Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!
You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
You are not logged in. If you are already registered, fill in the form below to log in, or follow the "Sign Up" link to register a new account.
You may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
It’s a sunny start, with wisps of mares’ tails here and there. The wind seems to have dropped too, so 17°C now feels like 17°; the expected high is 23°, and the barometers are up to 1012/1020mB
Though the nights are getting cooler, the bedroom is still above 20° at bedtime so I haven’t reactivated the duvet yet. But I’ve taken to chucking a throw over the duvet cover under which I sleep, which tends to slide off the bed at some point during the night. It hasn’t been cold enough yet for the loss of it to lead to me waking up
Meanwhile on the 2nd of April 2020, between 10:58 and 11:21, barrydidit, covbob, eek, LM, MrMarkyMark, NF, and scruff popped in.
For the first time in ages the upstairs windows were closed overnight, and, even more alarmingly, the duvet was pressed into service for most of the night.
Walk (abbreviated, 3 miles) walked. Wore jacket: better to have a jacket & not need it, than need a jacket & not wear it.
I ended up watching another episode of the Lockerbie thing, so just one left now
And in Just a Shot Away, Meredith Hunter has been stabbed and beaten to death by the Hells Angels while the Stones continued to play. Then the Stones left the USA in a hurry and have been trying to distance themselves from the whole sorry affair, but Rolling Stone has put together a special issue revealing just what a nightmare Altamont was, even for those who didn’t get killed
Control Panel Design: Features wild black controls labeled in black on a black background, complemented by a small black light that lights up in black when operated.
Arthur's Question: Asks what the button does.
Ford's Warning: Tells him not to touch it.
The Result: A panel lights up saying "Please do not press this button again".
. .
That would be a better design than what we have at the moment
Control Panel Design: Features wild black controls labeled in black on a black background, complemented by a small black light that lights up in black when operated.
Arthur's Question: Asks what the button does.
Ford's Warning: Tells him not to touch it.
The Result: A panel lights up saying "Please do not press this button again".
Well, today was a bit boring until 11:00, when a user made a mistake on a file upload and totally screwed all the figures for last month, this month, and next month!
I never got around to having lunch as I was busy digging through things trying to work out of there was any way to undo everything easily. But although, in theory, it could be done, it would have been a lot of work. So I had to go to the infrastructure people to get the data restored from backup - which is a huge process in itself, due to everything involving loads of moving parts on AWS, and certain things needing to be done by them
But they were brilliant, with five or six of them jumping on a Slack call and assisting me through the whole process - first on our hotfix environment just to check there weren’t any nasty surprises lurking in the undergrowth, then in production. And the system allows for restoring to a point in time with a granularity of five minutes, so we didn’t lose any of the work people had done this morning before that, or very little. We got the whole thing resolved just before 17:00 and everything’s up and running again
We’ve got to have a full post mortem on Monday because it counted as a P1 incident due to needing to take the service offline for a while, and I gather they get reported upwards to senior management, only just below ministerial level. While there are potentially valid reasons for users being able to do what this one did, it really shouldn’t have been that easy - the system should have alerted them that something was unusual and given them a chance to correct it, rather than just charging ahead. So I’ll argue that even though we’re not supposed to be adding new features, we should at least take some time to strengthen the guard rails
That requiring the iRon received its attentions. Entertainment: Archive Hour: "Man of the people: Paul Graney's Story": chap who lived in the North West, as old as the century, worked in cotton mills, fought the BUF in the 1930s, visited Germany during the rise of dear old Adolph, lived in a workhouse, became a tramp during the 20s. A different world.
Everything in off the line & airing upstairs.
Entertainment: Jack Hargreaves Old Country: The pack horse. The packman (aka tinker/chapman). Fishing in "Turk's Pond" which hadn't been fished since said Turk had done so: plenty of fish, though very small, & unlike said Turk, Jack didn't eat the fish. I wonder how someone from Llanelli ended up fishing there. It's a mystery. Well at least it wasn't a Swansea Jack. .
Bab5 S2 E21 "Come the inquisitor". G'Kar starts getting his act together. Delenn and Sheridan are tested by the inquisitor who turns out to be a human abducted centuries previously by those nice Vorlons.
Digging for Britain. Seem to have watched bits of this before. Amusing enough.
Blazian UFO bollox: we are not alone, apparently, with The Truth, no doubt, Being Out There Somewhere. Truly bollox but I don't recall watching it previously.
Possibly More Blazian UFO bollox. Hadn't watched the first half before, but the bit with the lune who was abducted, worked as a supersoldier on Mars for 20 years, then returned to his 17 year old body 15 minutes after his original abduction had irritated me previously. The truth may well be out there, but that probably ain't it. .
Sunny start today, with the merest wisps of fluff here and there. It’s still quite breezy though, so 14°C right now “feels like” 11°; the expected high is 21°, and the barometers have leapt back up to 1009/1017mB
Thursday!
I was thinking of doing the shopping at lunchtime, as work isn’t exactly busy at the moment. But I want to go to M&S again and it takes too long to get across town and visit both there and Sainsbury’s, so I’ll probably leave it until tomorrow
This evening’s viewing was more of the Lockerbie thing, in which tiny pieces of circuit board are a bit of a giveaway, while the CIA is trying its best to be as unhelpful as possible
And later, I read more of Just a Shot Away in which the Altamont concert has started degenerating into mayhem almost immediately
There's been rain and now it's just cloudy with occasional sunshine. Currently 15 degrees and the high was 16. There might be more rain later. Barometer up to 1007 mBar.
Sunrise 05:29; Sunset 21:16 BST
A quiet day. I did some washing up while HWMBO and his eldest went grocery shopping. Logged on to gig1 for a couple of hours to justify billing. Had a look about for more work (none suitable found). I'm quite enjoying the time off but I know I'll start getting very bored next week.
Last edited by ladymuck; Yesterday, 09:29.
Reason: missed a useful word out of the first sentence
Leave a comment: