💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › ebooks › bofh › bofh › tradeshow.txt captured on 2021-12-04 at 18:04:22.
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TThhee BBaassttaarrdd ggooeess ttoo tthhee TTrraaddee SShhooww
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I decide to kill some time by dropping into a Computer Trade show to
"sense the new direction of the market and Investigate emerging trends",
i.e. I'll spend a shitload of the company's cash on food and drink and
give a couple of salespeople a hard time they won't forget.
Well, that's how the normal bastard would do it, but not me. I really
get remembered. All I need now is an acronym.... Hmmm...
I get there and two stalls promptly close when they see me coming, (poor
losers), but theres 4 or 5 newbies that look like easy meat. I centre on
a vendor that's trying to push their unix compliance with every ISO
standard except hygene and start talking 7-figure site upgrades.
Ignoring his panting, I continue to talk, harping on about our
requirement for complance with currently emerging standards till he
takes the ball and runs with it.
"Ah well, you see, we're THE foremost company in compliant systems"
(turd) "In fact, our projected market share is.... blah blah blah.."
I let him dig his hole nice and deep. He's sure that 2 years at
University has prepared him for the hardball arena of BIG $ales.
"Yes" I cut in "But all this is irrelevant without a Dynamically
Allocated Heap and some Transient Intuitive Hardware System. Are you
D.A.E.H.T.I.H.S compliant?"
"Sorry?"
"Dynamic Allocation of Extra Heap and the Transient Intuitive Hardware
Standard, D.A.E.H.T.I.H.S. It's THE most important thing to come out of
ISO this DECADE! I guess you don't have an implementation path yet
then?"
"Tell you what" he says, smelling a deal "The Regional Manager is on the
Showroom floor somewhere. I'll track him down and get an answer for
you?"
"Well, that would be great!" I say, trying to enthuse him and keep him
from staring at the acronym for too long. "But I'm a bit pressed for
time, I've got a flight in..."
He runs off. The Regional Manager is no dummy. They're trained to
recognise "SHITHEAD" spelt backwards. And upside down. And reverse. And
lipread.
One stall down, 4 to go. I troll up to the next..
"Hi there, what form of hardware solution are you looking for?" Mr
Smiles says (In other words, how can I tuck you for an extra grand)
"Well I don't really know. I need a fast and expandable machine that's
top of the line but also capable of talking to my old luggable laptop."
Mr Smiles likes the words "Fast", "Top of the Line" and "Expandable". He
runs over to a machine surrounded in glitter and advertising and
gestures at it. "This is probably what you want then. The latest thing.
There's only two in the country and luckily we have one here today"
"Yes yes, but will it talk to my laptop?"
"THIS baby will talk to ANYTHING. What's the interface, ethernet?"
"No, a SCSI-1 Interface. My machine pretends to be a disk, ID 3. But
lots of machines kill my machine's powersupply with inductive transience
backflow due to a non-standard SCSI interface...
>DUMMY MODE ONE<
He practically BEGS me to try the new machine out. Which I've been
waiting for. I drag out my luggable, which is, admittedly, a bit of a
beast.
"Wow! That IS old!! And >ungh!<.. quite heavy too. I guess you're quite
attached to it?"
I mumble about legacy data, only use it at home, sentimental value and
irreplaceable software while he plugs it in and starts the host machine.
"Okay, let's see what we can see" he says, and presses the power-on
switch on my "portable" The 31 hefty nicad batteries that make up almost
the entire inside of my "laptop" pour grunt into a tripling inverter
which in turn supplies RICH, CHUNKY VOLTS to alternate pins on the
"SCSI" bus, whilst emitting a dull "uuurk" sound.
"My Laptop!" I cry, reaching for it, just as smoke starts pouring out
the back of the display machine. Mr Smiles dives for the demo machine
weeping, while I exit, in "anguish"....
...resetting the circuit breaker in my machine as I go...
..to the next stall...
"Hi there, you look like someone who needs an upgrade!" the salesman
chirps
"Well I don't really know. Is any of your stuff capable of talking to my
luggable laptop?"
"HELL YES!"
One born every minute.
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