Pre-tentious, moi?
We’re inundated with your concerns about redundant use of ‘pre’.
Jason Higgs at Caradon District Council is worried that his friend’s dishwasher has prewash, which ‘would be using them’, he says.
‘The obvious example of pre abuse is all those PCs that come “pre-loaded” with Windows,’ says David Hamill at Hamill & Hamill.
‘How about pre-historic?’ adds Bruce Parker.
John Gilliver tells us this compulsion to use redundant language is known online as the PNS syndrome (short, and with intentional error, for PIN number syndrome). We concur.
God save our noble disk drives
Oh what have we started by asking for your memories of disk drive music?
‘Commodore produced the Amiga computer, which had its own programmable disk controller chip (called Gary), and which had total control over all aspects of speed, disk head positioning,’ says Anthony O’Dell at Alliance Solutions, recalling many happy hours playing the Blue Danube on his Amiga disk drive rather than buying it on a cassette tape.
‘I remember a small program doing the rounds at computer clubs and bulletin boards that managed to play Daisy Daisy by altering the rotation speeds of the drive and position of the drive head.’ The hours must have just flown by.
But this week’s overachiever is John Bosley. ‘In 1968 I worked on an Arch 9000 computer at the Ministry of Technology,’ he writes. ‘Input was via a paper tape reader and the speed of the reader could be changed in real-time from the console. Using a continuous loop of tape I was able to play the National Anthem from the console.’
Dead and board
‘John Lane is mistaken,’ says Ryder Marsden at LogicaCMG. You will recall that John warned us about the presence of electrically live bedside lamps in the UK’s boarding houses.
‘If he touched a bedside lamp that really did have a live casing, he would feel more than a “slight vibration”, Ryder explains. ‘His hand would suddenly and involuntarily move several feet away from the lamp. If he also happened to have his other hand on some earthed metal such as a radiator, he would be dead, not vibrating.’
To close this, we return to the subject of mice, courtesy of Graham Foster (‘sometime employed in the IT industry’), who has been experimenting with mice eating live wires.
‘I have concluded that it was not the taste of electricity that attracted the mice,’ he can now reveal. ‘You may recall from your schooldays that a live wire generates an electric field. It is the electric field that attracts the mice. But it is not all mice that are attracted, only one species – field mice.’
That’s the sort of insight we value here. That and how to cook lawyers.
Indefinite particle
The debate on whether the BBC’s climate change model distributed computing project helps the environment or hurts it, because it encourages us to run our computers all night, has moved decisively in favour of the cynics, thanks to a sulphate parameter. You didn’t see that one coming, did you?
Sulphate particles, a by-product of industrialisation, reflect sunlight. And the model, which simulates conditions from 1920 onwards, wasn’t generating enough of them. So everyone’s program has been reset back to where we were two months ago.
No doubt when the simulation reaches 2006 we’ll introduce an influential ‘wasted computing time’ parameter, which can incorporate running inaccurate simulations, searching for naked pictures of Big Brother contestants that you don’t really want to see, and translating recipes from French using Google.
Any more climate change variables that the BBC should add, let us know urgently before we have to scrap the whole thing.
Haute cuisine, or a happy meal?
As an hors d’oeuvre, we bring you this week’s recipe, translated via the genius of Google. Translate www.leguidecuisine.com/avocatnoix.html, and you will find (as reader Dave Brotherstone did) that it’s the recipe for ‘Lawyers stuffed with hazelnuts’.
Take two ripe lawyers, it says. ‘After you have preheated the furnace, you divide lawyers in two and withdraw the cores. To serve, you delicately withdraw the flesh of each half-lawyer.
It’s a good job you divide the lawyers, because, much as we like them, we couldn’t eat a whole one.
Pre-for-all
'Roger Carey has a point to highlight the abuse of “pre”,' says Alan Johnston. 'As well as pre-book there is pre-order, pre-reserve and that one used by car salesmen, the pre-owned car.
Would that be a new one then?' Any more prefixtual abuse, let us know.
Current fun
Perhaps the last word in the flavour of electricity thread goes to Brian Coote at Brasshouse College.
'We used to have an “engineer” who swore he could tell the voltage of the electricity by rapidly flicking his finger over a bare wire or terminal,' he recalls. 'He did actually prove to be accurate. He claimed it was as a result of the induced flavours in his mind caused by the volt jolt.'
As you can see, this combines the usual Backbytes formula of dangerous behaviour, unusual skill and doubtful provenance.
'We did cure him: we had some very large oil-filled capacitors used during very high-voltage testing. We laid out some well-insulated cable and charged up the capacitors to about 18,000 volts,' says Brian.
'On trying, he was heard to utter that it felt like strawberries and cream so it must be high. He tried again and fainted, muttering “chocolate peaches”.'
