Posts by Christine Hedley 73 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jan 2012
I loved my G5, until it developed a problem where it was continuously disconnecting and resetting. Turns out it's a fairly common problem with the cabling, and I'm too cack-handed to try replacing it. Finding a mouse that doesn't break down in some way early into its life seems to be quite a challenge.
You should get a Model M. Who needs wireless when you can get a cable extender? :D
Same here. I won't be parted from my tenkeyless Model M, even though it's of the rather beige persuasion. Well I've given it some nice red keycaps for its function keys to spice it up a bit in memory of the BBC Micro.
No, it doesn't have loads of extra keys (in fact it has loads fewer), backlighting, LCD display, programmable key sequences, n-key rollover or any of the other stuff that gives me a certain degree of gear acquisition syndrome where the fancier new keyboards are concerned, but it feels wonderful to use and it's practically indestructible. It's also very loud, which may or may not be a good thing depending on one's personal tastes: I like it being loud and fortunately my gf doesn't object to the clattering...
"(I tend to figure the chicks really are smart, at least the ones who are good with computers)"
Based on my experiences of various co-workers over the years, I'd say that failure to do proper sanity checking is certainly an equal opportunity thing. God knows I've made enough of my own gaffes in that time.
"For me it was always a 928 - not a Porsche, a 'Space Cruiser and Moonbase'."
Oh God yeah. I coveted one of those things for years. I was ecstatic when I finally got one! I'm sure that was the golden age of Lego, my formative years being nothing at all to do with it. :D
"We got colour in late 1980, just before Xmas, a rented set from Rediffusion."
We rented ours from DER, being early adopters in the mid '70s! The repair man spent so much time at our house that he may as well have moved in with us.
I was relegated to watching Doctor Who in black and white on my parents' portable. Because we were a two TV family, don't'cher know. (Actually, I remember my dad taking a photo for posterity during the week our household accidentally owned no fewer than two cars because it was such a rarity. :D)
"No one else reminded of a mako?"
Yeah, I couldn't help but think of Big Trak whenever I saw the Mako! I loved the Mako and its improbable climbing abilities (and equally improbable indestructibility, considering my driving skills...)
As regards things shrinking, the Curly Wurly is right up there, but I think Wagon Wheels were the real defining factor. I remember them being at least a foot across when I was six years old.
"In reality, I'm not sure that it matters much. After all, its generally fairly blindingly obvious what the physical differences between men and women are anyway, and cognitive skills tend to be learned at least as much as they're inherent. So, while it would be jolly nice to have a laydeebrain and all that, its not likely to make much difference on a day to day basis."
It's something I often wonder about. If it turns out it is the case, I'll think "yeah, that's nice. But whatevs", whereas if it's not, I may get quite distraught, such is my way of finding negative things much more appealing, apparently.
"Fyi - I cant park for toffee. On the other hand, I'm an accomplished engine builder and if you want a blueprinted V8 putting together, I'm your gal ....."
I sometimes wonder if my formerly accrued skills and interests are perhaps a bit unladylike in some regards, because, y'know, they don't all conform to the correct stereotype; but they've become a part of who I am, and I'm the same person, whichever bunch of hormones I have washing around in me. But I'll always suck at parking.
I remember being quite excited by its specifications at the time, but its looks: ew. That, in spite of its creators being quite scathing about the boring beige boxes that proliferated elsewhere and that they weren't going down the same road. Were they trying too hard?
But that was the teenage me. Looking back, nearly 30 years older, I have to consider it to be one of the most awesome-looking computers ever. I wish more designers had that sort of inventiveness... And I still get more excited reading about 128K of memory and 600-and-odd-by-some-other-strange-number of pixels than the latest fancy VGAesque graphics card.
Funnily enough, I had exactly the same experience with them. It didn't exactly encourage me to go back: as it was, the only reason I went in the first place was convenience, but it's not very convenient if they lie about the capabilities of the stuff they're selling.
They did at least give me a refund, astonishingly.
How terribly sad. I have fond memories of VMS, both as a DECcie and before: it was my first "real" computer system back when I was at college in the '80s. Unix was more fun to hack around on, but VMS had a nice reassuring solidity to it.
Sounds like DEC's classic old marketing strategy is still living on at HP, at least: "we don't know how to sell this thing, so we'll get rid of it."
