Comment On DR on a (near) daily basis

Swee-ee-eet, jet city woman
I can see your face, I can hear your voice, I can almost touch you
Swee-ee-eet, jet city woman
Oh, my banjo and me, we got a feel for singin'

What was the "orange button" he pressed that caused the fire ball?

It was the fireball button, duh!

Good old government underspending where it matters most, letting a few individuals carry the brunt on their shoulders. It warms my heart as much as the orange button.

JJ:

What was the "orange button" she pressed that caused the fire ball?

Fixed that for you...

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

Where is the software WTF? The system was stable enough to survive frequent power-cuts and even flooding... not typical material for this site.

JJ:

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

Batman

Chuck Norris

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

999

Pfffffffffffftt

Everyone knows when theres somethin strange in the neighbourhood you call GHOSTBUSTERS!

Man 987876980:

Where is the software WTF? The system was stable enough to survive frequent power-cuts and even flooding... not typical material for this site.

Aside from the obvious WTF of not having a UPS/generator in the dispatch room everything seemed pretty respectable.

I wish my office could sustain power outages, flooding and fireballs...

Isn't natural gas lighter than air? How could it "Flow Down" a parking ramp?

I would suspect that if it was a fuel pipeline, the situation would have been much different.

Am I the only one who saw TRWTF to be that she has sex in the dispatch room? Aren't there cameras at all? Maybe she got a kick out of it, more power to her I guess. Really put the "F" in WTF.

GhostBusters.

I like pie.

cys:

Am I the only one who saw TRWTF to be that she has sex in the dispatch room? Aren't there cameras at all? Maybe she got a kick out of it, more power to her I guess. Really put the "F" in WTF.

I believe the joke was that she "slept with" a co-worker (meaning they were both sleeping in the same room), not that they were actually having sex. If they did actually do the deed, I would expect more detailed accounting of the incident, preferably with video.

JJ:

What was the "orange button" she pressed that caused the fire ball?

MrEricSir:

It was the fireball button, duh!

Did the console have all the other Super Mario buttons? Or did Visalia (oops) low-ball the bid to Nintendo on that functionality as well?

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

999

0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

912. Don't you watch the Simpsons?

cys:

she has sex in the dispatch room

Read much?

jetcitywoman:

I've never had sex with a coworker, but that's the only time I've ever spent the night with a coworker also... right there in our office. I jokingly told him I always imagined it would be... better.

FredSaw:

cys:

she has sex in the dispatch room

Read much?

jetcitywoman:

I've never had sex with a coworker, but that's the only time I've ever spent the night with a coworker also... right there in our office. I jokingly told him I always imagined it would be... better.

She said she never had sex with a co-worker, but she didn't say anything about having sex in the dispatch room ;)

bonzombiekitty:

0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

The IT Crowd is great.

My favourite part of the two series is probably their spoof of a copyright notice at the beginning of a DVD, first episode of the second series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-3sBL_B_s

bonzombiekitty:

She said she never had sex with a co-worker, but she didn't say anything about having sex in the dispatch room ;)

I love your mind.

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

As an emergency response volunteer for the Red Cross, I can answer that very simply - they call us!

A simple Bravo for doing the kind of job that, as Mike Rowe says on the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs, "makes civilized possible for the rest of us", even in bogus and broken situations.

Cops, firefighters, paramedics, and all the other "first responders" and the folks who support them are the real heroes in our society and my hat is off to each and every one of you.

I've never had sex with a coworker

you've never had sex. period.

No matter what a co-worker says, there is no sex in the dispatch room...

bonzombiekitty:

0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

No, you send an e-mail to your local Firemen Department stating "FIRE!!!" and your full address ;)

Just to clarify... the orange button on the terminal server that I stupidly pressed was the internal circuit breaker. I learned that day that generally when a piece of equipment stops working and there's a smoky smell and the breaker pops, the last thing you should do is flip the breaker again. It pops for a very good reason.

A little postscript to add to the last part of the story is that after about 4 days of our heroic dispatchers doing their normal ordinary job while the county drowned around them (and the BATF stomped around looking important), the county bought and passed out "souvenir" t-shirts. On the back was the date of the event and something like "congrats for all of your hard work", followed by a list of all participating agencies. Where did we fall in the list? The last item which read "... and all other participating agencies". So yes, 911 dispatchers are VERY unappreciated even by their own employers. (I was PISSED.)

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

Everyone knows from the Simpsons that the real number is 912 anyway ;-)

jetcitywoman:

Just to clarify... the orange button on the terminal server that I stupidly pressed was the internal circuit breaker. I learned that day that generally when a piece of equipment stops working and there's a smoky smell and the breaker pops, the last thing you should do is flip the breaker again. It pops for a very good reason.

A little postscript to add to the last part of the story is that after about 4 days of our heroic dispatchers doing their normal ordinary job while the county drowned around them (and the BATF stomped around looking important), the county bought and passed out "souvenir" t-shirts. On the back was the date of the event and something like "congrats for all of your hard work", followed by a list of all participating agencies. Where did we fall in the list? The last item which read "... and all other participating agencies". So yes, 911 dispatchers are VERY unappreciated even by their own employers. (I was PISSED.)

Well, find another job, then. I'm assuming that it's not just the t-shirt thing.

Most of my family seems to think that "public service" is a goal in itself, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Unfortunately, there are "externatilies," as economists would say.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin would say,

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Kings, priests, county officials ... it's all the same thing. Not a single one of them cares about what you do. Ever.

I think you mean Coast Guard.
Don't YOU watch the Simpsons.

