Author Topic: A random thread for small things that don't really warrant a thread of their own (Read 2999550 times)

Beardy · « **Reply #22650 on:** 21 May, 2018, 10:37:36 am »

Things are not looking good for my department in the merging of two customer facing units.
First the CEO of our customer facing unit lost his job as the CEO of the 'other' CFU was appointed as CEO of the new combined CFU.
Now our General Manager of my department has just announced that he has lost his job as the Chie Information Officer as the CIO of the 'other' CFU has just been appointed as CTIO of the new combined department.

And this just after my boss told his team that the work we are doing is very important so don't worry. Yeah right. The 30 % who manage to hang on may not like the new organisation very much because there is a LOT of important work that someone will have to do.

ian · « **Reply #22651 on:** 21 May, 2018, 11:12:12 am »

Quote from: Jakob W on 19 May, 2018, 12:04:40 pm

Ah, the old offshoring dodge; yes, content processing costs pennies (literally) a page, but meanwhile you've got to have another whole QA team (offshored as well) to check the garbage you get back, plus the extra six months and five passes to get it acceptably right, plus the UK staff to schedule and oversee all this stuff. Maybe, just maybe, there were advantages to doing all this in-house? From my highly scientific survey methodology of flipping through recent copyright pages, UK publishers seem to be using local typesetters again; whether that's going to be a longer-term shift I don't know.

Ironically, the work that is being offshore is the sort of routine process admin that will be automated out of existence in the next couple of years. I'm not convinced of the wisdom even as a short-term cost-saving measure. It comes complete from the So You're Running a Big Business playbook though.

A lot of the shiny new management genuinely seem to unquestioningly accept the beneficence of our new owners, which even with the absence of my congenital cynicism, seems to buck all the available evidence. I'm not going to be drinking from the same water dispenser as them.

(OT, typesetting and composition costs were a lot lower back in the 2000s, it's hard to make a case to keep it in the UK and difficult for UK suppliers to shave their own costs in what was still mostly skilled manual work. Labour costs overseas have crept up and more importantly automation had taken a lot of that cheap labour out of the question. I don't manage such things any more, but I doubt the cost-savings are significant in many circumstances, once you factor in a lot of QA is still done in the UK, and this becomes all the more important when machines are doing the work.)

Guy · « **Reply #22652 on:** 22 May, 2018, 09:47:19 am »

If there really is a God, how does one explain the existence of that great festering bucket of hypocrisy that is Jacob Rees-Mogg?

Beardy · « **Reply #22653 on:** 22 May, 2018, 10:08:50 am »

Quote from: Guy on 22 May, 2018, 09:47:19 am

If there really is a God, how does one explain the existence of that great festering bucket of hypocrisy that is Jacob Rees-Mogg?

A warning on the over reliance on Darwinism?

T42 · « **Reply #22654 on:** 23 May, 2018, 09:40:38 am »

Folk next door have a patch of grass out back where the youngest of their 6 kids play. It used to be maintained by the eldest, but since he started working he let it slide, so that the nippers were kicking their football about in a foot of grass.

Enter their Uncle Bruno, village shepherd, who obligingly put a dozen sheep there for the day. Now the grass is short all right, but so full of shit the kids can't play there.

andrewc · « **Reply #22655 on:** 23 May, 2018, 06:31:23 pm »

Having a quiet beer before going for a meal. There is a chap in the pub with long wavy hair, sporting a cravat & smoking a curly pipe.... early 30s at a guess. Is this a new trend or some hipster sub type I’ve not previously encountered?

ian · « **Reply #22656 on:** 23 May, 2018, 06:38:16 pm »

Quote from: andrewc on 23 May, 2018, 06:31:23 pm

Having a quiet beer before going for a meal. There is a chap in the pub with long wavy hair, sporting a cravat & smoking a curly pipe.... early 30s at a guess. Is this a new trend or some hipster sub type I’ve not previously encountered?

Vintage hipster. They enter our 'verse via a unattended spacetime portal somewhere in E5. You can claim a bounty if you catch one.

Gattopardo · « **Reply #22657 on:** 23 May, 2018, 09:06:57 pm »

So now maplins is disappearing and there are bargains to be had. Or not. My local has now closed but had a bargain clear out bit for a pound and this was my bargain.

The 50amp clamps and connectors were worth a whole £1

WTF am I going to do with d sub cases?

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #22658 on:** 24 May, 2018, 10:24:46 am »

I've no idea what 'd sub cases' are but at a guess, Kim could find a use for them!

citoyen · « **Reply #22659 on:** 24 May, 2018, 10:41:25 am »

Aren't they used for older (VGA?) computer monitors? Probably about as useful as SCART leads these days.

Kim · « **Reply #22660 on:** 24 May, 2018, 02:06:52 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 24 May, 2018, 10:41:25 am

Aren't they used for older (VGA?) computer monitors? Probably about as useful as SCART leads these days.

I'm reminded of the scene in (the surprisingly watchable) Project Almanac where, in the attempt to hack the protagonist's late father's secret time travel device into working^[1], one of the plucky millennial geek charaters is confounded by an interface he's never seen before. The other takes one look at it, then digs a beige, CRT, VGA monitor out of the piles of tqt.

