Dave's not here, man. But this mind-blowingly huge server just, like, arrived The Register understands that by Friday afternoon readers may reasonably contemplate a drink or two. So to give you something to talk about should you visit a pub in search of such libations we therefore present a fresh instalment of On Call, the column in which you share your stories of tech support jobs that left you a little …
Some criminals found out that stealing a pick-and-place tape reel full of DRAM chips was also quite difficult to turn into cash. When they attempted to sell the ill-gotten DRAM to another company, said company called ours, and asked, "do these reel serial numbers match yours?" before calling police. We got most of them back.
It is because the fruits (not seeds!) have a completely different flavo(u)r and use than the greens, so a different name is warranted[0].
Here in the US, Spanish influence gave us the word for the greens.
Note the roots are also edible ... and might be part of the reason that you have issues replicating your favorite Pad Thai at home.
[0] Cf. Mace and Nutmeg.
I imagine it would be far more damaging to their bottom line to have to publicly disclose (in court) that nepotism with a side helping of poor security (not picking up the unusual destination) led to the loss of valuable equipment than simply eating the cost of a unit replacement.
'd guess the dealer got paid off to return it. It would very likely have been at the director's personal expense, given how you wouldn't want that pay-off showing up on the books. After all the dealer probably wasn't even VAT registered.
Probably the easiest way to take care of this. Give the director a nice "bonus" and he uses that to pay off the dealer.
I cannot see that at all. An uncle giving a nephew a chance to stop whatever he was doing and do an honest job instead, that’s highly commendable. It’s not as if the nephew was taking anyone’s job away. And then, companies hire people, and sometimes these people are idiots, including idiots committing idiotic crimes.
The weak-minded nephew is gone, most likely for some jail time because the uncles protection would have instantly ended, the receiver was a drugs dealer and not some corporate spy, so little harm done. The owner of the other company will most likely feel sorry for the uncle.
"The owner of the other company will most likely feel sorry for the uncle."
While I agree with many of your points, this conclusion is not something I would rely on. A lot of people would take a mistake like this much harder, whether it was about the risk to business data, the delay in getting their equipment, or someone's opinion, justified or not, that the situation should have been predicted. I wouldn't guarantee that clients will always take the "nothing too bad happened, so it's all good" route. I'm not even convinced that they should always do so.
"The company just shut up and delivered another server, full cost to themselves. That is more than generous."
I'm a little surprised the courier company delivered it to the address. This was 20 years ago, and sending kit like that would commonly be handled by a specialist delivery company, end even if not, I'd assume they used the same courier company for other similar delivery, probably also the backup tape collections. I'd like to think they may have spotted and "unusual" delivery address.
At Xerox we expected a shipment of several computers. They didn't arrive so the shipping company offered a reward for finding the boxes. It was claimed by a shipping clerk of an unrelated company. It seems the boxes had been sitting on the loading dock for a couple of weeks and no one had any idea of what they were or who they were for.
The good news is the shipping clerk made some money and we got our computers.
I reported someone for kiddie porn on their office laptop in a slightly earlier time period - circa 2000 - and he was allowed to "retire", no cops invited. This was a senior partner at one of the "Magic Circle" law firms in London, but one must keep up appearances, don't you know, old chap?
I support personal freedom on this point but it's tinged with how appalling the stuff smells. I don't know why but it seems particularly bad in Britain. What I smell coming out of cars (!) in the US and cafes in the Netherlands doesn't seem to have quite the same body odour/rotten onion smell.
The worse smell is a result of prohibition. Making it illegal favours strains and growing methods which give a less-fragrant product.
Personally, I quite like the smell of the good stuff. Even the worst of it isn't nearly as bad as chicken shops and other fast food outlets; smelling bad isn't a reason for prohibition, obviously, as you seem to agree. If we do decriminalise, though, it would (perhaps counterintuitively) make it easier to have some social rules about where it's acceptable to smoke the stuff.
Most likely the effect of legal vs illegal and penalties being based on the quantity held
better to risk being caught holding a small quantity of stupidly strong weed (and use it sparingly) than a big bag of weed that you need to smoke a lot of.
A friend from the netherlands rolled a joint (in his usual way) using UK sourced weed, it pretty much knocked him out when he was expecting just a mild buzz.
I used to wonder why there were so many skunks spraying all the time in the area around my old apartment. It took me years to figure out that "skunk weed" was a literal description of the smell of that strain. It's awful when you're going through a restaurant drive-thru and get that wafting through your car (even with the windows closed, A/C blowing and set to recycle the cabin air) and then it lingers despite no visible smoke ever having entered.
