• Mr.'; Drop Database -- (unregistered)

    It's been a while since we've had this many HTML comments in an article. I approve. Also unicorns.

  • uai ew (unregistered) in reply to Brogrammer
    Brogrammer:
    Miguel rubbed off a fake alert, and a moment later the printer spit out a nice report announcing the error.

    So close to rubbed out...

    tehehehe "rubbed off"

  • AAaaaaa (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    Zylon:
    Matt Westwood:
    The solution? To put a noisemaker in them to go "brrm, brrm" like a traditional noise-monster.

    What a load of fucking shit.

    You're an idiot. Expecting to be able to hear a high-speed death machine, often operated by semi-sentient morons, is entirely reasonable. This sort of engineering is quite common. Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound? Or why residental natural gas stinks? It's all deliberate.

    Turn signals make a clicking noise to try to get people to turn them off after changing lanes. (Fail)

    If cars making noise is a "reasonable" requirement to prevent people from stepping into traffic, why are there deaf people who live past the age of 10?

    There's also people who are blind and deaf who live past that age - how do they know the cars are coming....is it ESP?

  • Some Govt Employee (unregistered) in reply to Captcha: ludus
    Captcha: ludus:
    DGS:
    C-Derb:
    dogmatic:
    C-Derb:
    He said, "I have a barn that needs a window. How would you build it?" Never mind that he is interviewing software developers and not carpenters. Each developer would then ask questions about how big he wants it or which side of the barn he wanted it on. The question he wanted to be asked was "Why do you want a window?" so that he could answer "Because it gets hot and I want to keep the barn cool." Maybe building a window isn't the solution to the problem you're trying to solve.

    I prefer to work with people who would ask "why do you need a window" than "ok hand me the saw".

    A really good manager would say, "It is getting too hot in my barn, I think adding a window would help. Do you have any other suggestions?"

    So, if you get any other solution to cool down the barn you will FAIL! Why? You didnt asked, if a hot barn is real problem. Maybe he wanted a place to store his ice cream for later.

    But what if storing ice cream isn't his real problem? You need to know EVERYTHING before you can take any decision.

    well that explains why nothing gets done around here. most people here are so far away from knowing ANYTHING that collectively we'll never know EVERYTHING

  • nB (unregistered) in reply to English Man
    English Man:
    Wyrm:
    A perfect case of the client asking for A (printed reports) because he thinks he wants B (the printer being an alarm) when he actually wants C (an audio alarm). Don't just ask what the client wants, always ask about the context.
    No he wants an alarm to tell him about the report.

    If he still had budget left over, he should have got some little alarm put together with a serial/parallel port connection that would sound when the printer was printing.

    Nah, I'd go for the klaxon driven by an ejecting CD-ROM tray.

  • Mountain Banjo (unregistered)
    There's also people who are blind and deaf who live past that age - how do they know the cars are coming....is it ESP?

    In my experience, they are the ones who are driving the cars. That's how they know.

  • AAaaaaa (unregistered) in reply to Mountain Banjo
    Mountain Banjo:
    There's also people who are blind and deaf who live past that age - how do they know the cars are coming....is it ESP?

    In my experience, they are the ones who are driving the cars. That's how they know.

    PMSL!

  • (cs) in reply to Joggle
    Joggle:
    What's with all the idiots highlighting grammar problems (specifically 'here')? Maybe Remy was trying to emphasise that the boss pronounced it more like 'here' than 'hear'
    2/5
  • Kiwi (unregistered)

    Well, my company has just installed a multi-million dollar SCADA system and it was in the requirements that there be a line-printer for the alarm log. Epson makes USB dot-matrix printers at 1-2 orders of magnitude higher cost than a small laser :-)

  • Andrew North (unregistered) in reply to AGray
    AGray:
    JJ:
    Here? Monitory? Psshh. You want real pedantry, I've got it. Let's talk about how Miguel "setup a demo."

    You don't "setup a demo," you "set up a demo." If it were the first case and someone asked, "What are you doing?" you'd have to reply, "I'm setupping a demo." But you don't; you say, "I'm setting up a demo." Therefore "set up" (verb) is two words. Only when it's a noun is it one word: "Let's check the current setup."

