* Posts by ICPurvis47

402 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jul 2009

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From Maidenhead to Morocco: In a change to the scheduled programming, we bring you The On Call of Dreams

ICPurvis47
Facepalm

Re: Foreign travel

Coming back from Yugoslavia in 1965, we camped near Graz in Austria, As the ground had been flooded until a few days before, and the grass was growing on a layer of slimy mud, the site owner suggested that we set up in the old summerhouse, near the lake. Although I spoke reasonably good German, I couldn't understand the old chap, but I could understand his wife, as she was actually German and not Austrian. He, however, could understand me. Thus, our conversations were sort of triangular, I would say something and he would answer, then his wife would repeat what he had just said so I could understand it. My sister also had a smattering of German, but neither of our parents had any idea of what we were talking about.

Many years later in 2003, when I took my wife on holiday in the Eiffel region of Germany, we visited a bell foundry and were shown round in a group by a very understanding tour guide, he had to keep stopping his talk so that I could translate for my wife, who did not speak German.

ICPurvis47
WTF?

Re: Not quite a straightforward bribe

The old Yugoslavian republic used to have an embargo on taking money out of the country, not just Yugo Dinars, but _any_ currency. We were on holiday in Zadar, and when we tried to leave through the northern border into Austria, we had to hand over all our money, including the Sterling Traveller's Cheques, so we had nothing to buy food or petrol with for the journey home across Europe. We had to go to the British Embassy in Zagreb and get them to wire us some more Traveller's Cheques to a bank in Graz, Austria, so we could change some of them into Schillings for the journey across Austria, and so on across Germany, Belgium, and France to get to the ferry terminal. If we had not had enough petrol in the tank to drive from the border back to Zagreb, we would have been marooned in a foreign country with no means of escape.

Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: Metrification

A much better approximation to Pi is 355/113, which is accurate to six decimal places.

I only found this out recently, after about sixty years in engineering!

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: The 80s were generally a happy time...

Touching the car body will equalize your potential to that of the car, and this is what prevents sparks on touching the nozzle. It doesn't matter that you still have potential with respect to ground, the spark will only take place if you are at a different potential than the metal parts of the nozzle handle, which is itself electrically connected to the mouth of the tank.

ICPurvis47
Mushroom

Re: The 80s were generally a happy time...

If you look closely at the pump nozzle, almost without the exception, there are holes on the trigger guard to accept the latching wires, but the wires have to be removed to stop the latching action for local regulations (at least in public petrol stations). I carry a wire on my keyring that just fits into the holes and re-enables the latching action. I have only been told off once by an eagle eyed kiosk attendant, he switched the pump off and wouldn't allow me to pump any more petrol until I removed the trigger wire. Most petrol station fires were (are?) caused by ladies putting the latch on and getting back into the car to get their handbag out, and their slipping across the upholstery fabric is what builds up the static charge. As long as you touch the car body to earth yourself before touching the nozzle, there won't be a spark.

ICPurvis47
Thumb Down

Re: The 80s were generally a happy time...

When my daughter and her husband bought a semi in Leeds, the previous (old) couple had both been heavy smokers. The walls and ceilings were a dull tan coloured, and we had to strip all the wallpaper and most of the plaster off and start again from bare brick. The lath and plaster ceilings also had to come down and be replaced with new plasterboard before the whole lot was papered and painted white. The stench when we first entered was indescribable.

ICPurvis47
Holmes

Re: Smoking

When I was working in a factory in the Midlands, the rules changed regarding smoking, and a Smoking Room had to be provided for the workers to go to on their 10 minute "Smoking Break". As a non-smoker of many years' standing, I did not like going into that room, so I avoided it for several years. Then, one day, I had to go there to summon somebody (I don't remember who) to the telephone in our office. As soon as I opened the door, I could smell the thick, brown fug, so I stood just outside and yelled "Mr.****, you're wanted on the phone" before beating a hasty retreat. Someone else in our office commented that if the smokers could take 10 minutes "Smoking Break" every hour or so, why couldn't the rest of us take a "Sex Break" in a suitably furnished "Sex Room"?