Which smells like skunk spray, and skunk weed is particularly strong-smelling. It wouldn't have been called skunk weed if it didn't smell like skunk. If weed smelled like roses, strong-smelling weed would be called rose weed. Other strains don't smell as strongly (though I have limited experience, only smelling what my sister and brother use and whatever I happen to smell around town), so you can't really even say "weed smells like XYZ" if there's weed that doesn't smell like XYZ, and skunk weed distinctly smells like skunk while other strains don't so it's a descriptive identifying name. Trying to make it really clear by repeating so it gets through your weed fog.
"What I smell coming out of cars (!) in the US and cafes in the Netherlands doesn't seem to have quite the same body odour/rotten onion smell."
The (luckilly now ex-)neighbours seemed to have found a supplier that sold "cats piss" weed. God, it was awful!
When I worked for a company which was part of a large, international group, we had a boss who was dangerously devious. He bore a strikingly similar resemblance to the classic portrayals of Dracula. Cutting costs for staff, he enjoyed a lavish existence seemingly protected by dark, looming looks and vindictive tendencies. He also liked to negotiate with suppliers personally, if it was a large order.
He suddenly moved company, located in sunny Spain, with his brand-new, top-of-the-range laptop and week-old Jag. We never saw those again.
We were well rid of him ---->
"Ruined by drugs again."
Yes.... but more likely ruined by not-so-dangerous drugs being made highly illegal, meaning people have to consort with some rather dodgy characters to get it, and even worse, put themselves in the debt of some very dodgy characters. After all, the nephew admitted he had joined the job already with the intention of doing what he did, presumably because he was already, at that point, heavily in debt (probably at a ruinous interest rate and severe threats to various body parts). If it was just the cost of his daily habit, it would probably be easily covered by his salary.
I find it hard to believe that a weed habit alone would have run up sufficient debts (let alone with nasty-enough types) that anyone holding down even a basic job couldn't pay them off at a rate that would satisfy the pusherman. Bit of nose candy, though, and it's a whole different story.
What I gather from articles like this isn't that cannabis is especially awful, but that the dangers of alcohol have become more widely tolerated: all of the symptoms listed there are also caused by heavy alcohol consumption.
So (and I'm not assuming anything about your opinions specifically) I'd say that people who are concerned about the negative effects of cannabis but also consume even a socially acceptable amount of alcohol should reconsider the latter.
"Yes.... but more likely ruined by not-so-dangerous drugs being made highly illegal, meaning people have to consort with some rather dodgy characters to get it, and even worse, put themselves in the debt of some very dodgy characters."
Places in the US where it's been made legal it can still be far cheaper to buy from the more independent business people. The politicians have taken the opportunity to apply so many taxes, fees and regulations that it's hard for a legitimate operation to make money. It's still illegal on the Federal level which prevents access to banking so shops have to deal in cash and where there's lots of cash, there's people wanting to help themselves to it. The above the board shops can't give credit and the alternate supply chain sometimes will and also take payment "in kind".
"Pot? Really? He's just one rotten apple. There are several drugs that DO destroy everything they touch, ravaging the user and holding him hostage to the vice."
There is plenty of evidence to assert correlation. The sorts of people that enjoy being stoned a lot are the sorts of people that aren't always that useful to have around. There are very few people I know that smoke pot that aren't a waste of resources.
If the company knew where it was, it would not have been a selling situation. I wouldn't be surprised if the negotiation went something like "You give us that right now, and you tell us anything you know related to it, and we leave here and conveniently forget your address". That's if they didn't just call the police to retrieve the server and let the police deal with any other aspects.
"That's if they didn't just call the police to retrieve the server and let the police deal with any other aspects."
I'm sure the police would have taken exceptionally good care of the servers, very carefully transporting it to the evidence lock-up so as not to cause any damage to the very valuable and delicate system 'cos they are all aware of how to treat IT equipment, especially 20 years ago. And they'd have taken very good care to hold it in the evidence lock-up for a good few months until the case came up. And then after a paperwork mix-up, they'd have lost track of the rightful owners and auctioned it off for the Police Benevolent Fund.
"If it was my company, and you had my server, clearly stolen, you might not want to return it to me, but when the police knocks on your door, what are you going to do? I mean seriously?"
It will depend a lot on what country you are in. It could take the plod a few days to do any sort of investigating unless the company is well connected and by that time the gear could be gone. If the police show up without a search warrant, if the person answers the door, they don't have to allow them in (US, perhaps elsewhere). A drug dealer that's been through the catch and release program a few times will likely know not to have dodgy goods in plain sight and to not allow the cops in to have a good poke around. That's if the server was still on site which would have been very silly.
However, the information from the person who stole the server indicating that the people were engaging in two illegal activities, selling illegal substances and receiving stolen goods, would probably make it much easier to obtain the warrants necessary to search. Moving the server would help the criminals in this case, but that relies on them having another place for it to go because I doubt they could have found a buyer quickly enough to not have it at all.