    And yes, it is exactly the same with "log on/off/in/out."

    Boss: What happen? Operator: Somebody set up us a demo. Boss: What's that? Operator: Laser Printer turn on. Boss: It's you!!!

    IT Guy (Catz): All your printer are belong to us. Your reports are on the way to destruction.

    Captcha: vulputate - To remove the limbs from a Vulcan.

    I used to work for a large company with network printers and could remotely change their "Ready" message on the display.

    [image]

    My favorite message, "Coolant Low" , was on the payroll dept. printer all day and had IT scratching their heads and downloading manuals. When my colleague in IT mentioned they were calling a repair guy, the message remarkably returned to "Ready".

  • Luiz Felipe (unregistered)

    They need this thing to make a lot of noise.

    <a rel="nofollow" href=""http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKCkdhSxlk4" target="_blank" title=""http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKCkdhSxlk4">youtube v=SKCkdhSxlk4

    That is an alert.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Zylon

    <quote>Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound?</quote>

    It's an unintentional side effect of the fact that they're controlled with relays. Relays click. The clicking isn't detrimental, so no one has bothered wasting time eliminating it.

  • ymous (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    <quote>Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound?</quote>

    It's an unintentional side effect of the fact that they're controlled with relays. Relays click. The clicking isn't detrimental, so no one has bothered wasting time eliminating it.

    I tink there more to it than that, because nowadays some would be silent if it were not for the artificial beeping (especially in Heavy Vehacle)
  • (cs) in reply to Andrew North
    Andrew North:
    My favorite message, "Coolant Low" , was on the payroll dept. printer all day and had IT scratching their heads and downloading manuals. When my colleague in IT mentioned they were calling a repair guy, the message remarkably returned to "Ready".
    When a shop I once worked for was about to lose the only guy who knew how to apply PTF and PUT tapes to the system, he called an all-day session to impart to others the knowledge he was taking awy. The department head volunteered to babysit the operator's console while the tech guys were getting this valuable training.

    Around mid-day, someone got cute and started sending a message to the console "REVERSE LOOP LOCK IMMINENT!" Set up a user name that looked like an IBM error message number and just kept sending that about every three minutes or so. After about half an hour, a timid department head peeped into the conference room to ask "does anybody know what a reverse loop lock is?" The guilty party pointed at the terminal he had sent it from and said "does it look anything like this?"

    Quoth the department head, over and over for the next five minutes: "you fuckers!"

  • Detroiter (unregistered)

    Many years ago (mid 90s IIRC) the Detroit News ran stories about the poor state of affairs in the Detroit Fire Department. One of the tales was that the alarm system was broken (maybe stolen?) at one of the stations so they would put pieces of metal on the tractor feed paper so when a call came in the metal would fall on the floor and alert the firemen who were elsewhere in the building.

  • (cs) in reply to anon
    anon:
    <quote>Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound?</quote>

    It's an unintentional side effect of the fact that they're controlled with relays. Relays click. The clicking isn't detrimental, so no one has bothered wasting time eliminating it.

    New cars (Fords, at least) haven't had mechanical relays for ages. They still go tick tick tick though. It's what people to expect to hear. Reassures them it's working.

  • (cs)

    +1 on the send-the-info-via-email-or-page idea, not least because the "tech hears the printer" solution fails if the printer runs out of paper.

  • (cs) in reply to uns
    uns:
    "if they can't here the printer?"

    Righting is not your strongest skill, innit? ;-)

    If that was the only problem... somebody should bother and proof-read this stuff, because it's still full of spelling and other mistakes; the mixing of present tense and past tense in the first sentence really the least of them.

  • Jay911 (unregistered)

    Reminds me of a story I read ages ago about a central northern US fire department (of a large city that is in horrible financial straits).

    One of the problems this department had (of MANY) was that they couldn't afford to keep the in-station alerting (horns/klaxons) in repair. Station crews did things like duct-tape the intercom mic close to the station (dot-matrix) printer so it'd make a racket over the loudspeaker when they got a call; or put a big metal bar on top of the fan-fold paper so that when the printer drew the paper in, it'd knock the bar off and make a clang sound on the floor.

