julian_t

9 ms·

61.
by julian_t 3y ago
Fortran, not COBOL, but I came across a similar thing when helping to update code for Y2K. An insurance company used a 2 digit field for year of birth, assuming that it would always be prefixed with '19'. I sort of forgave them be
62.
by julian_t 3y ago
It actually has had this since Fortran-90, and there's even a 'pointer' keyword.
63.
by julian_t 3y ago
I wish my local council would use this. Here on my High Street in South London, my nearest pedestian crossing can take up to two minutes to change, even when there are no cars close. It's frustrating for pedestrians (and motorists, whe
64.
by julian_t 3y ago
When I worked in Mumbai it took me about two weeks to learn how to cross the street: just walk out into the traffic with your hand up, and everyone goes round you. Everyone ignores the lights, so you just need to take your chances. I got hi
65.
by julian_t 3y ago
Years ago Wrox Press got me to come in and give a basic Java programming course to the tech editors who were going to work on a series of Java books. They were mainly English and history grads, and the head man wanted them to have some idea
66.
by julian_t 3y ago
When I was doing freelance training a company asked me how much it would be for a week's C++ course for X people, and when I told them they said that wasn't high enough. Yep, budget spend time. So I asked them, theoretically of co
67.
by julian_t 3y ago
We used to do this, going on holiday to Scotland from London. Drive your car onto the train at Olympia, go to sleep on the train, wake up to breakfast and then get into your car in Stirling and drive off. It wasn't cheap but I really m
68.
by julian_t 3y ago
Oh yes, been there and seen that. Guys on a trading desk at Some Bank wanted an app, so the IT Dept said "fill in this form, so we can set an agenda for a meeting to discuss how we're going to approach defining the requirements...
69.
by julian_t 3y ago
At least cards didn't tend to damage you too badly. Before punched cards there was paper tape, which I had to use to program a Varian 16-bit mini in the early 80s. After punching your tape you'd take the reel and feed it into the
70.
by julian_t 3y ago
I saw someone playing a concertina once and thought hmmmm... a split keyboard might work there. Never got round to doing anything about it, though.
71.
by julian_t 3y ago
I thought the basis of gin was juniper berries, not elderberries (although you can make elderberry gin in the same way as sloe gin)
72.
by julian_t 3y ago
Same here - I'd never heard of people having a visual image of a year. I certainly don't. And if you do have such a visual image, do you use it for anything or does it just sit there like a piece of art?
73.
by julian_t 3y ago
I'm regularly finding that people don't seem to understand the "already crossing the road" part. On several occasions I've had people start to cross a few feet in front of me when I'm indicating and have alread
74.
by julian_t 3y ago
I've seen this at night in Finland as well, looking out of my hotel window at a snow covered street. Not a car in sight (or even tyre tracks in the snow) but still there were people waiting to cross.
75.
by julian_t 3y ago
I worked with someone who described his job like that, working on a suite of actuarial software at an insurance company, originally written in Fortran II sometime in the early 60s and subsequently ported from system to system in the years t
76.
by julian_t 3y ago
Some people like having house names as well as a numbers. We live at no.69 and I once entertained the idea of calling it "No. 47", but the idea was quickly vetoed. (In case you're wondering "why 47?", for some reaso
77.
by julian_t 3y ago
I recently had to deal with this here in the UK when selling my mother's house. She's 94, far into dementia and bed-bound, was a stay-at-home mom all her life. She had no photo ID of any sort, and since she'd been in a home f
78.
by julian_t 3y ago
I've run into several parking places recently where you had to pay using the app, but where there was no mobile signal on any of the networks. Cue a lot of annoyed motorists. On the other hand we (from London) were visiting Santa Barba
79.
by julian_t 3y ago
A friend of mine did woodwind instrument repairing at college, and the final project was to build a saxophone from scratch. It proved that you could work with every part of the instrument, but she said if you did it for real you'd make
80.
by julian_t 3y ago
A Brunner folding guitar ( https://brunner-guitars.com/en/b-compact-models/ ) is definitely portable, although not exactly cheap.
81.
by julian_t 3y ago
I visited SIO briefly in the late 80s, and my most vivid memory is of a long haired dude in a Hawaiian shirt bursting into our meeting to announce "surf's up!", at which point everything stopped and everyone left. Back then i
82.
by julian_t 3y ago
For us, it's Miele. Washer and dryer are >20 yrs old, and the tech who came to fix a leak said they'll keep going. Dishwasher is about 10 yrs old, also going good. The Panasonic microwave/combo ovens, though, last about 3
83.
by julian_t 3y ago
1c. The cab decides not to take you if you're going to JFK from Manhattan on a Friday afternoon (me, too many times)
84.
by julian_t 3y ago
Earlier this year we cleared my parents house prior to selling it, which meant dealing with my father's book collection. He had wide ranging interests, from jazz to town planning, and it was quite a task figuring out what of the 1500-o
85.
by julian_t 3y ago
Or a fog horn: https://www.sumburghhead.com/assets/images/enlargeable/Fogho...
86.
by julian_t 3y ago
My pet insurer's web site has a box for you to enter your policy number, which only accepts numbers and has a spinner. The policy number is seven digits long. It's sort of fun typing the first few and then playing with the up and
87.
by julian_t 3y ago
I once worked in an old building in London where the fire escape was partly constructed of wood, and also had the lightning conductor attached to it rather than the building itself. It would probably have done pretty well on the "fire&
88.
by julian_t 4y ago
Yes! Here's a real life example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatley_Heath
89.
by julian_t 4y ago
Many (many!) years ago I worked with a PDP-8 that had ferrite core memory. Because the magnetic state was persistent, come 5pm we'd just throw the switch and turn the machine off. 9am the next day we'd turn it back on, and it woul
90.
by julian_t 4y ago
For years the only Morse I knew was how to use a whistle to send SOS. Maybe it's time to learn a few more letters...

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