Posts by The Oncoming Scorn 3464 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Feb 2018
I wasn't there for this but my last place of employment set up about 50 laptops & recorded the chorus of Cortana start up.
Ohhh look there's my desk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp2rhM8YUZY&t=14s
Not sure if the Share & Enjoy song is worse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wSBC5Dyds8&t=21s
Many years ago in a IT Service Centre Hut, in the carpark at the back of Somerset County Hall.....
One of my colleagues (New starter like myself) was commended by manglement for setting up & configuring ghost casting a whole load of PC's in house.
This did not endear him to the permies\longer standing contractors as one of whom had done such a thing (Installed all the required drivers, apps etc then made a master image & set up a complete school IT lab in about 2 days & was hauled over the coals by the same manglement for doing the job faster than they had budgeted for & were charging the school by the hour.
I left my main PC on at home, to remote access into during a two week trip to the UK.
First full day in London I inadvertently shut it down.
New project when I get home fit a Alexa controlled power switch & set BIOS to reboot after a power outage or fit a wifi activated switch to the motherboard.
"To say the various songs are similar would be an understatement: They're practically identical down to their bland, hollow lyrics. "
How is this different from normal Country music & musicians?
Icon - That's me looking for my hire car keys, that only has one local radio station that I can find*, that's playing country every time I drive it.
*The entertainment system UI is not very intuitive, the physical controls are at the rear of the center console by my elbow & as I only have for a few days & short commutes I am not investing the time to find out.
"Icon: Whatever you do, there is always someone watching you!"
That's very true, we have a new manager here he's doing a 500KM commute daily (He's going to be renting my basement, until he makes a permanent move).
He got a letter charging him of insurance fraud, penalties include revocation of Insurance, massive fine & punishable by up to 11 years in clink & other nasty stuff as his daily commute mileage is greater than his expected amount which he had stated when he took out his policy.
How did he get caught?
He took his vehicle in for a oil change, the mileage got uploaded to a database & detected by the insurance system (Don't ask me how that trust relationship works unless it was some form of dealer\insurance company preferential rate).
I used Mercury (IIRC) for a time they had a thing for long distance calls for a max charge of 50p on a Saturday & Claranet had a London number primarily for overseas clients to dial into.
I know I wasn't the only one to exploit that combination as it was mentioned by the tutor heading a MCSE boot camp.
Icon - I'll drink to that, then when I get home post pub Friday night\ Saturday morning hit the dial up.
Remember reading years (60's or 70's) ago about a man convicted of his girlfriend or wife's murder.
His sole albi was that he was on a railway station travelling somewhere at the approximate time of the murder & he recalled a definite "TICK" as the minute hand moved as he left the station.
In that time before trial the station clock had gotten replaced & Plod being Plod set him up for the crime & he was convicted, he spent two years or so appealing his innocence & his defence team finally they got hold of a member of the station staff who stated that in cold weather that the old clock would make a very audible TICK.
Sir Bedevere: So, how do we tell if she is made of wood?
P1: Build a bridge out of her?
Sir Bedevere: Ahh, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
P1: Oh yeah...
Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?
P1: No
P3: No. It floats!
P1: Let's throw her into the bog! (yeah yeah ya!)
Sir Bedevere: What also floats in water?
P1: Bread
P3: Apples
P2: Very small rocks
P1: Cider
P3: Grape gravy
P1: Cherries
P3: Mud
King Arthur: A Duck on a CRT monitor!
Years ago, our phoneline died (It gave a quick "chirp" as it expired), I had to wait 3 days for BT to fix it (Despite having seen the guy working in the local box earlier that day).
Day 4 roles around, still nothing, I dig out my DVM no line voltage, ring up BT....
It's been resolved!
No it hasn't, there's no line Voltage
There then followed a short discussion of how I ascertained that fact as subscribers were prohibited from interfering\connecting anything to their phone network (I bullshitted a bit by saying I had PABX\Network line testing kit) which I countered with well clearly I haven't as the Master socket isn't connected to anything as there's no line voltage.
A "Humph" of damn he's got me there.... followed by my next question of.
Who marked it as resolved?
The engineer, he traced your line, reconnected it & rang it, a fax machine answered so he closed the ticket.
Well.....I haven't got a fax.
Oh, well it will be another 3 days for a tech to go back to site as its a domestic line & a new ticket!
Really?
Nothing that you can do to expediate that.
No
I know something that might expediate that.....How about I go to the Young Farmers Offices directly at the back of my house & ask them if they are getting fax's, presumably they could log a ticket that might get their fax line restored & my line reconnected to my house instead of their fax machine.
Hmmm it may not be until tomorrow now....
Some curt goodbyes followed & 20 mins later a new chirp was heard from our phone as it returned to life.
"that will fit in a shirt pocket."
Just as well I am the IT equivalent of Steve Arnott & I am fond of wearing waistcoats as I have had a good many phones imitate a lemming out of my shirt pocket.
Phones in my trouser pockets is also a non-starter as I have broken screens as a consequence (I also have a weird waistline that good fitting trousers in the morning, decide to descend on my person the second I put anything in my pocket other than wallet & CC holder).
Zummerzet.....
Rainy Friday Afternoon post lunch (No beer), some deskside\level 2 or 3 bods wheel down some kit for wiping & disposal.
This was done over the Friday afternoon\weekend & put on the pile Monday morning.
E-waste disposal place picked it up with the rest of the kit for disposal sometime the following week.
A Friday or two later (Also raining, that sort of rain that makes you feel really cold at a primal level) post lunch (No beer) two different people present themselves in the IT Service Centre (Or a wooden hut attached to County Hall Offices & sited in the carpark) displaying increasing levels of panic.
"Do you have this server, the asset number?"
Back through our records...... "No!"
"Do you know where it is?"
"No!...........but we do know where it went" (Throwing them a bone).
"Where?"
"Somewhere north of Bristol, or at least it was!"
"WTF! ....WHY!"
"Your team members brought it down for wiping & disposal, this was done & it was taken off site 10 or so days ago!"
"FUCK!"
"What's the urgency?" Say we, thinking it's about time we got to ask a question.
"It had bespoke "accounting\financial" software on it, all ready & configured for a consultant who is arriving on Monday, we left it powered down for (6) months & some PFY decided as it was doing nothing, it should be disposed off"
"Ahhhh well that's rather unfortunate!"" /SMIRK
"If you give us the contact number of the disposal company we can see about getting (Buying) it back"
"Sure.....if they still have it in one piece & not destroyed or broken down for spares or sold it onward to a buyer"
"WHAT!"
"We (The Council) paid them to take it away, it's theirs now, they can do what they want with it or do you think they should hold on to it for 3 months on the off chance we might want it back in a hurry ".
They got hold of the company, bought it back at a very high price & collected it that afternoon (Place was closed weekends) after a high speed drive up & down the M5, then spent the weekend reinstalling it & restoring the configuration from backups. Just in time for the very very expensive consultants arrival Monday.
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