Down here at the US sales office of a computer hardware manufacturer
 

I often think about this. I wish I could be as "true confessional" as the previous Down Here threads, but now it comes back to true confessions could hurt me. That's how it is in a kind of professional salaried situation, isn't it - if I lost my job or screwed things up at the tweaker's, who gives a shit? When the stakes are a higher, there's no call for confessing much of anything. And besides, I do like these people ok, even though there is some drama and personalities involved. Like there is in any situation involving people.

And besides, there's not as much of a story here - I guess - which is a good thing - I guess.

Moar Plz. I have an inquiring mind.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Well, damn, dude, if there's nothing happening, make sumpin up!

What? The media does it all the time.

Absolutely, and they don't have to even explain, hurt their feelings, tape a review to the cubicle, you're gone.
Any and every, it comes with the people, but at least you can get away from it at the end of the day.

There has been a flurry of support activity around our video wall product. I always love it when I find out the installations are interesting. Yesterday I worked on a wall that will be a part of the local news set of an ABC TV affiliate in Oregon. Today I worked on a wall that will be decor in the World Series of Poker.

So what exactly is it that you do for the walls? I assume they come with some kind of controlling computer, they aren't just hooked up to whatever the folks have on site?

We make and sell these controlling computers, a unit the size of a small briefcase, and it splits a video signal up into multiple signals to create a wall. One source can be split into as many as 64 different sources, in case you wanted an 8 by 8 wall, or something huge like that.

But it's not always easy to see how the whole thing fits together. Also there are always issues that come about when people are trying to convert the signal from one type to another.

In the case of the TV station, they bought a box to convert their old standard def signal into an HDMI signal, and then they converted that to DVI to use our box. The gear that they used to do the first conversion didn't do it in a way that supported a digital signal that our box could interpret correctly.

In the case of the World Series, they had correctly built content that was a moving stripe, and couldn't figure out from our setup guide how to build a 3x1 horizontal wall to show the stripe.

This thing is driven by my company's technology

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7...n-times-square

TERRIFYING

It IS terrifying. They are claiming that it's dropping frames.

Blame Hardware, STAT!

tell them to turn it off, unplug it, then turn it back on again.

Yesterday I helped a gent who was setting up a video wall for a big Netflix premiere in NYC. He said he was sound designer for the NY Philharmonic.

Today it was an issue at a huge wall at a major Vegas casino.

Hey, it's tech support.

Kick ass tech support, you mean.

Whoa!

You are certainly meeting a higher class of people than at your previous job.

Hi Katkeeper. :hug:

I've been lurking. I thought I had lost my password but found that it was EXACTLY WHERE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN! Who knew?

'ello, katkeeper! good to see your name again. think i'll write you a pome


that right there is katkeeper
she's been missing, we thought she was asleep her
son is no longer working in a creeper
now he's a big shot working with pixel peepers
leave that tea bag in and let it steep her
cup is full and hot and she likes it strong enough to make you weep ...er
...something

Outstanding!! Thanks!!

Hiy Katkeeper! Been ages since I've seen you!

Oh there is so much I want to tell you!

And so much I can't say.

I will say this. It's not bragging. I think I like being my age. The perspective is marvelous, to look at the bigger picture and be able to see so much more of it.

That's the luxury of 50-something. More self-awareness. More other-awareness. The great benefit of humility. It's all very interesting. We have a 20-something in the office now, young sales gent, and he so plainly has none of any of that, it's really kind of amazing. I mean, he has all the benefits of 20-somethingness and I appreciate that. You need that. I'm happy to be past it. That's all I'm saying.

~

These days, because I work in this particular bit of technology and it's all new, I get a lot of nirvana-like moments, where I come to understand it all in new ways. I think all of us have these moments. Someone explains a piece of technology, or something, and suddenly, the bigger picture becomes more clear. It's fun to have this happen, if you're geeky. But technology jobs usually find some way to wring all the joy part out of it. These days, I'm a little ahead of that curve, so I'm getting the enjoyable part without the greedhead joy-wringing part.

Sweet. There is something about making 50. I feel more balanced.

Life begins at 50.

I was surprised and flattered when one of the other guys at work (he's 21) spoke to me in private and started by saying "I think you're the wisest guy here." "Wow, thanks" I said, and then we talked about some heavy personal stuff in his life.

The work duties certainly don't require anything like that, though the balance and lower center of emotional gravity I've developed over the decades does help me. I'm reminded of how this idea was expressed by Lazarus Long, as recorded by Robert Heinlein.

Guess whose gear was adding an almost-imperceptible black vertical line to one of these displays:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregio...k-skyline.html

It doesn't do that any more... just in time for the opening

I was involved in fixing it, but only phase one support (basically saying, "oh this will be one for the engineers...")

That is so fucking cool! I love it. I want to ride that elevator.

Wow ... very cool.

*sigh* flash crashes every time I try to play that.

I thought about you when they were showing the "glass floor" which was really screens 5 inches below the glass floor with real time cameras showing what was going on below.

You know what, it probably was that! They didn't tell me which display had the issue, but it was a capture device that introduced the problem, so it had to have been real-time video.

I can't wait to see it... not because of my tiny involvement!

The did a tour on the Today Show one morning last week. I'd seen the up elevator on the net, but not the down elevator or the glass floor. They said they expect two or three million visitors a year so for $32 you get a lot of assholes and elbows. I guess it won't be long before people start posting the best and worst time to visit. Of course weather can play hell with the best laid plans of mice and tourists.

Maybe you could wear a company hardhat/clipboard and get an off hours visit. When I was working for Westinghouse at a power plant in Centralia, WA, I took a ride out to Grand Coulee Dam where Westinghouse was replacing two turbine/generators. Introduced myself to the boss man and he let me roam at will. Even got to climb the ladders down into the squirrel cage the turbine sets in by just signing the clipboard of some college kid they hired to count the heads going in and out of the hole.