Posts by Andus McCoatover 2969 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2007
Grief, I remember working at Bearley Radio Station (GPO in those days) using a decatron frequency counter. It was like watching witchcraft.
Then I moved to another company, where I remember feeding paper tape into a ttl-based computer so it could be used for gas-chromatography.
Sigh. Yoof of today.
(Luxury, etc..)
My wise manager said to me something along the lines of...
"This new product is how the designers show off how clever they are. It's not what the customer wants"
£20 grand logic analyser. I sold one*. No-one else was impressed with it even though it had the latest, greatest operating system on just ONE 5.25" floppy! CP/M was just the dog's bollocks.
Except, of course, it wasn't.
* Nicolet Paratronics (California) only sold one, IIRC, which I sold to GCHQ. Paratronics went tits up in no time, as they couldn't provide the - already paid for - timing analyser. As you can imagine, I was as welcome at GCHQ (one of my major customers) as a fart in a spacesuit. I left as soon as practically possible.
That's the best rant by the most stupid writer I've ever read!
I'm so amazed you seem to have managed to hide under the IT managers desk for 10 years without being hit by an axe...I fuc*king hope you ain't worrking for a big-name company like, e.g., Nokia. Oh, maybe you are, which might explain a few things.
I think what we're seeing here is "Better than the Devil you know...(XP)" and slightly more concerting from the first graph...
"We expect to migrate to Windows but have no specific plans yet" - which has the largest bar. Migrate from what?? Or did the number 8 slip from the authors hand?
If the bloody thing works (XP) - lets me write letters, read e-mails (Gmail, Outlook etc), create documents, why shed out 'loads-a-wedge' on a) New licences, b) New software, c) New hardware d) Training, just so employees can have a 'Wow - this is nice!' experience for a few minutes?
Sorry, if I was a boss, I'd spend the spondoolies on ads, marketing, and product development.
Yeah, I want...but I agree with you 100%.
I love my Girlie, I could never look her in the eye if I'd ever done that.
I have done in the past, years ago* - but never, ever again. Chickens know where and when to roost - usually when you least expect it.
*Cost me a house - £300,000 - Should've read "Dickens" rather than a bit of Dick-ins.
Would that be "only British crewmember of this mission has yet to fly into space"?
Yeps, remember Helen Sharman. Job was up for grabs - it was a 'phone-in' thing, advertised on radio. Out of mischief, I gave it a whirl. Think I just missed it. "What's your University experience?"
"There's one down the road I drive past from time to time"
I guess wasn't quite the answer they were looking for....
Why the hell is a lot of my town heated by a peat-burning power station? I think they have similar in Sweden.
I thought that burning released the CO2 from the peat??? Plus, the immense effort and 'global warming' of putting a new road from the northern peatlands to Oulu so the trucks (CO2 again...) can transport it...
" Do you think the dinos didn't have ethics? Prove It!"
Dinoursoars with Ethics, from Essex? (waking up from a long snooze)
Bunch of oiks. Glad they're extinct. (Back to sleep...)
Oh, can someone open the Thames barrier next week? Full tide. That'll flush their ethics out. Ta muchly.
(Back to sleep...)
One customer of mine - 25 years ago was driving to Faslane, and somehow skidded off the road. In the back, he had a Nicolet 444 Spectrum analyser*
Car went into the loch. Because he was a good customer (and a friend by that time), and needed his kit in a hurry if it failed (RN) he had my home phone number. I was good at fixing the things. 3 wire-wrapped boards, about 300 TTL chips. Car was dragged out of brakish - fortunately not saline - water. He called me at home. "Andus, can you help??" (Once I'd ascertained that he and his wife were OK - she'd come along for the ride) he told me loch water was pissing out of it. Brackish is ½ way between fresh and saline. Salt water kills electronics.
I told him to stick it in the hotel bath ASAP, flood the bath with cold water, get someone to drive it to me in the morning. It arrived, still pissing water. Complete, total disassembly (keycaps included...), vacuum cleaner, hairdryer, new power switch and WD40 spray. All I could think of. Worked all evening, and into most of the night thinking this is a labour in vain. Fired it up in the morning, the damn thing sprang to life! Worked for a couple of years 'till the bits I'd missed failed. Still, a result!
*http://www.testequipmentconnection.com/images/products/NICOLET_444A.JPG
First (Analogue) phone was an OKI. It was £1/ minute - or part of a minute, if you went even one second over the minute, that was another squid. That'd be about £3 today.
Finally bought my first GSM (Nokia 2114 - 1800meg.) when my son was about to be born. (I was working at Nokia, Fleet at the time, and they didn't give their employees 'phones!). That was when Nokia Networks' workers - based in Stanhope Rd., or Admiralty Way, both in Camberley, were working 3 shifts. Still struggled to make enough basestations.
Roll onto now... I called my mate in UK from Finland yesterday, we talked for 10 minutes or so, and I know it'll cost me about the same as a small beer (€2-3).
