Early Risers.

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Floors. Neighbours granddaughter often bottle raises orphaned lambs. They have dogs and also look after rescue kittens so paper is always appreciated. Also useful for starting the open fires. 

 

I almost read that as rescue kittens are good for starting a fire...............

[Barry O]

35 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I believe that both TOPS that is still at thd heRt of most railway systems, and The Poluce National Computer both have a very old language at their core. Apparently  the people that run them have to be sent on courses after they are recruited.  I seem to remember that there us so ething similar in nuclear missile subs.

 

Jamie

No it isnt in at least one thing you mention Jamie.

 

Baz

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

(That's more than I guessed it might be.) Still, I wonder how much they have spent in salary and postage sending you so many letters? Unless of course this is all automatic from a computer programme that no one has bothered to set right.

 

It's only a matter of time before one of the cockwombles there tells me that it is the fault of the computer. They will need to be wearing a hard hat!

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Modified rules are in place on Portland City golf courses. A collar has been installed around the flag stick, slightly larger than the hole. It counts as a hole out if you hit the collar.

 

 

 

 

I forgot that we played that one weekend. Small sections of 3" or so diameter pipe were put in the hole around the flagstick, just deep enough for the ball to drop, but not too far so that retrieving a ball did not involve touching the hole

[Barry O]

Evening all!

 

Had a busy day getting nowhere fast.

 

Surprisingly enough our British Gas payments seem to be fine. We make use of a smart meter and the bills are just about spot on. Our water is run off a seperate less smart meter . That seems to work ok as well.

 

I used Eon for the energy supply in Barrow. Despite giving them meter readings (the house was empty) they clocked up about £450 in overcharges. I had to threaten them with court action to get the money back. They know exactly how far they can bend the law to their advantage.

 

Next up...I hope AndyB is ok. 

 

Baz

[pH]

55 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Mine was 1984 with the same outcome - then object oriented took over. I actually liked cobol - from memory your code   had an introduction bit and a main body and a conclusion, kind of like writing an essay..

 

And with a little bit of thought, mildly obscene Cobol was possible. (Though I suppose that's possible with many languages.)

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Coombe Barton]

Sunshine and birdsong,

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/04/08/isolation-and-insolation/

[AndyID]

Recently I moved my 3D printer into the shed/shop along with the laptop. Theoretically this will allow me to print stuff while doing other things without having to run up and down two flights of stairs.

 

The snag is the screen on the laptop really isn't suitable for CAD - too small and not enough resolution, so I found a 22" monitor online for about $60. What a difference! And it's far better that the enormous CRT monitor I bought about 20 years ago. IIRC it cost about $800!

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well apart from spending the first hour this morning in the cellar, re-hanging the inner door, I’ve spent most of the day in the garden. The decking balustrade was cleaned and rubbed down before dinner and a few areas of bare wood were touched up. After dinner the whole lot got a fresh coat of paint and it’s now looking a lot better. I also gave the new finials 3 coats of paint and hopefully they will be fitted to the balustrade either tomorrow or Friday. I spent so long in the garden that I didn’t get time to make a temporary fascia for the turntable control panel, but I did manage to finish building the control board, hopefully I’ll get the fascia made over the next day or so. 

 

The control board, the relays and opto-coupler (almost hidden by the left relay) are fitted via sockets, thus making replacement very easy. 

 

The front of the cellar door, complete with a replica of a Victorian Railway sign bought many years ago by Sheila. Our house is within 1/2 a mile of this line. 

 

The back of the cellar door

 

Goodnight all

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by BSW01

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Not a lot to report Farcebook has been very busy during this coronavirus outbreak. Two groups that I run have doubled membership over the last couple of weeks.

3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

British Gas have excelled themselves today. They have written to the previous occupant here and asked him to contact them about the outstanding balance on his account. How do they expect him to do this: a Ouija board perhaps? 

 

I have replied on his behalf but no doubt wasting my time. Look forward to meeting again their debt collector who comes up all the way from Newport. I hope he charges them a good hourly rate.

 

3 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

I'd just have returned the letter 'to sender' marked as no longer lives here!

