This is Hooovahh

[wiebe@CARYA]

"listthingy" sounds very professional too.

I had to invent the name "anti-undulator class" at some point. 

Next time I'll call it "fixerthingy".

[JW-JnJ]

Unprofessional test sets? I have a test set here which is basically a CDAQ chassis, Intel NUC, Flexlogger, and a nice mobile cart. We have a proud tradition in our lab of naming test sets awesome names or acronyms. Not all of them, but we've had some pretty good ones (though usually unprofessional).

As a joke, I started unofficially naming the cart system the DAQ Micro, or DAQu. Mind you, I only was doing this as a joke. The amazing part about this naming scheme is that the second cart was then called DAQu 2. My lab-mates and I joke about being asked to develop a simple logging application for them and we just respond with "DAQu" (this hasn't happened, I pretend to be mildly professional). Well, to my astonishment, it stuck and it's starting to become colloquial around here. 

This system became popular enough that I had to build a third cart. Officially called and labeled DAQu 3. Unofficially called "DAQu and the horse you rode in on". I'm starting to hear that phrase around the lab as well.

[wiebe@CARYA]

Jokes stick easily.

We recently did a "Measurement Control Application" for a customer that starts with an "I".

Here's the icon they got:

Spoiler

[crossrulz]

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wiebe@CARYA wrote:

Jokes stick easily.

We recently did a "Measurement Control Application" for a customer that starts with an "I".

Here's the icon they got:

Spoiler

---

Queue The Village People:  "IMCA.  It's fun to stay at the IMCA."

[altenbach]

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wiebe@CARYA wrote:

"listthingy" sounds very professional too.

I had to invent the name "anti-undulator class" at some point. 

Next time I'll call it "fixerthingy".

---

One of these days I will update longer calculations with a "reticulating splines..." message. 😄

[jcarmody]

This is the closest I've come to being interesting with production code.  One of the operators asked me about it last week.  It's been in production for a year, at least.

I started a project that was going to actuate "smart" circuit breakers and I was going to operate them in some musical pattern, but I quit that job before getting very far.

[Hooovahh]

Delayed estop

We made a test system for a customer that tested an electronic widget they made.  There were some pneumatics, and high voltage involved and so there was some level of safety used in the system.  Pretty early on the customer wanted to come in and see the progress of it.  We told them it wasn’t really ready but we would show off what we could.

As I’m demoing the software it locked up.  It wasn’t doing anything bad, it was just not responding so I quickly ran over and pressed the E-stop button on the tester which I assume had been tested.  But instead of it stopping it kept going and all I heard was.

<Beep>...<Beep>...<Beep>...<Beep>

…

<Beep>...<Beep>...<Beep>...<Beep>

Luckily everything was fine, but at the time I found it so funny that the E-stop button just took power away from the UPS, so about 30 minutes after pressing the E-stop, the system would stop.

[Hooovahh]

I Don’t Care

A manager at the company kept abusing the email system by sending many high priority messages to all employees, asking for volunteers for something.  He kept sending multiple updates to all employees for a thing that only needed 5 volunteers.  It was likely 10 to 20 emails over the period of a couple of days.  I sent him an email (not reply-all) saying:

“Please do not spam all employees with emails frequently marked high priority, it is unprofessional.”

He replied:

“I don’t care”

I replied:

“The level of professionalism you provide continues to be what I expect.  Thank you.”

[thoult]

Observations on sending a site-wide/company-wide email, at least in the firm I work:

1. You are obliged to start your missive by apologising for the site wide email.

2. You must not use the BCC function to send mail to a large distribution list.

3. One person must choose the role of irate first responder, admonishing the original sender not to use site wide email distribution lists. Preferably by replying all to the original non-BCC email.

4. Optionally, another person may choose the role of recursive admonisher to the person in step 3. By way of reply all, naturally.

[JÞB]

At a long ago job I was scheduled to depart for a radar installation in China the next morning, April 2nd  A coworker, John, that I "owed one to" was the backup.

Around 2:30 pm I called a meeting miss-informing the team that my father had been in a motor vehicle accident and, required an emergency kidney transplant. 

John did not even pause for thought! "What is his blood type?"