| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know it's been a long day when you come home from work and realize there's dirt ground in between your teeth.
David, you don't have to chew the slabs to the right size, whatever the foreman might say.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's a great old Star Trek episode/movie where Scottie has taken a young engineer under his wing, and Kirk asks, "How long will xxx take?", the young engineer answers honestly, and Scotty tut-tuts and explains something along the lines of, "No, no, no, lad! If you know it'll take you 2 hours, you tell the captain it can't possibly be done in under 2 days. Then when he demands that you have it done in 2 hours you look like a miracle worker!"
I always felt this was a brilliant strategy in repair work: Give the customer some ridiculously-long estimate that you can't possibly miss, then if they get upset tell them, "I'll see what I can do," and bring in the schedule. It makes the customer feel special like you've gone out of your way to help them, but you're not overburdening your employees.
The general manager of the repair shop understood this approach. When I finally dropped off the Celica parts, she told me it would take 2 weeks, but she'd "see what she could do" and she had it ready in a week.
Unfortunately, the day-to-day manager completely missed the memo on this tactic, so he always gives the lowest-possible estimate, stuff happens, he misses his deadline, and his customers get upset with him.
So yeah, I called on Wednesday to find out when the Celica would be ready. He responded that it was getting painted on Thursday, then they'd have to reassemble it on Friday, so it was pretty unlikely they'd have it on Friday, but almost certainly on Monday and definitely by Tuesday.
It's now Tuesday with no sign of the Celica, and I'm extremely skeptical that he'll meet his own deadline. Because he always overpromises. He could have said, "Well, we've got it slated to paint tomorrow, but then we need to let the paint cure so I can't possibly have it ready before next Wednesday," and I would have believed him.
Instead, GothBard and the kids are getting really, really upset with him because he constantly misses his own deadlines.
Pad, people, pad!
EDIT: I love to use curriculum development as an example. The "industry standard" for developing a new course is 40 hours of work to produce 1 hour of new training. This is a ludicrous standard; even someone with only a year of experience can drop that number down to 20. I'm at around 8. Yet you put in that 40 in the schedule and then you get meetings, sick days, environment crashes, environment wipes, emergency calls to deal with other projects, and a hundred other distractions that pull you away from your main project. But because of that padding, your main project always comes in on time anyway.
Caller is exonerated.
It was the standard, "The battery's telling the laptop that it's bad, so the laptop won't boot because of the safety switch."
Battery removed, laptop up and running, but not something I'd expect a computer novice to track down.
Depending on the age of the laptop I would have tried this somewhere around test session 4 or so. I have vivid memories of purchasing a laptop with a malfunctioning battery back when it was a common thing to do, and I am quite a novice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We'll be doing a one-shot 'Blades In The Dark' adventure tomorrow, which I'm greatly looking forward to. The setting (doomed city rather like Virconium, or Bas Lag) is right up my street, and the system looks pretty easy to get along with.
I am interested in using Blades in the Dark to play Thieves World, actually.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
See?! That's exactly what I want!It's a good thing I'm not the rabid sportsball fan that durned near everyone I know here in Dallas is. I care a bit about the outcome of tonight's game, but not enough to be emotionally invested.
It's the fact that tickets, parking, and hot dogs for a family of four costs as much as a day at the state fair. Baseball is supposed to be a blue collar sport and an affordable day out. I love the game, but I despise the sports economy.
I've been told I should start following minor league ball instead, but I can't seem to drum up enough interest to care.
Before I moved up here, I used to love going to see the Evansville Otters play. They play in the 3rd oldest currently functioning professional ball park (only Fenway and Wrigley are older). Parts of A League of Their Own was filmed there. Tickets were $5, concessions were reasonable, and it was fun. They also offered family packs (4 tickets, 4 sodas, 4 hot dogs or hamburgers, 4 fries) for about $35.
I think tickets are still cheap, but I heard concessions had gone up quite a bit.
Edit: A quick check and it looks like tickets for this season, which is over, started at $6. Still really cheap.
alright, I'll send you some otters.
You know it's been a long day when you come home from work and realize there's dirt ground in between your teeth.
Would that I could get you a creamy beer.
Extra creamy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Depending on the age of the laptop I would have tried this somewhere around test session 4 or so. I have vivid memories of purchasing a laptop with a malfunctioning battery back when it was a common thing to do, and I am quite a novice.Caller is exonerated.