  • Mick (unregistered) in reply to Don
    Don:
    uns:
    "if they can't here the printer?"

    Righting is not your strongest skill, innit? ;-)

    And yet, amazingly, you understood the context and intent. Damn pedant Nazi's

    Yes, Nazies ar eberiwehre. Wyh care abotu rigth speliling wen teh contest sais oll yu ned to now? Hwo caers aut grama nd spelin but sukers?

    Captcha: vulputate - bitching aloud when some corrects your mistakes

  • (cs) in reply to Norman D. Landing
    Norman D. Landing:
    anon:
    <quote>Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound?</quote>

    It's an unintentional side effect of the fact that they're controlled with relays. Relays click. The clicking isn't detrimental, so no one has bothered wasting time eliminating it.

    New cars (Fords, at least) haven't had mechanical relays for ages. They still go tick tick tick though. It's what people to expect to hear. Reassures them it's working.
    In my car (11 years old now, but you don't drive very long distances when living on an island) the dials are analogue, but electronically controlled. If you hold the trip counter reset pressed when turning on the ignition, they do a self-test and start moving on their own, which is quite fun to watch.

    On the other hand, I've had it twice (in 11 years) that I was driving and had to do a full reboot (i.e. switch off the engine and start again) because the dials were all dead.

    And even though there's this snazzy electronic control, there doesn't appear to be any relationship between the respective dial and how much fuel is actually left. For sure it's not linear.

  • Forumtroll (unregistered)

    How hard would it be to also call a code function when printing?

    that code function could be connected via rs232 to a klaxxon horn next to the printer. Easy job, and only involves using an arduino..

  • Morten (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    But you make it sound like a quiet car is dangerous to ALL people, when it really is only dangerous for SOME people. And fewer people tomorrow.

    Of course it's dangerous only to fewer people tomorrow. The people killed by cars today, will have to be subtracted from the pool of people threatened by cars tomorrow.

  • Bartholomew Taps (unregistered)

    Boss got a nice new laser printer out of somebody else's budget.

  • (cs) in reply to Joggle
    Joggle:
    What's with all the idiots highlighting grammar problems (specifically 'here')? Maybe Remy was trying to emphasise that the boss pronounced it more like 'here' than 'hear'

    Here, here!

  • (cs) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    the mixing of present tense and past tense in the first sentence really the least of them.

    That was the first one. I expected the author to be Mark from that alone ...

  • (cs) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    If cars making noise is a "reasonable" requirement to prevent people from stepping into traffic, why are there deaf people who live past the age of 10?
    A guy I knew a few years ago had something like 30% hearing left on one side and 50% on the other. He once told me how to recognize deaf people in traffic: they'll be the ones looking around themselves.
  • Crisw (unregistered) in reply to The Great Lobachevsky
    The Great Lobachevsky:
    C-Derb:
    The best solution is for people to look for cars, not listen for them.

    Except for the blind, of course...

    Ans people that can't see around corners.

  • Boris the Viking (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb

    Because they can still see the car maybe?

    The added noise will be an important safety feature for any BLIND people

    Moron

  • (cs) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    This reminds me of the project manager at a friend's company who was complaining that, after interviewing 10+ candidates, he couldn't find a developer that would answer his trick question correctly.

    He said, "I have a barn that needs a window. How would you build it?" Never mind that he is interviewing software developers and not carpenters. Each developer would then ask questions about how big he wants it or which side of the barn he wanted it on. The question he wanted to be asked was "Why do you want a window?" so that he could answer "Because it gets hot and I want to keep the barn cool." Maybe building a window isn't the solution to the problem you're trying to solve.

    Fine. Point taken. This manager basically said, "The main qualification for working here is to assume I'm a dipshit."

    I'd be wary of a software development/IT manager with a keen interest in agriculture. Next thing you know you'll be milking cows.
  • AncientProgrammer (unregistered)

    So stupid people who assume that just beacause they can't hear any traffic they can safely cross the street? This is what natural selection is all about!