OVH data centre destroyed by fire in Strasbourg – all services unavailable

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: Who knew data centres were tinder boxes?

We always knew when a fire drill was imminent, when we came in to work in the morning, all of the glass tubes would mysteriously have vanished during the night, only to re-appear the next day.

Hacking is not a crime – and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative

ICPurvis47
Flame

Re: Too late

Similarly, the term "Engineer" should refer to someone who has spent 4 to 6 years or even longer studying for a Degree or Doctorate in an Engineering subject. I find it extremely irritating that the gas company insiste that they have 6000 "Gas Engineers" ready and waiting to come and service your boiler. NO they haven't. They may well have 6000 trained gas fitters available, but not one of them has any form of Higher Degree. It would seem that the great unwashed have been brainwashed into believing the anyone who gets his hands dirty is automatically and "Engineer". In some countries, including Germany and Canada, it is illegal to use the term "Engineer" unless you have the correct qualifications, why not here? I C Purvis MSc.

Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy a beer: Beware the downloaded patch applied in haste

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Reply To All

When I was in IT, every new install of Outlook or Outlook Express had the Reply To All facility permanently disabled, so we never had a Reply To All tennis match. My Boss explained that it had happened some years previously, and he had instigated the disablement in order to prevent a recurrence. In that original session, all eight offices across the company were affected, and it brought the business to a grinding halt for best part of a day. Thankfully, it was before I joined the company.

BOFH: 7 jars of Marmite, a laptop and a good time

ICPurvis47
Devil

US Customs, etc, was "Does what it doesn't say on the tin"

When my family was entering the US on Holland America Line's MV Maasdam in 1963, we became friendly with some Dutch people during the nine day voyage. As we were sailing toward the Statue of Liberty, the father of the Dutch family was in a very agitated state. My father asked him what was the matter, and the Dutchman produced a glass jar of Marmite from his coat pocket and wailed "What shall I do, I am not allowed to bring any foodstuffs into the country, and I have this Marmite on me, I shall go to prison!" My father took it from him and hurled it over the stern of the ship into the wake, from where it sank. "What Marmite?" he said. The look of relief on the Dutchman's face was a picture, he fell about my father's shoulders and cried.

Previously, before we left England, my father had to go to the American Embassy in London to collect our visas in person, and was asked to swear that, amongst other things, he would not try to overthrow the American Government. His reply was "What, all by myself?" They would not issue the visas until he made the oath.

Forget GameStop: Keyboard warriors and electronic trading have never mixed well

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: Ignisecond, n.:

I once found a wallet lying in the street, so I picked it up and put it in the rear of my estate car (Mk3 Cortina). I drove to the Police Station and parked out the front. I locked the car and used the key to open the boot to retrieve the wallet, and slammed the boot closed. (No central locking back then). I took the wallet in and deposited it with the desk sergeant, before returning to my car. As I approached the car, I could see my keys in plain sight - inside the boot! Knowing that Mr. Plod also used Ford cars, I returned to the desk and asked if they might have a selection of Ford keys with which to try to unlock my car. The desk sergeant told me to go back and wait by my car, and someone would be out soon. A young copper came up out of the underground garage and I explained the situation, indicating the keys in the back of the car. He took off his flat hat and said to me "Don't watch", before removing a doubled length of plastic parcel strapping from inside the headband. He inserted this between the rubber seal and the B pillar, and fished around until it snagged the lock button, which he pulled up to unlock the door. I later obtained a similar length of parcel strapping and used it on several occasions when friends or workmates had locked themselves out of their cars. The advent of remote central locking obviated this necessity, so I haven't had to use that trick for many years now.

