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- a member for 2 years, 5 months and 24 days
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» Helicopter Parents
After graduating
I spent a year sabbatical running the Students' Union. One of the regular bits of our week was spending every monday doing disciplinaries. These were almost all people who ahd their union cards taken off them on the Wednesday or Friday nights after either a fight, getting so drunk they'd thrown up over themselves or someone else, and every now and again getting caught with drugs.
To protect the license and keep the local plod happy we basically had a zero tolerance policy; fighting got you a minimum 8 week ban, any drugs offense got a life ban.
One memorable week this guy comes into my office for his disciplinary and it turns out he'd got plastered, then did enough coke to turn a whale into a cocky gobshite for a week, then - completely unprovoked - walked up to one of security girls and whacked her in the face.
He was absolutely furious that we gave him a life ban. Couldn't understand why he couldn't just pay a fine and be back in the union that week. Tells us we're going to hear from his lawyer (fat chance that would do anything - private members clubs can pretty much do what they like).
So a week later we haven't heard anything from any lawyers. What does happen, however, is the guy makes an appointment to come in and see us. The next day he rocks up with - yes, you've guessed it - his mum.
What follows is an hour of him sobbing, and his mum trying to justify drug taking and assault as minor infractions that we were being completely unreasonable about.
The *really* tragic thing was that this was a 21 year old who was going to graduate in 4 months.
(Wed 16th Sep 2009, 16:35, More)
After graduating
I spent a year sabbatical running the Students' Union. One of the regular bits of our week was spending every monday doing disciplinaries. These were almost all people who ahd their union cards taken off them on the Wednesday or Friday nights after either a fight, getting so drunk they'd thrown up over themselves or someone else, and every now and again getting caught with drugs.
To protect the license and keep the local plod happy we basically had a zero tolerance policy; fighting got you a minimum 8 week ban, any drugs offense got a life ban.
One memorable week this guy comes into my office for his disciplinary and it turns out he'd got plastered, then did enough coke to turn a whale into a cocky gobshite for a week, then - completely unprovoked - walked up to one of security girls and whacked her in the face.
He was absolutely furious that we gave him a life ban. Couldn't understand why he couldn't just pay a fine and be back in the union that week. Tells us we're going to hear from his lawyer (fat chance that would do anything - private members clubs can pretty much do what they like).
So a week later we haven't heard anything from any lawyers. What does happen, however, is the guy makes an appointment to come in and see us. The next day he rocks up with - yes, you've guessed it - his mum.
What follows is an hour of him sobbing, and his mum trying to justify drug taking and assault as minor infractions that we were being completely unreasonable about.
The *really* tragic thing was that this was a 21 year old who was going to graduate in 4 months.
(Wed 16th Sep 2009, 16:35, More)
» Banks
Not mine
but my girlfriends. A few months ago she got a phone call from Shat West.
'Hello Mrs OP, can we check your recent transaction please?'
'Yes certainly'
'On Monday we have a transaction in [local town supermarket] £20 quid ish'
'Yep, definitely me'
'Then Tuesday afternoon [corner shop]£5 quid ish'
'Yep'
'Then a couple of hours later a cash withdrawal in Vancouver, £600'
'Er... vancouver?'
'Yes, in Canada'.
'2 hours after I was in the UK?'
'Does seem a little odd doesn't it' How about the withdrawal at 9pm Tuesday night at [local pub]?'
'That was me.'
'And at 3am wednesday morning £750 in Vancouver?'
'Canada again?'
'Yes'
'I think I'd remember the 3 10 hour flights squeezed into a 12 hour period'.
'So just to confirm the two cash withdrawals weren't you?'
'...'
So not only does it take them 2 days to have finally contacted her about this but they're not even sure it's suspicious.
(Fri 17th Jul 2009, 13:35, More)
Not mine
but my girlfriends. A few months ago she got a phone call from Shat West.
'Hello Mrs OP, can we check your recent transaction please?'
