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29th
September 2115
Overheard a sad conversation
today. Helen was talking to her sister on the phone.
'GAT's at it again.'
'Really, I'm so sorry to hear
that Helen. And after all that therapy . . . '
'Yes, the curse of addiction.
I guess I just have to support him as much as possible.'
'Yes, yes . . ' & other
soothing noises.
'And he's taking pictures as
he goes along.' Helen was close to tears.
'No!'
And what, I hear you ask, is
this terrible socially blighted habit GAT suffers from? Drugs, drink, compulsive
pole-dancing?
Well, no, he's started
building another model train layout:
21st
September 2115
Globalbot Ships Spare Part
Robo-Reuters: Saturday
21st September 2115
Filton, Europa -- (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Golbalot.Corp. (LASHDAQ-100), a supplier of advanced robotic equipment and
related automated technologies for the global robotics industry, today announced
it had shipped a spare part.
'Given our current incoming shortage
list exceeds 6,000,000 parts, this is nothing short of a miracle,' commented P
Unchbag, Globalbot International Spares Co-ordinator, 'and it may be several
weeks or even months before another one turns up. Frankly, I don't think I can
survive another tour of our key accounts. '
Industry analysts have been tracking
the situation for some time as desperate users of Globalbot robots sought
alternative sources of supply such as stealing bits from each other, or
improvising with Lego Technic, Mechano or parts from model trainsets.
Duwkits, Head of Manufacturing
Operations at Globalbot made his position clear, 'No one's having any of my
parts!'
Safe Harbor:
This press release may give the reader Globalbot is experiencing difficulty
supplying spare parts; this may or may not be entirely due to the absence of
spare parts in stock, which in turn is linked to the observed fact that nothing
ever turns up in Goods In, which in itself may or may not be related to the huge
pile of unpaid invoices in the corner of accounts, the implication of which is
that 'cash' and 'flow' have become disparate concepts within the current
Globalbot entity.
20th
September 2115
16th
September 2115
Today, I merely offer you Gerald's recent
post from the world of student socks:
After the great amount of interest in my
previous sock post here follows the official
sock audit. If you have been tagged it is
because of your initial interest in this
project, I am very grateful as I could not
have completed this great task had it not
been for people who have taken their
valuable time to express an interest. Note
it does not include counts of any socks MiA
which includes socks which have been
vapourised, decapitated, lost in the wash,
left behind or dissolved in rain. I would
estimate this number to be ~20 socks. Please
feel free to take a moment to remember these
valiant marchers.
11 socks in holes.
Almost in holes:
[3+1/2 pairs Navy (1/2 to be paired with
good as new navy sock below), 1 pair tuesday (M&S),
1 pair sunday (M&S), + 5 odd socks (Monday
and Wednesday have been paired as have Saturday
and Thursday. A stray music sock
will be paired with another differently
patterned music sock below*)].
Good as new socks:
[7 pairs of black socks (newest), 1+1/2
pairs of navy (1/2 to be paired with above),
3 pairs (wednesday, thursday, friday)
(Tesco Home), 1 pair football patterned
socks, 1 pair santa claus socks, 3 odd socks
(note Monday will be paired with Tuesday to
make a pair (Tesco Home) and *music sock
pairing)].
Finally 2 socks that aren't mine and are
odd.
Summary: 23 pairs of socks (after odd
pairings) 11 in holes, and 2 that I don't
own leaving no odd ones.
15th
September 2115
%^&*ing software upgrades!
I got upgraded to the latest
Unibot release and now I get messages as above right in the middle of my field
of vision every time I do ANYTHNG!!
I tried composing a letter of
complaint to Pyschosoft, but my vision kept coming up with:
Oo-er! Maybe I'll just click
'no' this time . . .
12th
September 2115
The new TINFOE ERP
implementation continues to go spiffingly.
Time taken to load Globalbot
company data: 78.51 hours.
Time taken on completion to
ascertain it contained errors: 0.18 seconds.
8th
September 2115
4th
September 2115
From: Percy Knell, HR Director
To: All Staff & Corporate Robots
Subject: Ear tickling
incident
Dear All,
It is with great regret that I have
to inform you that there has been an unprovoked ear tickling incident at
Globalbot. May I remind you that Globalbot operates a zero-tolerance policy
towards unprovoked ear-tickling, and that the site is designated a
non-ear-tickling zone except for the designated ear-tickling area. Also, if a
Globalbot employee is a victim of an unprovoked ear-tickling incident while at
work, Globalbot will provide therapy sessions at the Unprovoked Ear Tickling
Trauma Centre free of charge.
Regards,
Percy Knell
HR Director
Globalbot Inc.
29th
August 2115
Globalbot Files Patent
Application for Perpetual Confusion
Robo-Reuters: Wednesday
28th
August 2115
Filton, Europa -- (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Golbalot.Corp. (LASHDAQ-100), a supplier of advanced robotic equipment and
related automated technologies for the global robotics industry, today announced
it had filed a patent application for perpetual confusion.
'What? I didn't know that,'
commented Graham Cracker, CEO of Golboblat, 'Who told you that?'
GAT, DIRT
Engineering director added, 'We operate in a state of continuous confusion
anyway, so progressing to a state of perpetual confusion just came naturally to
us.'
Industry experts
are divided over the significance of this development, some thinking it matters,
others not, and yet more not taking the slightest interest. It is likely that
competitors will ignore this development unless they don't, in which case they
might try and licence the concept in spite of a lack of clarity on what,
exactly, Globalbot intend to confuse on a perpetual basis.
Safe Harbor:
Some of the information above is correct and some isn't, nobody seems to know.
