RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 11, 2010 This day turns out to be very sunny indeed - again . Cake's in the oven as me and my girlfriend have our 2nd anniversary today, and we'll be out for dinner tonight for the same reason. Only one week to go for me till courses start again... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 11, 2010 This day turns out to be very sunny indeed - again . Cake's in the oven as me and my girlfriend have our 2nd anniversary today, and we'll be out for dinner tonight for the same reason. Only one week to go for me till courses start again... Hope you have a nice evening. Have you had to do any work (reading books by dead philosophers , writing your educational autobiography etc) as a course prerequisite or do they just want you there ready to be impressed? I met my wife when we were both on the same PGCE (post graduate certificate of education ) course in 1974-75. Her parents were very strict and had insisted that she attended university in their home town. So when she wanted to do teacher training she chose a course (Geography in Further Education) that wasn't offered in Nottingham. With hindsight she thinks she should have studied languages for her first degree, then she could have had a year out of the country as part of the course, but then she wouldn't have met me! Tony Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 11, 2010 Far as I can see, the courses I'm going to take do not expressly require any preparatory reading, but other courses do. Guess this depends on the lecturer - like so many things . This past Saturday I finally got to take a ride on two of the four ex-Stuttgart suburban EMUs which have been relocated to Frankfurt earlier this year B) . There are a few photos here: Click. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Stafford Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 I have to take Abi for a walk now on what is a beautifully sunny autumn afternoon. I've just made a big pot of vegetable soup with carrots, parsnips, lentils, an onion and potatoes. A lot of curry powder, a red pepper, coriander, ginger, garlic, black pepper and mustard have also gone in. I think it's going to be a good one! Dave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 Evening All, Well, I can safely say that was an absolutely rotten Monday... I got to work this morning to find my PC wouldn't boot, spent most of the day trying to get it fixed and sorting out problems with my customer who didn't seem to understand that it was impossible to get blood out of a stone! Throw a couple of other issues into the mix, and it's no wonder that I'm in a foul mood, and feeling depressed into the bargain. By the way, congratulations on your anniversary Dominik - wishing you many, many happy years together. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixoh8sixoh Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 Evening all! Due to not getting to sleep for ages last night, I pretty much went from horizontal to in work this morning! Congrats Dominik on the anniversary, congrats Don on the cigarettes... On the email, I must have (or have had) a dozen email addresses over the past few years, mainly because each time I've bought a new mobile with a new network they've given me an email address (not that I particularly wanted one)... Still, most of mine are pretty normal. A friend had an email which ended @madasafish.com ... unfortunately it lost some of its humour when he was taken into the local secure hospital for the second time after a second bout of depression/nervous breakdown... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 11, 2010 Man, I didn't even know fischertechnik is still around... http://www.fischertechnik.de/en/index.aspx . I had a huge box of this stuff when I was a kid and could spend hours upon hours building all kinds of machines. Great stuff - I wish it were more widely spread... Thanks for your congratulations, guys . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 11, 2010 Man, I didn't even know fischertechnik is still around... http://www.fischerte...e/en/index.aspx . I had a huge box of this stuff when I was a kid and could spend hours upon hours building all kinds of machines. Great stuff - I wish it were more widely spread... Thanks for your congratulations, guys . I used a lot of Fischertechnik in the mid 1980s as it was the basis of the BBC buggy that was used as part of the BBC micro project. Though for nearly all other computer controlled robot projects everyone used Lego. My boss went on a town twinning visit to Ludwigshafen and came back very depressed. The schools he visited weren't playing with "toy" robots, they had real ones. I had to look after the German teachers who came on the return visit to the schools in our borough and they seemed to enjoy themselves. I must have made a good impression as they gave me the repro page from the Gutenberg bible they were supposed to present to some official who hadn't seemed very interested. They were very impressed with how little children were learning about simple programming through toys and all went off to Argos to purchase George the Robot. Although I had warned them that to purchase anything in Argos then required queuing to reserve, queuing to pay and queuing to collect the item they thought I'd been joking. Thanks to the march of progress Matthew didn't do any computer control work during his time at secondary school (even Argos have only got one queue now if you reserve on-line) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 11, 2010 used a lot of Fischertechnik in the mid 1980s as it was the basis of the BBC buggy that was used as part of the BBC micro project. Snap. You two have just brought a whole load of memories flooding back. Remember this Tony? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted October 11, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 11, 2010 Snap. You two have just brought a whole load of memories flooding back. Remember this Tony? Most definitely do remember. We even had a LGB train controlled by one! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning all... Shouldn't have eaten so much last night - I believe this was what gave me strange dreams...as in "I'm walking out of a concert hall and see a GDR policeman writing up parking tickets in the lounge" . Oh well, will get a cup of coffee now in any case! See you later then... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning All, Ahhh, the BBC Micro - what a great machine that was. Isn't ERs great? Where else can you read about East German Police and the BBC in the same topic? I am sure there is some deep and meaningful message buried in there somewhere Dominik! It is just starting to get light now, and it is a pretty cold morning. Just 3.5°C when I drove through the forest on my way to work. With any luck, today will prove to be a better day than yesterday was. I ended up making a right fool of myself. Have a good day everyone... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonBradley Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 Good morning ERs. I was called back to work on a VERY sticky problem. A program that was written in Australia in 1993 and is not producing the desired result. I am struggling with it and not making much headway. I have just been out onto the balcony for a non-smoke break! The weather is not very Springlike! Clear but cooler than it should be. Only about 10 at the moment forecast to reach 15. I like it HOT. I hope today's better than yesterday Robert. How is Thomas getting on at school? I read about the keeping the girls in the toilet episode. