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It has been a week since my last post

Its not for a lack of desire, its just been a little busy over the past few days. This is a short post, yesterday I had a bit of a China Syndrome episode. It seems that last week I spilled a soft drink onto my keyboard, nothing really, but yesterday four keys were operating with some difficulties. I called the help desk and they told me to fill a requisition and that something would show up in a few days/week -- hardly satisfying!

On a whim, I asked the computer tech on the trading floor (where I exist on the edge) if he had any idea where I could get a keyboard fast! He bent under his desk and pulled out a brand new keyboard. Working in a dealing room where each trader has between 5 and 10 screens (we look like NASA) we order about 10-20 new computer per month. In the past we would only order the computer (no keyboard or monitor), but about two years ago, we noticed that if we ordered the a keyboard it was cheaper... than if we just bought the machine.

The impact, we have lots of spare keyboards. he told me not to tell the tech group, you see if he did we would have to match the keyboard to inventory... and the only reason we buy the things is because the computers are cheaper. For those who are too young the premise of the movie China Syndrome is that a can of coke was spilled on the keyboard which let to a nuclear melt down, and in finishing where it gets weirder, when the Three Mile Island nuclear plant almost went critical it was a can of Seven-Up that caused the problem.

Sometimes reality and fiction are strange bedfellows

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