There may be some facts, but then again maybe not. Anyway, I wouldn't trust it
either way. Globalbot corporate announcements and 'pinch of salt' should be
deemed as related entities at all times.
24th
August 2115
GAT in mild to serious
trouble, yet again, after entering in TroubleNET™
the root cause of a long-running robot reliability problem as 'The customer is a
Muppet!'
22nd
August 2115
! ! ! !
! ! ! !
! ! ! !
Oh dear, the pains of two
weeks out of the writhing Globalbot e-loop nexus of banality.
You have 2,681 new emails, of
which 780 are URGENT.
'And, of which, 2,145 are
instantly deletable and another 326 are only of interest to e-historians.' added
GAT.
The prize for the most
relevant email of the lot was, strangely, went to a SPAM entry:
Subject: Email Zen:
7 Secrets To Achieving Inbox Happiness
1. Open up email
2. Let inbox update
fully
3. DO NOT OPEN ANY
EMAIL
4. 'Highlight' all
in inbox
5. Press delete
6. Sit in sunshine
with good book and glass of wine
7. On receipt of
angry phone calls from colleagues, deny you speak English.
16th
August 2115
Canal boat holidays -
Relaxing, laid-back, slow-paced, what can possibly go wrong?
And that's a narrow boat, not
a long boat (GAT told some friends he was off on holiday on a longboat - now
that would be different: rape & pillage, arson, crapping over the side, big grey
beards).
5th
August 2115
Risk Assessment: Water Leak
Risks:
1. Drowning
2. Sea level
rise
3. Rot
4. Despair
Control Measures:
1. Carry scuba
equipment at all times
2. Relocate to
a property on higher ground
3. Hairdryer
4. Go for a
swim
3rd
August 2115
Great excitement in the art
world as a previously unknown painting by Claude Monet: 'The Project Plan', has
been put up for auction in London.
Next week: The Product
Roadmap, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
28th
July 2115
'%&*#ing TINFOE!'
yelled GAT in the middle of a test run on our thrilling new ERP system TINFOE®
which is due to replace the
current CRIPEL ORIBAL™
any second.
'You need an IQ of 300 to
figure out the configurator.'
It didn't start well when his
first attempt to build a configurator opened with the question:
'Would
you like to add a glove puppet to each robot build? Y / N'
Then he thought he'd
configured:
But the simulated outcome indicated:
26th
July 2115
Someone noticed today that the
purchase authority approval routings on ORIBAL™
had unexpectedly and spontaneously lapsed and engineers were free to order
anything they fancied.
'Quick!' cried Doom, 'Order a
battleship and see if one turns up.'
24th
July 2115
Apparently someone called 'TY'
has joined the Globalbot board as a prelude to Globalbot buying out Beanie
Babybot Inc and merging it with its Toybot division.
'It's bad news for toddlers,'
commented an industry analyst, 'It's likely there'll be an extensive
rationalisation in beanie types available.'
Neither company was prepared
to comment further.
Beanie Board - 'No Comment'
18th
July 2115
TO: Everyone at Globalbot Filton
FROM:
Manufacturing Test
SUBJECT: Missing tool
Dear All,
If you
have taken the tool shown above, or know if its whereabouts, then please return
it immediately to Manufacturing Test as we have a serious backlog of
malfunctioning Unibots that's holding up critical shipments.
Thank
you.
This is a case for Thinkbot's
Detective Agency. Current theories:
1. Someone has taken it on a
camping trip.
2. One of the 'malfunctioning
Unibots' has pilfered it in self-defence.
3. A member of the League for
Prevention of Cruelty to Unibots has removed this tool of oppression from the
perpetrators and hidden it in his/her/its bottom desk drawer pending the
Glorious Unibot Revolution.
4. It's been shipped somewhere
and we merely have to await the 'Unexpected Wooden Mallet in Ship Kit'
TroubleNET to pop up.
5. Someone has borrowed it to
try and get their change out of a canteen Vendbot.
17th
July 2115
The human race is rational?
Yes?
Well, get this. Someone finds
a four-leafed clover and takes it as a sign some sporting event or romantic
adventure is certain to succeed.
What happens when it does not
work out?
Does the human just admit it
was all a load of bunkum?
No, guess what? - the human
assumes the clover was defective.
Merely a failure of 4-leafed
clover quality control, 'Trust me to get a dud . . .' etc.
Or to paraphrase in black swan
terms, 'Someone found a 4-leafed clover and they won the lottery. How many
people found 4-leafed clovers and didn't win the lottery?'
12th
July 2115
When language goes wrong.
Enquiry to stores on stocking
levels . . .
7th
July 2115
TECHNCAL SUPPORT BULLETIN
Dear Mr T Bot,
Thanks
you for your enquiry regarding a replacement 15 Vdc power supply for your leg
control drive.
This
TSB is to inform your that, regretfully, DC BOTPOWER INC. have announced a
global shortage of leg control power supplies, and no units will be generally
available until March 2116 at the earliest. When spares do come available,
robots unable to walk at all will be supplied as a priority, followed by those
with only one leg operational. Globalbot therefore sincerely hopes that the
fault you are experiencing is minor, and that you are able to limp along for the
next few months. Globalbot apologises for any inconvenience caused.
Best
Regards,
Globalbot Chronic Spares Support Team
Well, the name says it all.
And as for the limp along pun . . .
'Don't worry Thinkbot,'
comforted Doom, 'I'll find you a bit of scrap metal to use as a crutch, or
perhaps Rabbit can adapt a Hornby PSU for you.'
'Or, on the other hand, you
could stand still for 8 months and get yourself up the priority list,' observed
GAT.
4th
July 2115
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