
Re: Brushes?
Damn fairy farts sprinkling turd dust on our landers...
24 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Mar 2015
Having dealt with high frequency, high current connections (induction heaters, 20+kW), the best advice is - sand and scrub the connection, apply deoxidizer paste, scrub again and assemble it sloppy-drippy, then clean up and torque. Wash with solvents if necessary, but then re-clean and re-torque. Cleanliness is next to [diety]ness and torque is key to a tight connection.
I would think that is called "experience", but what is to stop the ex-employee from spilling trade secrets that he carries in his head? Brings to mind the book "Snow Crash" where the government employees are given only small chunks of code to work on, and specifications to meet for it. No individual worker had the big picture, just a small part of it with no knowledge of how it interacts or relates to the others.
Too much thought for a Friday. Back to my ticket queue. Black helicopter because I could imagine them chasing trade secrets in my own head.
<rant>
FFS, it's a friggin *KEYBOARD* Unless they are trying to assemble it out of UnObTanium, wtf is the delay in making them?
Fer chrissake, let's stupify this for the masses. It's a whole bunch of friggin switches that one closes when you press a key, and are open when you do not. There is a grid of traces on a PC board, a bunch of rubber doogles that have alphanumeric characters on them, and a plastic 'template' that keeps them doogles relatively in place. You press the doogle, it closes the circuit, a chip sees that, and it can figure out what key was pressed, then squirts that data to wherever it needs to go (USB, IO port, wheredafuk, etc)
HOW FUGGIN HARD IS IT TO DESIGN A SIMPLE ASS KEYBOARD? Especially for a chunk of old ass hardware whose behavior is *very* well known? Are they idiots? Are they fools? Are they incompetent? (realizing I have very little idea what the measure of competence for this situation is....)
The *only* thing I can think of, is that they're trying to re-create the unreliable, mushy, squishy behavior of the original keyboard, and every test sample they've gotten back from manufacturers is simply too reliable and usable for their standards.
</rant>
Meanwhile, it is Wednesday, which means the sammich shop near work has a two for one deal. Sounds like breakfast time to me, at 9:07 EST.
I love the reg. I get to vent my frustration caused by users by ranting like a crazy person at times. It helps me keep my sanity, and prevents bad karma when I have to go fix their stapler. Yes, a system admin gets called to fix a stapler. Granted, it's an electric power stapler, and I can only trust the user to staple their fingers together (not my problem, the stapler worked, didn't it?). But such is the life, innit?
To the best of my knowledge, the only significant wind currents on the moon were circling 'round the astronauts in their suits. Seems the food caused some gastric (and olfactory) distress to the poor bastards.
Meanwhile, you know there was 'that one guy' in Mission Control that couldn't keep from laughing hysterically every time one of the astronauts hotboxed themselves.
Why would it only be smelly if held in one particular hand or the other? Also, would you please elaborate which hand (left or right) is the one that causes it to be smelly? Or is it the holder's dominant hand? What if I'm ambidextrous? What if I only have one hand due to a horrible desk stapler incident, and now that is my dominant hand? Will I ever be able to hold methane without creating a stink, or am I just fscked? These are the questions that keep me up when I'm wanting to take a nap at work!
I have no shame. I've changed the HP4250 printer displays to read 'Remove squirrel from tray 2', and then kept randomly sending the command to check the paper tray.
I changed half the printers in the building to read 'beware of ninjas', and when my phone rang and someone asked about it, I simply said, 'Ninjas are sneaky', and hung up.
I set a few printers to read 'Player 1 insert coin', but that backfired as I had to explain how several dimes got into a printer and shorted crap out.
The most expensive part of building a base on Mercury will be shipping the blankets and sunscreen. It's not tidally locked to the sun, but its day is longer than its year, so your surface installation will either be in a deep freeze (practically no atmosphere to trap heat, or distort telescope pictures), or in blistering heat and super high solar flux.
But at least you could power the whole base with a solar cell from a pocket calculator......
Mine's the one with the SPF 9001 in the pocket.
Lets see you drive blindfolded, at 100mph, across the desert, in a flatbed truck, for three days to catch a parachutist (also blindfolded) on the center of an X after six vodka martinis per hour for three days.
Orbital mechanics is a particularly nasty branch of math, and it's one of those things that rewards pre-planning vs brute force. Try to log in too many times, you get locked out. Try to brute force a launch and orbit, and you die a firey, incandescent death.
Would you rather crap yourself, and arrive safely to duck to the washroom in relative shame (they've all been there, done that), or rush the job and say into the mike, 'Oops, we smashed into you, now we all die..."
Shit myself and get there, or rush and die? I'd rather be shitted than dead. Shit wipes up, death.... not so much.
Mine's the one with the Depends in the pocket.
Ah, read a bit further down in my post, and you'll see that I didn't call for a cessation of the work visas, but to make them uneconomical for business to use for 'cost cutting' measures. It will *help* ensure that the best and brightest still have a chance, but they need to be good enough to justify the expense.
I don't want to stop immigration. Hell, almost all of us here in the US are immigrants. I want the visa system reformed. I want the number curbed, and the costs raised. Dump that extra money into primary and secondary education. Fund programs to help those that can't afford an education to get one.
Remember that when you're forced to train some foul-smelling, arrogant, ignorant, mentally deficient fscktard to be your replacement, at 1/2 your salary, 1/4 your benefits, and none of your experience. Bonus points if they are a misogynistic prat who treats female secretaries and assistants like they're trash.
Take comfort in the fact that you've given someone a 'chance to live the American dream' as you pack up your belongings from your foreclosed house and have to explain to your family that you were replaced by a foreigner who was happy to do the same job as you for half the pay.
Enjoy struggling to find employment, even as an experienced worker, because companies can hire some foreign idjit who will promptly send better than half of their earnings back overseas to their family.
No. Work visas don't need to be stopped, but they do need to be made so expensive for the companies that they aren't a viable choice vs hiring local talent. Same with outsourcing. They want to outsource the call centre to whatever-istan? Sure. 500% increase in federal taxes for every man hour they pay for out of country.
Yes, while businesses are in business to make money (otherwise they're charities), most places tend to function on the 'GIMME GIMME GIMME' aspect of money at the expense of their employees. Whereas places that pay their employees fairly, treat them well, and give them a *reason* to work hard very quickly find out that happy, loyal employees are hard working employees. And hard working employees make you money. End of story.
So enjoy your newfound free time, because congratulations, you're being fired and replaced by a foreigner. Oh, and I'm sorry that you can't collect unemployment benefits, because we gave all that money away to illegal immigrants. Got to think of everybody else's children first, you know.
It works like this -
The craptastic cable companies give lots of money in "Campaign Funds" to the politicians. The politicians don't vote for items that go against what the cable companies would like to happen.
There's a fancy name for it when they get caught, too. Graft. Because it's impossible to conceive that a law-abiding-god-fearing-public-serving elected official would do anything as shameful as take a bribe....
It's stories like this one, where it's dead plain that the elected officials were bribed, that makes me ashamed to be American. Even more embarrassed to admit that I was born in Tennessee, albeit not in Chattanooga. Thankfully.