Posts by Martin

Re: Would they ever...

Not quite like that. You've got to have a slightly convincing story.

Knock on the door.

Stranger: I'm from the local car service company. We've found an urgent problem with your car and it needs a recall, so we've decided to save you the trouble of bringing the car in by collecting it from you.

PA: Excellent customer service! Here are the keys. You'll give me a ring when it's done, right?

Stranger: Of course.

I think the BOFH and PFY are a bit like the heroes in any long-running book series - they don't age like you or me. Steve Carella was in his early thirties in the fifties when Ed McBain's 87th Precinct started. By 2005, he was probably in his late forties. See also: the Famous Five, Roy of the Rovers, Spenser, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, the Black Widowers, etc etc etc....

Re: Removing distraction = good

Talking of roundabouts - my aunt was once on a driving lesson, and she came up to a roundabout. "Go straight across this roundabout", said the instructor. So my aunt did - up one side, and down the other. As she bumped off the roundabout and back onto the road, the instructor said "I don't think you're quite ready for your test yet, Madam..."

Re: ....but what if the manual doesn't mention what the device is doing?

Off topic, but...

We bought our house just over two years ago. Recently, Together Energy sent us, by mail, two years late, the closing bill for our previous owner's Electricity and Gas. We contacted the previous owners and sent it on to them. They told them their new address, and kept us informed of their long fight with Together Energy (basically, Together Energy owed THEM money, not the other way round, and in any case you can't bill for energy over a year late).

Eventually, Together Energy sent them an apology. To our address.

Re: Machine that weighs less than its operating manual.

In a later life, HP outdid even DEC for that sort of thing. I was working for a bank, and we ordered a batch of linux servers from HP. We got a pallet full of boxes, each one containing a new server, and another pallet full of similar sized boxes, each one containing a licence agreement for a server - one A4 page.

Re: oh...

Or the plug that appears to be connected and switched on but in fact, is not fully located into the socket.

Yes, that was an annoying one. I have a bookcase in front of a socket with an extension lead plugged into it. The extension lead stopped working. Obviously, it had to be the fuse in the extension lead or something similar.

So I emptied the whole damn bookcase (we're talking about two Billy bookcases screwed together), so that I could safely pull it away from the wall.

Only to discover that the extension lead had been tugged by someone, and it was slightly unplugged from the wall. And if I'd just reached under the bookcase next to it, I could have pushed it back in. Never crossed my mind to try it.

Still, gave me an opportunity to dust and tidy the bookcase...

Machine that weighs less than its operating manual.

In the old days, when you bought a DEC VAX, you got about twenty fat ring-binders with everything you could possibly want to know about the machines. No-one could read the whole manual, but you got good at looking up what you needed to know.

When the MicroVAX came along, the machine was quite small. But you still got twenty fat ring-binders....

Sounds like a line manager worth keeping!

I don't think that's at all fair.

"We can't sue Chinese con-artists, and we're losing money as a result of the illegal activity of said Chinese con-artists. You, however, are enabling the Chinese con-artists, and making money from them, without trying to do anything about their illegal activity. Hence, we're going to try a lawsuit on you to see if we can persuade you to do something about this."

Not greedy - just getting sick of being ripped off.

You are absolutely right :)

Re: I already mentioned this, but I never never NEVER type "rm -rf * " - not never, not nohow.

The point is conceded. A pedant after my own heart.

Correction - I never never NEVER type "rm -rf * " at a Linux or UNIX command line prompt.

Re: I did the same by accident...

I already mentioned this, but I never never NEVER type "rm -rf * " - not never, not nohow.

I always go up one directory and type "rm -rf <directoryname>"

After all, if you want to delete everything in a directory, why do you still need the directory? And it minimizes the chance of you deleting everyihing in the wrong place.

Re: year 2000

An annoy-a-tron - great name.

We had one of those recently. Somewhere around our bedroom, there seemed to be a random noise - sounded like someone ran their fingers quickly down a blind or something like that. (We don't have blinds...)

It came and went. We wondered if it was outside, and some animal jumping on the shed roof? or something else? It would disappear for a few weeks - then suddenly came back, to annoy us again.

Then one day, I was in the bathroom, and I heard the noise - and caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head - the noise had stopped, but an electric toothbrush standing on its end on a glass shelf was wobbling slightly....

For some reason, the toothbrush would switch itself on briefly then off again - just enough to make the noise.

It also explained why, occasionally, we'd find the electric toothbrush in the sink - it had obviously buzzed a few times and walked off the shelf into the sink.

I don't think I would ever have found that if I hadn't been in just the right place at the right time on that day.

Re: The law is clear

By your argument, I could be the first to file and receive a patent on the Revolving Axle-Mounted Transport Assistance Device (RAMTAD) and then - bingo! every car and bicycle owner in the world owes me money. Just because the wheel is a standard doesn't mean my RAMTAD can't be patented.

Don't think it works like that.