• Litz Krovince (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    The former Computing Centre of the Eindhoven University of Technology was designed to have the computers (i.e. mainframes) on the first floor (for Americans and Pascal programmers: the second floor).
    FTFY
  • Drak (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    The former Computing Centre of the Eindhoven University of Technology was designed to have the computers (i.e. mainframes) on the first floor (for Americans: the second floor). Because computers were large and heavy, and easily filled a room, this floor was very heavily constructed, with massive pillars to bear the load.

    What they didn't think of is that computers got much smaller and lighter very rapidly, which left them with a massively over-engineered building (bit like the Forth Bridge), with the mainframes on the ground floor.

    That building was awesome. Spent more than a year of my life there :)

  • Le Forgeron (unregistered)

    I think there was some hidden agenda that has been cancelled by the arrival of the two owners. Unlikely in real life, but they are near Elbonian border, so who know ?

    Admin B viewed a big room with A/C and a small room without. Small room is obviously too small for two chairs and desks (of admin A & B)... and the big room is more comfortable if he can get ride of the noisy computers, so let's find a pretext to move all the pesky parts away "for the job": small room is upstair, Bazooka proof!

    As he did not explain his hidden reason to admin A (who might have, powers forbid, some integrity ?), they of course had to fight.

    Added value of the big room: at ground level, it is easier to come and leave the daily job. Stairs are so tiring, and waiting for the elevator such a waste of time. So it has to become the office of admin B ("ah, well, there was no more room upstair, I had to went downstair").

  • Markk (unregistered)

    Since snoofle has confirmed that everything in this story is real apart from the countries involved, I guess that means mud weapons are real. You learn something new every day.

    I'm guessing the countries involved are Albania and Azerbaijan.

  • Pastychomper (unregistered) in reply to Brad
    Brad:
    Of course, the problem here is that the workers are Unionized...?

    Would you rather they were ionized? Apart from the danger of one of them discharging hirself in a room full of sensitive equipment, the potential for charge-charge interactions would be embarrasing, to say the least.

  • (cs) in reply to Markk
    Markk:
    Since snoofle has confirmed that everything in this story is real apart from the countries involved, I guess that means mud weapons are real. You learn something new every day.

    I'm guessing the countries involved are Albania and Azerbaijan.

    ...which are, geographically, around 2300 km or over 1400 miles apart. There's the whole of Turkey and Greece in between. You sure you didn't mean Armenia and Azerbaijan?

  • (cs) in reply to Sole Reason for Visiting
    Sole Reason for Visiting:
    Severity One:
    The former Computing Centre of the Eindhoven University of Technology was designed to have the computers (i.e. mainframes) on the first floor (for Americans: the second floor). Because computers were large and heavy, and easily filled a room, this floor was very heavily constructed, with massive pillars to bear the load.
    They did the same thing for the Comp Sci department, with a state-of-the-art Georce IV ICL mainframe and bunny suits and controlled environments and what-not. Very expensive in the UK in the 1970s, considering that at the time, "air conditioning" meant "leaving the windows open, assuming you can prise the rust off the hinges."
    Ah yes, air conditioning. That worked very well in the Computing Centre, to the effect that people working there were wearing jumpers in mid summer.
  • Clint Westwood (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    Markk:
    Since snoofle has confirmed that everything in this story is real apart from the countries involved, I guess that means mud weapons are real. You learn something new every day.

    I'm guessing the countries involved are Albania and Azerbaijan.

    ...which are, geographically, around 2300 km or over 1400 miles apart. There's the whole of Turkey and Greece in between. You sure you didn't mean Armenia and Azerbaijan?

    Hello, "Clint" of the story here. Countries involved are India and Pakistan.

    Have a nice day.

  • (cs) in reply to glapeoi r
    glapeoi r:
    the fact that a receptionist is built like a tank is hardly sexist....
    How were the male characters "built"?
  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to Kivi
    Kivi:
    glapeoi r:
    the fact that a receptionist is built like a tank is hardly sexist....
    How were the male characters "built"?
    Well, there was a Mommy female and a Daddy female and they loved each other very much... And then people married cats and birds refused to fly and baby deities cried.
  • bb (unregistered) in reply to glapeoi r
    glapeoi r:
    bb:
    So... apart from the casual racism and sexism.. is there a WTF?
    Uhm.....what? The races of the characters are made up, and the fact that a receptionist is built like a tank is hardly sexist....

    also, get a life.

    The races are clearly middle-eastern stereotypes. The fact that the appearance of the secretary is part of the joke is clearly sexist.

    Also, eat a dick.

  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to bb
    bb:
    The races are clearly middle-eastern stereotypes. The fact that the appearance of the secretary is part of the joke is clearly sexist.

    Also, eat a dick.

    Making the assumption that a made up race is stereotypical of a real life race is racist. Viewing a character of female gender in a technical situation as a joke is sexist.

    Also, eating dick is British.

  • Hannes (unregistered) in reply to Roby McAndrew
    Roby McAndrew:
    There's something to be said for having Unfortunately a main sewer burst, flooding the floor, and the fans continued to run for a while....

    You mean, the shit hit the fan... literally?

  • erinnye (unregistered) in reply to DrPepper
    DrPepper:
    Maybe no Elbonians, but --

    [...]

    Someone had scheduled some construction in the server room; [...]

    I know that feeling. My version of it: someone decided it would be a good idea to assign the doctors office to the room (separated by a thin wall) next to a second-tier server room. Someone else noticed afterwards that the doc had to do hearing tests and these were ... difficult ... with the constant noise coming from next door. Nope, moving the doctors room was somehow not a possibility.

    Instead the powers that are decided it would be a good idea to insulate the wall. Of course not from the doctors side because "that's too ugly" but form the server room side.

    So one day those workers arrived - first noticed by IT when someone walked near the door, because giving construction workers the key to a server romm - who would inform IT first? With several days warning? Said person who noticed it got the first hints of a tantrum when he also noticed that the workers were happily putting wodden panels in front of electrical outlets on the wall. The reason "those weren't used anyway and look, it fits perfectly".

    The next boss-level up that was informed agreed that they should remove at least the power cable going to the outlets, so that nobody searches for it some day or have a fire in the wall.

    Next step: search for the cable connecting there. The method: go to the next power distribution and sequentially remove all cable there until you find the one connected to the outlets in question. Well, we now know our UPS system works... even when having multiple blackouts just seconds apart, with some electric arcs while reconnecting.

    Several hours later, the same person noticing all of the above now noticed that the workers were hanging plastic sheets from ceiling to floor. In a tight cirle around the rack. The reason this time: "well, we are now done adding the plasterboard to the wall and have to polish it. And we thought you didn't want the dust in whatever that's whirring there". Well, at least they thought this time... but not only would the dust have gotten in anyway, the rack had quite a bit of power usage, and 5-10kW of power in an enclosed space...

    One quite fine tantrum later the sheets were removed and the plasterboard remains unpolished to this date ("you said it had to be done in here because it's so ugly, then LET IT BE UGLY AND DON'T DESTROY THE SERVERS"). Somehow giving enough time to shutdown the servers was no option. I don't know why to this date.

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    reminds me of a scene in a book: a company was worried about people attacking their computers, so they insisted on having them in a room deep underground-IN THE MIDDLE OF A FLOODPLAIN...

Leave a comment on “Bazooka Proof”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article