Posts by Martin

Re: Created already

Strikes me that this DBA team are a classic example of the JIT resource team. If you need something by date X, they take pride in supplying it on date X, and not a second earlier. They could supply it earlier, but why should they do that if you don't need it until date X? The fact that date X is the last possible date on the schedule, and if it arrives a few days earlier it will make life easier for someone else doesn't seem to cross their minds.

Good theory, but all that would happen in most companies is that as it was your project, you would get blamed for the fact that it didn't go live on time. Management don't care why - they just care what happened and who can they blame. Your project - your fault.

Re: As an American, I can tell you some Super Bowl secrets

As for violence, it's not exactly Aussie Rules - a game that seemed to be a heady mix of Rugby and bare knuckle fighting before they cleaned it up.

Ah yes - Aussie Rules football. They don't have sleeves on the shirts, as they'd only get ripped off.

Re: "the study is silent on these factors"

...most lottery winners end up poor again within a few years because they have no idea how to manage the sudden windfall, splurge it all in a few years and then are back where they started.

Evidence, please. Not every working-class lottery or pools winner is a Viv Nicholson.

Re: "the study is silent on these factors"

That's a really good point, and one I'll mention to my more financially astute brother when he tells me the couple of grand I've got in Premium Bonds is better invested elsewhere. He's of course right, from a purely mathematical point of view. But once a month, I think...maybe....just maybe....

And even an occasional £25 prize is far more fun than a few quid a month in interest.

Re: They all look the same these days....

And yes - why are they all so BIG these days? One or two of my jeans have shallow pockets, and if I sit down with my phone in the front pocket, it can be quite uncomfortable.

Also, I've only got a small hand and it would be nice to be able to use my phone easily one-handed. Time was when 4" screens were ubiquitous - nowadays, they hardly exist.

Re: Don't get it

It's not that daft. If you've never seen a mouse before, but you've seen a foot pedal for a dictaphone or a sewing machine, you might well think that it's a foot pedal.

And it's not actually clear whether the customer is a man or a woman - but I have to admit I'd assumed a woman, because of the reference to a sewing machine in the headline.

Re: A HUNDRED AND FORTY QUID!?

The other problem is that in these sorts of circumstances, the lottery is almost never random or genuine. At every trade show I've ever been to, a few companies would have a "drop your business card in here for a chance to win an iPad" or something similar. However, for some reason, the winner of the iPad was almost always already a customer (or potential customer) of the company offering the lottery, and never some randomer who would never be likely to buy anything from said company.

Re: Screwed the pooch and knows it

1) incite, not insight. Sigh.

2) Plenty wrong with it. A bunch of fired-up enthusiasts are asked by their glorious leader to march on the Capitol to "stop the steal". He may not have actually said "Go break into the Capitol" but that's what happened as a direct result.

And why do you think he DIDN'T march on the Capitol with them? Because he knew there was likely to be trouble - much more fun to watch it on TV.

And afterwards, he told them "Go home - we love you."

Re: An elephant in the room

But it's bad, very, very bad. See for example this story about another 'crisis'-

Which contains much waffle, but precious little truth. And it'd be a simple truth to explain, ie simple bed occupancy rates across UK hospitals. Beds available vs beds occupied. It's a common metric hospitals use for capacity reporting & planning, and presumably something the Bbc's 'world class' journalists could find out.. if they chose to.

The bed occupancy rates have nothing to do with this article. The article is not talking about a crisis - it is challenging the deliberately misleading videos uploaded on Twitter and others which make overrun hospitals look deserted, and getting the correct information about two or three of them from the hospitals themselves.

So what is so "bad, very very bad" about this?

Re: An elephant in the room

"...by competing with say, the NYT as the hard-left's news channel of record..."

Christ, if you think the New York Times is hard-left, what on earth would you consider the Guardian to be?

Re: An elephant in the room

I'm sorry? What's your point?

Someone suggested that the BBC was "very socialist".

I said "Words fail me".

And you said "Sadly, not the BBC" - and then proceeded to reference a story, which, as far as I can see, simply reports the facts, with no bias whatsoever. Certainly not a socialist bias.

So again, I ask - what exactly is the point you're trying to make?

Re: An elephant in the room

"....the very socialist BBC..."

Words fail me.

Re: XP and network discovery?

I remember my next door neighbour telling me excitedly about this wonderful new networking that he'd got his Windows XP computers to do at work. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd been using UNIX on Sun workstations for about ten years, and I really wasn't all that impressed by the idea of two computers being able to see the same printer or disk.

Re: Pugs, golden retrievers and IT equipment do not mix

Several years ago, a friend of mine reckoned he could make one of those electronic fancy cat flap locks. He was right too - the cat was given a widget to wear on his collar, and he was able to come and go through the cat flaps, but other cats in the area couldn't get in.

All was fine, until one day when the cat was being chased by another one. The cat belted up the garden at top speed, straight towards the cat-flap - which unfortunately didn't respond quickly enough, and stayed locked....

Re: Dead mouse

They're effectively terminators for small mammals.

Most of them are, yes.

When I were a wee lad, we had a toy cupboard which had some interesting noises at the bottom of it. So we brought the cat upstairs, who showed considerable interest in this. We poked around with a broom handle, and soon a mouse scampered out of the cupboard and across the floor. The cat yowled, shot off down the stairs and vanished...

(I've told this one before here, but it did seem apt)

There was also the time more recently (different cat) when we (and the cat) heard a noise in the cupboard - and discovered to our dismay that there was a rat in there. The cat looked at the rat, then looked up at me, turned his back and started washing himself. I could clearly hear him saying "You want rid of that? Your problem, mate!"

Re: Not aluminium?

No further comment?

OK, I'll do it then.

If YOU'RE waiting for aluminium to die of rust...

Re: Early days of Firewall content scanning

Only a year ago, I was trying to write a nice review about a tradesman who had come out on a Saturday to sort out a problem. It kept getting blocked. No useful message, it just said that it was inappropriate language. I finally realised that Sa-turd-ay was causing the issue, and changed it say he'd come out at the weekend.