Oddments For The Weekend

5 Replies to “Oddments For The Weekend”

1. This is what I like the best in my week: The Friday’s Ephemera! Cheers, David!

2. That the BBC is expanding its drag queen programming coincides perfectly with the (elsewhere reported) ongoing feelings-based feminization of the UK military.

3. the punched card.
   oh lordy l must have handle a million of them. seriously. 15 years as a mainframe computer operator?
   in my business course l was so good l could ‘read’ them and know the characters punched on them.
   when they were finally phased out, the users wd bring in boxes and boxes of them. one chap, a prof who knew of me and my professionalism, well l was his hero.
   they were so warped they wdnt go in the reader properly.
   l know what, what if l read them in backwards? the trailing edge is ok.
   it worked.
   but the data is all backwards.
   no problem, make a copy of the backwards file you just created on the card punch.
   which of course comes out backwards.
   no problem, just keep track of which backwards stack matches which unreadable stack.
   final step, take the backwards punched cards back to the card reader, and, you guessed it.
   feed them in backwards, ie flip the data around again to correct sequence.
   voila.
   the prof was SO relieved. the alternative was to perhaps see if they would go thu the machine that just printed them and hire a keypunch operator to recopy. but, no need.

   my boss was a complete ass**le, scolded me for exceeding my responsibilities ‘thats a job for the consultants’ ignoring the fact it wd likely take me longer to track one down, explain the fix, and find someone to carry it out.

4. These men need to meet their water loo…

5. Christ, even the dog had to wait his turn…