It was the standard, "The battery's telling the laptop that it's bad, so the laptop won't boot because of the safety switch."
Battery removed, laptop up and running, but not something I'd expect a computer novice to track down.
Caller is a widow in her 70s who couldn't even pump her own gas before she was widowed. I've taught her to light pilot lights, clean water heater filters, check power strips and power cords, and quite a bit more. Yesterday once I figured out what the problem was she insisted that I show her how to change her own battery.
But it's definitely not something I would have wanted her to try with my only guidance being over the phone.
We'll be doing a one-shot 'Blades In The Dark' adventure tomorrow, which I'm greatly looking forward to. The setting (doomed city rather like Virconium, or Bas Lag) is right up my street, and the system looks pretty easy to get along with.I am interested in using Blades in the Dark to play Thieves World, actually.
Oh, that'd work.
Oh, that'd work.We'll be doing a one-shot 'Blades In The Dark' adventure tomorrow, which I'm greatly looking forward to. The setting (doomed city rather like Virconium, or Bas Lag) is right up my street, and the system looks pretty easy to get along with.I am interested in using Blades in the Dark to play Thieves World, actually.
Glad to hear!
Speaking of AI's current state...
...is anyone even remotely surprised?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You know it's been a long day when you come home from work and realize there's dirt ground in between your teeth.
Two days in a row, in fact.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know you're going to sleep well when you have to load and unload and then load again a jumping jack compactor into your truck by yourself without any mechanical assistance. Also, now I know I cam lift a jumping jack compactor above my waist after working 12 hours.
On the plus side, at least I know I'll be in great shape for my date this weekend.
You know you're going to sleep well when you have to load and unload and then load again a jumping jack compactor into your truck by yourself without any mechanical assistance. Also, now I know I cam lift a jumping jack compactor above my waist after working 12 hours.
On the plus side, at least I know I'll be in great shape for my date this weekend.
careful, backs go out quickly without warning and they don't always bounce back.
Thats bad planning on someone's part and just plain dangerous.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Last week there was a discussion of "yogurt" vs "yoghurt", and today I have the answer!
In short, the Brits are wrong.
Yeehaw! Take that, King George!
You know you're going to sleep well when you have to load and unload and then load again a jumping jack compactor into your truck by yourself without any mechanical assistance. Also, now I know I cam lift a jumping jack compactor above my waist after working 12 hours.
On the plus side, at least I know I'll be in great shape for my date this weekend.
careful, backs go out quickly without warning and they don't always bounce back.
Thats bad planning on someone's part and just plain dangerous.
I lift with my knees.
Edit: Also it's not something I'm going to make a habit of doing. It's just good to know I can if I have to.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
OK, I am now getting Freehold levels of loathing with Impus Minor's math instructor.
He was supposed to use the Alternating Series test to show that the series with terms cos(pi x)/n^0.6 converged.
He got a 70/100 because:
(1) He did not overtly state that n^0.6 > 0.
(2) He did not explain why lim n-> infty (n^0.6) = 0
I've written mathematical research papers. If you go around stating the flagrantly obvious, they will reject your paper and tell you to grow up. The notion of having to justify that for positive n, n^0.6 > 0 is ludicrous.
I am... displeased.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
OK, I am now getting Freehold levels of loathing with Impus Minor's math instructor.
He was supposed to use the Alternating Series test to show that the series with terms cos(pi x)/n^0.6 converged.
He got a 70/100 because:
(1) He did not overtly state that n^0.6 > 0.
(2) He did not explain why lim n-> infty (n^0.6) = 0I've written mathematical research papers. If you go around stating the flagrantly obvious, they will reject your paper and tell you to grow up. The notion of having to justify that for positive n, n^0.6 > 0 is ludicrous.
I am... displeased.
Maybe the standards changed since your times? Wasn't that a millennium ago, anyway?
OK, I am now getting Freehold levels of loathing with Impus Minor's math instructor.
Then I suggest you move to Evansville, IN.See?! That's exactly what I want!It's a good thing I'm not the rabid sportsball fan that durned near everyone I know here in Dallas is. I care a bit about the outcome of tonight's game, but not enough to be emotionally invested.
It's the fact that tickets, parking, and hot dogs for a family of four costs as much as a day at the state fair. Baseball is supposed to be a blue collar sport and an affordable day out. I love the game, but I despise the sports economy.
