a bit of a ramble

Ever had guests that try your patience by using all the hot water, eat all your food and get up way, way too early in the morning? I have. They are just about one sleep away from leaving. I MISS them already! I know. It is soooo weird.

All the added people has meant that i have been relegated to my bedroom for some quiet. I have been watching a lot of DVD’s. Two reasons....kids tv today is terrible....and the new digital tv service is CRAP when it rains or snows. It is the middle of winter. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out how i am faring with that. The only saving grace is that most tv programs are terrible.

So i have been watching Stargate Atlantis (my FAVOURITE show). I was watching (mostly listening) to a commentary and it was talking about the B.L.U.’s. This stands for Blink Light Unit’s. They sit around and look like computers busy doing things. This got me thinking and remembering. In real life big and powerful computer systems do not have blinking lights. They are not necessary and besides lights require power and produce heat. A computer system does not need either. However people expect lots of blinking lights. It shows that something is going on.

You might think that it is just tv people messing with us. Not true. I have a story about an old department of mine and the near disastrous lack of blinking lights. They got a big, cool new computer system and decided to put a glass wall thing in so people could look at it. It takes a special type of person to want to look at boxes just sitting there with cords coming out of them.

Turns out that the people paying for the computer system (and the window thingy) are not those type of people. To solve the problem “things” were constructed to give the impression of blinking lights which indicated money well spent. They didn’t cost much money themselves (because that would have been really difficult to explain in a audit).but they did the trick.
Not that my old system admin needed the blinking lights to know when the computer was being used. It use to vibrate and make noises. Turns out if you have to sit with the thing day in, day out you kinda get a feeling for the machine. Apparently you could eventually figure out precisely who was using the machine to do what. Like, maybe, when i have stuff running!

I know. Some of us computer people are soooo geeky.

And yes. I AM the person that commentaries were invented for *grin*

bye *wave*