Fabulous talk
By Thriftcriminal | August 21, 2008
I linked to this before, but it’s so good I’m going to embed it this time.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Cool site
By Thriftcriminal | August 20, 2008
This is cool if you like pics of animals
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pics
By Thriftcriminal | August 20, 2008
Found something interesting to do on Lottie’s:
For some reason one of them didn’t come out. One of my own doodles showed up in the search too, me swearing at cars for being in cycle lanes.
Thought I’d add this into the mix too:
For some reason my note taking style freaks people out (not the blurring, that’s added afterwards just to avoid boring you, this way it looks like I do interesting stuff).
Topics: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Aaaaaaarrrrgh
By Thriftcriminal | August 18, 2008
Maximum annoyingness achieved by children. Screwed up the digital tv not once, not twice, but 3 times before insisting we fix it (a nigh on impossible task that for some reason requires several reboots). How? By sitting on the remote. Repeatedly.
They stuck fecking Dora stickers on every available surface. spilt everything they could. Coloured their legs blue with what must be the only non-washable marker in the house, poured water out of the bath all over the bathroom, squabbled at every available opportunity and fecked about in every way immaginable (including getting inside the duvet cover as a ‘tent’) when they were supposed to be going to sleep. While I love them dearly, right now I also hate them passionately.
Fuck off poxy weather so we can send them outside to burn off some energy and have fun and not leave me full of rage and guilt about spending the entire evening telling them off. I’m fucking miserable now.
In other news I got this many spuds from 2 square meters of garden
And the chillis are doing OK despite the attacks of aphids (bastards, die, die, die!).
Topics: Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
If
By Thriftcriminal | August 17, 2008
My grandmother liked this poem.
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Economies of scale
By Thriftcriminal | August 15, 2008
One of the few areas of signal processing and engineering that is not suffering from price pressure and stagnant salaries thanks to you lot out there expecting your gadgets to cost thuppence ha’penny is medical equipment. In particular big expensive equipment like MRIs. Working in this area is great because the cost sensitivity is negligible, so if you are a key person on the team, you are secure and well paid. Smooth.
The flip side of this is that while this prevails these remain fucking huge, fucking expensive bits of equipment. I don’t know how many we have in this country and I have neither the time nor the inclination to find out. But I bet we could do with more of them.
Anything that costs a shit load of money to make and is sold for a high margin must be targeted at a small market. But what if the market wasn’t so small. What if, instead of 50/60/70% of the hospitals in this country having one, 50/60/70% of GPs had one because someone decided “hey, let’s make this better, smaller and cheaper and sell wodges of them!”
Surely this could lead to earlier diagnosis of cancer, it might have meant my uncle’s tumour on his Kidney was caught at a stage where the entire organ didn’t need to be removed (and he’s a relative I actually like, recovering well mind, so fingers crossed). In the long run it might well save rather a lot of dosh and save people. Of course I actually want people to eat more bacon so there is enough pension left for me in 30 years, but that’s another matter.
All I’m asking for here is Star Trek style technology? Is that so much?
While you’re at it a holo-deck with nekkid Scarlett Johansson pre-programmed would be good too.
Topics: Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
So……Much………Work
By Thriftcriminal | August 14, 2008
Things are fairly hectic at work, getting shit working, fixing errors in the code of the guy that left, re-coding, taking a big hammer to it to make it work, going postal with an AK47
Run of the mill stuff.
So posting will be erratic (no, not erotic, erratic) over the next while.
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More weird people on Thomas St.
By Thriftcriminal | August 12, 2008
Yep, lunch revealed yet more wonders to me today. This time I wandering to Lidl (like Fakey I am on the cheap, but that’s nothing new for me). This time in the form of a wizened walnut couloured chap in his 60’s wearing nothing but runners and a red pair of those 70’s GAA shorts (the ones that were banned by decency laws) jogging determinedly up the wrong side of the road.
In other news the noodles in Lidl cost fuck all, taste artificial-tastic and have all the nutritional value of cardboard (the good quality sort). Hey, don’t judge, I bought fruit too. Check out my plums.
Now I have to redesign my de-spreader (no, that is not my personality).
Topics: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
In the arms of Morpheus
By Thriftcriminal | August 11, 2008
Went to the Spar for lunch today. There was a bloke passed out on the pavement near the door. Everyone walked past and ignored him. It didn’t seem right.
I approached the asian chap on the till and mentioned that there was some bloke passed out on the ground outside and was met with a whole lot of “somebody else’s problem” along with (feigned) lack of communication skills.
I got a sandwich and when I paid for it the (Irish) manager was on the till so I mentioned it again, and got a more well spoken “somebody ele’s problem” in the form of an explanation that he’s there 300 days out of the year and is an alcoholic.
I was leaving and considered calling someone myself, but the weather is not inclement and the reality of the situation is I might be calling them away from someone who needs them more (or away from a bag of chips in the case of the cops more like, actually no, the chips would get finished, followed by a chat, a couple of small jobs that needed doing, a phone call to the bird and THEN a response, if it was on the way to a prime spot for illegally parked cars to get the return of work numbers up for the end of the month).
I was a bit put out by the asian chap’s reaction, thinking that having most likely come from some degree of hardship to make a better life for himself, he might posess a degree of empathy. But I guess his view might be that he is making an effort while Captain Passout is opting out altogether. That and culturally he would probably frown on alcohol consumption.
What should one do?
Topics: Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
Vitriol
By Thriftcriminal | August 10, 2008
When did shopping become a leisure activity?
They flock in their droves to the retail cathedrals each weekend to wander aimlessly and purchase more shit to clutter up their lives.
Vacuous little consumption engines, driving the economic dream of growth further towards oblivion.
Topics: Short, Thrift, narky | 9 Comments »