Posts by cman52

Muppet broke the datacenter every day, in its own weighty way

Worked at a pharmaceutical company. About once a month the fire alarms would go off for no reason.

After a few years the cause was found. In the sprinkler systems there are paddles that move when the sprinkler goes off and they set off alarms. There were two buildings that had the pipes running underground and under the driveway entrance. When a very heavy truck would drive in the pressure started a current in the pipes that moved the paddles.

What's brown and sticky and broke this PC?

Work harder to get out of work.

Had a "coworker" who was notorious for avoiding doing anything- call in sick, etc.

One day he complained his PC just quit working. Techs pick it up to take away and about a quart of water pours out. "I don't know where that came from". Yeah

NASA tweaks Voyager 2's power supply to avoid another sensor shutdown

Re: "legacy Fortran code"

I taught myself fortran using a found book, a teletype terminal to a mainframe. It started me on a career in programming. I actually was quite fond of the language though I eventually went on to COBOL, C and others.

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Re: But I DO want to know!

Back in the mid 70s I worked at a retail chain store which played taped music over the store speakers. Of course Christmas really got played to death. I knew I had to get out of there when I was walking around and complaining to myself about the relentless repeats and looked over the service desk and was shocked to see the tape machine was not working!!

A History of (Computer) Violence: Wait. Before you whack it again, try caressing the mouse

Worked with one of those people who will spend hours and tons of effort to get out of doing actual useful work. He reported that he could not work because his computer was broken. The tech picked it up and about a pint of water spilled out.

Privacy pop-up exhibit shows people in The Glass Room shouldn't throw phones – though they may well want to

Christ said "The love of money is the root of all evil".