I've had dealings with British gas and I wasn't even one of their customers. I kept getting letters to my address from BG to someone who I'd never heard of which I returned marked 'Not known at this address.' Then I got a letter from my energy supplier saying they're sorry I was transfering to BG which was news to me! It turned out that someone had tried to open an account with BG using my address. My own supplier told me that I would have to contact BG which I did. They were completely unhelpful telling me that I will have to sort out their mess. As it turns out when I mentioned returning their letters marked 'not known' their reply was that they bin them without checking them. That was all of twenty years ago, I see BG has not changed.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[newbryford]

11 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Not a lot to report Farcebook has been very busy during this coronavirus outbreak. Two groups that I run have doubled membership over the last couple of weeks.

 

I've had dealings with British gas and I wasn't even one of their customers. I kept getting letters to my address from BG to someone who I'd never heard of which I returned marked 'Not known at this address.' Then I got a letter from my energy supplier saying they're sorry I was transfering to BG which was news to me! It turned out that someone had tried to open an account with BG using my address. My own supplier told me that I would have to contact BG which I did. They were completely unhelpful telling me that I will have to sort out their mess. As it turns out when I mentioned returning their letters marked 'not known' their reply was that they bin them without checking them. That was all of twenty years ago, I see BG has not changed.

 

It's not just BG that make it difficult when there is a scam/erroneous transfer.

Someone used my address with a different name a few years ago (They used my surname as a first name and imaginatively used "Smith" as their surname) - for energy transfer and pet insurance for a dog we never had...... When I rang the pet insurance company, they told me it was a typical ruse to setup 2 or 3 energy/insurance deals with a false address to obtain credit cards and the like.

The "new" energy company were most understanding at the time as I'd raised the issue within the stipulated  14 day cooling off period and were happy not to start a new contract and not send me any bills. They were true to their word and never sent a bill to my address.

Getting the original supplier to take me back was another matter- despite them immediately agreeing that the transfer was a false request, I still received a "sorry to see you go" final bill. In the words of Andrew C. hoofw&nking bunglec*nts!

It took 6-8 months of not paying any bills before they took me back - and gave me a refund in the process. (The company was First Utility and the initials describe them perfectly). I left them not too much later - by my own choice.

Having said that, a letter popped through the post about two weeks ago from the "new" suppliers debt collectors [*] claiming unpaid bills in the name of the "person" that had used my address. They have now earned themselves an Andrew C-ism

 

 

[*] it wasn't actually the original debt to the energy company as they had sold it onto another company and then they were using another legal company and the advised contact was a phone number. Not blimmin'  likely as it was just about CV lockdown time and I would guess that most legal companies would just make most of their staff WFH and I'll be on hold for hours.

 

Off went a letter to the legal company, with copies tp the other two companies blaming the "new "supplier for sending false information to the debt collectors - I won't be paying anything and by sending three letters, I'll get the perverse sense of satisfaction of wasting the time of three people...................

 

Anyway - about 2 hours of my evening tonight was wasted spent looking for a part for a plastic kit I'm building. I definitely saw it this morning in my shed. Not a particularly small part- about 4" x 1/2"

After virtually giving up hope, it was there in front of me. In a place I'd looked through about 5 times tonight....

Pleased and not pleased at the same time...............

 

I will be second-manning at work tomorrow, but there is a POETGF plan for the two of us about 3pm.

 

Have a good one folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

...snip...  so I found a 22" monitor online for about $60. What a difference!  ...snip...

I bought a 50 inch tv just to use as a laptop monitor. Once in while I might watch a laserdisc with it.

[BR60103]

I reported Brian Fayle's death earlier.

https://www.guelphtoday.com/obituaries/fayle-brian-william-knott-dr-2236735

 

The railway that brought him to notice was the OO gauge Harlyn Junction.

 

[J. S. Bach]

Good night owl from the Piedmont.

[AndyID]

Our car insurer and several other insurance companies in the US have announced that they will be giving us a refund because of the greatly reduced number of road accidents. Are the UK insurers doing that too?

 

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, J. S. Bach said:

I bought a 50 inch tv just to use as a laptop monitor. Once in while I might watch a laserdisc with it.

