The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[perpetual dan]

They had maybe 40 tables. It might have given the appearance of working if the sitting you down person hadn't had to spend so long checking he could fit me in before needing the table back, and if there had been fewer waiting staff standing around avoiding making eye contact!

The food, when it came, was pretty good. I wasn't expecting "fast food" and the hour it took to order, get and eat my one course filled the time before my time in the exhibition I had a timed ticket for. They could probably have sold me a second drink or a dessert with a bit more attentiveness.

[Mr Larrington]

Last week in Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles:

1 pint own-brand semi-skilled milk: 60p
1 pint Grahams semi-skilled milk: 60p

This week:

1 pint own-brand semi-skilled milk: 70p
1 pint Grahams semi-skilled milk: 60p

Robdogs.

Also, please put back the seats outside the front door as they were well useful for donning one's Trouser-Chain Interference Prevention Units without unpleasant bending.

[hellymedic]

Sainsbury's semi-skilled has gone up from 80p to £1.05 for two pints in the last 18 months...

[Kim]

And the lactose-free has gone from £1 to £1.20

(The Arla stuff is well into the £1.60 range or higher, depending on the shop.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

This makes Co-op oat-based unmilk a bargain, having only gone up from 85p to 95p a litre. Which is quite remarkable, given that it's the Co-op. But also, as it's the Co-op, there will be regional variations (I believe Mr Larrington's local branch is actually a Coöp).

[Mr Larrington]

We have no fewer than three Coöps in these parts, though the last time I ventured into one of them was more than twenty of your Earth years ago, when two of them hadn’t actually been built.

[Cudzoziemiec]

You went into one of them when two hadn't been built? You are a Time Lord AICMFP!*

*I'll take it with 20 years of interest, please.

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm going to be away with work for 2 weeks, including both weekends in the middle of June. You know, longest days and what passes for summer in the Heathen Lands.
Why can't they send me to hot places when it's dark all day and the weather is shit?

[ian]

So, I appreciate the scaffolders now want to come at 7.30 am, but I can't magically guarantee they'll find somewhere to park*. I'd hazard that will be unlikely before 9 am when people leave for work (I did arrange with a neighbour to use their space, but I can't exactly order them to go to work early).

*we live on a narrow hill, and the turn into our driveway is ninety degrees, so the biggest thing you'll get around that corner is a van; the lane behind is all private and there's no public parking and all spaces are guarded zealously.

[perpetual dan]

So, I appreciate the scaffolders now want to come at 7.30 am, but I can't magically guarantee they'll find somewhere to park*. I'd hazard that will be unlikely before 9 am when people leave for work (I did arrange with a neighbour to use their space, but I can't exactly order them to go to work early).

*we live on a narrow hill, and the turn into our driveway is ninety degrees, so the biggest thing you'll get around that corner is a van; the lane behind is all private and there's no public parking and all spaces are guarded zealously.

You've found scaffolders that don't just rock up, block the road, and throw metal bits across the pavement? Are you sure they're real?

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[ian]

I suspect that's the plan. At 7.30 am, when any reasonable person should be sleeping.

[perpetual dan]

I once had the pleasure of teaching with scaffolders outside the window. In the end i had to request they stop swearing so loudly. I may have used loud and colourful language to do this.

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[Beardy]

I vividly remember watching scaffolders taking down a scaffolding ‘crown’ from the top of the ten storey public library that was across the road from my office. The dismantling was fairly standard fair from what we could see, but the scaffolders then lobbed the poles one at a time from the top of the building down to a smallish grass patch some 10m away from the foot of the building. The safety provision the seemed to adopt consisted of red and white plastic hazard tape around the grassy patch and the chap at the bottom waving to the chap at the top when no one was passing.

[Mr Larrington]

I may have mentioned before the family of one of my fellow zeks, who subsidised their scaffolding business by dealing coke, or possibly vice-versa, and were their own best customers.  This does not bear thinking about.  D actually served two stints in the Gulag; after the second he emigrated to Bury St. Edmunds just to get away from his brothers.

[ian]

Well, anyway it's 8.39 am and if there were scaffolders they've evidently been scoffed by the bears.

[mrcharly-YHT]

You know what is worse than a Powerpoint presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points?

A recording of a presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points.

compulsory viewing. Shoot me now

[Kim]

You know what is worse than a Powerpoint presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points?

A recording of a presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points.

compulsory viewing. Shoot me now

Bonus points for craptions.  And not being able to change the playback speed.

[ElyDave]

You know what is worse than a Powerpoint presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points?

A recording of a presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points.

compulsory viewing. Shoot me now

I always try to make sure that my commentary and the bullet points stand alone, a-la His Bobness and big flashcards

[Mrs Pingu]

You know what is worse than a Powerpoint presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points?

A recording of a presentation where the presenter reads out bullet points.

compulsory viewing. Shoot me now

Bonus points for craptions.  And not being able to change the playback speed.

Bonus points for presentation karaoke, where they use the pointer on every word...

[ian]

I deliberately ensure my presentation rarely interacts with the bullet points on any given slides.

To be serious, the bullet points should illustrate what you're saying, but there's no point in spending your time saying things that people can simply read for themselves.

That said, I abhor bullet points. It's a visual format, so use visuals. Text should be limited to captions and labels. If you want to write a document, write a document.

[ElyDave]

I deliberately ensure my presentation rarely interacts with the bullet points on any given slides.

To be serious, the bullet points should illustrate what you're saying, but there's no point in spending your time saying things that people can simply read for themselves.

That said, I abhor bullet points. It's a visual format, so use visuals. Text should be limited to captions and labels. If you want to write a document, write a document.

I go big on text, talk lots, use pictures

My colleague, small text, white space, detail

We clash

[ian]

One of our DSs showed a slide full of code the other day. It's not the fucking Matrix.

[Kim]

Slides full of code are just about permissible when you're actually teaching programming languages.  But they're really hard to do without breaking all the readability rules.

[ElyDave]

One of our DSs showed a slide full of code the other day. It's not the fucking Matrix.

Directeur Sportif?

[ian]

I'm not minded code on a slide is ever acceptable beyond a single annotated line that somehow encapsulates some kind of programmatic awesomenanlity. Julia is quite cool though, so I didn't immediately laser him into atoms.