  • (cs) in reply to Joggle
    Joggle:
    What's with all the idiots highlighting grammar problems (specifically 'here')? Maybe Remy was trying to emphasise that the boss pronounced it more like 'here' than 'hear'
    Or maybe Remy can't spell worth shit. That too is a possibility.
  • Stefan (unregistered)

    Common problem. We used matrix printers in restaurants' kitchens so the chief would know when to produce a meal.

  • Justin (unregistered)

    Fire the boss.

  • Lockwood (unregistered)

    I'm surprised Remy hasn't hired a 'quire' to sing all the comments he added...

  • (cs) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Nagesh:
    Buy tape recorder. Record printer sounds. Train monkey to press tape recorder play button every time it see paper come out of printer. Give him peanuts.
    Monkey and tape recorder? Screw that. Teach a mynah bird to imitate the sound of a rickety old printer whenever the laser printer kicks on. Peanuts will probably also work here, but you might want to set up regular deliveries of Froot Loops instead.
    Every Bill, Steve and Larry know that Mynah bird have very low staying power. Monkey much stronger and will also amuse other employee working at facility.
  • (cs) in reply to Evoex
    Evoex:
    Nagesh:
    Buy tape recorder. Record printer sounds. Train monkey to press tape recorder play button every time it see paper come out of printer. Give him peanuts.

    Wow, your post didn't even include "ain't" this time! Good job!

    Wow, you are one of those blind people who not different between Nagesh and fake Nagesh. Next time pay more attention to who is posting, madarchod!

  • (cs) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    This reminds me of the project manager at a friend's company who was complaining that, after interviewing 10+ candidates, he couldn't find a developer that would answer his trick question correctly.

    He said, "I have a barn that needs a window. How would you build it?" Never mind that he is interviewing software developers and not carpenters. Each developer would then ask questions about how big he wants it or which side of the barn he wanted it on. The question he wanted to be asked was "Why do you want a window?" so that he could answer "Because it gets hot and I want to keep the barn cool." Maybe building a window isn't the solution to the problem you're trying to solve.

    Fine. Point taken. This manager basically said, "The main qualification for working here is to assume I'm a dipshit."

    The correct answer, of course, is: "Nope, sorry, that's a hardware issue. I don't do hardware."

  • (cs) in reply to Stefan
    Stefan:
    We used matrix printers in restaurants' kitchens so the chief would know when to produce a meal.
    Unfortunately, they kept running out of spoons.
  • C-Derb (unregistered) in reply to Morten
    Morten:
    C-Derb:
    But you make it sound like a quiet car is dangerous to ALL people, when it really is only dangerous for SOME people. And fewer people tomorrow.

    Of course it's dangerous only to fewer people tomorrow. The people killed by cars today, will have to be subtracted from the pool of people threatened by cars tomorrow.

    That was exactly the point I was making.

  • (cs) in reply to Jeff
    Jeff:
    So true! I ride a bicycle for my daily commute and the stories I could tell...

    Cars won't see you; that's a given, but at least they move predictably in these things called "lanes". Somehow the minute a person gets out of a car they forget everything they learned about avoiding collisions and think they can dart about randomly, waving their arms as they talk on their phones, stepping into traffic paths without the least attempt at situational awareness.

    I have to "counter-complain" a bit; when I'm a pedestrian, I find bicycles to be an annoyance in that their riders often insist on riding on the sidewalk even on streets that have a perfectly good bike lane. And they may be coming in either direction on the sidewalk, so I never know what to expect until it's coming right at me.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to uns
    uns:
    "if they can't here the printer?"

    Righting is not your strongest skill, innit? ;-)

    I think you mean: "Righting is knot you're strongest skill".

  • OccupyWallStreet (unregistered) in reply to Norman D. Landing
    Here? Monitory? Psshh. You want real pedantry, I've got it. Let's talk about how Miguel "setup a demo."

    You don't "setup a demo," you "set up a demo." If it were the first case and someone asked, "What are you doing?" you'd have to reply, "I'm setupping a demo." But you don't; you say, "I'm setting up a demo." Therefore "set up" (verb) is two words. Only when it's a noun is it one word: "Let's check the current setup."