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 As a young sales guy for a US based connector company, I once got a lead for an unknown computer computer company based above a shop around the market place in Cambridge. Having eventually found the place, I was dealing with a guy called Herman Hauser. He was talking telephone number quantities on connectors. I thought oh yeah, another dreamer, as most were in those days. Little did I know at that time, they were about to become Acorn computers.... We did get some business from it and it taught me not always to judge a book by its cover. Morning all.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Yeah, Robert - sudden computer failures like the one you described last night are some kind of a constant fright for me, after a row of such incidents from about 2000 onwards . In my case they usually involved dying HDDs, though I also had a fried graphics card on one occasion. Strangely, the old HDDs which I recycled from our first PC (which we bought in 1993) into the second one, which was assembled in 1997, lasted for years longer than those we used in later ones, it would seem! Could it be that older HDDs were, on balance, more robust than later ones? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 Hi Everyone, Don - Thanks! I hope today is going to be better too. Sometimes I feel I should just lock myself away and never interact with the opposite sex again! Thomas is doing Ok at school. We have had a few issues with behaviour as he is adjusting to the new environment, but I think we are getting there - nothing serious, just little boy stuff! He is now on holiday for a couple of weeks and so I have my fingers crossed that things will have stabilised even more by the time he goes back. Gordon - There were a lot of dreamers around in those days! Think of how many computers came and went - very few were around for the long haul. The ones that were, were usually very good designs (like the BBC) or in the right place at the right time. Dominik - The computer failure was very interesting. It seems that for some reason, an automatic update was done and the update resulted in the kernel not matching some of the libraries. I hadn't got time yesterday to get to the bottom of the problem, so just did a re-install. Fortunately, all the data is stored on the network and so I didn't loose anything! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Dominik - The computer failure was very interesting. It seems that for some reason, an automatic update was done and the update resulted in the kernel not matching some of the libraries. I hadn't got time yesterday to get to the bottom of the problem, so just did a re-install. Fortunately, all the data is stored on the network and so I didn't loose anything! Now that's weird - something very similar appears to have happened on my mum's laptop about two weeks ago. According to what she told me, Windows was giving her a message that an automatic update was in progress, so she left it to do as it needed. When she returned, it was giving her a black screen and blinking cursor, with a message that no boot volume could be found. I assume that something must have written garbage into the MBR at one point during the update, and only a full reinstall could fix the problem eventually. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium skipepsi Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning all slept better last night but the problems have not gone away. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2010 Does passing two single magpies within 200m count as two for joy or do I have two seperate incidents of sorrow to look forward to? Such are the mysteries of life. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2010 As a young sales guy for a US based connector company, I once got a lead for an unknown computer computer company based above a shop around the market place in Cambridge. Having eventually found the place, I was dealing with a guy called Herman Hauser. He was talking telephone number quantities on connectors. I thought oh yeah, another dreamer, as most were in those days. Little did I know at that time, they were about to become Acorn computers.... We did get some business from it and it taught me not always to judge a book by its cover. Morning all.... I saw a preview in Oxford of what was going to be Windows. I was very enthusiastic . I was told I didn't know what I was talking about and that it wouldn't last. Morning all. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 45156 Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning All Chilly here today, but clear and dry. I'll not commiserate with everybody separately, just to wish those who had a rotten Monday a better Tuesday and those wrestling with computer problems, a speedy solution. Still only part mobile, and still not really able to get out on my own, but have had my bone scan arranged now for next week - as it's been booked by my GP, the appointment comes with no transport, so today, I have to go through the palava of trying to arrange an ambulance for the visit next Monday. Mrs 45156 says that some of my guitars need to be cleaned, which they do, and some also need new strings, so as soon as the postie brings the parcel from Amazon (is there nothing that you can't get from that outfit?) I've promised that I'll get them sorted out. Regards to All Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDolfelin Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 I spent some time on the roof yesterday (repairing some suspect flashing - the suspect was brought to book). When I returned to the computer, an important pdf file had been attacked by my security software and I've had to ask for it to be re-sent. Oh the shame! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning All Mrs 45156 says that some of my guitars need to be cleaned, which they do, and some also need new strings, so as soon as the postie brings the parcel from Amazon (is there nothing that you can't get from that outfit?) I've promised that I'll get them sorted out. Regards to All Stewart Just don't turn a nice old guitar pristine, OK? It can ruin the value, particularly of old Fenders, Gibsons and other classic American guitars. I'm sure you know this already, though, but. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2010 Mrs 45156 says that some of my guitars need to be cleaned, which they do, and some also need new strings, so as soon as the postie brings the parcel from Amazon (is there nothing that you can't get from that outfit?) I've promised that I'll get them sorted out. Regards to All Stewart It would appear that the text books Matthew needs that are not available from the university bookshop or secondhand bookshop are available from Amazon so I wasn't surprised to get an email from Matthew asking for them to be ordered.for him. Tony Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium eldavo Posted October 12, 2010 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2010 Morning All, Bright one hereabouts. Didn't get much done yesterday as I seemed to have a migraine sort of thing. Must have been asking for trouble saying in this thread that I didn't get them some weeks ago! Ho hum. Seems I have to go into the office for a meeting this morning. Hopefully it will be short and I can get on with the really important stuff. Cheers Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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