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The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)

Started by Doktor Howl, November 15, 2017, 01:33:15 AM

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altered

I had always thought that I'd end up a whiner in the workplace. Turns out I'm the frighteningly efficient member of a team lagging way behind in the metrics. Who'd've thunk it?
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: nullified on August 14, 2019, 02:22:45 AM
I had always thought that I'd end up a whiner in the workplace. Turns out I'm the frighteningly efficient member of a team lagging way behind in the metrics. Who'd've thunk it?

The main difference in where you land, I think, is whether or not you have fun with what you do.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

*CRACK*

Me:  "okay, the carbon flew all to pieces."

Baby Engineer:  "How far did we get?"

Me:  Just under 20 G acceleration.

BE:  "SHIT."

Billy: "Relax, you're almost 1/5 of the way there."

BE:  "Shut your whore mouth."

Me:  "Don't get so hot under the collar, dude.  It failed.  So what?  That's material science.  You keep failing until one day you don't."

BE:  "It should have worked."

Me:  "See, that's where you are fucked up.  You are an infant engineer, and you were told how the world should operate.  Billy and I, on the other hand, are reliability geeks and we know the world is a shifty bastard with a trust fund and a pocket full of roofies."

BE:  *stares in nerd*

Me:  *Stares in alpha nerd*

BE:  "Get the hell out of here, this is going to be an all-nighter."

Billy:  "You're trying again tonight?"

Me:  "He didn't hear the thing about the pocket full of roofies, apparently.

BE:  "GET OOOOOOOOOUT."

Billy:  "There's no pleasing some people."

Me:  "This is all normal, Billy."
Molon Lube

Juana

Aaah, the freshly graduated. So bright eyed, so upset when things don't quite work the way they were told.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Juana on August 16, 2019, 08:48:26 PM
Aaah, the freshly graduated. So bright eyed, so upset when things don't quite work the way they were told.

Baby engineers are adorable.   :lulz:
Molon Lube

chaotic neutral observer

Sure, he's adorable now.  But unless he's incompetent, or very, very lucky, in a few short years he'll learn the Horrible Truth, that science exceeded the comprehension of meat-based monkey brains in the late 1940's, and modern technology is a house of cards that is one squirrel fart away from catastrophic collapse.

Then the metamorphosis will occur.

He might become a Project Manager, or System Architect, who deals with High Level Design, and leaves the messy details of physics and manufacturing tolerances to the grunts on the front line.  "How long is it going to take for you to get it working?"

Or he might delude himself that there is an area about which it is possible to know everything, and become a Specialist, mocking derisively anyone who encroaches on his domain, and dismissing all other fields as irrelevant, or trivial.  "That's a software problem.  Not my department."  If his expertise develops enough, he may even begin to believe it applies to all fields, not just his specialization. 

Or he could become one of the Accursed, the Proselytes to the Machine God, who cannot look away or close their eyes to the horrors of reality, who aspire to universal specialization, who are often paralyzed into inaction by seeing all the possible ways the system can fail, and, on rare occasions, actually get something done.  "Did you check the cables?  Did you check the cables again?"
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on August 19, 2019, 04:50:36 AM
Sure, he's adorable now.  But unless he's incompetent, or very, very lucky, in a few short years he'll learn the Horrible Truth, that science exceeded the comprehension of meat-based monkey brains in the late 1940's, and modern technology is a house of cards that is one squirrel fart away from catastrophic collapse.

Then the metamorphosis will occur.

He might become a Project Manager, or System Architect, who deals with High Level Design, and leaves the messy details of physics and manufacturing tolerances to the grunts on the front line.  "How long is it going to take for you to get it working?"

Or he might delude himself that there is an area about which it is possible to know everything, and become a Specialist, mocking derisively anyone who encroaches on his domain, and dismissing all other fields as irrelevant, or trivial.  "That's a software problem.  Not my department."  If his expertise develops enough, he may even begin to believe it applies to all fields, not just his specialization. 

Or he could become one of the Accursed, the Proselytes to the Machine God, who cannot look away or close their eyes to the horrors of reality, who aspire to universal specialization, who are often paralyzed into inaction by seeing all the possible ways the system can fail, and, on rare occasions, actually get something done.  "Did you check the cables?  Did you check the cables again?"

