Big numbers

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

Sometime back in the early 90s, I bought my first PC.

At the time, I wanted a top of the range model, as I wanted it to be future proof.  I therefore went for the maximum amount of memory and a huge hard disk size.  Everyone said I was mad, and that I would never be able to fill the hard disk, but I went ahead and bought it anyway.

It had 2Mb of memory, and the hard disk was a massive 40Mb.  It was a very fast PC too, and ran at 16Mhz.  I was the envy of the office.  It was worth every penny of the £1,800 I spent.

I’m writing this on a laptop.  It cost me under €800.  It has 2Gb of memory and a 250Gb hard disk.

So it has 1,000 times the memory, and 62,500 times the hard disk space, and cost about one third the price.

Grandad uses the laptop from time to time, and has filled up most of the hard disk with his files.  Frankly, I’m a bit wary of those files, and I’m a bit scared to look at them, but he is very possessive about them so I have to leave them there.  He says it took him a long time to find those files on the Internet and has threatened violence if I remove them.

I decided to buy myself some additional hard disk space.  It is a 1Tb drive.  A Terabyte is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or the equivalent to 25,000 times my original PC’s capacity.  Numbers like that scare me a little.

I am expecting delivery any time.  My problem is that if Grandad finds out about it, he is going to appropriate it for his vast collection of images.

How many glossy photos can you store in a Terabyte?

A hell of a lot, I would imagine…

While the mouse is away

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

Himself is out at the moment.  I’m not sure where he has gone, and frankly I don’t care.  It’s just a relief to have a bit of peace and quiet about the place.

I’m trying to catch up on a bit of work today, which isn’t easy as the client keeps changing the goal posts.  The joys of running my own business! 

I have been trying to run this business into the ground for the last few months, as I’m getting too old for this lark, and I fancy taking things a bit easier.  When the recession came along I thought it was a gift from Heaven.

What happened?

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since! 

I’m turning away work, which is a pain, but it has to be done.

Oh God!

I’m listening to Rick O’Shea on the radio [Himself hates the radio on during the day] and what happens? 

Rick has just read out a message from Grandad!

Is there any way I can get away from that Bastard?

An Introduction

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

If any of you have been reading that other blog Head Rambles, you will know Grandad who is a crusty old bastard.

You will also know that he doesn’t do his own typing.  That is all done by ‘The Other Fella’.

Well, that’s me.

For the last couple of years he has been ranting and generally venting his spleen on an unfortunate world, and I have had to put up with it.  I have had to tolerate every single word of his ravings.

I thought the time was ripe for me to set up my own site, as a means of retaining some of the sanity that remains.  Now I will be able to write as I want, and not as that cantankerous old bastard dictates.

I’m not yet sure what I will be writing about.  Maybe some of my own thoughts?  Maybe some of the true stories about Grandad?

This could be interesting?