I've been told I should start following minor league ball instead, but I can't seem to drum up enough interest to care.
Before I moved up here, I used to love going to see the Evansville Otters play. They play in the 3rd oldest currently functioning professional ball park (only Fenway and Wrigley are older). Parts of A League of Their Own was filmed there. Tickets were $5, concessions were reasonable, and it was fun. They also offered family packs (4 tickets, 4 sodas, 4 hot dogs or hamburgers, 4 fries) for about $35.
I think tickets are still cheap, but I heard concessions had gone up quite a bit.
Edit: A quick check and it looks like tickets for this season, which is over, started at $6. Still really cheap.
There's a hotel aways away from there I want to stay in.
I've written mathematical research papers. If you go around stating the flagrantly obvious, they will reject your paper
Wrong standard.
If you're an undergrad just learning a technique, you need to demonstrate your complete understanding of the concept.
True, but as a former instructor from the community college to the research university, level, if I ask a student to demonstrate their understanding of the Alternating Series test, I expect them to write:
(1) cos(pi n) = -1, 1, -1, 1, -1, 1, therefore cos(pi n)/n^0.6 is an alternating series. To demand that they also write, "And n^0.6 > 0 for all n>0" is petty silliness.
(2) 1/n^0.6 is a decreasing sequence. Again, having to add, "Because 1/(n+1)^0.6 < 1/n^0.6" is trivial. Want a formal proof? Demand a formal proof. Otherwise adding that additional statement is no more a "proof" than the first statement.
(3) The limit is 0. They already proved that for all positive real numbers, the limit is 0. So providing a justification as to why the limit it 0 is pointless. Especially a hand-wavy argument such as, "Because the top is constant and the bottom is increasing."
In short, they didn't demand a formal proof, which would be multiple pages long. They asked him to verify that the Alternating Series test applies. He did all three checks correctly. And because he didn't justify that n^0.6 is positive for all positive n and that 1/n^0.6 decreases as n increases, both of which have been being used as "givens" in the homework, he lost 30% of his grade.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
OK, it's sad to suddenly realize that your company's "magnanimity" is all simply "business".
I've mentioned that Global Megacorporation won't gather customer data. We're watching a product showcase where we added a third-party messaging system as a window in our application, and they pointed out that our application never reads the data; it's a display we never touch and we never look at the contents of.
And I realized: It's not because we're "good". It's because if our customers for a second thought we were reading their internal messages, they'd drop us in a hot second. We don't gather customer data because we're a business-to-business company, and gathering other business' data is bad business.
Similarly, we've started releasing a bunch of open source code to help integrating to our product. And the VP who was doing the presentation went ahead and did a full business justification as to when open source was cheaper and when proprietary code was cheaper, and it's all based on dollars and cents.
I should have known, but I was disappointed that everything I've been extremely happy about, such as the, "If you gather customer information and you can't give me a business justification as to why you gathered it, you're fired," is all about money and not about morals.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
THE CELICA IS BACK!!!!
It looks amazing, plus they cleaned the interior so it looks great. The new hubcaps are in the Prius, which is at DVC with Impus Major, so I won't be posting pictures 'til tonight.
But seriously... once again they forgot to check everything and I got it home without working turn signals. I checked and they'd simply forgotten to connect the left one, and the right one was burned out.
I expect a "good" shop to at least do a basic DMV check before letting a car go: Does the horn work? Do the lights work? Etc.
Not a good look from the body shop...
THE CELICA IS BACK!!!!
It looks amazing, plus they cleaned the interior so it looks great. The new hubcaps are in the Prius, which is at DVC with Impus Major, so I won't be posting pictures 'til tonight.
But seriously... once again they forgot to check everything and I got it home without working turn signals. I checked and they'd simply forgotten to connect the left one, and the right one was burned out.
I expect a "good" shop to at least do a basic DMV check before letting a car go: Does the horn work? Do the lights work? Etc.
Not a good look from the body shop...
CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA CELICA
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have, after so long, finally finished Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. Still not enough space for Baldur's Gate.
Since on Saturday, we will be playing Fallout one-shot, I am installing Fallout 76 for now.
I have, after so long, finally finished Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. Still not enough space for Baldur's Gate.
Since on Saturday, we will be playing Fallout one-shot, I am installing Fallout 76 for now.
I liked Syndicate.