Healthy 32-year-old offered COVID-19 vaccine because doctors had him down as 6.2cm tall with BMI of 28,000

ICPurvis47
Thumb Up

Re: Gout prevention

Yes, thanks, I take it daily.

ICPurvis47
FAIL

Re: The reason I lost so much weight in short order?

But beware! If you suffer from Gout (like me) you will find that Quorn is higher in Purines even than Fatty Bacon. I was prompted by my vegetarian daughter to try a meat free week, so I bought two packs of Quorn Sausages and two of Quorn Burgers. That evening I had Bangers and Mash for dinner. Next morning I was in agony and had to resort to taking Colchicene to quell the pain. I gave the remaining sausages and all the burgers to my sister in law, who does not suffer the same, and she enjoyed them. Back to eating meat thanks, but nothing Pork related. I could kill for a bacon sandwich, but would regret it in the morning.

ICPurvis47
WTF?

Text invitation

I received a text from my GP surgery at the local medical centre, inviting me to go on line to book a jab (I am 73). I followed the link and jumped through all the hoops, and was assigned to a vaccination centre the other side of Shrewsbury, about 18 miles away, and not my local medical centre, 3 miles away. As it happened, I was going to the medical centre the next day to collect my medication, so I showed the receptionist the text and asked her why Shrewsbury? The practice manager happened to be passing by at that moment, and she grabbed me and towed me into her office, filled out some paperwork, and five minutes later I was in one of the consulting rooms getting the Oxford jab. Practice manager was very concerned that although _they_ had sent me the invitation, the system had assigned me to a different medical centre.

We know it's hard to get your kicks at work – just do it away from a wall switch powering anything important

ICPurvis47
Angel

Re: My favourite one....

A British Standard handful?

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: MFI, was Confession

When I was at school back in the 60s, my parents bought an old Trojan Rural Bus and converted it to a camper van. In order to carry the 25 litre water container from the toilet block to the caravan, Dad bought a tubular sack truck from MFI, (£5 IIRC). Some years later, whilst at college, I bought an identical one for carrying my welding equipment and bottles around. I still have mine, but Dad accidentally left his outside the caravan over one winter, and it went rusty. I have since (but not recently) seen someone loading snacks into a vending machine using an identical truck with a wire basket attached to the front.

ICPurvis47
Devil

Re: Ham interference....

We moved next door to an older couple, who were very nice at first. Then the old lady was made to retire from her job at the local school, and became very bitter. One day she complained (amongst other things) that we were causing interference to her television with our CB radio. We told her that we didn't have a CB radio, but that didn't make any difference. To punish us, she tuned a radio to a quiet station and placed it with the loudspeaker against the party wall with the volume turned up to 11, so that every ten minutes, we were subjected to a ten second roar of interference. One day her granddaughter remarked "What's that awful noise in your front room?" Her reply was "I have to put up with that 24 hours a day". My brother in law, an electronics engineer, brought a Radio Direction Finder round and plotted where the signal was coming from. It appeared to be coming from halfway along the wall in their front hall, so I informed her husband and son, but she didn't believe them, and continued to rant at us. One day, we received a visit from an inspector from the Environment Agency, apparently she had made an official complaint, and they had sent him round to remonstrate with us. He was very surprised to be cordially invited into our house and offered a cup of tea. I explained what was going on, and where the interference was being generated, and I demonstrated that, even with our incomer main switch switched off, and the house electrically dead, we were still getting the roaring noise every ten minutes, so it couldn't have been generated by anything we were doing. He went round and told her that she was breaking the law by having the radio so positioned, and made her disconnect it and remove it from the wall. He then told her that it was her thermostat that was the culprit, and he then left. We then heard her say in a very loud voice "You may have been able to pull the wool over his eyes, but you can't fool me". Some while later, while she was in town, her son surreptitiously replaced the thermostat with a new one, and the interference ceased. Her comment was "Thank goodness you've stopped using that %*&^%$ CB radio".

