Posts by MattW99

No problem

Everything fine up here in the grim north.

W1A?

Have the Twenty Twelve / W1A script writers been put in charge of this laughable idea?

Gutted...

They wouldn't let me join - apparently I'm too good looking and it wouldn't be fair to the other members.

Hope they've improved...

I had three of these a few years ago and in each one the plastic plug sealing the tritium tube inside the body worked loose allowing the tritium element to fall out and shatter asunder.

Understatement?

"Not fully met the requirements"

More like drive through them with a freight train...

Lightroom

I just thank Christ that the only Adobe product I use (Lightroom) is available standalone without any of the CC / cloud authentication 'ball ache'.

I'm sure they'll lock it down at some point and that's the point that I'll abandon Adobe altogether but it'll be a crushing shame as for photographers, Lightroom is genuinely great at what it does...

Floppies

I remember installing AutoCad r12 on standalone 386's from 12 floppies. The lucky few had Sun SparcStations with (whisper it) 'networking' and network installs.

I've still got one of those SparcStation boxes in the loft - god knows why...

My innovative XP upgrade solution?

Ditch windows.

My ageing XP Lenovo hasn't got the guts for an upgrade and I remain singularly unimpressed with the latest Windows variants.

So I've bitten the bullet and splurged 2k on a MacBook. I wonder how many others will use the XP end of life as the impetus to ditch the Windows OS completely?

Shower of ****'s

Years ago I swore I'd never buy from them due to their appalling customer service. Glad to see my continued boycot is justified.

Many happy returns ebuyer ;)

Yes.

Let me start by admitting to being something of a knife obsessive, I make knives and other edged tools, I collect them and I've rescued hundreds of abused knives for friends. I'm possibly even more obsessed with sharpness...

The steel used in any edged tool is a trade-off between edge holding, durability and in the case of 'stainless' steels, corrosion resistance. Most decent kitchen knives use a fairly high carbon content to give better edge holding and it's the carbon in the grain boundaries of the steel which is attacked by aggressive dishwasher detergents.

If you look at the edge of a knife with a hand lens, you can often see the grain structure (more obvious in forged blades than ground) and in a regularly dishwashed knife, this edge starts to fall apart and turn into a jagged mess due to erosion of the grain structure.

'Sharpening' with a steel actually exacerbates the problem as steels actually micro forge the edge, moving steel around rather than removing it. This slightly weakens the edge and makes it more prone to grain erosion. Steels are fine for interim sharpening but you need to regrind the edge every so often to restore its geometry and expose 'fresh' steel. A few years ago, I used to collect and resharpen the knives for a few chefs in local restaurants - after repeated steeling and dishwashing, the edges on these knives were knackered - really convex and falling to pieces.

So if you care about your knives (and you should), don't dishwash them and get someone who knows how, to teach you how to regrind an edge (a simple oilstone works just fine, if you use it well - you can also destroy a knife with one if you don't use it well). Sharp knives are safe - I good rule of thumb is if you can shave your forearm with it, it's sharp enough.

MattW

When I did my degree about ten years ago (as a 30 year old - a perfectly mistimed career change if ever there was one), my final year summer placement was at a telecoms firm in Reading. I worked on the billing systems which polled all their main switches for call data records. All this ran on VAX / VMS. Two things struck me about my time there - one that they let me loose on their live billing systems and the other that this VMS stuff was pretty eye-watering and a bit archaic (although fun to work on at a very basic level).

Everything hung on the mainframe (and its failover mirror at IBM in Handford) - I wonder if they still run this system now (wouldn't surprise me - it just seemed to 'do the job').

Cool as a bag of cool things

I admire your bravery and your determination to overcome the joy of prehistoric buildings, altitude and technology. And I especially like reading about it :)

Well I never.

Makes a change from the usual "it's fine - you're just not hip enough to use it properly" Apple response.

I won't be updating my iPad until google release a native app.