You know, I'd kind of like to have a button that, when pressed, caused a fireball to shoot in someone's face... There are a few folks around here that I would specifically direct to pushing it...

Yeah, they should sell these at staples...

Eli:

Isn't natural gas lighter than air? How could it "Flow Down" a parking ramp?

Propane is 42 g per mol (22 l), compared to air's 29 g. Buthane is 56g per mol.

Agreed.
As someone who until recently worked for one of the largest EMS radio system vendors (rhymes with Boat a Lola), I never really understood why we would spend roughly a staff week per line of code changed; I mean Im changing something trivial, why all the design, code review and all these tests; until I had time to tour a customer's trunked radio system server room with a Sr. systems engineer.

As I pointed to random infrastructure elements that made the radio network "just work. always", he would explain its primary, secondary and possibly tertiary fallback mode in case of power outage (and the UPS failed), network link (one of many, redundant) failed or random failure (each unit typically had at least one hot spare ready at all times). And some larger customers (major cities etc.) would have entire redundant systems in a hot spare facility located elsewhere.

So its a little amusing to read that while their radio system was still functioning, for lack of a UPS their dispatch consoles were blacked out.... how embarrassing.

real_aardvark:

jetcitywoman:

Just to clarify... the orange button on the terminal server that I stupidly pressed was the internal circuit breaker. I learned that day that generally when a piece of equipment stops working and there's a smoky smell and the breaker pops, the last thing you should do is flip the breaker again. It pops for a very good reason.

A little postscript to add to the last part of the story is that after about 4 days of our heroic dispatchers doing their normal ordinary job while the county drowned around them (and the BATF stomped around looking important), the county bought and passed out "souvenir" t-shirts. On the back was the date of the event and something like "congrats for all of your hard work", followed by a list of all participating agencies. Where did we fall in the list? The last item which read "... and all other participating agencies". So yes, 911 dispatchers are VERY unappreciated even by their own employers. (I was PISSED.)

Well, find another job, then. I'm assuming that it's not just the t-shirt thing.

Most of my family seems to think that "public service" is a goal in itself, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Unfortunately, there are "externatilies," as economists would say.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin would say,

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Kings, priests, county officials ... it's all the same thing. Not a single one of them cares about what you do. Ever.

She already found another job. At the beginning of the article, she said "... the dispatch center where I used to work."

jetcitywoman, I hope you are more appreciated at your new job. My hat's off to you for performing such a vital function.

I didn't mean to sound whiny like "they don't appreciate me, wahhh". I was pissed on behalf of the DISPATCHERS.

And the RWTF is not only that she never slept with a co-worker, she never sue no one of sexual harassment!

JJ:

What was the "orange button" he pressed that caused the fire ball?

The button was labeled "Down, Forward, Punch". What did she expect?

In the time I have been at my current job, we have had rain in the server room, (a pipe in the (concrete) ceiling burst), we have had several air con failures, including two that involved more water, our comms mast (on the building i work in) has been struck by lighning several times, although never when i have been at work :( and we have had an equipment room flooded, the water was mostly under the floor but the electrics (420V) didn't like it and it did cause a fire, and nearly flooded again.
This all made me glad that I am a programmer and it wasn't me staying in until late to baby sit electricians/air con engineers and what ever.

Am I the only person that did a double take on "downtown businesses that got their power turned off in the afternoons"? California businesses are OK with the electric company shutting down their power in the middle of the afternoon on a regular basis?

Alan:

jvanderb:

What I want to know is who does 911 call when they have an emergency?

999

You mean 666, don't you?

Morasique:

Am I the only person that did a double take on "downtown businesses that got their power turned off in the afternoons"? California businesses are OK with the electric company shutting down their power in the middle of the afternoon on a regular basis?

CA, NY and most major metro regions do rotating brownouts during periods of heavy load. It's a preventative measure to try and avoid a blackout.

snoofle:

You know, I'd kind of like to have a button that, when pressed, caused a fireball to shoot in someone's face... There are a few folks around here that I would specifically direct to pushing it...

Sounds like some circiut breakers reset button.If theres a short-circiut, the breaker could indeed blow apart, at least create a large arc when reset without clearing the fault first.

Morasique:

Am I the only person that did a double take on "downtown businesses that got their power turned off in the afternoons"? California businesses are OK with the electric company shutting down their power in the middle of the afternoon on a regular basis?

Sort of.

As have many areas, California has set up "rolling blackout" blocks in the event that there is a "power emergency" which would otherwise take down the entire power grid. These emergencies usually occur during the summer when air conditioners are running full blast.

During 2000 and 2001, when, it should be pointed out, Enron was manipulating the power grid in order to maximize profits and jawbone the state into some rather extortionate power futures contracts, we had a series of power shortages during some hot spells that required the California Independent System Operator (CalISO) to declare "Stage 3" emergencies.

Regions of the power grid were shut down.

You can learn more at the link above.

These event, fortunately, are fairly infrequent.

rudle:

I think you mean Coast Guard.
Don't YOU watch the Simpsons.

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F09.html

California has a weird energy regulation ploicy that causes the brown outs. Power generation is de-regulated and sold on an open energy market so that the price of electricity from generating plants can vary to demand levels in real time, but power distribution is still regulated, so utilities cannot charge the end customer more. During heavy load the price of electricity to the utility company spikes, but since they can't charge the end customer more money, delivering the electricity becomes immensely un-profitable, and they do rolling brown-outs to save money. At least that's how it was in the Enron days, maybe they've fixed it now.

rohanprabhu:

I've never had sex with a coworker

you've never had sex. period.

What is this "sex" that you speak of?