What's this?

[Lah Ca]

"Field tests"? You mean taking a portable out on a picnic?

Potato salad is nice on a picnic.

It is early morning here, and the coffee has not kicked in. And in my half awake state, my mind tends to wander into random lateral thought which sometimes brings up old memories.

Among many other jobs, I worked for a time in IT service, mostly in the small/medium business space, years and years ago. There was the phone code word, PICNIC, used when checking in with management back at the IT business. The word allowed a succinct explanation of a certain subset of IT issues, one that could be spoken tactfully within earshot of the client on site.

"Hey boss, it was a picnic."

Idiomatically this can mean it was an easy problem to fix. But as an acronym, it had a very different meaning: Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.

[poodling around]

"Field tests"? You mean taking a portable out on a picnic?

Potato salad is nice on a picnic.

It is early morning here, and the coffee has not kicked in. And in my half awake state, my mind tends to wander into random lateral thought which sometimes brings up old memories.

Among many other jobs, I worked for a time in IT service, mostly in the small/medium business space, years and years ago. There was the phone code word, PICNIC, used when checking in with management back at the IT business. The word allowed a succinct explanation of a certain subset of IT issues, one that could be spoken tactfully within earshot of the client on site.

"Hey boss, it was a picnic."

Idiomatically this can mean it was an easy problem to fix. But as an acronym, it had a very different meaning: Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.

Your idea of 'random lateral thought' made me think of this - and I don't have any chocolate in the house ... so I am now sad

[poodling around]

Who has not held the stylus bar between finger and thumb whilst playing a record and discovered it softened the sound and made the record less hissy?

When a kid, when tubing gaskets were all hard as a rock and all soundboxes yelled awfully harsh, I used to do it all of the times.

That was long before the idea that anything like the internet was going to exist, and that I would learn that stuff like gaskets existed at all, and were replaceable, and that the tubing with which to do the job could be purchased by mail. Since then I no longer felt the need to hold my finger against anything.

You now make me wonder if these gizmos were purchased long ago as a remedy for prematurely hardened gaskets.

It may be also "amusing" to consider how the manufacturers insisted in their ads that their machines deployed a "loud, clear, ringing tone", while most customers complained about it and tried in many ways to dampen it a bit.

As far as sound-boxes are concerned some companies went a lot further than simply trying 'to dampen it a bit' .....................

............... if these were used I guess there would be no sound at all !!!!

[Inigo]

how are the needles inside? Wood? Rubber? No needles at all, so you don't play the machine?