world of slippy archive

"20 years ago, we knew all we thought we needed to about the nature and structure of the Universe. Now we know almost nothing."

Power Factor: part 2

Big Red Monster

Rolled in to work at 10am today, supervisor not in, no job pack, no parts, went to the Production Manager. Explained that we have a problem, that if I don't get to start work soon, then the project is going to go over the allotted time for the price I quoted them, and that I was going to have to charge them a £250 retainer for every day I'm not working, or else I would have to consider taking this other, more profitable contract that I'd just made up to threaten them with. They haggled me down to £225 a day and said that I could expect to start "any time in the next few days". We did the paperwork, and I was out of there and on the phone to Candi. She explained that she was working today, but if I wanted to check out of the hotel and stay with her for the duration, I could avail myself of her, her girlfriend and her dungeon (in which she was currently entertaining a paying customer) whenever all (myself included) were available. Well, rude not to. So, as I sit here in Candi's lounge, watching the live feed from her dungeon and sipping single malt, I've decided to tell you a little bit about the behemoth.

Ever read Terry Pratchett's discworld books? Read any where he mentions the Luggage? It's a kind of travellers' trunk, only it's made of sapient pearwood (yes, it's fantasy humour, don't start asking me if I'm nuts or something), so it's intelligent, has hundreds of little legs and will follow it's owner literally anywhere. Oh, and it seems to have infinite capacity for storage, violence and generally eating people. That's kind of how I see the behemoth. I built it myself over a number of years, adding motors, servos, little microcontrollers and various other bits and pieces. It started out as a £75 Halfords tool chest. Now it's taller than I am (in it's locked configuration), and follows me anywhere with little more input from me than an occasional tug on the handle on one end. Obviously it's too tall to fit into my van, but it does have a tow-hitch and wheels rated to carry it's half-ton of weight at up to 60mph. It kind of hunkers down a little when you hook up the tow-hitch. I don't remember building that particular function into it, although I know the actual parts which perform the action of hunkering are really there to do other jobs. Sometimes, I swear it's like the thing's gotten intelligent and figured out new ways to use the kit I installed.

So yeah, the behemoth is a big bastard, but configurable. The codelock remote only switches between locked (cabinet) and unlocked (workstation) modes, but I also have a lovely little PDA which communicates with the behemoth quite happily over bluetooth or wi-fi, allowing me to make use of the many and varied (and occasionally surprising) little "extras" I'd build into it. It has a lot of drawers and compartments and the like, and if I'm honest, I'm never quite sure of where anything is going to be, but all my tools have rfid tags, and the thing's practically bristling with readers and sensors, so it only takes a couple of taps of the PDA and the behemoth dutifully spits open the compartment containing the tool I want.

It's pretty secure, too. The little fuel-cell power-station in the base delivers a fairly hefty whack to anyone spending more than a few seconds trying to open it. I've occasionally found the odd unconscious night-security guard when I've rolled in for work of a morning, but not very often. Word gets around that there's "something not right with Simon Lane's toolbox". Nobody ever seems to complain though. You'd think they would, wouldn't you? Suffice to say that Gerry and I are quite (*ahem*) respected in the industry. People are good to us, and we share our resources with them. A lot of people have landed good contracts by not making a big deal out of situations that may arise around them.

It helps to have a lot of dirt on people, too, which is where the behemoth's listening devices come in. There's a half-dozen nano form factor computers in there with various bits of kit on them that allows my baby to latch onto local networks and, well, apply some of my namesake, Simon the BOFH's favourite techniques, as well as a few snooperific ideas I dreamed up on my own.

To be honest, I'm not totally sure of the extent of the things the behemoth can do. It's kind of evolved in a complex, chaotic way over the years, welding in new bits of metal all the time to house extra components, reprogramming this, tweaking that. I haven't documented most of it, and I'm not sure I ever could. Even when I'm not adding to it, I swear there's something different every time I go to use it. Like the damn thing optimises itself or something.

Well, looks like Candi and Sandi have finished playing Domme with their customer, as Candi appears to be unzipping the guy's leather gimp mask. Oh, there's a surprise. I'd probably have realised it was him earlier if his bandaged foot had gotten in shot. Back in a few minutes.

