someone forgot to debug their coffee mug 😂

My recent posts should be read in the reverse order to make sense.

Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned
articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously
dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task,
he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in
lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium
forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his
egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then
propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a
musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the
antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a
movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions
of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible
immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of
visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to
that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously
beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and
dawn."

Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey
fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive
of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was
high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region
undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly
frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly
lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to
one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless.

As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a
180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost
celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He
was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from
oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls
thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the
plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious
cloth receptacle.

His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary
dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The
capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with
blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium,
or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so
much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment
appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.

Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing
this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance
without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to
behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his
ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more
vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated
loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and
addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now
Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior
level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the
concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas' as written by a technical writer for a
firm that does Gov't contracting...

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus
musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the
wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among
whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.

The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through
their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness
when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended
such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity
from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source
thereof.

A simple guide to USB cables

Hi
Do any of you know of a programme which will automatically add any text copied to the Windows clipboard to a text file, one after the other?
I sometimes want to gather bits of text from various documents, websites and so on into a single plain text file.
I would have thought that there would be lots of utilities to do this but I can't find anything suitable.

XD

...inside the box, Schrödinger's cat plans its revenge.

We're Recruiting

Magnum IPA Sloshed Solutions Ltd are looking to expand by taking on some new staff. If you think you can fill any of the following roles, please contact us.

E-commerce consultants

(3 months, extendable to 12 years)

Experience in e-commerce not required. The successful applicant will have no experience of any of the following: commerce, computers, the internet, good taste. A lack of design skills and a fixation with style over content will also be important. You should have current experience in gross over-charging and hoodwinking scrupulous clients. You will work with a bunch of other opinionated irritating w*nkers, constructing a series of web-pages with as many broken links and loose ends as time and money allow.

Bullshitter

(3 month contract)

Bullshitter required. You will have at least three years experience of doing jobs for which you have no skill or aptitude, ideally in a Unix environment. Skills to include bullshit, ideally to politician level, and waffle in a technical capacity. Arse-covering skills will be an advantage. CBE (Certified Bullshit Engineer) qualification essential.

Liar

(6 month contract)

You will be working for a prestigious, high-profile company. You must be able to claim a degree with first-class honours, preferably from Oxford or Cambridge, and own a car which (although impressive) does not actually exist. You will also be required to make up stories or explanations on the hop, so experience of police work will be considered favourably. Ties and/or certificates are provided to add convincing "colour" to the successful applicant's statements.

Unix Guru

(Rolling one month requirement)

Candidates must have at least three of the following qualities:

a stupid and unusual hairstyle with goatie beard

fashion taste which stopped somewhere in the mid-60's

a lifestyle quite unlike anyone else

a habit of wearing sandals with or without socks.

The ideal applicant will also have a Californian accent. Unix experience not essential, but some keyboard skills may be useful.

Inexperienced timewaster wanted

(urgent contract)

Candidates (under 21 years of age) must be able to fill out at least six pages of a C.V. with claims of experience and knowledge totalling a minimum of 150 years. In addition, they must also be able to claim involvement with hobbies which nobody in their right mind could possibly fit into a lifestyle which included, for example, sleeping or eating. The successful applicant will have no real skills in any category whatsoever, but candidates will be considered providing they do not know anything about C++ programming or Project Management.

Destruct testers required

(3 month contract, extendable to 6 months)

Clumsy, careless oafs of a naturally foolish nature must demonstrate their ineptitude with several, briefly-held, positions. The successful candidate will be asked to break something during the interview, preferably in a way which the interviewer will never have thought possible or remotely likely.

Scapegoats

(One month contract with bonus on completion)

Conscientious and hardworking individual. Experienced in customer support and maintenance, you will have several demonstrable skills which can be used to show why the interviewers were right to employ you, coupled with a complete lack of awareness regarding arse-covering. You will work with a close-knit team of temporary contractors and will travel from project to project tasked with the job of tidying up the loose ends to ensure customer acceptance and satisfaction.

Timewasters, timewasters, timewasters

Six timewasters are required for an urgent contract in the Far-East of Scotland, to start immediately. Skills must include six months coffee machine, three months photocopying and general administration and a minimum of one year "between assignments".

Unskilled slapheads

(6 month contract)

Must have own suit (preferably brown). Own desk, and hatstand is provided for suitable applicants. >Lazy good-for-nothing with multiple chronic illnesses sought to assist busy, interfering manager. Must be idle and shiftless. A bad memory and/or dyslexia will be advantageous.