The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality

ICPurvis47
Unhappy

Re: Had a call...

If anyone at the company I worked for did something either extremely stupid or illegal, enough to warrant being sacked, it was referred to as "Being awarded the DCM". This was an acronym for Don't Come Monday.

ICPurvis47
FAIL

Re: Had a call...

We had a round of redundancies, my whole department (Technical Publications) was made redundant and its workload assigned to the Sales Department instead. I was called into my manager's office, and he said "I have some bad news for you". I surprised him by saying "What, you mean I have to stay?" I had already secured three new positions with competitor companies, I just had to decide which to accept. Five years later, I was head-hunted back into my old job, with a considerable raise, because the Sales department hadn't kept the manuals up to date, and the company was facing several law suits for breach of contract.

ICPurvis47
Flame

Re: Execu-barge

We local residents had a long battle with the council after they installed speed bumps in a residential street that led to an industrial estate. The continuous procession of HGVs caused severe seismic vibrations that were damaging the houses along the street, not to mention the fact that said HGVs were being routed past a recreation ground, a creche, and an old people's home on their way into and out of the estate. I left some four years ago, but the battle still goes on, heaven knows what will happen when the first house falls down.

ICPurvis47
Devil

Re: Had a call...

"I did consider taking this to tribunal"

I was dismissed from my last employment on a trumped-up charge, but really because the bright young things didn't like employing a greybeard. I tried to reason with them, but they refused to co-operate and eventually suggested I take them to a tribunal. As it was Christmas, I let it wait until the new year, but then found that I had missed the deadline for the application, I had assumed it was six months, but it turned out to be only three. That probably explained why they took so long over the negotiations, they wanted me to run out of time.

Ring, Ring, why don't you give me a call? Amazon-owned doorbells aren’t answering after large-scale outage

ICPurvis47
Happy

Re: Knockers

The first time I travelled over to Llynclys to view my prospective rented bungalow, I passed through the village of Knockin, Shropshire. I almost crashed the car laughing, there at the side of the road was a building displaying a signboard that proclaimed it to be "The Knockin Shop". Some years later, the shop closed and was empty for a while, but now it is open again, but I do not know whether it is still using the same business name, note to self, must go and check sometime.

How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: also I still don't get what advantages 110v has

When my parents moved from Southend into London, the London Electricity Board was supplying us with 100V DC. Soon after, they announced that they would be changing to 230V AC, and that they would pay for any modifications to wiring, equipment, etc., that that would entail. My father went around buying up all the old 100V DC motors he could find and attaching them to every piece of hand operated equipment in the house. One day, I came home from school and found a long row of brand new 230V AC electric motors lined up along the front hall, biggest ones nearest the door, getting smaller and smaller as they were farther down the hall. The next several weekends were spent swapping all the old motors out and replacing them with the new ones.

ICPurvis47
Mushroom

Re: UUC, was Interviews

When I was on a Post in the ROC, back in the dark days of the late 60s, our SOP for when a Nuclear Explosion was heard was: " No 1 Observer, read Bomb Power Indicator, No 2 Observer Pass time and pressure to Operations Room over Teletalk, No 3 Observer exit post and change Ground Zero Indicator papers". To which some wag had added "No 4 Observer, change underpants".

We regret to inform you the professor teaching your online course is already dead

ICPurvis47
Big Brother

Re: Jeremy Bentham

When I was a schoolboy, my father worked for the Medical Research Council, and was placed in the Anatomy Department of University College, London, in Gower Street. I used to visit him some days, and in the evening we used to walk down the main staircase on our way across campus to the Underground station. At the bottom of the staircase was a large wooden cupboard, and on occasions it was open, revealing old JB sitting there in the gloom. Rather creepy for a schoolboy. I don't know which bit of him was preserved and which bit was waxworks, but his head used to be stolen by students from other universities and held to ransom as a Rag prank.