Well the company got it back....after the dealer had a unwitnessed meeting with the bofh, his cattle prod, some carpet, a hole and a large quantity of quicklime, another option might have been some Irish gentlemen with a reputation for rearranging your knees
On the death of a washing machine, the quickest way to get a replacement was to buy one from a someone selling one locally on eBay and go and pick it up. The seller, who reminded me of a chatty Silent Bob, helped me load it in my car. When I got the first load of washing out it seemed to smell strongly of Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. Checking the machine over, I found a very soggy packet of shredded, strongly perfumed leaves in the washing powder hopper. I didn't bother telling non-Silent Bob that I'd found his stash as it seemed to be long past capable of combustion.
I did an Erasmus year at a campus quite far outside of the city and you needed to hop on a bus to get to the nearest shop. Some of the other students there smoked and I saw them go through the ash tray and getting the tobacco out from the stubs which they then rolled into a cigarette. Apparently it was as disgusting as it sounds.
one once.......
Some relative of the boss's sister's brother in laws' secound cousin (or something)
Lets call him Herbert
Herbet enjoyed the sweat leaf a bit much and after forever at lunch, came back and made a big mistake that nearly ended with him being a child of the grave.
Sadly he was unsackable.. except the boss was having his 2 week holiday... so things were 'arranged' in that his rolled tobacco/orchid tin got 'knocked' onto the floor while herbert was talking to the lord of this world(deputy boss), releasing its legal and not legal contents.
Deputy boss marches herbert to the door and sends him into the void (no class B drugs allowed on company property).
And by the time the boss comes back, all the paperwork has been filed/signed and its too late to save herbert.
I love it when a plan comes together
Reminds me about the time I found myself freelancing at an Arabic TV station in London. The UK had quite relaxed rules about foreign broadcasters uplinking to satellites for broadcast in their home territories. When I was there, they were working out of a bankrupt Pop station that had been purchased and re-purposed for the broadcasting news, education and entertainment to an Arabic nation in the middle east. Bear in mind that satellite receivers were illegal for the majority of the population out there (this was the end of the last century!), so the only people legally able to watch it were members of the Royal Family and Senior Government Officials.
The history, as told to me, was that the station was the brainchild of one of the younger Royals, who had sent his minion to London with a huge wadge of cash to set the scheme up. After six months or so of excuses as to why the thing wasn't on air yet, the Junior Royal came to London to investigate. He found his minion shacked up in an expensive hotel with a couple of ladies of dubious background, and out of his mind on Columbian Marching Powder!
Minion was swiftly dispatched back home, where, according to the story, various parts of his anatomy were removed - without anesthetic!
Junior Royal then quickly found a couple of ex BBC guys, who quickly located a bust pop station, hired a load of staff and freelancers, and had the station up and running in no time.
It was an interesting place to work, to say the least, but it paid well and on time unlike many minor UK broadcasters of the time....
--
Pete
Heh. place where I work will give you the boot on a failed drug screen for Jazz Cabbage even though it's technically legal (with a medical card) in the state the employer is located in. something about sovereign nation, said cabbage still not legal at the national level, etc.
Anon to protect the most important thing I have- my paycheck. :D
"Alcohol is legal in most states, yet many companies will sack you for being drunk on the job."
There are some people that will nip out for a dose of liquid refreshment, but they aren't as devoted, in general, as the sort who will fog up the interior of their car while on break. In my life, I've only known of a couple of people that will drink throughout the day, but plenty that will take every opportunity to imbibe to help the day move along. While I never cared what employees got up to after hours and on the weekends, I was far more leery of people that smoked pot. I let people know on hire that it would be bad for them to smell of drink or drugs while at work.
I had a salesman who seemed fine. In hindsight he Used a lot of mouthwash though. I was too slow to fire him he hid his alcohol dependency well. He cost me a lot. The dope smokers I couldn’t afford to employ at all while dope was illegal. Most financial institutions and vendors had fits about drug convictions. They were our market. Funny how straight laced you are when your livelihood could be ruined.
I once contracted at a company who had a VERY expensive new server dissapear one weekend. From an internal secure server room. With multiple layers of security do to the fact we connected to other organisations who like to keep things very secure too. And 24hr manned security on site. On a site with only one entrance (past security). With electronic monitoring systems external to the building. And for various reasons the server would not be easy to sell on.
Security saw/heard nothing. The first we knew was when we tried to log on to said machine on monday morning only to find we couldn't connect..
Strangely there didn't seem to be a big fuss about it, and it was quietly replaced. Thinking back now, there was more than a whiff of anchovy about the whole thing ;-) I was just a lowly contractor - so I took my money each month, did what I was told, and kept my mouth shut :-D
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
