Earwigged(ish) Gems #2
By Primal Sneeze ~ January 7th, 2008. Filed under: Fun.
At the bus-stop
Can you tell me where the Irish embassy is in Dublin? – Muriel, recently returned to Ireland after 40 years in the UK and now trying desperately to secure a passport for her 24 year old Tunisian boyfriend so he can join her.
In the shop
Not sure. Must be a sequel to an old movie – A young assistant when asked about the Brideshead Revisited DVD that came free with a newspaper.
In the pub
They’ll just ignore it. Shur they smoke on the LUAS over there – Gerry, doubting whether the French would comply with the smoking ban.
In college
You’ll need to flesh that out a wee bit – My supervisor’s advice on the acknowledgements page in my thesis: I would like to thank the dog, the cat and everyone who knows me. And of course the lady who held the door in Spar this morning.
You forgot your sisters and your cousins and your aunts in the last one, never mind your Grannymar!
Hee — thank-yous on a thesis. That always seemed a bit strange to me. If I ever win an award for anything I’m just gonna say “I’d like to thank myself seems I did all the work”.
Grannymar – No I didn’t. I said everyone who knows me. But I will list you individually in the final submission. If it ever gets finished.
Annie – They expect you to kiss ass – say how great your lecturers were and so on. That’s why I was making a mockery of it – half the fekers were as useful as ashtrays on motorbikes.
So – are you actually going to finish it, and if so what is it on ?
John – I will finish it even if it kills me. No flowers, please – donations if desired to the Brewer’s Droop Research Fund.
Its about software requirements elicitation and analysis, and implementation in difficult environments using my own unorthodox methodologies – becoming part of that environment. In short the only way to know what a sparrow is thinking is to become a sparrow.
So, Systems Analysis?
I’ve been chuckling over the LUAS for the last few hours.
John – Yes, but in environments where that is made difficult by virtue of the business characteristics e.g. field based; poor IT literacy; management unable to allot sufficient meeting time; internal politics; poorly defined hierarchy.
Eolaí – It reminded me of one I overheard in a pub in Hazelhatch back in the early 80’s. A pint was nicked off the counter, the culprit identified and warned of the seriousness of his crime: “If you did that in Russia you’d be fcuked in the canal”.
I had to think about the first one for a while as the young people say…..Legend.
No idea why they say that.
when you make a comment and it counts doon does yer blog then explode? ach you Irish always blowing things up.
Young Knudsen – The first one made me laugh uncontrollably for ages. Then, when I thought about the implications, I nearly puked.
No, not mine. The commenter’s blog explodes. Or their balls. Whichever will make the biggest mess. Hey, com’on, they won’t let us do it in real life any more – this is our only outlet.
It’s nice to see the door-holders getting a bit of recognition for something finally. I knew unionization was the way to go.
“Whaddawewant? ”
“Acknowledgments on theses!”
“When do we want them?”
“Before a whole load of ill-mannered arses troops through the door suddenly without so much as a glance at us as they trample us into the floor, or NOW! (Whichever comes first)”
I cringe utterly when I think of what I wrote in my thesis (about a million years ago…another one due soon) something about losing my heart to the Dingle Peninsula *groan*
How is it you manage to come across so many of these hilarious situations?? Brideshead Revisited just cracked me up!
Sam – My next campaign will be for bad spellers. I have the placards ready. “Bad spellers of the world untie”; “Txt rls k”; “Wii the man hour rites”; “Dick shunrys suk”.
Conorín – I listen and remember. Hey, this time you could say you lost your liver to Den Haag.
That sounds like every Software project ever. Before and after the Software Crisis term was coined when I was still in ovum or shortly therafter
Occasionally I despair of our profession.
i love the idea of the french smoking on the LUAS in france!
you should nominate ME for an irish blog award, primal. my dead dog was named toby. and my grandmother is from ballybunion.
surely that should count.
The correct link to despair
Is maith ann google.
Aonghus – Thanks for reminding me of Dijkstra. In particular the last paragraph:
My solution to the gobbledygook in comment #8 is simple and is from practical experience: There is no point asking questions (eliciting information in the ways the books/academics tell us) in a situation where the respondent(s) don’t have the answers because either they can’t tell you what they do due to over familiarity with their tasks or they don’t understand the questions. You have to become one of them as I said in comment #5. That is the only way to give them what they want and not just what they ask for.
My thesis is based on one particular project where I worked as part of the client’s team to understand their needs. Hopefully quoting Dijkstra will justify things like why a software engineer would have been freezing his butt off on the back of a quad bike racing through fields at 6am. Don’t ask!
ps. … complicated concepts had better be avoided. Over use of and over emphasis on OO programming for one.
Laurie – I think they abolished the granny-rule. But a dead dog named Toby qualifies you for sure. You’re in!
I trained as a Systems Analyst after my degree. I have never practiced. The world is better of for it.
Oh, I forgot to thank the dog in my acknowledgements, Primal.
Shit.
I had one page for thanking the committee and one page for Mr. M.
I laid it on thick.
John – I prefer doing the digging, as I call it. Probably because I’m better at it that I am coding. I get bored too easily with the latter.
Medbh – To hell with the committee, but I hope Mr. M. appreciated it.
I am probably hanging myself, but I will not be giving credit to lecturers where it is not due. Those who were useless will be conspicuous by their absence from acknowledgements.
<rant>
The disease is the elevation by influential people of poorly understood buzz words to dogmas which are assumed to be silver bullets for problems we wouldn’t have if we kept it simple in the first place.</rant>
Homo Cogitans is a rare, and possibly apocryphal species. Homo Sapiens frequently doesn’t.
Tell yerwan at the bus stop that the Irish embassy isn’t in Dublin, it’s in Cork, of course.
Aonghus – Now there’s an interesting project – develop a tag for WordPress.
Ann – That makes sense. Cork being the real capital and all.
Teamhair inné,
Áth Cliath inniu,
Corcaigh amárach.
Hah snarf, excellent snippets.
Aonghus – Moving Leinster House to Tara would be interesting. Could it be termed re-decentralisation?
FMC – Snarf indeed. My fav is the second – it took me a minute.
Leinster House?
Surely you mean Government Buildings, in particular the Dept of Finance.
The Oireachtas is only there to distract us from the mandarins who really rule us. Bertie is doing an excellent job as a Zaphod Beeblebrox substitute.
Right so, Aonghus. The whole kit and kaboodle it is. We could build a motorway to get them there.
Nah. Motorways work in both directions.
Maybe we can do a deal with the tollers to only let mandarins in, not out?