I liked Syndicate.I have, after so long, finally finished Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. Still not enough space for Baldur's Gate.
Since on Saturday, we will be playing Fallout one-shot, I am installing Fallout 76 for now.
I have mixed feelings. It has a promising setting, promising characters, and promising elements, but I feel that it sort of underdelivers in a lot of aspects. It could be so much better...
Origins remains my favorite part, followed byOdyssey (which I need to finish one day to free more disk space...)
Origins is amazing, but not quite my cup of tea. Loved Odyssey. The less said about Ragnarok the better.
What I played of Valhalla during the free access weekend was ok. Not nearly as good as two pervious games, but not actually bad either.
20 more GBs...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
THE CELICA IS BACK!!!!
It looks amazing, plus they cleaned the interior so it looks great. The new hubcaps are in the Prius, which is at DVC with Impus Major, so I won't be posting pictures 'til tonight.
But seriously... once again they forgot to check everything and I got it home without working turn signals. I checked and they'd simply forgotten to connect the left one, and the right one was burned out.
I expect a "good" shop to at least do a basic DMV check before letting a car go: Does the horn work? Do the lights work? Etc.
Not a good look from the body shop...
When Celica starts, when Celica starts,
She does so smoothly, sans grunts and farts,When Celica slows, when Celica slows,
Your motoring pleasure just grows and grows.
When Celica turns, when Celica turns,
Just like the Simpsons' Montgomery Burns,
In a late-night business meeting with Smithers,
Your thighs rub gently on Celica's withers.
Ok, let's give it a try...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
One of the issues with being mildly obsessive-compulsive is the tendency of humans to dump their crap on all horizontal surfaces *EXCEPT* the floor.
Every day I clear the kitchen table, the dining room table, and all the sofas and the cuddler. It's work to open and close the windows because of all the junk in them. I have abandoned the foyer table as "beyond all hope", but at least it gives me a place to dump everyone else's stuff when I clear off the other surfaces. And it's a constant source of irritation. Why can't people drop their own crap in their own rooms where I don't have to see it?
Unfortunately, it's now dropped into the 40s at night. People are asking, "NobodysHome, why don't you start the fireplace?"
"Because the three of you have piled so much crap on the mantle that turning the fireplace on would be guaranteed to melt everything together." (There are candles amidst all the cards, binders, game cartridges, and whatnot.)
I told them I'd turn on the fireplace the moment they cleared the mantle.
So far, they've preferred to live in the cold.
EDIT: My father had a far more "practical" approach: Anything on a public surface went in the trash. If the trash was too full, he'd empty it into the bed of whoever was supposed to have taken it out that day.
It was effective. But we hated him for it. I'm not so irritated that I want my children to hate me.
Hi yes, it is me, I am humans. Cyz has the same frustrations, although I have gotten slightly better about it.
I also use the floor however.
I love it. The kids drive me nuts because they put their packbacks on the sofas. "Drop them on the floor! That way they're out of everyone's way!"
"But then we have to bend over to pick them up!"I swear, 22 going on 80...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have about five boxes of minis on my office floor, waiting to be sorted out. It's been at least a year since we last bought any.
Yeah, but that's in your office.
Everyone in the house has their own space with tons of storage: Impus Major has the converted garage (WhimseyShire), which is smallest of the three but still has many racks of shelving I installed for him. Impus Major has his own room fully converted for storage with racks along every wall. GothBard has the entire studio.
Yet every single time, they first dump stuff on the foyer table (first horizontal surface as you enter the door), then once it's full the cuddler (second horizontal surface), then the dining room table (third), and if all of those fail they'll go all the way to the kitchen table in the back of the house to dump their stuff. Then the moment they've dropped off their stuff, they turn around and head for their respective rooms.
GothBard's explained it to me: Dumping your frequently-used stuff in a central location makes it easier to get to when you're headed out the door again, so it's more convenient to put it in the "public" areas of the house. But once an item's been sitting on the foyer table for more than a month, I take issue with the "frequently-used" claim.
THE CELICA IS BACK!!!!
It looks amazing, plus they cleaned the interior so it looks great. The new hubcaps are in the Prius, which is at DVC with Impus Major, so I won't be posting pictures 'til tonight.
But seriously... once again they forgot to check everything and I got it home without working turn signals. I checked and they'd simply forgotten to connect the left one, and the right one was burned out.
