The "I'm Such a Fecking Div" Thread

[Mrs Pingu]

Quite flammable too I think.  Defo best used outside.

[ian]

One of the things I really miss about the lab is the smell of organic solvents in the morning.

[TheLurker]

I don't miss the headaches.

[ian]

If you drink them I'm reliably informed they go away.

I'm trying to remember my favourite. I went off toluene and it was omnipresent in scintillation fluid. Esters and ethers were always fun. I hated dimethylsulfoxide, but who can resist the finger test. Pyridine, yuk, as per any of the thiols, and polyamines (you can probably guess what spermine and putrescine smell like).

My PhD supervisor was a bit mad and we banned his favourite hobby of paper chromatography (which involves giant tanks of solvent), so he took those huge tanks into his tiny office where he could recreate the best experiments of 1948 in peace. He didn't get many visitors.

[Pingu]

...paper chromatography (which involves giant tanks of solvent)...

In basically a large cupboard at the top of the building with no ventilation 

[ian]

To be fair, I think he was having more fun than we were in the HPLC room with boring old TCA and acetonitrile.

MALDI-TOF MS had boring solvents too, but it did feature a big nitrogen laser and a button that said REFLECTRON mode (it turned on an ion mirror which sounds far more fun than the reality).

[mrcharly-YHT]

Decide to fit new freehub last night.

Decide to do this at a bench rather than on the floor, to save my knees.

Remove axle carefully.

Pickout bearings - they are a bit reluctant, being stuck with grease. Decide to be clever, and use a magnet, I have some strong round ones.

This works well, and I am congratulating myself. Right up until I catch the string of bearings against hub, 2 bearings fall off.

I find one of two dropped bearings. My packets of spares are in York.

[woollypigs]

I installed a program in terminal and was going bunkers to why the F!! I couldn't find the newly install program in the list of programs.

I just found out why ... I used the terminal that was connected to the remote raspberry pi ...

doh!

[Ham]

I need to change the ethernet cable to my WiFi AP, as it is likely suspect.

I quote from the Ubiquity manual

Locking Tab During installation, the Locking Tab on the Mounting Bracket moves from the Initial Position to the Final Position, where the Locking Tab fits securely into the Locking
Notch on the UniFi AP to help prevent theft.

Note: If you need to remove the UniFi AP from the Mounting Bracket, insert a paper clip in the Slot to release the Locking Tab and turn the UniFi AP counterclockwise.

That is, unless you have fitted the unit tight to the top 

I think I may just fit a new RJ45 to the cable end  and hope for the best.

[Cudzoziemiec]

*vaguely wonders if a Babbage-engine thus equipped can be used to swerve around the shitverts as you attempt to read the Brizzle Post's webby SCIENCE*

Oh Kim Kim Kim, I can give you a daily digest of the best bits of the Brizzle Post. Here is today's: And tomorrow's: And next tomorrow and all the days hereafter: .

[Kim]

NullPointerException

[T42]

NullPointerException

Luxurious system, that. The machines I worked on back in whenever would happily let you piss all over page zero then hang without even a dying peep.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Hang on, has the Bristol Post sent an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest?

[Kim]

That's NilPointerException, which is an important semantic difference usually illustrated with bogroll...

[The Family Cyclist]

Nearly me

Tuesday is our busy day with pre school maths club for eldest and wife working so I made a chilli for the slow cooker last night

This morning switched it on

Except I'd actually turned the electric tooth charger on and hadn't plugged the slow cooker in

Thankfully noticed before leaving for work

(Just to clarify we have a downstairs bathroom with no power sockets so charging the toothbrush in the kitchen is normal for us)

[Cudzoziemiec]

That's NilPointerException, which is an important semantic difference usually illustrated with bogroll...

I don't know much about computing and only just enough about words to bullshit semiconvincingly, but I am old enough to remember "Norvege nul points":

Norway has the dubious distinction of finishing last in the Eurovision final more than any other country, and along with Austria, has received "nul points" (zero points) in the contest on four occasions; in 1963, 1978, 1981 and 1997.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest

[Mr Larrington]

See also: Nul Points by Tim Moore, in which the author tracks down the artistes awards that coveted score, with hilarious consequences.

[T42]

Yesterday:  my second-best coffee halt is at a patisserie where they have a tall table right in the window where I can sit and keep an eye on my bike.  There are two bar-stools side by side at this table, swivelling with half-hoop footrests for you to hook your heels into. Only cycling shoes do not have heels.

So there am I ensconced with my right heel on the footrest of the neighbouring stool and the other foot dangling in the void.  I suppose the edge of my stool must have been restricting circulation in the dangling leg, because half a second after my right foot slipped right through the footrest of the other stool my left hamstring cramped like a bastard, so that I reflexively shot the leg out straight to counter it.

And slid off my stool.

Fortunately the table was solidly anchored, so I could grab onto it and untangle myself with nobody noticing. Coffee was unscathed; honour was saved.

I wish I had the video, though.

[Mr Larrington]

After an hour or so of faffage involving installing drivers, downloading and installing MOAR drivers, doing a system restore or two and swearing profusely I discovered that the reason I'm not getting any sound out of the squeakers in the Estate Office was because the bastard optical cable had come out at the amplifier end.  Optical cables were designed, by a bastard made of piss, to fall into the dark and unwelcoming cavity under the desk, where lurk the Dust Bunnies of Unusual Size

[quixoticgeek]

I ordered a load of batteries from an online battery shop. I mostly needed some Lithium AAA batteries. The rest were just to get better value out of the €4 shipping.

The package arrived today.

The €14 pack of batteries I thought were AAA? AA.

FFS.

Return shipping will be €4. Then I'd have to buy the right ones, and pay another €4 shipping.

fnnnnngh

J

[Beardy]

I ordered a load of batteries from an online battery shop. I mostly needed some Lithium AAA batteries. The rest were just to get better value out of the €4 shipping.

The package arrived today.

The €14 pack of batteries I thought were AAA? AA.

FFS.

Return shipping will be €4. Then I'd have to buy the right ones, and pay another €4 shipping.

fnnnnngh

J

lothium batteries have a long shelf life, pop them on a shelf until you need them.

[quixoticgeek]

lothium batteries have a long shelf life, pop them on a shelf until you need them.

Of course. I just don't own many things that uses AA batteries... My hope vision 1 light, but that uses rechargeables.

J

[Ham]

Why did it took until I was interviewing a people (virtually, obv) and switched on my camera to realise that I had my shirt on inside out?

[Feanor]

Ah, the old 'Interviewer making an idiot of themselves' trick!

When I was being interviewed for my first job, as an electronics maintenance engineer for an oilfield-related company, I had made it into the 'second round', where they took you down to the lab and gave you some practical tests: can you solder? can you work a multimeter and scope? that kind of thing.

The lab supervisor handed me an open-frame module with lots of exposed parts, and asked me what I thought it might be.
It was clearly a simple linear power supply: A transformer, bridge rectifier, and some big caps.
I take hold of it *very* carefully.

"What voltage do you think it might produce?" he asks.
Looking at the voltage rating on the big caps, I see they are rated at something like 2000v.
So I guess "something between 1000 and 1500v or so".
Quite right.

I hand it back, and he grasps it carelessly.
Whomp! and is thrown back off his wheely chair into a snotty heap on the ground.
A suppressed grin and a raised eyebrow from me, and I have the job.

[PaulF]

Why did it took until I was interviewing a people (virtually, obv) and switched on my camera to realise that I had my shirt on inside out?

I think it's possible to reverse the image you send (in some programmes at least) the logo on your shirt will appear the right way round, albeit faded...