What dumb thing have you done today?
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I didn't do it today, but the result showed up this morning. Months ago, when I was designing a new substation, I took elements of other designs and adopted them for this station, especially areas in which I have no training or experience - steel and concrete, in particular. Having a perfectly functional substation at hand a few miles away that uses similar steel structures, I made the assumption that similar foundations would be adequate. Wrong. It rained more this past week than in the previous two years combined. This morning one of the linemen went down to the site to check on things and reported that one corner had subsided about a foot from its origianal elevation and the whole structure is now skewed. I can't verify it, since I don't have a vehicle capable of reaching the site until the ground dries out considerably, but this individual is known to look at things darkly. It may not be that large a problem, but I won't know until I can get out there with a laser and shoot some bearings and levels. But it's a worry. Fortunately the boss is in DC, attending some conference with the new administration there about energy policy and tribal resources, so I don't have him here jumping up and down in a panic. One thing you never want to do is inform your boss of a problem without having a solution in the other hand. Even if he doesn't like it, it's far better to have something to present than to appear empty handed... makes him feel like he's got to solve it, and nobody wants that. Since the individual piers are only about 3000 lbs (7' deep x 2' dia.) I'll propose that we excavate the problem child with a backhoe, lift and reposition it with a line truck hoist, and backfill with rock. Then we'll bond the piers together in pairs with concrete pads, 4' x 20' by 2' deep that completely encase the top 2' of two piers in each pad. That will reduce the soil bearing load from about 1275 psf to only 350 psf, which should be easily carried by even this nasty clay soil. Of course the linemen will hate on me for it, since they'll have to take apart most of what they built a couple of weeks ago to make this work. They don't seem to realize that the boss spends a lot of time trying to think of things for them to do, rather than lay a couple off. I'm just doing my part to help keep them employed. :-D Dumb? Yeah. It was dumb to allow the boss to direct me to do something I'm totally unqualified by training and experience to do. It was dumb to put up with him refusing to review the design, and him dema
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Habibi Khayi abou steif. I am very busy these days bro, but I always find time for CP:)
Ahlan habibi :) Busy, yeah, the story of a dev's life!
Don't forget to vote if the response was helpful
Sig history "dad" Ishmail-Samuel Mustafa Unix is a Four Letter Word, and Vi is a Two Letter Abbreviation
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Reviewed the articles waiting for approval...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001:laugh: yeah, you must have tolerence, because I gave up reviewing a long time ago.
Software Kinetics - Moving software
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That is one of my pet peeves, incorrect spelling in a database.
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 beta 2 - out now!
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x))just tried red-gates smart replaced to change a field/column name, admittedly on a small DB under development. Works fine EXCEPT for dynamic code.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Left my shiny new notebook in the car while I was buying some bread. Twelve minutes later I found someone broke the window, reclined the backseat and stole the notebook bag. Luckily it was covered by insurance...
Luca The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. -- Wing Commander IV En Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað, Er Nýr Dagur. (But the best thing God has created, is a New Day.) -- Sigur Ròs - Viðrar vel til loftárása
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Reviewed the articles waiting for approval...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001We now also offer counceling, you know...
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I looked in the mirror. best, Bill
"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844
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Not today.. but a couple of weeks ago I wrote an email-reading routine that copies emails into a database table.. except I forgot the dataContext.Emails.InsertOnSubmit(newEmail); I did remember the dataContext.SubmitChanges() but that's not much use.
'Howard
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This was a couple of weeks ago, but well worth mentioning. I made a loop to show all of the running processes, and later added code inside the loop to kill a specific process, but I put not equal to rather than equal to. I ran the code and my computer instantly powered off with no shutdown because I killed all processes except the one I meant to kill.
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Spent one hour reading the code project Daily News (including this thread) instead of meeting my deadline. :doh:
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Well nothing that daft - I mean, who does? - but I did get into an argument with a tin of corned beef and ended up with several severely lacerated fingers. Bloody key broke halfway around the tin leaving jagged metal edges of just the right sort of jaggedness for causing GBH. What is it with corned beef tins and their stupid trapezoid shape, anyway? What other food products come in trapezoid tins? I'll you, none. Do you know why? Because it's a bloody stupid shape for a tin, that's why. And what about if the key breaks? What ordinarily equipped kitchen has a tool to deal with a trapezoid shaped can with a broken key? I'll tell you, no kitchen has that. So did I get my corned beef sandwich? Well it was just fortune enough for me that after five minutes of bleeding all over the place I hit upon the idea of using a hammer and chisel to open the damned thing. The corned beef turned out to a little bit rare given the addition of my blood into the mix, but by that time I would have eaten just about anything.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
martin_hughes wrote:
What is it with corned beef tins and their stupid trapezoid shape, anyway?
I think it makes it easy to remove the beef and allows you to put the "lid" back on if you only use half. In this day and age though there must be a better solution. I too have often ended up with a mangled half open tin and blood all over the place. Feel your pain !
;-]
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Forgot my keycard when I was supposed to be at work early- now I'll have to work an additional 15 minutes into lunch to make up for it.