Did piss me off today when I saw a graph of the N8's price. €450 when I got it, €200 now.
Should piss the shareholders of Nokia off, I thought, but then I realised I'm possibly one, in the form of a pension fund holder....
I'm guessing you're an accountant, or with some other well-paid, dismally dull and boring job. Ant-eater tamer might fit the bill (no pun intended) better.
Try: http://www.kulfoto.com/funny-pictures/23463/what-really-happened-to-stonehenge and see if you can laugh. If you can't, I've 6' of rope in my garage. (They outlawed pistols awhile ago)
My local library has a white box near the reading room, with a red circle painted on it. I asked what it's for.
My Finnish is nowhere near good, but I asked more. "Do you have a mobile?" "Er, yep". "Well if you need to charge it, give me your library ticket, and I'll give you an adapter"
It was a small ring, they have several for lots of different 'phones. As my Nokia N8 was short of power, I took advantage of it, and charged it fine. I didn't really like the idea of plonking my N8 on a magnetic field*, but it was OK.
*Only convenient charging point in our kitchen is next to the microwave, so I charge my devices there. I mistakenly placed Girlie's netbook on the oven, while charging it. She heated up a cup of coffee in the mic. and almost bricked it. Only a lot of F9's got it back...
"Here in the US, we spend about the same amount of money, $2.3 billion, every October on Halloween candy."
WOW - yep, that surely puts it into perspective, even more so when you factor in the dental bills, cost of manufacturing in global warming for such a stupid tradition.
Nice one, I salute you, Sir!
Yep, but one has to remember that "The Court" sounds like a gathering of Learned people, but in actual fact, it's only one bloke wearing silly clothes. Bit like wearing Rupert Bear trousers and fluffy shoes on a golf course - it seems to carry some sense of Power.
(OK, women can be 'the court', too.)
I may be stupid - I possibly am - but my washing machine's got 'rounded corners'. So has every machine (with the notable exception of my razor) in my apartment. Even my cushion on the sofah has rounded corners.
Even my gilfriend has rounded corners 3 weeks out of 4.
I thought it was simply to be comfy, and not to cause one to spill blood all over your hands.
Sorry, folks, I'm missing something here. At least the UK judge seems to have a bit of a clue.
Oh, yes, indeed! I pass my local library daily, and if I've found an interesting article online, I whip out my Samsung 8.9 Tab, (always with me) use the free application "Camscanner(HD)" , photo. it, then let the software process it, correct for things like keystone effect, frame it, enhance it, then format into a PDF, and print. It's practically the same as the original.
Dunno if Apple has the same, if they have, you may have to pay $$$ for it, I guess!
Yeah, agree, Think Nokia's racing to be covered in shi*t as fast as possible. I read the report today - athough not thoroughly - short break, and it seems once again that the Networks division is surprisingly holding the ladder to save Nokia from its precarious perch, and from hanging itself on the Microsoft-provided noose - Sendo didn't chafe the rope so much that it couldn't be used again.... (They did it before - Nokia, that is - in the late 'nineties. Networks 'saved' the phone division). Time will tell.
Half a gig? I'm soooo glad I ordered mine from RS instead of Farnell. Twice the computer for the same cost? Delay definitely worth it, considering what I have in mind for it (and the other 63 I've in mind*) Phoah, I think I died and went to heaven! Only thing I'm now dreading is a letter in the post, telling me it's now available for collection from the Post Office (Posti)...If I got a few more weeks' delay, God only knows what I'll receive! XBox? Christ, noooooo!!!!
*http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/12/raspberry_pi_supercomputer/
Both managers were indeed a pair of huge porkers.
When I went with them into the 'as much as you can eat' Chinese place in Blackwater, the waiters' faces fell.
Yet, they were reasonable, considering their vastness.
Don't think they went back to the buffet more than a dozen times.........
These were blokes who'd throw me the keys of one of their jags, order me to goto KFC in Camberley high street to buy them a couple of family bucket meals.
Two for each....
I'm happy to be held on earth by His Noodly Appendage.. However, no-one's gone for the IT angle, and looked at the undeniable relationship between the number of pirates diminishing, and the increase in Global Warming. Does this mean sunbed-makers should welcome our Somalian Pirate Overlords???
Dunno. Maybe it's the reason that "andysplaice.com" (one of my domains*) hasn't had any offers yet. Good name for a fish-and-chip shop, run by a bloke called "Andy", methought.....But no.
Subdomains? Well...mahatmacote.com is taken, but matatmacote.org isn't.
Neither is theregister.cn. (There IS a God....)
*domain? Sounds a bit pretentious. "Pretentious, Moi??"
I sometimes make 2 bacon butties for me and the missus. I use about 200g of bacon in each. Then, I have a cunning plan....
I spread Marmite on each piece of lightly toasted bread, then fill it with a grilled Portobello mushroom. She hates both. Lovely jubbly! (Actually, I can save money....loads of edible mushrooms growing in the courtyard outside! Heaven!)
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