Originally posted by WTFH
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Crispian is also a contractor it would appear..Originally posted by NickFitz View PostI've managed to stop myself laughing at the election result for just long enough to dig this lot up
[*]The Ladybird Book of Extremely Tedious Oncological Platitudes - Crispian Jago has terminal kidney cancer, and is writing about it. Here, he adopts the medium of the Ladybird book to describe the sorts of things people say to him:
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Happy invoicing!
I normally confess my profession to be “freelance IT Consultant” as that portrays just enough dullness and familiarity to stunt any further questioning on the matter. A more accurate description for those who insist on digging a little deeper would involve an awfully monotonous discussion on the definition of software testing strategies and the management of test engineers to allow organisations some degree of confidence when deploying their shiny new IT system. There’s nothing the technology journalists like more than a large failed IT project lying on its back with its uncoupled interfaces flailing in the air, especially big titillating public sector ones like the ones I seem to end up managing.Leave a comment:
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Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCCLXXXIX
I've managed to stop myself laughing at the election result for just long enough to dig this lot up
- Cooling the tube – Engineering heat out of the Underground - Ian Mansfield on the various methods used, and being explored, for cooling down the deep Tubes in London: ”When the early tube tunnels were dug, they were so cool down there that the cool tube was seen as a respite from the summer heat on the surface… Over the years, the heat from the trains soaked into the clay to the point where it can no longer absorb any more heat. Tunnels that were a mere 14 degrees Celsius in the 1900s can now have air temperatures as high as 30 degrees Celsius on parts of the tube network.”
- Rayon, an Epidemic of Insanity, and the Woman Who Fought to Expose It - "In 1933, workers at a plant in Delaware began suffering breakdowns. Enter Alice Hamilton, one of history’s foremost occupational-health detectives."
- Chip Fun - HT to vetran for this collection of microscopic artworks on silicon chips: ”These chip art images were made visible through lapping techniques, magnification and Polaroid capturing. Typically chips have a unique "signature" which we have come to recognize and expect to be logic, memory, gates, etc. However, these signatures are the designer's, the engineer's and in some cases a company logo.”
- Under the Dome - Geoff Manaugh on salt domes: ”You might recall, for example, the story of Lake Peigneur, an inland body of water that was almost entirely drained from below when a Texaco drilling rig accidentally punctured a salt dome beneath the lake. This led to the sight of a rapid, Edgar Allan Poe-like maelström of swirling water disappearing into the abyss, pulling no fewer than eleven barges into the terrestrial deep.”
- The Muslim WWII Heroine that Time Forgot - "Not many can boast to have made it to the top of the Nazis’ “Most Wanted” list in Paris during World War II, and still fewer Allied radio operatives stayed at the top of that list for longer than a few weeks. Noor Inayat Khan exceeded these expectations, working fervently to bring freedom to Europe with the hope that she could engender better relations between her father’s home country of India and Great Britain– the country she called home and for which she gave her life in Dachau at just 30 years of age."
- 1001 Hi-Fi: The Stereo Museum - "This site contains pictures and short desriptions of a fabulous privately owned Hi‐Fi collection, of over 500 units (aug. 1st. 2010), consisting of CD players, cassette tape recorders, reel to reel recorders, tuners, turntables, amplifiers, systems etc." This is a Philips “Chinese hat” speaker from 1927:
- My Hands Become My Eyes and an Uncanny Adventure in Literal Navel-Gazing - Matt Bierner puts together a VR system that allows him to see through his hands: ”For those unaware, I’ve spent most of my life gazing upon the world through a pair of rather squishy, spherical orbs mounted snugly in my skull, a point of view which—while affording some truly great sights over the years—is starting to feel rather tired and conventional. And so, lacking an appropriate sized melon baller to perform such an ocular transplant manually, I settled for the next best thing: bending my reality using technology.”
- Into the Big Surreal: 36 Hours in California’s Isolated, Lonely Island - The California coastal region of Big Sur is frequently being cut off by landslides: ”I heard stories: There were mountain lions walking in the middle of empty roads, and longtime recluses sunbathing naked on the highway, and kids hiking miles just to get to school, and I had to see for myself if any of that was true. So we grabbed some snacks, water, recording gear and a camping knife, threw on a pair of comfortable shoes and started on a 36-mile, 36-hour journey into California’s newest coastal island.”
- The Geographical Oddity of Null Island - "It doesn’t seem like much of a place to visit. Granted, I’ve never actually been there, but I think I can imagine it: the vastness of ocean, overcast skies, a heavy humidity in the air. No land in sight, with the only distinguishing feature being a lonely buoy, bobbing up and down in the water. It almost seems like a “non-place,” but it may surprise you to learn that this site is far from anonymous. This spot is a hive of activity in the world of geographic information systems (GIS). As far as digital geospatial data is concerned, it may be one of the most visited places on Earth! This is Null Island… an imaginary island located at 0°N 0°E (hence “Null”) in the South Atlantic Ocean.” I can confirm that pretty much any software project involving geographical data will at some point have a bug that sends you there
- The Ladybird Book of Extremely Tedious Oncological Platitudes - Crispian Jago has terminal kidney cancer, and is writing about it. Here, he adopts the medium of the Ladybird book to describe the sorts of things people say to him:
Happy invoicing!
- Cooling the tube – Engineering heat out of the Underground - Ian Mansfield on the various methods used, and being explored, for cooling down the deep Tubes in London: ”When the early tube tunnels were dug, they were so cool down there that the cool tube was seen as a respite from the summer heat on the surface… Over the years, the heat from the trains soaked into the clay to the point where it can no longer absorb any more heat. Tunnels that were a mere 14 degrees Celsius in the 1900s can now have air temperatures as high as 30 degrees Celsius on parts of the tube network.”
Leave a comment: