back to article BOFH: Drunken Time Lord

"It's only 1:30pm!" the PFY grumbles, looking up from his cellphone clock. "I know," I say. "It's that variable viscosity of time again." "The what now?" the PFY asks "The variable viscosity of time. You know, how the viscosity of time is inversely proportional to what you'd like the viscosity to be." "You’ve lost me." " …

COMMENTS

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  1. JP Strauss
    Trollface

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    Wut?

  2. Jacob Lipman
    Thumb Up

    In stitches

    General relativity + sadism = win

  3. Isendel Steel
    Coffee/keyboard

    Another BOFH - thankyou Simon

    A couple of laugh out loud moments there, shame we didn't see what they did - bu then time would have passed quickly and I could go home.

    ("Hi" Jude - how's the 1st day ?)

  4. Andrew Moore
    Thumb Up

    Absolute classic...

    "Remember the last episode of Sapphire and Steel where they’re trapped in the box in the middle of space"

    Brilliant

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    dropping a grogan...

    ...i just had to google it, and now to wipe the proxy servers

    mwah hah ha!

    1. taxman
      Holmes

      Future movements

      Suggest you might find this of use in future

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      me to...

      But what about this poor unfortunate sod...

      New Moderator: a.grogan

      You +1'd this publicly. Undo

      forums.msexchange.org › [Site & Message Boards] - Cached

      3 posts - 3 authors - Last post: 1 Nov 2007

      Status: offline, Congratulations to a.grogan who has become the newest addition to the MSExchange.org Moderators crew! ...

  6. alyn

    time goes slowly between episodes

    Yes I have noticed that time goes slowly between BOFH episodes but very quickly while reading them ( unless the boss has just walked in and found me reading BOFH)

  7. Herby

    Must Not...

    ...stay up late on Thursday nights to 4am in Silicon Valley...

    To get a comment in the first page.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    So, BOFH vs terminator for the next episode?

    I guess the only chance left is to make time run so slow it will turn back from boredom.

    Like maybe running eclipse on a 128MB virtual machine on top of a ZX spectrum?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Do you know what?

      That *ACTUALLY* sounds like an interesting exercise.

      It is probably possible to write an emulator for a modern 32 bit CPU in 48k, I guess the simpler the better, so it'll be an ARM or MIPS I guess. How much RAM will be left will be an interesting exercise to the coder. The Apple ][ had that sweet sixteen thing. Of course, when you count all that overhead, I suspect you may be measuring instruction throughout in KIPS or even HIPS and not MIPS.

      What I do not know enough about is if a linux kernel will be happy with whatever RAM is left.

      My guess is no, because it's likely the critical code that will manage the memory won't fit in what's left. Having said that, unixes in the past were small. It may well be possible to rewrite from scratch a kernel to cope with this... Maybe...

      If that were possible, then there is the seemingly unsurmountable hurdle of graphics, and the issue of i/O and storage. Don't know much about speccy storage but I suspect a lot of hackerage will be in order to even get a storage device large enough to support a swapfile.

      However, booting a linux or scratch written unix type kernel on a Z80 in 48k, even in console mode, be it emulated for 32 bits/MMU or otherwise seems like a worthy exercise to the brave with too much time on their hands.

      Anonymous post, because I am almost embarrassed to be even thinking of this.

  9. The Metal Cod
    Thumb Up

    All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension

    *raises his glass for mention of Sapphire And Steel*

    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      Thumb Up

      *ABOLUTELY* Loved that program. *FABULOUS*!

      But never could fathom *WHY* BBC skimped on their research and decided sapphire and steel were elements.... I mean I know they were on a budget and all... FFS, it's not rocket science or anything, anybody who actually went to school and paid attention would know.

      Having said that, I can't think quite think of what else I would have called Joanne Lumley!!!

      1. nick47
        FAIL

        Sapphire & Steel

        They were "transuranic elements" and it was ITV.

  10. Miek
    Linux

    Vista does a grand job ...

    Of slowing down time, relative or otherwise.

  11. Z 1
    Coffee/keyboard

    Damnit

    "watching the Boss crap his strides rather than be seen dropping a grogan in a glass-wall lift, it was all over too soon."

    I need a new Keyboard please!

  12. Hardcastle the ancient
    Thumb Up

    "So time flows faster when you're drinking"

    Huzzah!

  13. Roger Greenwood
    Happy

    Looking forward . . .

    to further explorations of the Heisenberg principle and other whizz science stuff.

  14. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Par for the present course in spiraled out of control covert suppression and fiscal recession*

    ""But still, they're computers and we could reason with them..."

    "Yes, I suppose you’re right, it's worth a crack.""

    Yes well, I suppose pioneering a waste of time is one way to spend one's time, although it is never ever going to be a SMART option which leads to anything worthwhile.

    *Intelligence Meltdown ...... whenever computers contain evidence of what is to be hidden and kept secret rather than supplying clear virgin instructions on what the future needs to provide and how to provide it with IT and media tools and convenient fools.

    Just where would we be today with the anonymous legions of useful idiots.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Never underestimate the stupidity of man, as it knows no bounds, and that is no overestimation.

      Crikey, a posted reply comment that appears in almost real time, rather than being detained in a server message block queue for a while.

      "Just where would we be today with the anonymous legions of useful idiots." should of course read ..... "Just where would we be today WITHOUT the anonymous legions of useful idiots." although you made that correction automatically yourselves in your own heads, right?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Alien

        You, sir

        are a gentleman and a scholar of the highest order.

  15. 4ecks

    Obligaty H2G quote

    Time is relative, lunchtime doubly so.

    1. Bastard Operator From Hull
      Pint

      <pedant>

      "Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly-so" </pedant>

  16. Evil Scot
    Devil

    Damnit

    Were on a single (ground) floor.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    so dealing with terminator....

    Another robot war then? Bring it on!

  18. Adrian Esdaile
    Pint

    BOFH vs The Terminator?

    I'll put £50 on the BOFH, thanks!

    Great read, and I have also experienced time getting all wibblywobbly in the presence of alcohol and romance, and the excruciating wait for the next installment of BOFH.

    When is he going to get a redhead Scot as an assistant, or is that where Ms.Bee is going?

  19. georgeclooneylookalike
    Pint

    Aldershot?

    I selected "dropping a grogan" to use the google accelerator* BUT... by accident** I clicked Bing Maps and end up in Aldershot. Time travel or coicidence?

    *Yes I use IE (at work!)

    ** yes I have been down the pub

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    It works

    Got to work at 0900, read BOFH, and it's already time for lunch! Great way to make Fridays go fast.

  21. TRT Silver badge

    Well, I seem to recall...

    time is an illusion caused by the passage of history. So if you integrate the amount of history being made, you should get a measure of the passage of time.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    In RSS Feed...

    +1. The BOFH's never seem to show up via the RSS feed, so I have to check on Fridays to see if there is one. Now it showed up in my RSS reader. Much better!

    1. Morphius

      re: In RSS Feed

      http://feed.theregister.co.uk/atom?q=bofh

      Much better to be safe than sorry.... missing a BOFH could put you at a serious disadvantage with your colleagues!

  23. TheRead
    Thumb Up

    For some reason

    I felt like I was done reading this one before I started!

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