I for one...
... welcome our new mask wearing overlords
116 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2010
'...When I was learning to fire I was taught that every minute the safety valve is blowing off costs 10 lb of coal and 10 gallons (imp) of water (~5kg and 46L). That helps focus the mind!...'
I remember being told that black smoke and a blowing off safety was a waste of money..... but also the sign of a bloody good fireman!
You also have to factor in the incredibly important rule "fiberglass gives way to steel".
I used to know someone with a boat, he didn't bother with all that colregs stuff, if he was ever on a collision course with someone he'd just shout at the top of his voice 'I'm concrete!". They soon got out of his way
Don't be afraid to tell your non-technical boss to piss off if he's breathing down your neck looking for answers every 3 minutes. Give him a time you'll update and make sure you update him.
Better to give him something useful (and harmless) to do like getting coffee.
And a good boss will go and make it
'Children aren't just super-quick learners, they are much smarter than many adults give them credit for. In my experience the only "childproofing" that really works are systems that need brute force beyond what a child can generate to open/activate.'
Until they figure out the lever
'After I heard that story, I've always limited my foolish impulses to something more subtle, like printing up test name badges with "Herman Goering," "Atilla T. Hun," "Tamarlane" or something like that. I've gotten a few funny looks at times, but never actually got in trouble.'
I worked at a remote office of a large services company once. Often we had to go to head office and because we hadn't done the induction course were given hand written visitors badges to wear. We filled these in ourselves......
Over the years I wandered round the offices with name badges such as 'M L King', 'F Domino', 'J F Kennedy', 'J Hendrix', 'W Churchill', 'E Clapton', 'W Gates' etc
7 years, and nobody noticed
"unprecedented levels of protection"
When I see hyperbolic statements like this in relation to security issues, I get very, very suspicious that the security is flawed.
Me too, I remember some time ago I was looking at dongle based software protection only to be told by one vendor that they used 'Military Grade Security'.
Having been in the military in the past I immediately deleted their email and went to another company who were happy to specify which algorithm and key length they used.
"You would be able to keep a safe braking distance from the car in front to start with, at which point the auto-pilot's reaction (full on braking the instant it sees the stationary car) would prevent the collision."
Errr no. The auto-pilot doesn't have any reaction to stationary objects. This is deliberately done to stop the many false alarms that would occur when roadside objects come into the field of view.
"Indeed, how long before we discover that vaping is as bad (or worse) as cigarettes..."
If Big Tobacco could throw a million pounds at a proper qualified medical study which found a serious problem with vaping they would do it in an instant, it would just come out of petty cash.
But they haven't.
Instead people rely on a series of (very) bad science and tabloid journalism.
Yup, me too
As I lived half a mile from the calibration lab I was asked to pick up a DSO as it was going to be ready at about 10am. Had a lie in, drove round and picked it up (no paperwork or any sort of ID check!) then off to work with it sitting on the back seat of the Ford Fiesta.
It was only then that I realised that not only was is worth wayyyyyyy more then the car was but possibly more than my house was....
But we got the BT payphones designed ;-)
"...Problem is, I vape like it's going out of style, sit there working, puff, puff, puff..."
That's why I still treat vaping like smoking, i.e. going outside for a vape (yes even in this weather!)
And to echo others in this thread, yes, stupidly easy to give up, fag free since July 21st last year after about 30 years smoking.
"When she was told to click with the mouse on screen - she took the mouse and physically tried to click on the screen."
She did that because that was exactly what she was told to do.
If she had been told to 'Use the mouse to move the cursor to a part of the screen and click...' then the result would have been different.
Bad teaching!
"Of course, if the government wanted to avoid pollution or monetize this...
They'd instruct the cars to drive through the potholes, or make you pay an extra $50 a month to enable the optional pothole-avoidance algorithm"
No, that's a Microsoft car
Reminds me of when we had problems with one of the mains phases going off in the building where I was working.
We got an electrician in to put a box with lamps connected to each phase to monitor the problem. These shone through Red Yellow and Blue lenses on the lid of the box.
He couldn't figure out why the blue phase kept blowing when he put the cover on the box, then magically it was on again whenever he took the box lid off.
It turned out he was using neon lamps...........
"Its too low powered for most proper computing tasks "
Define 'proper'? How about a backup server?
I've got one sitting at home blu-tac'd (yes really!) to a USB hub and a USB hard drive. Each night it reaches out to my office and several servers around the country and backs up the daily data via rsnapshot.
Been working over a year now with no problems.
Reminds me of when we had a Mercury box installed to escape BT's horrendous call charges.
It was screwed to a plasterboard wall with screws and ordinary rawlplugs. It developed quite a lean and we were all carefull to go to the other side of the corridor when walking past so as not to jog it.