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Murphy's Law...

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The Physics Police were strictly enforcing Murphy's law this morning. You see, my first period class is IMMD - interactive multi media design- and one of our chief responsibilites is running the school's video announcments every morning.

And everything that could possibly have gone wrong with the computer did!

-While trying to save our video template, the computer locked up and we lost EVERYTHING we were supposed to announce today, and had to retype it.

-Upon completion of the template, I was instucted to restart the computer. I did so, and when it rebooted, the resolution was auto set to 600*800. The video software doesn't work at that res.

-When we finally got that sorted out, the camera stopped working. We got that ifxed, but it was too late to go by that time. Gotta run..

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Well, bad thing happens. Good things too, we just don't think about it...

Chaltab how is your father? Is he out of the hospital?
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Chaltab your school has already started?
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Originally posted by: Warbler
Chaltab your school has already started?


Yes. Don't rub it in.

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Originally posted by: ricarleite
Well, bad thing happens. Good things too, we just don't think about it...

Chaltab how is your father? Is he out of the hospital?


He is. He's at home now. It will probably be a few months before his hand heals up enough to use it for anything major, though.

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab




Yes. Don't rub it in.


I'll try not to.

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab


He is. He's at home now. It will probably be a few months before his hand heals up enough to use it for anything major, though.


I hope you father gets better Chaltab.
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You have video display monitors in your school?
Man, it hasn't been THAT long since I left school, has it?

War does not make one great.

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I graduated from high school last year and every classroom had a video monitor, along with VHS and DVD, and a decent computer.

Best wishes to your father Chaltab!

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!

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Originally posted by: bad_karma24
I graduated from high school last year and every classroom had a video monitor, along with VHS and DVD, and a decent computer.


That's pretty much how my school is. Not ever room currently has a DVD player, but all of them have TVs, or at least are supposed to.

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Originally posted by: bad_karma24

Best wishes to your father Chaltab!


Thanks...

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab

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Originally posted by: bad_karma24

Best wishes to your father Chaltab!


Thanks...


Same here.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
You have video display monitors in your school?
Man, it hasn't been THAT long since I left school, has it?


I KNOW its been that long since I've left.... dammit.

I did the morning anouncments as well- spoken over a crackley microphone and played out over crackley mono speakers in each class room. The prep work was done on these technologocal marvels called 'index cards', on which the announcement material was etched using something called a 'pen'.

sigh



(counts gray hairs... at least the ones his wife doesn't pluck out while he's sleeping)
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Stop it, Greencapt, you're bringing back low-tech high school memories. I think there were between eight and twelve TVs in my HS, all of which rode around on carts with a VCR tagging along. I think a couple of the VCRs might have been old-style-even-then top loaders. The teachers just looooved having to scrounge up a TV for a video lesson; the smart ones would make their reservation weeks ahead.
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Originally posted by: Darth Enzo
Stop it, Greencapt, you're bringing back low-tech high school memories. I think there were between eight and twelve TVs in my HS, all of which rode around on carts with a VCR tagging along. I think a couple of the VCRs might have been old-style-even-then top loaders. The teachers just looooved having to scrounge up a TV for a video lesson; the smart ones would make their reservation weeks ahead.

HaHa. So true.

War does not make one great.

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Originally posted by: Darth Enzo
Stop it, Greencapt, you're bringing back low-tech high school memories. I think there were between eight and twelve TVs in my HS, all of which rode around on carts with a VCR tagging along. I think a couple of the VCRs might have been old-style-even-then top loaders. The teachers just looooved having to scrounge up a TV for a video lesson; the smart ones would make their reservation weeks ahead.


We had those too, only fewer, maybe 4. I enjoyed when teachers used those because I didn't have to write anything and I could sleep .

Later on, my highschool built this nice theater thing with around 50 seats and a video projector, and some soundspeakers on the side of the walls. Kinda neat, althought the projector was too high and deformed the image (the bottom was bigger than the top). I remember one day where the history teacher asked us to seat closer to the screen because the sound of the tape wasn't so good. I tried to argument with her that the sound didnt come from the projected wall but from the soundspeakers, but it was useless.

I remember the first computers we had back in highschool, pre-historic green-coloured monitors, we used to program in LOGO on those. Took us forever to calculate on paper and later program it to draw a star onscreen. (I belive that program was used to create the death star plans animation sequence for ANH) - When I gratuated they had changed to something like Pentium 133 though
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Originally posted by: greencapt
I KNOW its been that long since I've left.... dammit.

I did the morning anouncments as well- spoken over a crackley microphone and played out over crackley mono speakers in each class room. The prep work was done on these technologocal marvels called 'index cards', on which the announcement material was etched using something called a 'pen'.

sigh



(counts gray hairs... at least the ones his wife doesn't pluck out while he's sleeping)


Same here on all counts (save for me delivering the morning announcements). Pen, index cards, grey hairs being plucked. However, on that last point, I do get a bit ticked. One time we were at her parents' house for a family party and I was sitting on the floor while she was on the couch behind me. She reached down and plucked out a grey hair in front of everybody. I turned to her and said "what the heck are you doing?", she said "plucking a grey hair", I said "why?", she said "it's grey", I said "it's attached and, so long as it's attached, I could care less what color it is", one of her uncles said "amen!"

Oh, and to age us even more, I took my keyboarding class on a typewriter. Remember those?
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
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Kevin A
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kapgar.com
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LOL!

I hate when she tries to pluck mine too. I'm hoping for a 'Reed Richards' thing going in th next few years.

