Wapsi Square Forum

Sooooo why didn't we just stick with the Stuff thread? I seem to recall this one being a continuation...

GlytchMeister wrote:...how many pages can a thread have here?

I can't think of a reason for a functional limit of a particular number.

I'd guess that the particular-number limit is perhap 2^31-1 or 2^63-1 (in either case that's a total limit on the forum, not a per-thread limit unless there's only one thread), but the forum is unlikely to survive long enough to get there... as are the current participants.

Warrl wrote:I'd guess that the particular-number limit is perhap 2^31-1 or 2^63-1 (in either case that's a total limit on the forum, not a per-thread limit unless there's only one thread), but the forum is unlikely to survive long enough to get there... as are the current participants.

We may not make it, but don't count on the forum being gone. That's the sort of thinking which caused so much trouble in the 1990s, when industry had to go to a great deal of trouble to deal with the Y2K problem. There were all sorts of programs still running from years or decades before that had "two digit" year fields that needed to be revised. For more than a few, the original source code was either lost, or written in obsolete languages for which there was no current compiler (and some programs had been repeatedly patched in binary machine code to fix bugs!). In the worse cases, the last actual computers that could run the binary code had worn out and failed, and the binaries were being run on modern computers with a different operating system (or even a different instruction set architecture) using a "virtual machine" emulator!

Software whose authors had thought would surely be replaced after a few years was still an essential part of many companies' operation, and nobody still working for the company actually understood it or how to change it!

A whole lot of old COBOL and RPG and PL/I programmers were lured out of retirement to help understand, fix, or even re-create the old legacy software, thus staving off what many feared would be a messy collapse of I.T. departments worldwide, the whole interlinked economic system, and civilization itself. Fortunately, all this hard work paid off, and the year 2000 arrived with very little actual disruption.

Rumor had it that some of those programmers were not allowed to go back into retirement again. They were kidnapped, sedated, and placed into cryogenic hibernation, to be revived in time to help add one more digit to the old COBOL and FORTRAN code and databases in the year 9999, so that the Y10K problem doesn't destroy galactic civilization.

Dave wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:Job related rant: Some of the people who call for cabs must qualify as 8s or 9s on the Mohs density scale. They surely aren't 10s, because they're nowhere precious enough to be diamonds.

What do they do?... they make the driver wait? You'd expect that, at the high end of the scale... a "9" would certainly make a car bide.

Taxi Service, this is Jim. I'm at the Freighliner, how much to go to the Baymont?
Which one? Amarillo.
There are two Baymonts in Amarillo... which one? Amarillo. Do you have an address for the Baymont? No.
How about a phone number? No.
Fine, I'll send a cab... should be there in about 30 minutes. How soon?

And then when the cab gets there, he's loading into the hotel's courtesy van.

Don't ya just LOVE customers?

I've oft said the biggest problem with customer service is that it involves customers.

It's not the job, it's the people I work for.

Yeah, I hear most people leave their jobs because of managers/supervisors and/or coworkers. If a place has a high turn around rate, they need to start looking at changing their behavior.

Well, after getting a deep scratch on a finger that resulted in just a tiny amount of bleeding, I had to fill out a report and now I have to take a drug test sometime soon.

Good thing I decided to save money and not smoke weed several months ago, or I'd be screwed. Really, all this hubbub over a SCRATCH I BARELY NOTICED. Like, I get drug testing after an accident, but having to fill out paperwork and all that... Seems a bit overkill.

Is your tetanus shot up to date? Might wanna look into that just to be safe.

Well, as they say at where I work: "If your bleeding, you're probably doing it wrong!"

Yep - tetanus shots are your friend (in the long run).

Alkarii wrote:Well, after getting a deep scratch on a finger that resulted in just a tiny amount of bleeding, I had to fill out a report and now I have to take a drug test sometime soon.