Yes. Sub-miniature D connectors used to be used for everything. Serial, parallel, display connectors, joysticks, meece. Anyone over the age of 20 ought to know one when the see one. The cases are just the back part of the plug (they're sold seperately, because one case will fit more than one type of plug. Eg. the DE15 used for VGA would use the same case as the DE09 often used for serial.

And I have a lifetime's supply (amongst other industrial connectors) that my father-in-law skip-dived from his former employer, so I definitely don't need any more!

_{[1] IIRC the plot device was that it required contemporarily impractical amounts of computing power, but could be made to work with a modern high-end games console as a processor.}

Zipperhead · « **Reply #22661 on:** 24 May, 2018, 07:37:11 pm »

2, 3, 7 & 20

Beardy · « **Reply #22662 on:** 24 May, 2018, 09:31:27 pm »

I’d not heard 20 before.

ElyDave · « **Reply #22663 on:** 24 May, 2018, 11:23:05 pm »

Having seen Morgan Freeman on TV accused of sexual misconduct, saw left hand.

Googled - apparently paralysed in a car accident. That's a new on one me.

Zipperhead · « **Reply #22664 on:** 25 May, 2018, 12:57:09 am »

Quote from: Beardy on 24 May, 2018, 09:31:27 pm

I’d not heard 20 before.

Most of the things that I used to deal with wanted DTR just to know there was something there.

T42 · « **Reply #22665 on:** 27 May, 2018, 01:19:32 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 24 May, 2018, 10:41:25 am

Aren't they used for older (VGA?) computer monitors? Probably about as useful as SCART leads these days.

Speaking of obsolescence, t'other day I found a break-out box for V24 cables at the bottom of my toolbox.

And on Friday I saw a bloke with magic blue sticky-tape on his kneecaps.

Basil · « **Reply #22666 on:** 27 May, 2018, 05:52:56 pm »

We Mrs B found a silver thrupenny bit with Victoria's head on while gardening today.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #22667 on:** 28 May, 2018, 07:31:14 pm »

A 14 y/o got knifecrimed up Larrington Towers Road this afternoon

Deano · « **Reply #22668 on:** 28 May, 2018, 09:07:26 pm »

ICBA riding all the way home, but I'd have had a two-hour wait at Commondale, so sod that. I rode on, and when I checked the internet, there was a train from Allens West at 19.56. At 19.10, Google reckoned it was 14 miles away. Hmm, I'd better get a move on, cos my average speed to that point had been 10 mph.

I was riding towards the station at 19.55, and had to sprint, as the barriers were down and the lights were a-flashing. Two cars overtook me, naturally. But the train still hadn't come - I'd have seen it cross the crossing, and I didn't have to cross the tracks for my platform.

But it was the train going the other way - mine was five minutes delayed. And full of pissed-up people heading back from the coast. The poor conductor asked if I didn't mind leaving my bike in the doorwell, and apparently forgot to sell me a ticket. The pissed-up people were quite entertaining, too.

andrewc · « **Reply #22669 on:** 28 May, 2018, 09:26:41 pm »

Sitting in the flat with my front door & windows open I hear a knock & someone saying Hello ! It's my new next door neighbour, a forrin gentleman called George, who wanted to know if I'd been having any issues with the water pressure in my flat. Why yes, it has been a bit low recently, sometimes too low for the shower. He's going to complain to United Utilities, which saves me a job.

Not sure I made the best first impression, he was nicely turned out in a decent shirt & sports jacket, I was in my boxers....

I have Summer clothes, I should get a Summer amp. 50 watts of class A valve amp is a bit warm.....

Canardly · « **Reply #22670 on:** 28 May, 2018, 10:42:32 pm »

Wot no marigolds?

hellymedic · « **Reply #22671 on:** 29 May, 2018, 02:14:42 pm »

AMAZING muscles!
I was really impressed by the Paris Spiderman. Leaving aside the heroism, nationality issues and negligent childcare,

how many men can climb like this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44287494

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #22672 on:** 29 May, 2018, 02:47:18 pm »

Quote from: hellymedic on 29 May, 2018, 02:14:42 pm

AMAZING muscles!
I was really impressed by the Paris Spiderman. Leaving aside the heroism, nationality issues and negligent childcare,

how many men can climb like this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44287494

At his age? I did. I don't think it is that unusual for an athletically active young man.

Would I have had the nerve and instant judgement to do what he did? No. Absolutely not.

He deserves every bit of praise he receives.

T42 · « **Reply #22673 on:** 29 May, 2018, 03:56:47 pm »

In me yoof I once climbed round 10th-floor railings like those to help a woman who'd gone out without her key and left the balcony door open. No sweat. Not so sure I'd have tried climbing the block the way he did: I wouldn't have had the nerve to jump the way he did from one level to the next.

What p's me off now are the bounders who're crying "yah, fake, set-up" and the others who're carping "what about the 30 million* other sans-papiers?" and the others yet who're accusing Macron of opportunism with a view to boosting his poll figures. The lot of them can FOAD.

* or thereabouts

andrewc · « **Reply #22674 on:** 30 May, 2018, 07:51:48 pm »

Sister & myself are taking our 80 year old mother to Paris for a long weekend next month. Boat trip on the Seine, day out at Monet's gardens, maybe a gallery or two... a civilised weekend.

I jokingly pointed this out to Sis https://www.gameofthronesexposition.fr/en/ and she now wants to go & see it (she's a big fan)

Should have kept quiet....