2011 — 18 May: Wednesday
Although the two photos here (click the pic to see the second one) were taken nearly 30 years apart I think it's fair to say that Peter, when young, bore quite a strong resemblance to his Dad back in the early monochrome 1950s...
It's time1 for a spot of sleep. Need to be fresh and alert for lunch with Len in a few hours. G'night.
Those pesky users
I'm sure I.T. departments within corporations almost think they'd be better off without them. But then, corporations can be (un)pretty sociopathic (at best) and like attracts like:
Tracking down applications proved tricky. "We thought we knew them all, but back in the day when users could install applications locally, even though we had a policy of applications all coming through our department, there were some that slipped through the net, ... It was only once we started the migration that we discovered just how many rogue applications there were dotted around the organisation. We then either had to virtualise them or take them away from people."
Sounds akin to Communism. Or is that Capitalism? Is there even a difference?
It also reminds me of the time in the IBM Hursley Lab back in the days of OS/2 when "they" were developing and deploying "SWIM" (which stood, I believe, for Software Installation and Maintenance). Its malign (some thought benign) aim was to standardise and control2 exactly what went on to users' desktops in a vain attempt to standardise and control the users. I seem to recall at one Dilbertian point in its life-cycle it having three software component dependencies, each of which had the other two as pre-requisites needing to be installed before it could be. Such fun.
It's 09:08 and I'm putting off the clearing of one half of what was Christa's study to put up all the shelving I bought yesterday. Procrastination feels so good. [Pause] Right. Time (10:26) to make a start. But where am I going to put everything? :-)
Ho-hum.
A-ha!
A mere half an hour aloft in the loft, shifting stuff around to make room for other stuff and I hear a faint tap on the door. Well, it was probably a thunderous rap, actually, but I was a good distance from it. So I now find two more DVDs and, on checking my email while I take a necessary breather, I also find (to my delight) that the venerable (and, by me, much-venerated) Daedalus (David E H Jones) has a new book coming out from Johns Hopkins this autumn (or "fall", I guess).
Back from lunch ("The Bridge" menu has, sadly, become rather more generic under its latest management, so we shall be looking a bit further afield next time). I guess I have no further excuses to delay the start of my drilling. Though I could always use another cuppa...
Progress...
... is more than somewhat snail-like as I realised it's time to empty and sort through the 31 storage cartons into which I had hastily packed the contents of Christa's study last year while I was clearing it for the massive re-plumbing adventure just a couple of steps ahead of Brian the plumber. And, of course, I keep finding stuff. Would you believe, for example, that this little gang was at one point in the mid-1980s responsible for the entire CICS library of documentation?
Alas, three of us have already skidded off Life's Little Highway. Incredible. Your diarist is the one who didn't like wearing plain shirts. (I had
very little time for neckties, either, to be honest. Let alone jackets.)
Left to right: DCM, Roger Figg, Ray Small, Ray Weir, Doug Braund, Mike Vale, Geoff Cooper.
Blimey! It's 19:35 already and I've sorted a mere 3 of the cartons. But I am chucking out quite a lot of, erm, stuff that my world-class squirrel of a wife had managed to accumulate... interrupted there by a cold call from the Anglian Home "Improvement" pirates who are still trying to sell the late Mrs M more of their unsatisfactory services. However, my telephone manner is improving to the point where I no longer use even mild profanity, but gently suggest that a) I have no need of their services, b) nor their promotional 'literature', and (possibly my trump card) c) I can no longer afford their products but fortunately have no need of them. We then part amicably until the next call.
I think that's enough tidying-up for one day, frankly. The Terrible Trio have pencilled in a walk for tomorrow and I need to defrost a little something for my packed lunch. Would you put the kettle on, please, Mrs Landingham?
I see Ken Clarke has put his suede shoes back in his mouth again, this time by suggesting (shades of "Animal Farm") that some rapes are more serious than others. Does he never learn? Or, at least, have a 'minder'? (Link.)