Posts by J.G.Harston

Re: Really?!

Years ago I encountered a system where on installing something, it cleaned up afterwards by clearing out $TEMP$. On this machine it had TEMP=C:\DOS

Re: Orifice at work Libre at home

I think you'll find that's 365.2425 days per year. Despite what Microsoft claims, 1900 wasn't a leap year.

Re: I guess "Competence" isn't a consideration. . . .

"Whatever happened to hiring the most qualified candidate ???"

qualified often != competent

Plus it would mean 90% of your CPU power would be churning away running computationally hard data scanning.

Re: Downtime Procedures

The systems I work on, all the data is typed in, the only scrawl is the doctor's signiture on a printout. And with electronic dispensing, not even that.

Re: The 41k sweet spot

I don't think you earn £41K. You're paid £41K. You probably earn much more than that. Which is the fundamental problem with the IT industry. It refuses to pay people what they earn.

Me please! Having to do my job gets in the way of getting any work done.

Re: Slightly larger scale

I had somebody guide me over the 'phone through some setup process who had never used full command names, or realised they existed, and had a really odd accent. He said something like: estab peetab 22. yerrwott???? Eventually I got him to enunciate what he was saying: press S, press the key next to Q, press P... GOD!!!! ARGH!!!!! stty port 22 !!!!!!!!! WHY NOT JUST SAY THAT IN THE FIRST P[LACE?!?!??!?!?

He truely did not realise that was what the command sequence was. It was just a magic sequence of key presses.

Re: A shot in the head is worth two in the feet

Remember what happened when the US banned exports of oil to Japan in the 1930s.

Re: It's not clear..

We also have a national shortage of employers willing to get off their areses and and actually employ those skilled workers.

Re: Furnace?

Having been involved in central heating "boiler" systems on the electrical side for decades, it's clear we're seeing a historical fossil in the name from when central heating really did use steam to transfer the heat, as in my primary school in the '70s with the four-inch cast-iron distribution pipes and the admonishment from teachers not to fiddle with the valves.

Even in the '70s when, as a child, I "helped" my Dad install our central heating it was water as the delivery medium. When we covered it as part of my C&G in 1990 it was 60C flow 40C return to deliver 20C from the radiators, so it's never been a "boiling" system. I think there's just never been a neutral replacement term for the active heating part of the system. It's like pencil lead is still called lead centuries after clay/graphite composite started being used. "Water heater" doesn't work as that's a device connected directly to a hot tap to locally provide hot water.

Though, even though the American term is also a fossil, I cannot comprehend how "furnace" became their term. "Furnace" is something that heats to extremes with the intent of breaking down the stuff being heated, something you approach only when dressed in protective clothing.

Re: You sir or madame are correct.

"Quiet Quitting" sounds like good old Work To Rule. Do what you're paid to do, and no more.

Re: One day they will look at their daughters killed by the Moral Police...

How is 5p for a sanitary towel "prohibatively expensive"?

Re: AWEsome is as AWEsome does. UKGBNI MoD are Challenged to Deliver ...

Yes, but regardless of the energy, it's still the smallest possible leap that is not no leap at all.

Re: Contractors rejoice

I didn't get any self-employed furlough because I hadn't been self-employed enough in the previous X years. I also didn't get any employed furlough because my contact had just ended a couple of weeks before. So, I got shafted both ways.

Re: Well now....

'999' is routed by the exchange dialled by the dialler to a call centre - *exactly* how it is done now. But with that call centre staffed by Joint Emergency Services staff, not BT staff.

Re: 4 Day Week

In the 1970s, though, you worked for three days and were paid for three days. I'm only just breaking even being paid for five days.

Re: Clueless users

No. The closest I've worked out the structure is that I lived in Lei Yue Mun, which is in Kwun Tong, so I assumed the letters were R-for-something Kwun Tong.