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Well nothing that daft - I mean, who does? - but I did get into an argument with a tin of corned beef and ended up with several severely lacerated fingers. Bloody key broke halfway around the tin leaving jagged metal edges of just the right sort of jaggedness for causing GBH. What is it with corned beef tins and their stupid trapezoid shape, anyway? What other food products come in trapezoid tins? I'll you, none. Do you know why? Because it's a bloody stupid shape for a tin, that's why. And what about if the key breaks? What ordinarily equipped kitchen has a tool to deal with a trapezoid shaped can with a broken key? I'll tell you, no kitchen has that. So did I get my corned beef sandwich? Well it was just fortune enough for me that after five minutes of bleeding all over the place I hit upon the idea of using a hammer and chisel to open the damned thing. The corned beef turned out to a little bit rare given the addition of my blood into the mix, but by that time I would have eaten just about anything.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
The kind of can opener that comes with a swiss army knife doesn't care what shape the can is in.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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just tried red-gates smart replaced to change a field/column name, admittedly on a small DB under development. Works fine EXCEPT for dynamic code.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
The problem comes more to light when you have written RAW SQL statements, you need to recheck everyone, or hope you have unit tests to point out errors...
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 beta 2 - out now!
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) -
I hate it when I do that or start questioning simple words being used to represent something. Like the work 'look'. You know you need a break when you question the spelling of something that simple.
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I didn't do it today, but the result showed up this morning. Months ago, when I was designing a new substation, I took elements of other designs and adopted them for this station, especially areas in which I have no training or experience - steel and concrete, in particular. Having a perfectly functional substation at hand a few miles away that uses similar steel structures, I made the assumption that similar foundations would be adequate. Wrong. It rained more this past week than in the previous two years combined. This morning one of the linemen went down to the site to check on things and reported that one corner had subsided about a foot from its origianal elevation and the whole structure is now skewed. I can't verify it, since I don't have a vehicle capable of reaching the site until the ground dries out considerably, but this individual is known to look at things darkly. It may not be that large a problem, but I won't know until I can get out there with a laser and shoot some bearings and levels. But it's a worry. Fortunately the boss is in DC, attending some conference with the new administration there about energy policy and tribal resources, so I don't have him here jumping up and down in a panic. One thing you never want to do is inform your boss of a problem without having a solution in the other hand. Even if he doesn't like it, it's far better to have something to present than to appear empty handed... makes him feel like he's got to solve it, and nobody wants that. Since the individual piers are only about 3000 lbs (7' deep x 2' dia.) I'll propose that we excavate the problem child with a backhoe, lift and reposition it with a line truck hoist, and backfill with rock. Then we'll bond the piers together in pairs with concrete pads, 4' x 20' by 2' deep that completely encase the top 2' of two piers in each pad. That will reduce the soil bearing load from about 1275 psf to only 350 psf, which should be easily carried by even this nasty clay soil. Of course the linemen will hate on me for it, since they'll have to take apart most of what they built a couple of weeks ago to make this work. They don't seem to realize that the boss spends a lot of time trying to think of things for them to do, rather than lay a couple off. I'm just doing my part to help keep them employed. :-D Dumb? Yeah. It was dumb to allow the boss to direct me to do something I'm totally unqualified by training and experience to do. It was dumb to put up with him refusing to review the design, and him dema
Roger Wright wrote:
It was dumb to allow the boss to direct me to do something I'm totally unqualified by training and experience to do.
Wow, my wife won't let me change out a faucet in our kitchen, because, in her words, "... you don't want to be responsible for anything that might flood my house." And yes, I noted her use of "my house", not "our house".
Someone's gotta be the last to know, but why is it always me?
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The best thing about programming is that if you misspell a word and are consistent you just have another variable, albeit with a strange name. :-D
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesthat's why I name my variables a,b,c,d,e,f etc. never any room for confusion as to their purpose. I can even recycle them later on in a method and save on stack space :-)
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Reviewed the articles waiting for approval...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Well, it's no longer today, but when I left home yesterday afternoon for work/college, the guys were nearly finished installing a new front door to replace the drafty, easily-blown-open old one. I got called over to my mother's to help fix up/test a car, and couldn't get home until a quarter to one in the morning. Of course, I told my girlfriend first, and since she had to get up for work at 6am or so, she pointed out that I couldn't open the new door with the old keys. We don't have a doorbell (stupidly) so I asked her to leave a key somewhere outside, but she wasn't keen on that. Instead, she promised to stay awake and let me in when I got back. So I arrive back on my bicycle, a bit before 1am, ring the landline (which is downstairs) and her mobile phone (which is downstairs and further away) repeatedly to no avail. Then I throw pebbles carefully at the bedroom window for a while, hoping that the neighbours aren't too curious. After 45 minutes of this, and a failed attempt at picking the new door lock with unsuitable tools, I gave up and went for a 4 hour sightseeing bicycle ride around north Dublin (from Killester to Clontarf to Bull Island to Howth, then back through Sutton, Bayside, Kilbarrack and Raheny, for a total of 33km or so). Just as I was arriving back, she called to let me know she'd finally woken, which was handy because I was quite tired by 5:45am :^) I learned a few things - among them: a) my girlfriend is deaf and comatose when asleep, b) my sense of direction over medium distances in completely unfamiliar places is not as great as I thought, c) there are no all night food places or shops (except for a few petrol stations) in most of northeast Dublin, d) cycling on a thin, damp stone pier in the dark with a weak LED lamp is not very clever (I almost cycled directly into the sea), e) I should carry lockpicks.