Body piercing with a difference
Many of you were so distraught at our failure to mention bodkins last week that you were unable to email us to ask why. But it is OK, we are here for you.
'Medieval English archers used the bodkin arrow to great effect against the French,' says Graham Morgan at EDS. 'This particular weapon comprised, usually, an ash shaft upon which was grafted an oak section for added strength. This oak section was then tipped by a 6in piece of steel tapered to a fine point.
'The arrow was lethal at up to 200 metres and capable of piercing through layers of the leather, chain mail and even the plate armour worn by the French knights and men at arms.'
Dave Sykes sends us some useful links if you want to purchase a bodkin arrowhead, in case you are threatened by marauding armour-plated EDS executives, for example: try www.archery-centre.co.uk.
Remember, it's best to be prepared when consultants come to call.
ET, phone for help
A couple of weeks ago we debated the wisdom of thousands of PCs being left on overnight to perform climate control experiments.
‘Your item reminds me of a debate some of us had at CMG a few years ago about leaving PCs on to search for aliens with SETI@home,’ says Alan Parkin. ‘When it was pointed out that this was a waste of fossil fuels, somebody argued that ET might well have a solution to the energy crisis.
‘Another person pointed out that it would be ironic if the first message we received from space was: “we have run out of fossil fuels, can anyone help?”’ he adds.
Je ne sais pas...
Reader Henry Brett did some more research on French celebrity chefs using Google’s language translation tool, as we recommended last week.
The French language interview he discovered finished with the question: ‘State present of your spirit?’ To which the chef replies: ‘I am obnubilated by the air, the ground and water. To safeguard our environment, I think only of that. For the moment, one goes right in the wall.’
And for those of you who do not think obnubilate is a real word, shame on you. Though after you have looked it up, we are not sure you are going to be any clearer on what actually puts our French fryer right in the wall.
I’ll name that tune in eight
We were speculating a little while ago about the possibility of tuning computers to play little tunes. And as we have discovered before, nothing is really new in the zany world of Backbytes.
‘Back in the good old days,’ says Keith Rayner, a start that either gives you a warm glow or a sinking feeling in your stomach, ‘the Sirius micro was fitting 1.2Mb on a floppy. This was achieved by changing the speed of the drive. It had about eight different speeds. So, you guessed it, programs were written to play a tune by changing the speed of rotation.’
If anyone knows what tunes a Sirius could play, please let us know.
For our younger readers: ‘Apparently HP’s scanner control language includes an unofficial Play Tune command, allowing for musical scanners,’ says Phil Millar.
Why spring is not to be sniffed at
So far this year we have been carrying on your suggestions about the worst day of the year, which Jenneffer Key at Community Network Services points out is not the right attitude.
‘In answer to Sue Flower, who thought that March was depressing because it was still winter – March is great because spring is just around the corner and you have the whole summer to play around with,’ she says.
Meanwhile, Irene Blackburn tells us: ‘We find that sniffing the fluid we got to clean the rollers on our mailing machine always akes us feel quite giggly. We are supposed to open windows and doors but it is too cold in winter.’ Sadly, Irene does not tell us who she works for.
Recipe for disaster
And as summer approaches, we find a novel way to waste the long hot days that does not involve sniffing solvents. This year, a lot of you are having fun using Google to translate recipes on web pages.
Kieran Wareing at Norsk Data has discovered: ‘Chrysalis of chocolate Java to caramel’, which combines all the interests of many of our readers.
‘Of course, truffles are my favourite and for these you need “black chocolate 750g semi-land-mark” and “impalpable sugar”,’ he helpfully points out.
‘Remember, before you eat them to “store in the rack of congelation for 12 hours”.’
French dead letter
Of course, politics is also so much more interesting overseas. ‘I have not had so much fun in years,’ says Colin Christie at Christie’s Recruitment, enclosing a news story from Le Monde.
‘The discussed oral instruction of Gilles de Robien, requiring to reopen Thursday the blocked or closed colleges – including by seizing the police force – seemed to remain dead letter Thursday morning.’
Buy from us or the fish gets it
Andy Berry wonders if Microsoft has lost the plot, because it seems to be getting, er, creative in its marketing.
‘You have a pet goldfish. No really, you have,’ says the email he received from the Application Security team. But we don’t have a goldfish.
‘You love this goldfish, and you feed it everyday.’ No we don’t, we don’t have one.
‘In fact, you grow to love this goldfish almost as much as you love developing great code.’ Now they are wrong twice.
‘Anyway, one day you go out for a kebab, leaving your goldfish quite alone in its bowl.’ To cut to the chase, next door’s cat eats your goldfish because you left the window open. But we’re on the third floor.
We have to stop being so literal, and realise this is an allegory about application security, with a moral.
And the moral is: buy something from Microsoft, or it will send a big cat round to eat you.
