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

[Beardy]

Refund form on the TPE website, bloody hell. I've spent more time trying to complete this than the ticket was worth - it wouldn't let me submit it, but wouldn't tell me what I'd done wrong.

I think it was cos I kept putting a £ in the amount, it worked fine with just the numbers, but what a palaver.

Allowing the user to only type numbers into fields that require a number has been a thing since green screen data entry terminals, say around 1965? But now, well after the digital revolution, not only can they not be bothered to validate the input, but the server end chokes on the input 

It’s largely the product of marketing teams believing that they are web developers because they’ve got access to a wysiwyg page editor and one of them did a webpage as,part of their dissertation in 2005.

As most older IT people know, system development has many disciplines and specialities with testing having three distinct phases. Of course, most accountants and senior managers have had enough of experts and think we’re just making it all up. Which is why my mate has currently been at work since Saturday 6th when the company web front end was hacked…

[Polar Bear]

Having been a Software Configuration Manager then Release Manager at one of the UK's biggest banks I despair at the clear lack of QA that has infested the IT space.  I blame the retail sector because my experience of them was that reckless is not sufficient to describe their approach.

Do it once, do it right is not a retail mindset.  Retail seem to think that they can fudge through.  Get me drunk and I will tell you which major UK retailer is only three days from crashing out of business on a permanently rolling basis, and why.

[Beardy]

Having been a Software Configuration Manager then Release Manager at one of the UK's biggest banks I despair at the clear lack of QA that has infested the IT space.  I blame the retail sector because my experience of them was that reckless is not sufficient to describe their approach.

Do it once, do it right is not a retail mindset.  Retail seem to think that they can fudge through.  Get me drunk and I will tell you which major UK retailer is only three days from crashing out of business on a permanently rolling basis, and why.

My understanding is that there are a number of organisations who are consistently walking the edge of catastrophe. My mate’s firm have just had a week’s down time on their Online presence and the outage also affected their bricks and mortar operations. From what I understand, this,is down to poor QA in some areas…

And it’s not just the retail sector. Look what happened to the TSB a three or so years ago, that was a multi week outage down to lack of comprehensive pre upgrade testing.

He’ll, I even had a week long outage on division’s online help system because the third party software supplier lied to my queries on rollback testing. When the upgrade failed and I called a rollback, they couldn’t. Fortunately for me, I not only had my query and the response documented I also had my risk escalation to my manager documented. Phew!

[Polar Bear]

I agree but in 2002 when I moved from finance to retail I thought that I had left utopia and entered into a land where dinosaurs roamed and the only end of a stick was the shitty end.

I effectively made myself redundant three and a half years later because the IT Director rejected the opportunity to expand the IT provision to include DR or to embrace actual testing proclaiming that our programmers were so good that they could fix anything overnight.  A heavy burden to carry.  He got fed up of me rejecting bugs and errors, er I mean software updates into live.

Retail was a complete disaster inhabited by smooth talking chancers.  Some of them will have escaped and infected finance, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc.  The galloping rise of online "services" has hastened this.  I still have friends there with skin as thick as trump's youngest and they tell me that very little has changed since 2006.

[barakta]

A friend of mine was telling how she had trouble filling in a webform. One field wouldn't accept (correct) input. So she looked at the underlying html, spotted the crappy regex, edited it in the cached copy and entered the data.

Wonderful data sanitation security there.

A friend of mine is a webdev and regularly does this on online forms which don't work properly or don't allow a suitable title... And yes, tells you a lot about the security (or lack thereof) at many orgs.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I used to work for an organisation, that had many flaws. However, planning DR and forward planning for issues was (I guess still is) regularly undertaken.

In 2019 they war gamed 'what if the head office entire site was rendered unusable/destroyed', and implemented fallback to cope.

We know what happened in 2020. To switch to 100% working from home, without disruption to work, took a single email. Snap. Done.

There is probably no coincidence that that industry sector pays about 50% more than other IT sectors.

[Paul]

What is it with people advertising bikes for sale on FB (and probably elsewhere) that seem to think prospective buyers have no interest in seeing the business (drive) side of the bike?

A disproportionate number seem to concentrate entirely on the non-drive side. I suppose that it could be that I notice it disproportionately (such that I'll bother to drag myself to the keyboard to grumble), or it could actually be the case.

If the latter, it's got me wondering whether some people - you know, the ones who aren't on cycling forums - might actually prefer the 'clean' side of the bike, thinking it looks better.

I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong, aesthetically. But I assume that they don't realise/appreciate that you can tell a lot about a bike by looking at the business side.

If they just took photos of both sides...

[Kim]

Because BRITONS generally interact with their bicycles from the left, and will be in the habit of wheeling it, locking it, leaning it against walls, etc from that side^[1].  Only the sort of weirdos you get on cycle forums think about the sprockety stuff.

Obviously if you're selling something, you should photograph it from all important angles.  But these are lazy people, as evidenced by using Facebook for an eBay job.