***

I just fiddled around with Candi's TV remote for a moment, and was quite happy to discover that Candi likes to keep dirt on people too - her Media Center seems to have about a Terabyte of stored video and, yes, it was recording the current feed, too. Well, I latched onto Candi's wireless network with the PDA, set up a quick-n-dirty fileserver on her media center, connected to the behemoth and instructed it to start a background job (using idle bandwidth on Candi's network) puling copies of all the dungeon vids. I love this little virtual keyboard gadget I use with my PDA - projects a keyboard onto the coffee table so I can type like normal. Anyway, that transfer should run quite happily and discretely for the couple of weeks I'm on the contract, and I'm afraid I must leave you now, dear reader, for it seems that when Candi and Sandi aren't being paid to dominate a man in their dungeon, they want to explore their submissive side with me.

I like exploring.

Power Factor

Putting one's foot in it

So, I started with a new company today. Big place. Dirty. Crap rates. Doesn't bode well, really. But still, I've been out of work for a few weeks, the old bank balance is about to drop into four figures, and I do like to have a nice little buffer of available fundage. So I thought it was time to ring around a few places and see what was in the offing. I should mention, I'm a contractor. If you're not English, you probably have a different idea of what a contractor is to us. Essentially, I'm a semi-skilled temp. I contract myself to various companies for as long as they need me, build their badly-designed crap for them as best I can, and either move on when I get bored or, if I'm honest, when I get terminated for one reason or another. It happens quite a lot, really. I work in electrical and electronics manufacturing, although I'm also well schooled in various forms of engineering, design, programming, to name but a few of the skillsets on my entirely true and factual CV (That's a Resume to you Americans and the like). Oh, and I've never truly abandoned the art of hacking I learned as a pubescent teenager. It does to keep one's hand in, you know.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the available funds were about to descend below ten-thousand stirling, and that just won't do at all, so I phoned my Brother, Gerry. He does the same type of work as me, although in different fields. I build the big stuff - power distribution, automation and control. He prefers small-scale work, gets a lot of MoD contracts, but I can't tell you about those, obviously. Hush hush old boy, loose lips and all that, what? Anyway, he's generally my first port of call because he gets all the gen. on current "big" contracts pretty early in the game. Well, he would. He's screwing the PA's of the Directors of almost every employment agency the dumb-sheep agency contractors use. And there're a lot of male PA's these days. What can I say, my dear big brother's sexually ambiguous. So what, it's the 21st century and it gets me cushy contracts.

"Gerry, ya stinking cockjockey, whored about any interesting contracts in the offing?"
"Ha fucking ha, Simon. What, you planning to drag yourself back to our sunny shores for a spell of reality then?"
"Yeah, you know how it is. After a few weeks you've pretty much exhausted the resources on a boat like this, if you get what I mean?"
"Yeah, I get you. Only you would dip in and out of a round-the-fucking-world cruise when you've shagged everything on board."
"Yup, so come on, what's on the slutnet?"
"Oh go on then. To be honest, there's nothing much at the moment. One short-termer. Quick build. Lotta hours."
"What's the gen?"
"200KVA hot-standby power system needs building and configuring. Few weeks max."

So, after a bit more discussion, I disconnected, made a few more calls - one of which to arrange a motor-launch to the nearest habitable island with an airport on it. Two days later, I'm back in blightey and settled into my hotel room (paid for by the prospective employer, of course...my reputation preceeds me, and they gotta do something to make up for the lousy rate), waiting for the night's entertainment to arrive. Twenty-three-year-old, slim blonde, or so the agency said.

*** fast forward to noon today...

So yeah, I wandered in, dragging the old behemoth (My tool cabinet. It's a big bugger. I may tell you more about it later) to be greeted by my supervisor. Shit, these guys must be stamped out on a bloody production line they're all so alike. To a man, they don't like having someone working under them who's earning WAY more than them. On this occasion, I'm doing them a price on the job, not the hours, so the quicker I get this fucker built and get out, the better. The guy scowls at me, "You the contractor then?"
"Yup, I'm Simon. Simon Lane," I held out my hand, "Pleased to meet you."
He gave me that sweaty, delicate little tickle that ALL workshop supervisors seem to have in place of a normal handshake. I didn't like the scowl or the condescending tone, so I decided to give him the chi-handshake. A brief moment of focus and a quick tensing and release of the abdomen sends a wave of energy coursing down my arm into my hand where it results in an extra squeeze to the handshake. An extra squeeze that lasts barely a fraction of a second, but gives a satisfying little crunch and a little yelp from the greasy little supervisor man. The contact is so brief that they can never be sure it's deliberate. It's one of the tools I use in interpersonal work relationships; tools that have always stood me in good stead.