:cainftw: :cainftw: :cainftw:
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Things Billy said today:

You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing. It does something else entirely, or nothing at all. It's like voting."
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Product Development Meeting

Boss:  "I invited Hamish today, because this isn't working and perhaps we could use a more technical perpective.  Um, but why is Billy here?"

Me:  "To play my theme music."

Boss:  *looks at me in Boss*

Me:  "We agreed you wouldn't question my methods if I brought results.  I have in fact brought results."

Boss:  "Okay, what did you find?"

Me:  "Well, a few things.  First, you guys assumed that 240 volts AC means 240 volts.  It does not.  It is nominal.  The actual voltage was 205, because Tucson Electric Power is a pack of thieving idiots, so your resistance values were all buggered up and you weren't getting the heat you thought you were getting."

Baby Engineer:  "Holy shit.  I've been banging my head against the wall for a month and the voltage was wrong?  What the actual fuck?"

Boss:  "You said a few things.  What else?"

Me:  "The zygote over there"  *points at Baby engineer* "wrote some tight code.  Only someone else didn't.  His values were metric, the other dude"  *points at Brian* "put his values in standard."

Boss:  "You are shitting me."

Brian:  *attempts to turn invisible, fails*

Me:  "No, I shit you not.  He is some kind of benighted heathen and despite his education cannot seem to use scientific units like a decent human being.  I have corrected his portion of the code."

Boss:  *glowers at Brian*

Brian:  *Very wisely says nothing at all*

Boss:  "I feel an 'and' coming on..."

Me:  "AND the aluminum isn't 7075, it's 6061.  So again, all values are wrong.  Billy found that, and put the correct values in."

Boss:  "Nice one, Billy.  Someone kill the supplier.  So we are functional?"

Me:  "I didn't say that.  We still have to test."

Boss:  "When is that going to happen?"

Me:  "Tonight.  I am staying late.  Everyone should look grateful now.  But I think we're okay, I ran the heat calculations and it should be close to what we're after."

Boss:  "You're a fucking WIZARD.  Even if you are the rudest human being I have met in years."

Me:  "I gotta be me.  I want Brian to stay, too, because he needs to learn about modern technology and the ways of SCIENCE."

Emmy:  "Aren't you forgetting something, nerd?"

Me:  "Quite right.  Billy?"

Billy:  *thumbs cell phone, "Uptown Girl" plays*

*Hamish, Emmy, and Billy dance towards door*

Baby Engineer:  "Fuck it."  *dances out behind us*

And that is how we get things done in Side Effect City.




Molon Lube

The Johnny


What kind of two legged animal uses imperial measurements for science?

**Does the sign of the cross**
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Doktor Howl

Quote from: The Johnny on August 23, 2019, 02:57:11 AM

What kind of two legged animal uses imperial measurements for science?

**Does the sign of the cross**

One that spent 4 hours taking the amp draws this evening while I watched youtube.
Molon Lube

altered

I love that meeting. You have found your home, I think.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: nullified on August 23, 2019, 11:56:45 PM
I love that meeting. You have found your home, I think.

Well, I am back in industry after 5 rocky years, so I hope so.
Molon Lube

altered

The main sign to me is that you have a pack of people as willing to flaunt their horrible things in public as you are. You got three people to dance out that door with you and only one was Billy. That's only a good sign or the beginning of the apocalypse. (No, Trump doesn't count towards apocalypse, he lacks the vision.)
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

chaotic neutral observer

Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 23, 2019, 02:36:14 AM
Billy:  *thumbs cell phone, "Uptown Girl" plays*

*Hamish, Emmy, and Billy dance towards door*

Baby Engineer:  "Fuck it."  *dances out behind us*

That's kinda awesome.

You know...if you weren't in America--and worse, in the Tucson Dimensional Closure--I might be inclined to send you my resume.  Frankly, I'm kind of dumb, have insubordinate tendencies, and you probably don't care what I can do with an FPGA, but if something has a microprocessor connected to it, I can usually figure it out (and if it doesn't have a microprocessor connected, I'll connect one).

My theme song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v3etuIw-aM

Or this one.  Whatever.  Different songs for different situations.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnXXHCz8E3k
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.