You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right? Trust... but verify

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Three Phase Supply

Many years ago, a work colleague of mine bought a house in a new development. Other members of the same workforce also bought houses in the same terrace, and they discovered that the three houses were each connected to a different phase. Being Electricians working for Site Services department of a local electrical engineering firm, they quickly decided to run a three phase + neutral cable along the roof facia so they could each tap into it and have thee phase available in their garages. I left that company many years ago, as did one of the electricians, but two of them still live beside each other after retirement.

ICPurvis47
FAIL

Re: You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right?

When I installed storage heaters in the old cottage we bought, I had to get an electrician from the power company to check my work, certify it, and then connect it to the incomer. First electrician comes along and says "You must have a separate Earth Leakage Trip (ELT) for the heater circuit, as well as the original one for the rest of the house", and leaves. I obtain and fit said ELT. Second electrician turns up, OKs my work, but insists that the Protective Multiple Earth (PME) must be connected directly to the earth rod outside the house. He will not listen to my plea that such a connection would render the ELT inoperative, as any fault current would bypass it down the thick earth cable. He waits while I run an extra earth wire, then presses the yellow test button to prove that the new ELT is working. He then signs it off and leaves. I then whipped out the wire cutters and removed the offending earth wire, before checking that the ELT was working by connecting a resistor from Live to earth in a spare plug to inject 30mA down the earth wire.

ICPurvis47
Mushroom

Re: You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right?

My brother in law had a maintenance contract with a national gas company. One December, just before Christmas, they sent a fitter (note, not an "Engineer") to do his yearly maintenance. When I went to visit my BIL on Christmas day, I was struck by the strong odour of gas in their flat, and asked if they'd had any work done recently. When told that they had had the visit from BG, I immediately told them to open all the windows and doors, even though it was snowing outside. I removed the front cover of the gas fire, and the smell was overpowering. I touched the main incoming gas pipe, and could hear a slight hissing sound, so I tightened the union nut by hand until the hissing stopped. The fitter had reconnected the fire finger tight, and not used a spanner ti fully tighten it. I went to my car and returned with an adjustable spanner, which I used to fully tighten the nut. Later on we closed the doors and windows to let the CH do its stuff and warm the flat up again. I asked whether they had noticed the smell, and theyreplied, yes, they had, but thought it was coming from the cement works about half a mile away up wind, so had ignored it.

You can drive a car with your feet, you can operate a sewing machine with your feet. Same goes for computers obviously

ICPurvis47
Flame

Uppercase/Lowercase

My name begins with an uppercase i, not a lower case L. It annoys me when salesdroids ring me up and ask for "Lain". I say "No-one here of that name", and hang up on them. If they can't be arsed to differentiate between the two, I don't want to speak to them <\rant>

ICPurvis47
Angel

Re: Typists using early PCs

Reminds me of when I had my mother come in to the Uni office to type up my MSc thesis on her very small portable typewriter. She was pounding it so hard that it was scooting about all over my Formica topped desk, and every time she swiped the carriage return lever, the typewriter would shoot to the right hand end of the desk. I anchored it by placing two cylinder heads (Ford Escort 1300 Cross-flow IIRC) on the desk at right angles so as to act as backstops on the right and behind it. My writing was/is so bad that she could not decipher some of it, so I had to go over the typed pages and write the correct words IN CAPITALS so she could retype it correctly (My bad, not hers).

ICPurvis47
Facepalm

Dictation, was Foot pedal

My boss once dictated a specification for an electric train controller, and sent it off to be typed. What he dictated at a certain point was "The controller must pass 1000 Amps on the first notch", referring to the way different values of resistance were switched in and out by "Notching Up", a device common with both trains and trams. What he received back was a very neatly typed specification containing the instruction "The controller must pass 1000 Amps on the first of March". The typist had typed what she thought she had heard, and had not bothered to ask for clarification.

