Re: Reasons To Be Grumpy thread

[Recusant]

I've come down with something, and haven't felt this miserable in a long time. Weakness, , headache, fever, aching joints and a whole night of tossing and turning has taken a toll on me today. I spent the entire day sleeping, and not doing anything else.

Something you picked up in the hospital, perhaps?

[Recusant]

Although I have passed the sight test (  ) after my cataract op it seems that I cannot do the fast online application for a new licence, got to do the full snail mail thing.

The forms will not be posted until Mondsy and may take up to two weeks to get to me. Then it can be at least another couple of weeks to process . . .

What was the problem? I helped my friend do an online application recently, and once we'd got the "Government Gateway" ID number (which is straight-forward) the application itself wasn't a problem. Is it that you're required to send a hard copy of your test results to the DVLA?

[Dave]

Although I have passed the sight test (  ) after my cataract op it seems that I cannot do the fast online application for a new licence, got to do the full snail mail thing.

The forms will not be posted until Mondsy and may take up to two weeks to get to me. Then it can be at least another couple of weeks to process . . .

What was the problem? I helped my friend do an online application recently, and once we'd got the "Government Gateway" ID number (which is straight-forward) the application itself wasn't a problem. Is it that you're required to send a hard copy of your test results to the DVLA?

The problem is thst my eyesight got so bad, at the crtical point of needing to renew my licence due to age, that I could not happily consider driving and voluntarily surrendered my licence. I was concerned that questions may have been asked had I merely allowed my licence to expire on my birthday then re-applied at a later date. Was I driving during that period? Why did I not inform them (as is legally required) of any medical condition that made driving a problem? . . . Due to my heart problems I am already on the "medical register" at the DVLA.

And I am too fucking honest for my own good! No good intention goes without its appropriate punishmrnt... I did try, very hard, to grt the whole procedure over with before my birthday, starting it in October last year, but missed by a good four weeks. Medically I was a low priority.

Once you are on the "medicsl" list re-application depends on a decision by a real human, had this experience when my ICD gave me shocks. This takes it out of the automatic path if you simply tick the "I can pass the eyesight test" box. I can afford the automatic £1000 fine for getting caught telling the lie but would rather not risk the wellbeing of other people (or the potential prison sentence that comes along with any accident involving injury to another after such a lie.)

Though it may not have ripples that extend this far the news that Japan is apparently subjecting older drivers to a dementia test is a little worrying as well! There was also a case of a death due to an older man driving with defective eyesight not so long ago. Though, in his case, it was not a case of bring totally unable to read direction signs (until so close one is actually passing them) but that he needed a magnifying glass to read his mobile telephone!

I also could not tell the gender of people, similarly dressed, standing still less than 50m away or read the large illuminated number on the front of the bus at a similar distance. Now, with correction, I can read two lines below that required for the test at the distance of the chart in an optician's surgery, indicating 6/6 (20/20) visual acuity at that distance. Whether I can now read a licence plate at 20m, or a direction board at a sufficient distances to "glance-read" it, is still to be determined.

[Pasta Chick]

I didn't sleep for about 22 hours... Just wasn't tired. Which is cool, I guess, as long as I'm functional and comfortable, why not? Stayed out way late with my dog.

But then BF didn't bother coercing his old ass dog in to eating before bed, which means instead of actually getting to sleep now that I am tired, I got to listen to her have acid reflux burps and compulsively lick herself all night until she got up at 5AM and started pacing.

[xSilverPhinx]

I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks, today I feel better.

Something you picked up in the hospital, perhaps?

Could be, who knows?

[Dave]

Sorry, Siover, missed that - hope it is not spoiling your Saturday.

[xSilverPhinx]

Thanks, Dave. 

It's not spoiling my Saturday, which is so far going as planned -- a day for doing nothing.

[Velma]

Thursday I was talking to one of the IT guys at work. Last week one of the guys who works days in IT had removed email access on one of the computers in my department. Come to find out, when the computers were replaced last year no one took into account that my department needs email access. The new computers have little RAM and a tiny hard drive - which is fine for most areas where they only have to access one application, but not really enough for the vast amount of email we deal with every day and all the applications we need to have running to do our work. We only use email directly or indirectly for 90% of our job.

[Tom62]

^ In all the years that I work in the IT, I realized that your PC can never have too much RAM,  too much hard-disk space or a too fast processor.

[Dave]

^ In all the years that I work in the IT, I realized that your PC can never have too much RAM,  too much hard-disk space or a too fast processor.

Except in the case where an acquaintance got suckered into spending twice whst she needed for a high end machine for something she, basically, uses as a typewriter. My first 128kb RAM 20MB 60MHz with Word 2 would have done the work she needs.

Too often you need a bigger machine just to run the over inflated and lazily coded applications around today.

[Tank]

...
Too often you need a bigger machine just to run the over inflated and lazily coded applications around today.

Quite so. There are nothing like the constraints of limited memory, storage and processing power to produce razor sharp, compact and thus fast executing code.

[Tank]

The best bit of code I ever wrote was for a force bridge weighing machine. It comprised a Z80 processor, A/D converter, 256 bytes of RAM, 1K of EPROM and a 4 digit 8segment display. All done in machine code.

[hermes2015]

The best bit of code I ever wrote was for a force bridge weighing machine. It comprised a Z80 processor, A/D converter, 256 bytes of RAM, 1K of EPROM and a 4 digit 8segment display. All done in machine code.

That's pretty impressive. It certainly puts my little Excel VBA self-filtering music database to shame.

[Dave]

If I remember correctly the "Hobbit" game on the Spectrum 48, text based with very basic graphics but quite complex, was about 16k on a bit of cassette tape.

[Dave]

If I remember correctly the "Hobbit" game on the Spectrum 48, text based with very basic graphics but quite complex, was about 16k on a bit of cassette tape.

Also IIRC a letter written in Word 2 took up about 20k or less. Now it about 100k min for a blank page I think.