'Yes certainly'
'On Monday we have a transaction in [local town supermarket] £20 quid ish'
'Yep, definitely me'
'Then Tuesday afternoon [corner shop]£5 quid ish'
'Yep'
'Then a couple of hours later a cash withdrawal in Vancouver, £600'
'Er... vancouver?'
'Yes, in Canada'.
'2 hours after I was in the UK?'
'Does seem a little odd doesn't it' How about the withdrawal at 9pm Tuesday night at [local pub]?'
'That was me.'
'And at 3am wednesday morning £750 in Vancouver?'
'Canada again?'
'Yes'
'I think I'd remember the 3 10 hour flights squeezed into a 12 hour period'.
'So just to confirm the two cash withdrawals weren't you?'
'...'
So not only does it take them 2 days to have finally contacted her about this but they're not even sure it's suspicious.
(Fri 17th Jul 2009, 13:35, More)
» DIY Techno-hacks
Naughty electricity
I'm very good friends with the entertainments manager at a Students' Union. Whilst I was doing my undergrad degree I used to quite often get roped into helping with some of the special projects his technical crew could not cover on their own. This included things like the summer ball, large tours, and in this particular instance - the annual hiring out of our entire PA and lighting grid to a local college for a one day festival.
This festival was always a bit of a bind; we were always shorthanded (usually only about 4 of us) moving a 20 cab Turbosound (and associated amps, desks, multicore etc) alongside a venues worth of lighting, dimmers and cabling in the morning, being set up by 11am, hang around for the day, then strike it at 10pm.
The other problem was a distinct lack of available power. It was an outdoor gig, and we basically had one 32A three phase supply and a bunch of outdoor 13A sockets to play with. This would be fine except we rarely had all the jumpers you'd need, and there's a certain amount of naughtyness about jumping up from low current sockets to larger currents in case you start blowing things up, setting fire to under-rated cables and so forth.
On one memorable occaision we had to Macguyver something together which, 10 years later, remains in my friends office; locked away in a 'break in case of emergencies' case, although he swears he will never be that depserate again; using it only as a cautionary tale for each generation of student crew that come through.
Amps and dimmers all run on 32A supplies. The dimmers (which control all the lights) will easily get up to this draw. For that reason, they were allowed to use the 3 phase supply. Unfortunately, that then left us with the sound kit and no remaining sensible power. Four amplifier racks, each looking for nice big 32A of love. Unless you're driving them particularly hard, however, they don't actually draw too much power. So we set around looking for jumpers so we could feed them from the 13A sockets.
The first work of genius was realising that we had a pair of Y splits which went from a single 63A supply to a pair of 32A sockets. Brilliant. Our only remaining problem now is we needed to get from 13A socket up to two 63A plugs...
The reasoning went something along the lines of one nasty bit of cable is better than two. So as a result we connected our two 63A jumpers to a single length of 63A three phase cable, ran it to the socket then spliced the ends into 13A plugs. Yes ladies and gentlemen, a 3 phase 63A cable with three 13A plugs dangling off the end.
Length? About 20m with strategic sand buckets at either end.
(Fri 21st Aug 2009, 12:30, More)
Naughty electricity
I'm very good friends with the entertainments manager at a Students' Union. Whilst I was doing my undergrad degree I used to quite often get roped into helping with some of the special projects his technical crew could not cover on their own. This included things like the summer ball, large tours, and in this particular instance - the annual hiring out of our entire PA and lighting grid to a local college for a one day festival.
This festival was always a bit of a bind; we were always shorthanded (usually only about 4 of us) moving a 20 cab Turbosound (and associated amps, desks, multicore etc) alongside a venues worth of lighting, dimmers and cabling in the morning, being set up by 11am, hang around for the day, then strike it at 10pm.