The Novell NetWare box keeps rebooting over and over again yet no one has touched it? We're going on a stakeout

ICPurvis47
Mushroom

Re: A better solution

My parents rented a shop and flat in a small suburb of Rugby, very near to the radio station (long gone now). We never had a power cut, even while the rest of town was in the dark, had our circuit been interrupted and Rugby transmitter failed, it could have initiated WW3 because that was where the Polaris submarines were controlled from. There was also another unexpected benefit, there was so much EMF from the transmitters that fluorescent tubes would stay bright for several minutes, or even half an hour, after being switched off, and you could often hear Morse Code emanating from the cooker rings in the kitchen if you put a damp saucepan onto the stove without drying its bottom first. Rugby Radio Station's 1000ft masts were a "Welcome Home" as one approached southbound on the M6, it was a shame when they came down, we missed those lovely red lights in the night sky.

I built a shed once. How hard can a data centre be?

ICPurvis47
Facepalm

Re: And contrawise

Not IT related, but when I was working as a development engineer for a very large electrical manufacturer in the Midlands, we had a rush job to refurbish two cabinets of circuit breakers for BR Southern Region. The final assembly was being done in a bay we called "The Elephant House" because of its high lift capability, by our two Elephant Trainers, Sid and Sam. Because of a delay in procuring some vital parts, the build was not completed until late on Friday afternoon, and Dispatch and Transport were waiting impatiently outside with the Commer TS3 (sounded lovely, ever heard one on full song?) low loader. Eventually, Sid and Sam completed buckling up the cabinets, which were about four feet square and eight feet high, and lifted them with the overhead crane onto the low loader. Without waiting for any strapping down, the driver (who was anxious to get home) drove off down the yard to D&T. Everything was fine until he started to back it into their loading bay, which involved negotiating a slight ramp up from ground level to the building floor level. As he was approaching at a 45° angle to the threshold, one side of the semitrailer rose and tipped both cabinets off the other side, where they crashed to the ground, destroying all of the circuit breakers inside and distorting the cabinet frames. They were eventually lifted back onto the low loader and returned to the Elephant House, but, needless to say, they weren't delivered that week (or the next, either).

My website has raised its anchor and set sail into the internet oceans without me

ICPurvis47
Flame

Re: I hate Interviews

I had been riding motorcycles since I was 15. My UK licence covers both cars and bikes, and I had both. When my wife was taken ill, I sold the bike as I had to use the car to ferry her back and forth to hospital for operations, chemo, etc.. After she died, I decided to start riding again, but the insurance company wouldn't sell me cover because I hadn't taken a CBT (Certificate of Basic Training). Up until the old insurance lapsed, I had never been asked for this, but apparently Grandfather Rights do not extend more than three years after the policy ends, so I was stuffed. I refuse to pay £100 for two years permission to carry on doing what I had previously been doing for 45 years at no cost. Bah! Humbug!

Windows might have frozen – but at least my feet are toasty

ICPurvis47
Facepalm

Re: Even worse with heaters...

One of the engineers in the department in which I was a _very_ junior engineer decided that the departmental fridge needed defrosting (no auto-defrost in those days). He opened the door and emptied the milk, sandwiches, and other disgusting green objects from within and propped a fan heater up at an angle so it blew hot air into the fridge. He then went home for lunch. Some time later, our Section Leader went in to get his sandwiches and make himself a cuppa, and let out an anguished yelp. The hot air had done its job melting the frost, but had also caused the blow moulded inner lining to shrink back towards its original, flat, un-blow-moulded shape. Only the glass shelves had prevented it from going all the way, but the internal capacity was severely reduced, and said shelves could no longer be removed for cleaning. The fridge still worked OK, but the culprit was banned from going near it in future.

