Sennen and insensibility.

[hirez]

I would make a joke here about having watched restoration comedy and thought to myself 'Where are the bloody tapes and it's their own fault if they've not tested the DR plan.' but it was French and so not restoration.

Hey ho.

Cornwall's nice, though.

Mind you, we went into this Treen pub and was there a wee green bloke floating about on a commode? Was there buggery. Poor show.

The Barbara Hepworth exhibit in the big modernist building on the beach was all a bit Vermilion Sands.

Gug. I think I'm going to go and expire now.

Comments

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

Restoration comedy is just 'Carry On' with founces.

[janinemarriott.livejournal.com]

dr?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Disaster Recovery.

The DR plan is the book (Instant Fail if it's a Wiki) that carefully describes how you get your data back (and thus effect Business Continuity) in the event of Disaster.

You start with Disaster = someone lobs tea into a swerver, work your way through 'So we lose power to the primary site, the generator's run out of diesel and the line to the backup site has just been JCB'ed' to 'Bath is obliterated in a meteorite strike/Some unstable RDX in Box Mines goes off ditto'

At least one workplace had a DR plan that went 'Well you shouldn't have deleted it then, should you?'

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Instant Fail if it's a Wiki
[snork]

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Fuck him and the ferret he rode in on...

Nowt wrong with _my_ wiki.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I daresay. And how will sir be referencing said wiki if the routing/DNS/power to the relevant box is NBG?

[spride.livejournal.com]

This is why your CIs should be in a CMDB and that should be redundantly replicated.

Guess who's been on an ITIL Advanced course last week?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[FX: Google]

Jayzus.

(I must have had a good holiday. Rather than thinking 'That makes no sense, I must be missing something' it was 'That makes no sense, it must be Management.'

[spride.livejournal.com]

Well, although it's Management, there's good and bad Management. ITIL, for all its verbosity, is just horse sense. You and I have seen enough badly managed shops for us to be able to say "Here's the Rules. Now Do It Right" to the flailing amateurs and hand them a copy of the ITIL Core Books is an unalloyed boon. I mean, it says things like:

"There shall be a help desk. It will take and log calls" - I've seen hundred of places where techs get nailed by drive-by "Oh it's you can you just" requests to the point of distraction.

"There shall be a definitive library of all your current application media, with license keys and any necesary docs" - vs "Mike had the Oracle DVD last week but I haven't seen it since, and I'm googling for a cracked license cos we need to migrate off DB1 before its RAID controller dies"

etc. etc.

[spride.livejournal.com]

Were I not loyal to my employer, I could say something about our server group, a wiki and what it contains. Were I not. Etc.

[janinemarriott.livejournal.com]

oddly enough that doesn't help anything make more sense

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Profit!

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

we went into this Treen pub and was there a wee green bloke floating about on a commode?
[applause]

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I want a model railway layout...
9Fs and Dan Dare spaceships on launchpads.
The Fifties, as they should have been.

(PS - I've been buying books directly from the RCTS. Does this make me a bad person, or just a gricer?)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Thank you. We were there all week.

[spride.livejournal.com]

Did you try the veal?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I'm told that the Mackerel was jolly good.

[spride.livejournal.com]

Tate St. Ives?

It's a measure of something that I get every reference in your message.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Post-punk/hacker/Anglo retro-tech - it's all good.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

that's confusing - was meant to be me!

Loved Sennen. Did you go to Porthcurno?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

LJ crossdressing. All the cool kids are doing it.

In point of fact, we stayed in Porthcurno (in Mercury House; only a short potter across the lawn to The Museum), but I couldn't think of an appropriate pun.

I found most of the beach-flamethrower control pillboxes this time.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

Hooray! PK felt like a bit of a resort. Gorgeous beach!

We were in the countryside by Lands' End airfield. Nearest town was Sennen. White Sands cable station was just down the road. This was... a month ago?

Cornwall was great - but the Cornish just don't seem to be able to do cider...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Isn't it. Sadly the local pub is, um, somewhat more eighties than Laughton's used to be. The Logan Rock in Treen was much nicer.

The book/pamphlet/thingy 'Cornwall's communication heritage' is a splendid resource. If an annoying one, because it shows that I should have visited the area a bit sooner.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

Yes, Liz had Chicken in a Basket!

[meltie.livejournal.com]

I think I read that pamphlet in the Visitors' Centre at Goonhilly.

Best bit about that place? Leaving.

Actually, no, the tour of Arthur was cool, if a bit heartwrenching - it's all turned off now, last communications were a few months back. The tour guide reckons that BT have turned down the heaters which drive the moisture out of the motor room in the base so whilst the outsides of the building will remain looked-after as-per Listed Building guidelines, it'll probably go off proper Care and Maintenance, and slowly stop being able to be moved.

Bastards.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Did you go 'Segway off-roading'?

(I mean, FFS...)

[meltie.livejournal.com]

We were tempted to, so that I could deride them with authority. Glad we didn't.

Although, they would have offered a better view of the dishes than going on the godawful futureworld@ tourbus gave.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

See [http://hirez.livejournal.com/222389.html] for similar rant.

Hm. I think I have a proper post coming on about this.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

Gah, BT. Everything about the place was bloody typical - right down to us having to pay to get into the shiny-rounded-edges attraction on one till, and pay for the Arthur visit on another totally separate till, two feet to the left. I strongly suspect BT Retail vs BT Openworld. For Fucks' Sake.


Ah-ha! That bloke's still at PK - he spotted Andy and I, removed the ropes and demonstrated all the chattering kit to us. I never realised they could work both ways on a single bit of copper. Bloody simple when you think about it for a second!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The volunteers there seem to be able to spot hacker-tourists a mile off. Each time I've walked in, someone's gone 'You'll be looking for the technical information, I take it?'

[meltie.livejournal.com]

They're good there - the members of our party who exited the tunnels first were offered tea and coffee whilst they waited.

I suppose you've read Neal Stephenson's Mother Earth Mother Board (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html)? It's what inspired us to go on some sort of infrastructure-tourist holiday in Cornwall in the first place.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, yes. I recall reading the thing while on holiday in Illinois and thinking 'Oh, so going there...'

[FX: Checks bookshelf]

Yep, WiReD 4.12(US). :)

And then of course I read Cryptonomicon and realised that it was a massive research trip.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

...and why is it called Arthur?

Contrary to some people's belief, they were NOT named after the Lottery machines but after those in Arthurian legend. (http://www.goonhilly.bt.com/history/heritage.html)

[meltie.livejournal.com]

*sob*

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

St Ives parish church has a pair of 5' Barbara Hepworth candlesticks that I covet.