"If people like her keep painting a negative picture for women then why does she think women would be attracted to those roles?"
Quite. I have noticed that over the years, I've noticed the percentage of women in IT gradually decreasing. I can't say there's a direct link between the dwindling numbers and this sort of publicity, but it's unlikely to help; personally, I think IT has become such a toxic place to work that I'm hesitant to recommend it to anyone (don't get me wrong, I love my job, but the working conditions, not so much.)
> "Where I work, I manage several servers (as part of my job). I can get physical access to the servers, but only if I ask very nicely, and only if accompanied by a senior system admin."
That sounds familiar. Even though a major part of my job was providing second-line support to our ops staff, gaining access was often not easy:
Ops: "We need your help with one of the minis."
Me: "I'll need access to it, then."
Ops: "You can't come in."
Me: "Then I can't assist you."
Ops: "But we need your help with one of the minis."
etc.
Don't get me wrong, they were actually a really good bunch, but sometimes things could be a bit frustrating. The flip side is that we had excellent systems availability and nobody pouring cleaning fluid into the computers.
I also remember wandering round unsupervised in Princes Street in those days, at about the same age, even though I lived near to Newcastle! The slew of home computer departments with interestingly incompatible stuff that had sprung up everywhere made it an exciting time to live.
"It seems to be missing the commodore +4 and it's baby brother the commodore 16"
Didn't they appear a bit later? I remember reading a magazine review of a couple of new Commodore models in the autumn of 1984, which I assume is when they were launched (in the UK, at least); if I recall (my memory is hazy) the review was of those two machines. I don't think they ever sold in large numbers though, the home computer market seemed to be increasingly dominated by the usual suspects like the Spectrum and C64 by that point.
... I'd see some incredibly grubby keyboards. Not everyone was like that, I think what made the difference was smoking whilst actually using the keyboard: the chap next to me chain-smoked pretty much all day long and all his key-tops were covered in a not-so-thin layer of brown smeg. He was no Pigpen-type character, he just had this perpetual fog around him (even as a smoker myself it was a bit much!) Then again, I shouldn't judge since my keyboard would end up full of crumbs due to me working while I was eating. I dread to think that the collective detritus eventually grew into, especially after being periodically watered with spilt coffee.
Smeary screens are a bit of a mystery, though. Do people really jab at them with snotty/greasy/unmentionable fingers? Maybe they try to taste the icons and lick them.
> "currently 35-45 years old I would guess"
44 here: my cousins got me hooked with their cast-off issue 4 back in the day. I remember spending years trying to track down issue 1: I eventually found it in some bonfire kindling! I still have it somewhere though it's in poor condition given the somewhat questionable paper quality of early issues. Well, that and being rolled up and stuffed into a bonfire.
"If they want to reduce energy usage across the country, they need to look more at what causes us to use so much."
They could do something about unnecessary commuting for a start: not much point trying to tax people off the roads when it's not their choice and they don't want to be there anyway; seems weird that it's almost 20 years since I did a highly successful pilot of a working from home programme but since then nobody is interested.
Seems the current lot are more interested in giving the sick and disabled a good kicking instead of doing anything useful though (not that the previous lot were any better.)
I guess it depends on your local office. I've had DPD repeatedly claim to have tried to deliver stuff when they've done no such thing; when they do turn up their line of questioning ("what is your relationship to the recipient?") gets a little intrusive. The local Yodel chaps tend to be very reliable, though.
"Where I am I would say that the number of women working in technical roles in IT has dramatically reduced in the last twenty years."
I've noticed the same thing: I think we need to look at what's happened over the past 20 years to cause this. I think part of the problem are the "women in IT" programmes, which I personally think succeed in making it look a much more forbidding place than it really is.
I remember my days at school in 1983/84, pretty much all the kids had either a computer or games console (or both), seems it was very much a minority who didn't. But the situation with CD players was rather different: as Mr Hill points out, it seems that was a myth. They made serious inroads over the next few years, but it was a long while before they became as ubiquitous.
"India? I don't think I've *ever* had a spam from India"
I get an endless stream of spam attempts from India, seemingly all of them to addresses that have never existed: it appears someone out there is still buying those lists of "double opt-in and verified" addresses, astonishingly. It's pretty much consistently at the top of the list of countries trying to spam me, but very few of them if any are actually successful.
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