Cats: Not a fan favourite when the critters are draped around an office packed with tech

ICPurvis47
Devil

Re: Dead mouse

We moved house some time ago, and the previous occupant had an aviary at the bottom of the garden. Our cat, Mickey, was fascinated by the aviary, running back and forth across the wire mesh front, so we let him in. Didn't see him for three days, but every morning there was a line of dead mice on the concrete wall of the flowerbed, all lying on their right sides with their noses pointed towards the back door. Eleven the first day, seven the second, and three the third. Mickey then strutted into the kitchen with a smug look on his face, and a bulging belly. He wouldn't tell us how many in total, but it kept him fed for those three days and most of the fourth.

FBI confirms Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher solved by trio of amateur math and software codebreakers

ICPurvis47

Re: " because one always keeps a spent cartridge in the chamber."

Nevertheless, that's what the finding was. I remind you, although Oswald was a trained sniper, he was disaffected, and was using a non-US rifle.

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: "Not so good at spelling"

Hickey did not aim, he stood up on the upholstery of the back seat and, as the car accelerated, lost his balance. In contravention of all the regulations, the gun was "Hot", ie there was a round in the chamber and the safety was off, because "that's the way we do it". As he lost his balance, he tightened his grip on the gun, and it went off. There was no intention on his part to shoot Kennedy, he was trying to ascertain where the shots had come from, but failed. Oswald's first shot was deflected by the sight board of the traffic light, and hit the kerb, throwing up a spray of stone chips which hit Kennedy in the face. He exclaimed "I'm hit", at which point Governor Connely turned around to see if Kennedy was OK. Oswald's second shot entered the back of Kennedy's neck and exited through his larynx, then passed through Connely's shoulder, wrist, and thigh, before lodging in the back of the front passenger seat. The reason for there being three cartridges at the sniper's nest was because one always keeps a spent cartridge in the chamber to prevent the firing pin from being damaged,should the trigger be pulled against an empty chamber. Thus, the first cartridge, separate from the others near the window, was ejected when Oswald operated the bolt to bring the first live cartridge into the chamber.

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Re: "Not so good at spelling"

"Now, if ONLY we could find out why JFK was murdered and by whom?"

JFK was accidentally shot by one of the Secret Service men in the Cadillac that was following JFK in the Lincoln. Hickey was not supposed to be in that car, but as the three SS men who were supposed to be there were ruled unfit for duty (they were observed at 3AM in a bar with several Ladies of Negotiable Affection), Hickey was moved from the Vehicle Preparation Team to the Active Support Team. When Oswald's first shot rang out, Hickey grabbed for the .22 repeating rifle that was on the floor beneath his feet. On Oswalds second (and last) shot, he stood up and the gun went off (the third shot). The bullet passed over the top of the Cadillac's windscreen and entered the back of Kennedy's skull, making a 1/4" hole (too small for the 6.5mm FMJ used by Oswald). The hollow nosed bullet then fragmented inside Kennedy's head, blowing off a hand sized patch of his right forehead.

All of this has been explained in a series of investigations, which are available to view. There have been many other theories, but this is the only one that stands up to close scrutiny.

BOFH: Switch off the building? Great idea, Boss

ICPurvis47
Mushroom

Re: LAMP TEST

"Goodbye Basingstoke"

ICPurvis47
IT Angle

Boomertwang!

One office where I worked, the Boss had his desk crossways at the end of the office so he could keep an eye on us minions. He had a large ball of newspaper wrapped up in hundreds of elastic bands, attached to a nail in the ceiling by a long string of elastic bands, so it rested on the floor beside his desk. He called it his Boomertwang, and if anyone made a stupid mistake, he would pick it up and hurl it at the offender, whereupon the elastic bands would return it to his desk. Fun ensued when the offender managed to catch the ball and hurl it back at the Boss (Gordon), and everyone else in the office would get involved for about ten minutes.

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there

ICPurvis47
Angel

Americans and tea

When I was living in Louisville KY, my then GF was from Sutter Illinois. She offered to make me (an englishman) a cup of tea, but was very apologetic because the only tea she had in the house was "Instant Tea", very similar to instant coffee, but without the taste (or any taste at all, for that matter).