_{[1] I've grinked the council on a couple of occasions to point this out, wrt the half-arsed installation of wheeling ramps.}

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is there a fully arsed way to implement wheeling ramps? If you have a track each side it's still making assumptions about tyre width, distance needed from tyre track to railings, steepness up which a fully laden bike can be pushed and down which it can be controlled, etc, and they're almost always wrong. The best way to do it is to have a set of unimpeded stairs for foot people and a full width ramp for wheel people and leg people who simply prefer it.

[Kim]

Is there a fully arsed way to implement wheeling ramps?

Good question.  The steps to the towpath at Five Ways probably qualify, as they now have a total of three (crap) wheeling ramps for a normal-width flight of stairs, not leaving an awful lot of room for feet.

[Mr Larrington]

Ah, Belgium, man! by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

Doubly entertaining with a laden trike…

[Cudzoziemiec]

This^ explains Belgium's success at downhill skiing. Or might do, if they had any success at downhill skiing. As it is, it's more likely to explain their success in cyclocross.

[Kim]

That looks similar to the geese ramp^[1] that was recently installed on the stairs by the back of Mr Sainsbury's Emporium of Toothy Comestibles, so that they have easy access from the canal should they want to commit suicide on the A38.


_{[1] PushBikes' working theory, as it's clearly unsuitable for bicycles.}

[T42]

This^ explains Belgium's success at downhill skiing. Or might do, if they had any success at downhill skiing. As it is, it's more likely to explain their success in cyclocross.

Or their A&E skills in dealing with broken necks.

[rafletcher]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

[Edd]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

Repair job?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

[robgul]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

There are quite a few "old china" companies that buy in remnants from house clearances etc as well as end-of-line and seconds - https://www.chinasearch.co.uk/  at Kenilworth is one such emporium - there are lots of others.

[rafletcher]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

Repair job?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

If we can find the tiny little missing bits.... 

[rafletcher]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

There are quite a few "old china" companies that buy in remnants from house clearances etc as well as end-of-line and seconds - https://www.chinasearch.co.uk/  at Kenilworth is one such emporium - there are lots of others.

Yep, I know, it's just a bit of a shot in the dark with no name to search on. Maybe I'll email them with a picture and see where it gets me.

[Canardly]

Ours are pretty ancient but found some here. The regularly used pieces have all had the stamp on the bottom removed by dishwasher over the years. Check your less regularly used pieces to see if the model can be identified via a stamp on the base.
https://www.chinasearch.co.uk/denby/seville/

[hellymedic]

Isn't it SingleOak now 

Post October 1987…
I thought they might have replanted some.

Will Google…

ETA Maybe it should be EightOaks…

From Wiki

The eponymous oak trees in Knole Park have been replaced several times over the centuries. In 1902 seven oaks were planted on the north side of The Vine cricket ground to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII.[6] During the Great Storm of 1987, six of those trees were blown down. Their replacements, planted in a ceremony involving well-known people from television shows such as Blue Peter and locals such as Gloria Hunniford and Caron Keating, were vandalised, leaving the one mature tree standing. The trees have been replaced and eight Oak trees of varying ages line The Vine.

[T42]

Bugger. My wife dropped a dinner plate yesterday, whilst emptying the dishwasher.  We only have had 4 of that size to start with. It's Denby, but carries no marks, and is a plain grey-brown. The last time one was broken was over 25 years ago, and that ones replacement was a patterened rather than plain one.  I fear we'll struggle to find a replacement to match either the patterned or plain, especaily as we have no idea what the designs are called.

Sympathy. I dropped my Wedgwood Peter Rabbit egg cup last week. They're getting thin on the ground and post-postage from the UK costs more than the ones I could find on eBay.

[rafletcher]

Ours are pretty ancient but found some here. The regularly used pieces have all had the stamp on the bottom removed by dishwasher over the years. Check your less regularly used pieces to see if the model can be identified via a stamp on the base.
https://www.chinasearch.co.uk/denby/seville/

A simple but effective hint - I checked the other 2 plates, and hey, presto! they are Denby Langley Mayflower, and better still, I got 2 matching plates off eBay, which should be here Saturday.

[Ashaman42]

It always something with these bicycle things!

So I realised that my rear brake was making a funny noise a couple miles from home this evening (how long it had been making that noise masked by traffic noise I don't know) so used it as little as possible from then on till I could have a proper look in a warm and well lit kitchen.

It's a chuffing big lump of metal embedded in the brake pad. With a somewhat scuffed rim as a result. Not sure if the metal was picked up from the rim or if it's 'foreign'.

On the brand new only been fitted for a week wheel. That was there to replace the wheel that had a full split of the rim a couple week ago.

Maybe that old wheel wasn't as used before I got it as I suspected. Maybe I've just been using overly harsh brake pads. I didn't think I was given at how often I've been replacing them.

These (https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005PVLSIM) are what I've been using. Anyone got any recommendations for a better alternative perchance?

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Koolstop salmon pads are kind to rims and quite powerful.