Snippets

An update about my colleague who lost his laptop computer on Friday the 13th last month. A couple of weeks later he was playing with his kids in the front yard when a male youth walked past on the footpath. With a laptop under his arm. Colleague recognised the laptop, ran after him and rugby tackled him on the nature strip (or so the story goes. Maybe he just shouted out “Oi!”). Youth claimed he had bought it in the pub. Yup. A likely story. The laptop was recovered, and Colleague took it back into work and got the local geeks to look it over.

So they checked it on the asset register. And it didn’t match. Different serial numbers. Uh oh… had he beaten up the wrong kid and got the wrong laptop back? As it turns out there was something askew on the register, and it was eventually positively identified as being the correct laptop. Problem now is it’s no longer covered by the insurance (since they had been told it was stolen, and the replacement had arrived) so now it’s in laptop limbo.

The OFLC got back to me after I queried the G rating of Doctor Who: The Two Doctors, saying that: In the Board’s view, the material is suitable for general viewing as the incidences of violence are so theatrical and unrealistic in this low budget science-fiction context as to be minimal in their impact. Can’t say I agree with them when it comes to the stabbing scene, but there you go. Nice of them to reply, anyway, and not a hint of “go away, you crank”.

Geek joy: That moment when you realise that the tweaking you’ve done of the program has been successful, and though the code is a tad more confusing now (quite possibly in a way that nobody else will ever understand, no matter how well-documented it is), but all the effort was worth it because it takes about a hundredth of the time to run.

Had a company sponsored flu shot yesterday. Obviously they want to remove the most likely reason for taking a sickie this winter. Even us lowly contractors, normally shunned when it comes to corporate benefits, were included. The medicos took over a meeting room for a few hours to administer said shot to everybody who wanted it, thus allowing those of us sitting nearby to marvel at the liberalism of the corporation for allowing a safe injecting room on the premises. Best of all the flu shot showbag included mints, M&Ms, Ovalteenies, tissues (you’d think we’d be less in need of them now) and some Dilmah teabags (certainly a step up from the usual ones in the kitchen).