Good thing I decided to save money and not smoke weed several months ago, or I'd be screwed. Really, all this hubbub over a SCRATCH I BARELY NOTICED. Like, I get drug testing after an accident, but having to fill out paperwork and all that... Seems a bit overkill.

the paperwork is more to protect their insurance, because you don't want to get caught committing fraud to get the workman's comp, etc. for a false claim... as well as they can go after you if they catch you cheating the system. and in a round-a-bout way it makes their paperwork they submit to the government look better when people stop REPORTING injuries because of the stupid amounts of PAPERWORK... thus they don't have as many accidents to REPORT!!... isn't that AMAZING how their accident/incident rates dropped and now they don't have to pay as much insurance, so the savings they get from that bill going down is "of course" paid to the employees in end-of-year-bonuses... right (wink wink, nudge, nudge)... even though the amount of injuries has probably NOT changed from before all that paperwork was implemented...

Spot the former Walmart employee?

Nah, I never worked at Walmart, though I did work at Target. Turns out that I won't be getting drug tested after all, which means just a little paperwork.

Alkarii wrote:Nah, I never worked at Walmart, though I did work at Target. Turns out that I won't be getting drug tested after all, which means just a little paperwork.

Oh, nah, I was referring to STB up there. But Target is probably almost as bad.

GlytchMeister wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Nah, I never worked at Walmart, though I did work at Target. Turns out that I won't be getting drug tested after all, which means just a little paperwork.

Oh, nah, I was referring to STB up there. But Target is probably almost as bad.

actually, i've never worked in retail at all. this is just common sense as to what will happen in today's lawsuit-happy society, with Golden Parachutes, etc... combined with some of the things said at work (Marine Electrician, in a shipyard) concerning bids for upcoming work vs insurance rates causing us to lose the bid for a new ship to get work done, due to some other shipyard getting it due to lower insurance rates but everything else was pretty much the same quote as our yard...

JW, I got you beat by just a few and I ain't no Senior Citizen. AARP is just recruiting younger and younger, hoping to build the ranks. Decent strategy methinks.

PS- This morning, while scooping water from an open barrel (re-purposed trash can, in the garden...) I happened upon the unhappy corpse of a masked bandit, gone on to his (or her) reward.

PSII- btw, while Northern California is beset by scattered, but no less virulent wildfires, last night's Low was 28F. (While the Bay Are is catching the blown off smoke, I find myself the recipient of small favours in the form of Winds from the North that are keeping the soot at bay...

Just a few hours ago, I used my card to get something to eat and drink from the shop in our break room. Now, my card is getting declined, and I just got paid Friday. What the hell?

UPDATE: I get back to the community I live in, check my balance... And the card is working again, and my money is still there. What the hell is going on?

There was probably a... oh what the hell is the term... a hold? Like, when I used to use my card at a gas station, the damn thing wouldn't work anywhere else for a few hours. Real damn inconvenient.

It should start working in a while.

Sometimes a merchant will enter a hold (a tentative charge) for a large amount, when you start a transaction... for example they might put in a $50 hold when you swipe your card to start filling your tank. This is in effect a credit check... making sure that the card is valid and can be billed for the amount of gas you are likely to buy, before you are allowed to start pumping gas.

The actual purchase is billed as a separate transaction, and the hold automatically expires after a few hours (but not necessarily when the purchase transaction goes through). So, for a while, your account has both showing, and if this brings you near your card limit you may be unable to change again until the hold is gone.

Another possibility: the credit card fraud detection system looks for unusual charges. It's common for people who steal credit cards to start out making one or two small transactions... a dollar or two, often at convenience stores or gas stations... to see if the card is valid. If these go through they will use the card to make big purchases, running up a big bill as fast as they can. So, credit card computer systems will sometimes temporarily block a card for "suspicious activity" if there are small charges in a place the card hasn't been used before, or some other sort of "not in character with previous uses" charging. This would give the card owner time to report it stolen, or for the card company to call the customer and ask if the charges were legit.