With a noticable quiver to his step, he proceeded to show me to my work area, all nicely marked out in black and yellow grip-tape on the floor. Nothing else. "Okay, do I get anything to work with here? Drawings? Workbench? Parts?"
"Erm, yeah, we're waiting on Engineering for the job pack, we'll req. parts from Stores when we get the pack, and we really can't spare you a workbench or any equipment. You're supposed to be a professional. Don't you have all your own kit?" He scowled again. Mistake.
"Yeah, of course, hang on." I pulled my little codelock remote out of my pocket and clicked the unlock button. "Iwouldntstandthereifiwereyou," I mumbled just as the behemoth did it's cute little car-alarm "bip-bip-bip". He scowled at me again and said "Huh?" as it opened up like a flower into it's workstation configuration. It was definitely a sheer coincidence that the end-support plate for the workbench top descended on it's servos in such a way that the needlessly sharp floor-proximity sensor plunged into the super's foot just behind the extent of his steel toecap. It was funny, watching him trying to drag his foot out from under it, while I (*ahem*) struggled to get the behemoth to respond to the "lock" button - those servo's are probably a lot more powerful than they need to be, so he really was just making things worse for himself. Still, I eventually realised that, in my panic at seeing the poor man's distress, I'd actually been continually jabbing the "unlock" button by mistake. Well? Stress affects us all in different ways. Oh well, the hospital said the spike, I mean sensor missed every bone on it's way through his foot, and that there's no reason he shouldn't be back on the job tomorrow, albeit with a stick. What with waiting for the ambulance, explaining that I'd warned him to step back, getting my solicitor to send out a few boilerplate exemption of responsibility agreements and filling in all the details in the accident book, it was two o'clock, and it didn't seem like I was going to get anything done today, so I explained to the Production Manager (looks like a tosser of the highest order, if you ask me) that I was somewhat distressed by this whole incident, and that I would have to go to confession to rid myself of the guilt I felt at this happening. Well, in this day and age, everybody's afraid of accidentally denying anyone's religious freedoms and shit, so he practically fell over trying to usher me out, muttering soothing tones and finishing with a "well, we'll see you tomorrow if you're feeling up to it, but don't feel under any great pressure. We're a very understanding company."

I profferred my thanks for his kindness, but explained that I was here to do a job for them, and I intended to fulfill that obligation.

Anyway, dear reader, that will do for my first post, as the delectable Candi (I know, isn't it deliciously slutty?!) is here to entertain me again, only this time it's her day off so it's free, and she's here for the afternoon AND the night. I think she enjoyed it last night.

So many sins, so little time.

TO: All BlogRush Members
FROM: John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

Hi,

I am sending you this urgent message to give you a special news "update" about several things happening with BlogRush.

Firstly, I want to sincerely thank you for joining BlogRush and for your interest in our service. Please know that our primary focus is to continually improve the service to help you generate more targeted traffic.

The first 60 hours since we launched the BlogRush public beta has been nothing short of EXPLOSIVE. We knew that we were developing an exciting tool that many bloggers could benefit from, but we had no idea how fast the 'word' would spread across the Web.

With this explosive growth has come some challenges, and our entire team is working very hard to solve any potential bug and issue that we've been alerted to. We're improving things at a very rapid pace and we hope to have the entire network completely stabilized very soon.

I would like to ask that you are patient with us during this time and know that we are doing our best to help YOU drive more traffic to your blog and we will soon have things running smoothly.

Freebase.com is now in "public alpha". Anybody in the world can search and
browse the site. All applications based on the Freebase API have public read
access.

http://www.freebase.com

Also, thanks to great feedback from an active alpha community, the
Freebase site has improved quite a bit, and there is a growing group
of enthusiastic contributors and developers. There is a lot of new
data -- over 30,000 films, 500,000 notable people, more sports,
businesses, science and so on.

We are still restricting write access to registered users only.
We've provided you with 10 invitations to send anybody you consider
to be an information geek, software developer or interested in new
technology.

command:help - returns list of commands and parameters

command:list - returns list of authorised users nicknames

command:stats - returns your stats
nick:slippy - (optional) nick parameter allows you to get stats for user with that nick
email:slippy@heroverse.org - (optional) email param allows you to get stats for user with that email
nick:* - (optional) nick parameter set to * indicates you want stats for ALL users

command:botstat - returns current status of the battlebot

• Dolphin called Yangtze falls ill with foot and mouth disease, given fresh water to no avail.
• Chinese miners using new technique (closing tunnel behind them) strike milk, keep tunnelling til they reach Utah. Sources say they should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
• Channel Four, ITV under investigation for extortionate charges on phone-in terrorist training.
• British children fail tests, ask NASA to launch their teacher into space.

Me, I always put the chain through the frame AND both wheels.

Shamelessly stolen (the pic, not the bike) from Bits and Pieces Blog