I expect a "good" shop to at least do a basic DMV check before letting a car go: Does the horn work? Do the lights work? Etc.
Not a good look from the body shop...
*SIGH* Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where people took their jobs seriously?
Amazon lets you put in your car model and automatically selects the correct items based on your car... except, it doesn't. Amazon insisted that the 1996 Celica coupe had 15" wheels, so I ordered hubcaps accordingly. They were too big. Indeed, you can check here and the 1.8L version (which I registered on Amazon) has 14" wheels. The 2.2L version had 15" wheels. So, no new hubcaps for me.
Doesn't matter, though, because my original reason for taking the Celica back to the shop was a mysterious thunking when you turned the wheel all the way to the left. Not only did they forget to install the turn signals correctly, but they never bothered to fix the original problem.
So one more trip to the shop for the poor Celica. I'm tempted to just live with the thunking, but on principle I want to make the shop lose the time trying to fix it, since they didn't do the job right the first time.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One of the issues with being mildly obsessive-compulsive is the tendency of humans to dump their crap on all horizontal surfaces *EXCEPT* the floor.
AMATEURS
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's a great old Star Trek episode/movie where Scottie has taken a young engineer under his wing, and Kirk asks, "How long will xxx take?", the young engineer answers honestly, and Scotty tut-tuts and explains something along the lines of, "No, no, no, lad! If you know it'll take you 2 hours, you tell the captain it can't possibly be done in under 2 days. Then when he demands that you have it done in 2 hours you look like a miracle worker!"
I always felt this was a brilliant strategy in repair work: Give the customer some ridiculously-long estimate that you can't possibly miss, then if they get upset tell them, "I'll see what I can do," and bring in the schedule. It makes the customer feel special like you've gone out of your way to help them, but you're not overburdening your employees.
The general manager of the repair shop understood this approach. When I finally dropped off the Celica parts, she told me it would take 2 weeks, but she'd "see what she could do" and she had it ready in a week.
Unfortunately, the day-to-day manager completely missed the memo on this tactic, so he always gives the lowest-possible estimate, stuff happens, he misses his deadline, and his customers get upset with him.
So yeah, I called on Wednesday to find out when the Celica would be ready. He responded that it was getting painted on Thursday, then they'd have to reassemble it on Friday, so it was pretty unlikely they'd have it on Friday, but almost certainly on Monday and definitely by Tuesday.
It's now Tuesday with no sign of the Celica, and I'm extremely skeptical that he'll meet his own deadline. Because he always overpromises. He could have said, "Well, we've got it slated to paint tomorrow, but then we need to let the paint cure so I can't possibly have it ready before next Wednesday," and I would have believed him.
Instead, GothBard and the kids are getting really, really upset with him because he constantly misses his own deadlines.
Pad, people, pad!
Management at former Employer *despised* asking me to give them an assessment of the amount of time that it'd require to complete a task.
Invariably it would turn into 'can you get it done any FASTER'?
And my response would be, almost invariably: "Do you want it done crappily, do you want it done right, or do you want it done well?"
"Well, do all three! Quickly!"
"Crappily it IS, then!"
"Well, don't have an ATTITUDE about it!!"
"Look, I'm going to do it crappily since you want it done that fast I am GOING to miss stuff that doing it *right* would catch and doing it well would help with future issues. There's no ATTITUDE here except for the one you're projecting and if you apply this same metric to your own (stuff) your bosses would have to learn how to (be quiet).
As a result, when I am doing this job for the fourth time four days from now, please cut me some slack because you wanted fast rather than right."
95% of the time when I took on a project I'd have it done in the timeframe *I* had suggested.
It was when Management tried to 'push' the issue like a Starfleet Captain that things would start to fall apart messily.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A lady this summer asked me why it was taking so long to build her patio (I was actually ahead of schedule) so I told her "That's why it's called craftsmanship".
So far, they've preferred to live in the cold.
NOW THAT'S my fam!
Hi yes, it is me, I am humans. Cyz has the same frustrations, although I have gotten slightly better about it.
I also use the floor however.
I just clean the house once a week.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My niece's school district is closed today, my sister Eve's office in Portland is closed today, pretty much every business in the surrounding towns, even grocery stores and coffee shops, everything is closed.
I could easily start ranting about how this suspect had a firearm to begin with, but it would quickly get political, so I won't.