Noxious beancounter required

Must interfere constantly and construct meaningless lists of serial numbers and other pointless documentation. Numeracy/Literacy not a requirement, but an interest in trainspotting is essential. Bad-breath and BO advantagious. Contract is for an initial three months and may be extended indefinitely.

A tourist walks into a pet shop in Silicon Valley, and is browsing round

the cages on display. While he's there, another customer walks in and

says to the shopkeeper, "I'll have a C monkey, please".

The shopkeeper nods, goes over to a cage at the side of the shop and

takes out a monkey. He fits a collar and leash and hands it to the

customer, saying "That'll be $5000". The customer pays and walks out

with his monkey.

Startled, the tourist goes over to the shopkeeper. "That was a very

expensive monkey - most of them are only a few hundred dollars. Why did

it cost so much?"

"Ah, that monkey can program in C - very fast, tight code, no bugs, well

worth the money".

The tourist looks at the monkeys in that cage. "That one's even more

expensive - $10,000 dollars! What does it do?".

"Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object oriented programming,

Visual C++, even some Java, all the really useful stuff".

The tourist looks round for a little longer and sees a third monkey in a

cage on its own. The price tag round its neck says $50,000. He gasps to

the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together!

What on earth does it do?"

"Well, I don't know if it does anything, but it says it's a contractor."

In the lower ranks of the MIS world, sorting out job titles is a nearly impossible task. Some folks are called Analysts. Some are called Programmers. Some are called Engineers. None of them has window offices.

So I have listed -- from lowest to highest in order of prestige -- and described the 10 most commonly used job titles in a data processing shop.

A truly experienced high-tech professional has held five or even six of these positions...usually all at the same time.

10. Programmer:

This person holds the lowest rank in the DP field. Manages no one. Answers to everyone. Approximately 50% of the Programmer's time is scheduled for testing. Another 50% is spent filling out time cards and progress reports. Any time left over is spent attending classes on technologies that will never be used in the shop.

The Programmer is appraised on code quality and reliability. Never has time to write any. Hopes to, someday, be promoted to Systems Analyst.

9. Systems Analyst:

The Systems Analyst refuses to code anymore. Designs new systems. Writes specs for new systems. Devises procedures and work flows for new systems but ends up training users on how to get by with the old ones. Next in line for Team Leader position.

8. Team Leader:

A Team Leader manages one project. Doesn't know why he's not called Project Leader; that's what he has on his resume.

7. Project Leader:

Manages several projects at once. Analyses Gantt charts from the Team Leaders' projects. Co-ordinates schedules from the Team Leaders' projects. Monitors deliverables from the Team Leaders' projects. Has absolutely no idea what any of the Team Leaders' projects are about. Wants to be a programmer again.

6. Operator:

The Operator wields powers that the Project Leader can only dream about. Makes Programmers beg for tape drives. Makes Analysts beg for disk space. Makes Team Leaders beg for printouts. Has an uncanny understanding of career potential in the data processing industry.

Going to law school at night.

5. Systems Programmer:

Even an Operator wants to be a Systems Programmer. A Systems Programmer has the authority to wipe out disk packs without warning. Crash the system during user demos. Make new releases appear, then disappear, then reappear again, especially during month-end processing.

4. DBA:

No one really knows what the Database Administrator does, and no one is smart enough to know if the DBA is doing it or not. But every shop must have one DBA, because no place can afford two of them.

3. Manager:

The Manager is sometimes called a Director. Or an Assistant Vice-President. Or an Account Manager. Has completely lost touch with any facsimile of technology. Wants to finish next year's budget. Wants to finish last year's appraisals. Wants to learn the names of some of the Programmers. But instead, only has time to interview job applicants, especially DBAs.

2. Department Secretary:

The Programmers have word processing. The Managers have electronic mail. Everyone has automatic phone messaging. This leaves the Department Secretary with all kinds of time to manipulate, control and dispense the three most basic employee needs: paycheques, rumours, and supplies. Can make copier self-destruct just by going to lunch.

1. Contract Programmer:

A Contract Programmer doesn't have to wear a nice suit. Or go to meetings. Or fill out time cards. Or keep complaints to himself. He can make all the mistakes he wants. He doesn't get benefits. He doesn't get training. He doesn't get respect.

But after years in the trenches, the Contract Programmer will finally achieve the ultimate goal in the profession: He will be able to make impossible deadlines with inadequate resources for desperate managers by putting in all kinds of extra hours... and will be paid overtime for every one of them.