    And yes, it is exactly the same with "log on/off/in/out."

    "setup" is just a contraction of "set up". You can add the space and it makes perfect sense. It's really just a computerism that made it out and became part of natural language. As a noun, two words is probably "more correct" but one word is perfectly understandable. Probably to avoid stuff like installsrs saying things like "This set up program will help you set up FooBar on your computer".

    Even your example works - "Let's check the current set up".

    Norman D. Landing:
    anon:
    <quote>Ever wondered why turn signals still make an audible clicking sound?</quote>

    It's an unintentional side effect of the fact that they're controlled with relays. Relays click. The clicking isn't detrimental, so no one has bothered wasting time eliminating it.

    New cars (Fords, at least) haven't had mechanical relays for ages. They still go tick tick tick though. It's what people to expect to hear. Reassures them it's working.

    Well, given that the eyes should be on the road, having a silent blinker means to verify if you've got it on after flicking the stalk isn't efficient and potentially dangerous. But having it click/beep softly lets you know without having to take your eyes off the road.

    It's why GPSes have voices rather than just sticking with arrows on a screen.

  • (cs) in reply to Wyrm
    Wyrm:
    A perfect case of the client asking for A (printed reports) because he thinks he wants B (the printer being an alarm) when he actually wants C (an audio alarm). Don't just ask what the client wants, always ask about the context.

    I've had the same issue arise, and usually it's that they want both the printed report and an audible signal that the report printed. Loud printers are simply a serendipitous solution to both at once.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Dev King
    Dev King:
    This is why we had a bell on the teletype machine and a character to ring it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_character

    Except that in a VT-52 it sounded like a '52 Chevy stripping its gears, which was sure to get your attention.

  • Jeremy Friesner (unregistered) in reply to Shishire
    Shishire:
    So why didn't he just add a $5 pair of speakers next to the printer and configure them to play a sound when an alarm prints?

    This. A 30-second .WAV of a dot-matrix print-head chattering would have been awesome.

  • Jeremy Friesner (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb

    [quote user="C-Derb"][quote user="Zylon"]If cars making noise is a "reasonable" requirement to prevent people from stepping into traffic, why are there deaf people who live past the age of 10?[/quote]

    Never mind traffic, think parking lots. It's really easy to get ninja'd by an electric car backing out if the driver isn't looking behind him, because (by default, anyway) an electric car that's about to move backwards looks AND sounds very much like a parked car -- silent and still.

  • Gibbon1 (unregistered) in reply to callcopse
    callcopse:
    Wow, this must be from a while back. Even crappy monitoring stuff gets big screens showing web sites with things that go red and green and so forth, AFAIK, these days. Personally I would have attempted to persuade the boss to let me get a bat signal some place, as well as a groovy siren.

    Nah, what you really want is to enable the webfilters for the technicians when there is an alarm, thus cutting off their access to WOW, porn, ebay, and ESPN until the problem is resolved.

  • DGS (unregistered) in reply to Jeremy Friesner
    Jeremy Friesner:
    It's really easy to get ninja'd by an electric car backing out if the driver isn't looking behind him, because (by default, anyway) an electric car that's about to move backwards looks AND sounds very much like a parked car -- silent and still.

    By default, every car that is about to move backwards have the reversing lights turned on. I would only walk across if i see the brakes light on too.

  • Annonymous (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    C-Derb:
    He said, "I have a barn that needs a window. How would you build it?" Never mind that he is interviewing software developers and not carpenters. Each developer would then ask questions about how big he wants it or which side of the barn he wanted it on. The question he wanted to be asked was "Why do you want a window?" so that he could answer "Because it gets hot and I want to keep the barn cool." Maybe building a window isn't the solution to the problem you're trying to solve.
    I'd be wary of a software development/IT manager with a keen interest in agriculture. Next thing you know you'll be milking cows.
    If they are willing to pay a programmer's salary to have someone milking cows, it could make for a nice break from reading TheDailyWTF.

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