Don’t pre-judge
‘I despair,’ says Roger Carey at Carey Communications.
‘Would-be London Eye visitor Graham Tucker (Backbytes, 30 March) says he pre-booked his trip. How did he do this? Why are we exhorted to “pre-book” things, when we once would simply have booked them?
Are the people who believe in pre-booking the same as those who like to be pre-warned, so they can be pre-prepared? Is tautology pre-programmed into them?’ We don’t know Roger. We think it’s something you get on the internet.
So long, suckers
If anyone has been wondering why they cannot get an answer to their Cahoots emails, they might do well to read the downtime notice as carefully as Andrew Rayner at Coface.
‘We are making essential improvements to Cahoot systems on the evening of Saturday 25th March until the morning of Sunday 26th February. This means that we won’t be able to answer any of your emails during this time.’
A-live and kicking
‘I don’t recommend tasting electricity,’ says John Lane. Spoilsport.
‘But there is a foolproof way of feeling it. In my experience many bedside lamps in UK bed-and breakfast establishments have the live wire shorting to the metal housing of the lamp.
Run a knuckle lightly over the surface and if you feel a slight vibration or the metal feels strangely rough even though it is polished brass you have found a live one.’
What you guys get up to when you’re working on those short-term contracts!
Wire-free joy
People often tell us that we jeer at people. It has dawned on us that this is intended as a criticism, so to mollify our critics we bring you this: ‘I have just acquired a Super Mini RF Wireless Optical Mouse,’ says Dr Ben Ross.
‘The user manual says: “You can use your wireless optical mouse freely and improve your efficiency and enjoy your beautiful life from the high technology”.’
Go on, give it a try. Any world that has optical mice in it can’t be too bad.
Days of woe
A man who needs cheering up is Rick Dove, who joins our debate on the worst day of the week/month/year. Problem is, Rick seems to think that every day is the worst one.
‘I work as an IS helpdesk analyst – another term for keyboard monkey – and I find that the one thing that keeps me happy is the coffee and the beer. Thank goodness it’s Friday tomorrow.’
You mean they give you coffee, Rick? You should try working for Backbytes.
How to add value
Last week we were too busy discussing the taste of inedible things to full vent to your ideas on how to make dull commodities more valuable.
‘Water companies could pre-add single malt to the water. And ice,’ says Chris Harris at STL, who certainly has a developed concept of added value. ‘But if they’re going to do that, they might as well just leave out the water.’
Well, there is a shortage.
Serving up a fight
It might have escaped your notice if you have been living under a rock, but many Unix fans consider Windows to be inefficient. So with that in mind, we turn to Colin Main at Prologic.
‘Have you noticed the Microsoft advert that states it managed to halve the number of servers when Radio Shack switched from Unix to Windows?’ he asks.
You can sort of tell where this is going, can’t you?
‘Most business servers have a life span of about three years. Moore’s Law indicates that computing power approximately doubles every 18 months. On this basis it does not take a genius to work out that the Windows servers are only about half as efficient as an equivalent Unix server.’
Windows users, are you going to let him get away with that?
Kit sounds
To Badminton School, where Andrew West presumably can teach us what to do with a shuttlecock.
‘I am sure I am not alone in having to endure the constant humming caused by various bits of kit – switches, servers, air conditioning. Perhaps companies could regulate the speed of the fans to produce musical pieces,’ he says. ‘For example, 3Com kit, known for its exasperating fans, could be tuned to hum Greensleeves.’
He also suggests that the more equipment you buy, the more complex could be the hum provided by the manufacturer. But we feel that the prospect of 100 switches humming Greensleeves out of time might not be a great incentive.
A brace of bodkins
And now for a sentence never before carried in Computing. ‘I am aware of two types of bodkin,’ says Bill Carey at North Ayrshire Council.
‘One is a shortish, thickish needle, sometimes curved, used for sewing coarse or thick materials. The other is much more interesting. It was a weapon carried, but seldom used, by armoured soldiers, such as knights.
‘It was a shortish, thickish, stabbing weapon kept in the leg armour. You usually would only use it when lying disarmed, probably wounded, about to be the recipient of the coup de grace.’
Before those thousands of you who are feeling this way at work waste your time, we looked on eBay and couldn’t find one.
Who recruits the recruiters?
Someone who wants to remain anonymous, because he gets most of his work through the company concerned, spotted an advertisement for staff in its Brighton office.
Trouble is, it seems you’re all overqualified to work in IT recruitment. ‘Trainee Recruitment Consultants sought… This is an entry-level position… You do not need experience in IT or recruitment to apply.’
Go on, try to look surprised.
‘These unqualified heroes are promised higher earnings than the experienced candidates,’ he adds.
Cheer up, anonymous contributor. We suggest the immediate purchase of an optical mouse.