You are a few inches bigger than mine. I have a 42" monitor / TV in the shed that was the main living room TV with a small win 10 PC linked to it. Quite often I will have Santa Fe Junction live rial cam on this and Elkhart on the smaller 26" old bedroom TV that I recently fitted to a TV bracket at the other end of the shed -it was in use all day yesterday turned towards the doors whilst I cut timber outside the shed. Both just clear the high level line as planned. 

 

Morning all.

 

Its 4.40 am and I am currently in the shed laying the first section of curved track. Once its  gone 8am when I can make some noise with the power tools I will continue trimming the remaining boards and finish laying the cork base. I am hoping that I can get a train running the complete circuit today.

[zarniwhoop]

8 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

Actually rather amusing since our HQ offices are in NJ and we've as recently as this week been approached for exactly that - totally scary that they are using that sh!t still of course

Then again, why change it if it works - until the last COBOL programmer expires, of course!! 

 

Wow. As an inveterate late-riser (I was an analyst programmer and now hack on linux code and scripts for my own interest) I hesitate to reply to ER comments, but really. For financials, COBOL (at least on IBM mainframes) was the bee's knees (COMP-3 storage - binary coded decimal - so decimal currency could and should add up without rounding errors if all the variables were sized correctly).

 

For idiot graphical interfaces, COBOL is not the right tool. But for financials it should be more rigorous than putting things through spreadsheets or whatever is the current flavour of the month in business circles.

 

${DEITY} (Anoia, the goddess of things stuck in drawers, in my case ;-) What is with this "newer, shinier, must be better" attitude ? And how many of these newer languages will still be usable for applications in even 20 years time ?

 

Stay safe, and  stick to VSAM, IMS/DB or DB2.

 

PS - like the 4-COR in your signature, but by your standards should it not be something more modern ?

 

ĸen

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

Much of yesterday was a domestic day – food preparation, ironing and the changing of bedclothes.  Just before noon I took a break from all that and phoned one of my aunts.  I have two and being twins they are both 96 years old.  Dorothy is the mother of my cousin Brian [88C] and Gladys is my godmother.  I was last in touch with Gladys in July, when I took her out for lunch as a totally inadequate thank-you for not turning a hair when I came out to her almost a year previously.  Since then she has moved into a care home.  We spoke on the phone for maybe three minutes as she had just come downstairs for lunch but it was good to hear her voice again.  Maybe my timing will be better next time I ring.  I had hoped for a brief encounter with her on my way home from the SWAG gathering, sometime over Bristol Pride weekend and on my way to Sidmouth.  Thanks to that ruddy virus none of these will happen.  In any case I don’t rate my chances of just turning up at a care home!  Who would make me a cuppa?  I am determined that we WILL meet again but determination has not worked at all well for me recently.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

It must be Thursday as her indoors is off food shopping (it seems quieter at moreasons on a Thursday morning).

 

We should be ensconced in our hired cottage in Robin Hoods Bay now... never mind we will be there in 2021. I shall miss a trip to the Magpie for Whitby Fish and Chips though! I just fancy some fresh seafood...pah !

 

Researching family trees is time consuming. Changes in family name, fathers and sons having the same Christian names do make for some amazing twists and turns.

 

I think i now need to go and look at Parish Records to go further back than 1749.

 

Time for my mugatea. Stay healthy and make best use of your time!

Baz

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Barry O

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a sunny Charente.  I can really empathise with Mick(NB). yesterday after spending the morning and early afternoon digging up Cottoneaster roots, I headed for the shed with aching muscles. A frustrating time trying to get a chassis running smoothly ensued but in the process I dropped 2 small brass bushes.  I spent ages on the floor trying to find them.  No joy but fortunately  I have some spares. However  I did find a cast lamp bracket that I dropped about a year ago.  Bizarre.

 

Anyway I have a trip out today for essential supplies. First call is the vineyard/distillery  for red falling down water. Sone things are more essential than others. Then the supermarket  and the Post Office.  Meantime Beth is off to the Dr's and the Pharmacy.  Tonight it's our usual fish and chip excursion.

 

Welcome to the group ken.  

 

Stay safe everyone. 

 

Jamie

Edited April 9, 2020 by jamie92208