For every disastrous rebrand, there is an IT person trying to steer away from the precipice

ICPurvis47
FAIL

Car naming, was: It's not just our business

"The Ford Escort sold just fine in the UK"

...where it was always referred to as the "Scrote". Ford had a penchant for issuing corruptible names, such as the Concertina, Transhit, Grandma, and others that I can't put my finger on just now. Of course, Ford weren't alone, how about the Hillman Pimple?

Who knew that hosing a table with copious amounts of cubic metres would trip adult filters?

ICPurvis47
FAIL

Re: At least he got a warning

I was once hauled over the coals because I had ended an email organising a site meeting for the following week with "See you next Tuesday". Someone at the receiving end had misunderstood this and assumed it was an euphemism, and had complained to my boss.

ICPurvis47
Angel

Re: Over sensitive company intranet

When I was an apprentice to an engineering firm, we all had to undergo basic Fitting training. One of my intake was a very young and not exactly worldly wise fellow, who asked the instructor why male and female threads were so named. The instructor ("Knocker" White) put his arm around the boy's shoulders in a fatherly way and said "I think you should go and talk to Sister Amos about that".. Sister Amos was the nurse in charge of the Accident Room, and guardian of our moral health.

ICPurvis47
Facepalm

Re: Funny placenames

I used to drive a delivery lorry around Dorset, and often went through the villages in the valley of the river Piddle, such as Piddle Trenthide, Piddlehinton, Puddletown, Tolpuddle, Affpuddle, and Tincleton. I also used to travel up and down the A5 when I was at Uni, and went through such delightful places as Paulerspury, Potterspury, and Potter's Bottom.

ICPurvis47
Devil

Re: Inside joke?

When I was working for a tyre company, we used to write the name of the truck company on the removed tyres before storing them, so that their fleet manager could inspect them and decide whether to scrap them or send them for retreading. One of our regular customers was a brewery named Whitbread, whose most popular product was Whitbread Tankard. One of my colleagues (not me, I hasten to add) always wrote their name on the tyre as Titbread Wankard, and left it in plain sight from the road. Mr. Plod used to come around occasionally to have a quick gander at the assembled stack of discarded tyres. Another of our customers was a coach firm who had several contracts to supply school busses. One day we had a coach in for four new tyres on the back axle, one of the old tyres was not only down to the canvas, but through the steel cords as well, and had two fringes of rusty wires around the shoulders of the carcase. Mr. Plod was _very_ interested in that one!

Panic in the mailroom: The perils of an operating system too smart for its own good

ICPurvis47
Boffin

Impromtu Tours

When I was about 14, I was a keen railway modeller, and was building a "00" scale layout in the loft with my father. I wanted to scratch build almost everything on the layout, and as I was a keen bus spotter as well, I went over the road to the local bus garage (Seven Kings) to ask if I could run a builder's tape measure over an RT (Regent Three). The staff were very accommodating, even moving a work stage over so I could measure the outside of the upper deck, and parking one bus over the inspection pit so I could have a good look at the underneath detail. From there it was only a short step to being allowed to ride in the cab as one of the shunters (Bill Totts) put the bus through the fuelling stand and washing machine before parking it up in the line ready for its next outing. After several weeks of this, he allowed me to actually drive it, while he stood in the entrance door, and then I was trusted to drive solo. For about a year, I would go over to AP after school to drive busses all evening, until my family moved (temporarily) to the USA. By the time we returned, Bill was no longer working there, he had retired, and there was a completely different air about the place, the RTs were gone and had been replaced by Routemasters (RMs). The whole garage was shut down some years later, and is now a DIY Superstore. :-(

New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they're not even in use?

ICPurvis47
Angel

Handy

Am I the only one that read that and heard Stephen Fry's uber-camp german voice saying that in my head? "Wo ist mein Handy, ich habe mein Handy verloren"

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