I only had one class with typing (trying to remember what it was called- 'business skills' or something... it had typing, basic accounting, and shorthand lessons- this being junior high) and we used real typewriters as well.
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I remember using BBC Micro computers. Don't know if they were marketed in America. If not, check it out:
aliross.co.uk/museum/ acorn/bbcb/index.phphttp://aliross.co.uk/museum/acorn/bbcb/index.php

By the time I graduated they had upgraded to shitty PCs running Windows 3.1, although windows 95 was the current version. My school was just ghetto and cheap I guess.

War does not make one great.

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Originally posted by: Bossk

Oh, and to age us even more, I took my keyboarding class on a typewriter. Remember those?


IBM Selectric, oh yeah! I hated that class, because I had this bad-ass Smith Corona electronic typewriter at home that could do magical things like erase your mistakes for you, either a character or a word at a time. Not only did we have to buy our own paper, but this sharpenable eraser with a brush on the other end. I barely passed the class (got a 72, <70=F) and didn't really learn to properly type until I got to college and spent endless hours perusing newsgroups and jibber-jabbering with other folks (often in the same room) over the university mainframe. ADigitalMan knows what I'm talking about.
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I didnt take such classes, but I had a mechanical typewriter at home. One day the typewriter tape ended, and I tried to improvise by using carbon paper on it... Belive it or not, I still use carbon paper nowadays.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Heh heh, I used carbon paper a couple of times to affix my mom's signature to things she didn't actually need to see...
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Originally posted by: Bossk
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Originally posted by: greencapt
I KNOW its been that long since I've left.... dammit.

I did the morning anouncments as well- spoken over a crackley microphone and played out over crackley mono speakers in each class room. The prep work was done on these technologocal marvels called 'index cards', on which the announcement material was etched using something called a 'pen'.

sigh



(counts gray hairs... at least the ones his wife doesn't pluck out while he's sleeping)


Same here on all counts (save for me delivering the morning announcements). Pen, index cards, grey hairs being plucked. However, on that last point, I do get a bit ticked. One time we were at her parents' house for a family party and I was sitting on the floor while she was on the couch behind me. She reached down and plucked out a grey hair in front of everybody. I turned to her and said "what the heck are you doing?", she said "plucking a grey hair", I said "why?", she said "it's grey", I said "it's attached and, so long as it's attached, I could care less what color it is", one of her uncles said "amen!"
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Wow, That's hilarious.

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We actually did (and still do) our morning announcements over an intercom on the phone. We aren't advanced enough yet to have a full on video program .

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!

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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
By the time I graduated they had upgraded to shitty PCs running Windows 3.1, although windows 95 was the current version. My school was just ghetto and cheap I guess.


This makes it even worse, the middle school (grades 6-8) I was in from 1987-89 had Apple II GS computers. Great computers at the time. But then I had to take the step backwards when I made it to high school to use a typewriter. And the "computers" (I use that word very loosely) that my high school finally got were jokes. IBMs running OS/2.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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Darth Chaltab, there is a law called "Gumperson's Law" that is an offshoot of Murphy's Law. My family was born under the sign of Gumperson. It states "If anything can go wrong, it will happen to ME."

edit: Well, that's how dad always taught it to me. Actually, here is a better synopsis of Gumperson's Law and what it ACTUALLY says:

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Gumperson's Law, as explained below, accounts for the fact that you can throw a burned match out the window of your car and start a forest fire, while you can use two boxes of matches and a whole edition of the Sunday paper without being able to start a fire under the dry logs in your fireplace.

The law, stated simply, is "THE CONTRADICTORY OF A WELCOME PROBABILITY WILL ASSERT ITSELF WHENEVER SUCH AN EVENT IS LIKELY TO BE MOST FRUSTRATING."

Readers familiar with these matters will perhaps recognize another version of the Law: The Outcome of a Given Desired Probability will be Inverse to the Degree of Desirability.

Dr. R.F. Gumperson, internationally famous physicist, began serious work in 1938 on a phenomenon long known to scientists, but up until then considered as a mere curiosity. This was the fact that the forecasting record of the Weather Bureau, despite its use of the most advanced equipment and highly trained personnel, was not as good as that of the Farmers' Almanac. After four years of research, Dr. Gumperson enunciated his now famous law and was able to make a series of predictions later confirmed by other workers in the field. Some of the better known of these include the following:

(1) That after a raise in pay you will have less money at the end of the month than you had before.

(2) That the girl at the race track who bets according to the color of the jockey's shirt will pick more winners than the man who studied the past performance of every horse on the program.

(3) That children have more energy after a hard day of play than they do after a good night's sleep.

(4) That the person who buys the most raffle tickets has the least chance of winning the raffle.

(5) That a child can be exposed to mumps for weeks without catching them, but can catch them without exposure the day before the family vacation.

(6) That the dishwasher will break down the evening you give dinner for ten.

(7) That the parking spaces are always on the other side of the street.

Dr. Gumperson served as a consultant to the armed services during World War II and evolved the procedure whereby the more a recruit knew about a given subject, the better chance he had of receiving an assignment elsewhere.

There is no knowing to what further glittering heights Dr. Gumperson's genius could have led him had it not been for his untimely death in 1947. Strolling along the highway one evening, he was obeying the pedestrian rules of walking to the left, wearing light clothing, and facing traffic. He was (hit) from behind by a Hillman-Minx, driven by an English visitor (driving on the wrong) side of the road.


--taken from here.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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Originally posted by: Bossk
IBMs running OS/2.


Hey... If it wasn't for IBM, Windows would be OS/2. It was developed by Microsoft and since it didnt have a commercial success, it was abandoned. A friend of mine had OS/2, he said that you could open the file manager and WATCH as the free space on disk got slowly lower, even though the user was not doing anything at all - kinda like watching a sunset, only not as fun or beautiful.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering