers on a USB memory stick, before the school finally agreed that the children could upload from stick to the VLE before school the next morning.

There are many videos on the VLE, or linked sources that the children are expected to view as an essential broadening of knowledge on the subject. We had links so slow (often 256KBps) that even watching the videos was impossible.

WTF

In my experience 'air-gapped' also means in a secure room with no other computers. Often with thick and very solid walls and no windows.

But then I may have strange experiences, such as being told in 1985 that computer-to-computer communications using ultrasound and single speaker/microphones was not sufficiently difficult to chose as an HND IT project at Leicester Poly. And yet people publish this tripe now for degrees! And they say that degrees are not being dumbed down!

Beer already?

Definition: Firkin is a UK barrel size.

Use: "A firkin of your finest ale."

Unit: A good night in with a few friends! (9 UK Gallons)

Real world data set with accents?

As local accents die out; as a population we're becoming more gutter 'Essex'. Then due to uniformity, the data set can shrink, and the accuracy of translation should go up. I hope.

"Yent nevr gunna git Rowl - Yent!" trans. "I don't think that you will ever understand the Rothwell based accent". Source: Rothwell & Desborough, Northamptonshire very local accent. (So local that even BBC Radio Northampton, based 15 miles away, took the p*ss out of it!)

In the 1970's and 80's when I went to the local school, it would take newly imported teachers about a month to understand us properly. The only careers advice I was ever given was "get some elocution lessons, if you want to work more than 5 miles away!"

Sadly now a very diluted accent as the town has grown with outsiders and the youth has learnt to speak from the TV and Internet rather than talking with their parents.

In different circumstances

Decades ago I worked for a UK distributer/dealer of a major Japanese electronics company. For many years there were a number of UK distributers/dealers who competed for trade in the available marketplace, before the Japanese company 'rationalised' to only have one distributer, who the others had to buy from and compete with.

My company paid all creditors (even HMRC), reduced their assets to 1 table and chair, whilst running up a huge tab with the remaining distributer. When we went into voluntary receivership, we nearly took the remaining distributer down. The only time I've been happy with redundancy!

Emergency Services

Remember that the Government are wanting to get rid of the TETRA radios that the emergency services use and move them over to 4G phones instead. I mentioned this to my MP and received a reply from a mandarin explaining that 4G coverage is universal and better than TETRA!

The maps say that I should have good 3G coverage - so why do I have to run down the street to get my 2FA texts which 4 out of 5 times have timed-out by the time I receive them? The operators (we have 3 different ones between the family members to get coverage at our workplaces) say that they will not supply a femto-cell so that we can get a signal as the maps say that we have good coverage.

Spawn of Satan

I'm on the TPS but I keep getting calls along the lines of "We need to make you aware of a new government scheme...."

Because they withhold their number the TPS won't investigate.

Now, I know that I could "press 2 to speak to one of our operatives", in order to find out who they are, but (a) that would tell them it's a real number that answers (b) it might cost an arm and a leg