The other problem was a distinct lack of available power. It was an outdoor gig, and we basically had one 32A three phase supply and a bunch of outdoor 13A sockets to play with. This would be fine except we rarely had all the jumpers you'd need, and there's a certain amount of naughtyness about jumping up from low current sockets to larger currents in case you start blowing things up, setting fire to under-rated cables and so forth.
On one memorable occaision we had to Macguyver something together which, 10 years later, remains in my friends office; locked away in a 'break in case of emergencies' case, although he swears he will never be that depserate again; using it only as a cautionary tale for each generation of student crew that come through.
Amps and dimmers all run on 32A supplies. The dimmers (which control all the lights) will easily get up to this draw. For that reason, they were allowed to use the 3 phase supply. Unfortunately, that then left us with the sound kit and no remaining sensible power. Four amplifier racks, each looking for nice big 32A of love. Unless you're driving them particularly hard, however, they don't actually draw too much power. So we set around looking for jumpers so we could feed them from the 13A sockets.
The first work of genius was realising that we had a pair of Y splits which went from a single 63A supply to a pair of 32A sockets. Brilliant. Our only remaining problem now is we needed to get from 13A socket up to two 63A plugs...
The reasoning went something along the lines of one nasty bit of cable is better than two. So as a result we connected our two 63A jumpers to a single length of 63A three phase cable, ran it to the socket then spliced the ends into 13A plugs. Yes ladies and gentlemen, a 3 phase 63A cable with three 13A plugs dangling off the end.
Length? About 20m with strategic sand buckets at either end.
(Fri 21st Aug 2009, 12:30, More)
» Kids
Time saving
I was a creative child. That is to say I had lots of ideas. They weren't necessarily great. Still, throw enough shit at a wall and some of it will stick - and thus I came to the conclusion that the latest idea to congeal in my 6 year old brain was a work of genius second only to the bloke who reckoned you sell people pre-sliced bread.
I didn't like getting up in the morning. I had to get up at 6.45 so I could get a lift to school with my dad. I needed to save myself a precious few minutes so I could stay in bed a bit longer. I sneaked down to the kitchen a little after my bed time, went to the cupboard and got out the box of frosties. I went to fridge and got the milk.
It became apparent the next day, with sugary milky slop dripping out of the cupboards, that pre-mixing milk with cereal was perhaps not quite the revelation in human understanding I had been expecting. The old style cereal packets weren't exactly water tight, meaning the pint of milk had managed to work its way into every other box of cereal on the shelf, the bread, the bag of porridge, and then dripped down onto the shelf with the flour and sugar leaving a spectacular mess. As an added 'fuck you' from the God of Great Ideas the cereal in each packs had fused into a variety of unpleasant slops I was made to tidy up.
No breakfast for me that morning.
(Tue 22nd Apr 2008, 16:29, More)
Time saving
I was a creative child. That is to say I had lots of ideas. They weren't necessarily great. Still, throw enough shit at a wall and some of it will stick - and thus I came to the conclusion that the latest idea to congeal in my 6 year old brain was a work of genius second only to the bloke who reckoned you sell people pre-sliced bread.
I didn't like getting up in the morning. I had to get up at 6.45 so I could get a lift to school with my dad. I needed to save myself a precious few minutes so I could stay in bed a bit longer. I sneaked down to the kitchen a little after my bed time, went to the cupboard and got out the box of frosties. I went to fridge and got the milk.
It became apparent the next day, with sugary milky slop dripping out of the cupboards, that pre-mixing milk with cereal was perhaps not quite the revelation in human understanding I had been expecting. The old style cereal packets weren't exactly water tight, meaning the pint of milk had managed to work its way into every other box of cereal on the shelf, the bread, the bag of porridge, and then dripped down onto the shelf with the flour and sugar leaving a spectacular mess. As an added 'fuck you' from the God of Great Ideas the cereal in each packs had fused into a variety of unpleasant slops I was made to tidy up.
No breakfast for me that morning.
(Tue 22nd Apr 2008, 16:29, More)