I worked as a network engineer/contractor near 2001 for Dow when they were merging with Cargill - trying to mix an OSPF and ISIS network and they ran DecNet - good times
the big Computer tournaments are run by TCEC at chessdom.com - there it would be paired against other engines, of whom Komodo and Stockfish have been pretty much dominating every year since season 2 -
truth is, all computer chess is computer vs. computer nowadays - the losses come from different evaluations of positions - then the programmers try to correct it, etc - but since all engines are running the same hardware with resources, the best performers should win -
I will get the PFD this year - I've been here since April of 2013 but was only eligible after my full year of residency in 2014 - and there's a lot of conditions (like shipping your passport in) - so don't expect to park a tent behind Carrs/Safeway and get it down the line
This is a kickback from our natural resources - it's also cyclical based on I think a 5 year average of the price of oil - that means it's going to start going down next year as gas starts to plummet
We do have issues with finance in the state - no state income tax is fine but everything is about 15% more expensive (more so on Kodiak or in the Bush) - so it def. balances out - the PFD makes it a little easier for lower income workers to make it up here where the cost of living is higher. A recent poll suggested residents would rather start paying a state tax than tap the PFD for infrastructure - so we'll see how much longer we go without a sales or state income tax - (and some of the more touristy spots DO have a sales tax)
As it turns out my wife got a job up here and my boss lets me Telecommute in my job as a Network Engineer - the GCI fiber just went in so I get 100mb download and 5mb upload but a 300gb cap - however I have a verizon hotspot the company got me for emergencies. I can get 100ms response to Minneapolis - so it's pretty well connected at least in the big cities along the underwater fiber. Out in Nome and most of the bush, they're running Microwave/Fiber to get them some better response but wouldn't be good for low latency/high bandwidth stuff
don't forget the October sales that spring up - I remember two years ago - the pfd was low (like 724 or something) - and some Tactical Shop had a deal where you could buy any gun of combo of guns up to $750 for $724:)
word came down a few months ago from on high - we need to learn how to do SDN and become experts at it - we have none of it in our environment and no one knows how to support it or what our use for it would be - and we're the network guys but Cisco must be trying to sell us something
or Somewhere...someone...got their hands on a Network Week magazine - one of our dumbass Level 1 phone dorks musta left it in the john.
I live in AK now and have been to Nome where gas is $6 a gallon
Why? Because there's no ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE to Nome
You not only have to build a bridge to one of the most remote parts of the Seward Peninsula - You have to then build an entire road for hundreds of miles down the Seward Peninsula to Fairbanks over land that is varying between Permafrost and regular road - (and you can build for one or the other but the permafrost is changing) - Sure, you could build an "Ice Road" but same situation -
I'm not saying it's the WORST idea in the world - Anchorage has the 2nd busiest Air Cargo terminal in the US - (Nashville is 1st I think) and we're ideally situated for Air over the North Pole, and maybe Naval thru the Northwest passage, - but there's no Rail line - and no Road from the Seward Peninsula to the Lower 48 - Hell, half the villages out there are still on the honey bucket system. The Bridge would probably come ashore at Wales, and you can drive to Nome - but from there you're back to Cargoship - so will the US create that kind of Infrastructure in AK? We can't even get the broken stuff fixed so I don't foresee new stuff.
FYI - the Road to Nome has been tossed back and forth but there's no palate in AK right now for new Infrastructure since the budget deficit caused by dropping oil prices.
they may be able to source say, something like network support overseas, but at the end of the day, when hardware fails or need replacement or new installs in data centers in the US, you still need those guys who can do cabling, swap 6509's and so forth -
I think the idea of a overseas proof career in IT are over, however. Ensuring you are always at the top of your game and being up on the latest skills even if it eats some of your personal time can go a long way though
I could see a story where as a Replicant, his cells were programmed to appear to age as the years went by for the same reason they would implant false memories - to keep the unit thinking it was human and able to do it's job
OR they could ditch that train of thought and just say he was never a Replicant in the first place like most of non-geek America believes, but making him one gives a lot of room for the plot to be better than him just coming back out of retirement to hunt more skinjobs
this was probably the hardest game I played in the old days - it took me a month to figure out all it's secrets and figure out how to get the Ark of the Covenant - (the final tricky point was snagging a parachute on a branch that dragged you into the mesa the Ark was buried in) -
but man when I beat it - holy crap - also the first Atari game I recall where you needed to play it with both joysticks - one to select items and one to move the guy
when I got the MSCE in the late 90's, there was a TCP/IP test - my friends recommended (correctly) that I take it first - it was the toughest but if you don't know that you're hurting on the other 5 - but that was years and years ago
Billy, with GNS3 and IOU integration in a Virtualbox, you can recreate enough routing and switching topologies to pass the CCNA without buying any hardware - I would argue it's much easier now than when I got my ccna (1999) and folks had to buy 2500's used for 500 bucks each to get the hands on
of course, you could read Todd Lammle's CCNA book back then and pass it but I digress
I've been a Cisco networking guy for 10+ years - the 6500 series is a Distribution/Core technology for the LAN - it's definitely been milked over the years but the 4500 series is basically designed to phase it out
some of the 7600 routers (the older bricks) - I can also understand - but seriously - if you are a core internet provider, why the hell are you using a 6500 router for the BGP routing table of the internet? Put that thing in a dorm room and buy yourself an ASR 9000
in AK, GCI - the broadband provider, has caps and I've gotten a 250gb cap - since I telecommute, I couldn't risk being slowed down but our Internet essentially comes in via underwater cable from Seattle
Actually, I usually only hit 60% of it even downloading 1-2gb a day of stuff like linux distros, tv torrents, and so forth - but it's a pain when your pc crashes and you blow 20% of your bandwidth redownloading your games
it would burn someone hosting 50TB of ripped mp3's on torrents - but meh
in my field - (network operations/engineering) - my skillset has to essentially rotate out every few years - a CCIE told me if we weren't learning whole new skillsets, we were obsolete in 5 years -
having said that, being in a huge company with a complicated network gives one a bit of security from knowledge of where things work, but several old timers I knew grinding till retirement let their skills go - and as the legacy technology went out, they became less and less useful till they were basically 1st level techs
I already have to tell friends and family to use a alphanumeric password not based on a dictionary word - I was helping a friend find out why her wireless charges were so high, and using backtrack and some basic documentation - (knowing almost nothing about wireless security) - I was able to find out her wireless password based on the fact she was using a regular word in my dictionary list
lilke most of us in the 90's, I loved the X-wing/Tie Fighter assault games - you're IN the tie fighter, man - awesome!
After the multiplayer - (X-wing vs. Tie Fighter) - I was always disappointed they didn't keep upgrading and updating that universe - the Dark Forces/Jedi Academy games were good - but Battlefront didn't do much for me - neither did Rebellion - (a Masters of Orion ripoff) - it seemed like they were always a few months behind whatever the big thing was and came out with less interesting products sometimes...
really miss the old X-wing and Tie Fighter games though....dang - wish I had them set up on a 486 somewhere
with results like that, you have to overcharge like hell to get your money cause the patients will only be around three more months than usual if they weren't taking the drug -
but if you're desperate and dying anyways, why not blow 2 months salary on a 120 day supply, right? And yet, I have no sympathy for the drug companies - I wonder why....could it be their way of using lawsuits to keep generics off the market for a few extra years while they re-release a "timed" version of their product?
Drug companies are vultures - and I'd love to see more university/public funding of this research for the public interest and less for the profit motive - especially when lives are at stake
I think I'd definitely trust physical destruction (take apart, rip platters out, smash with hammer, dispose) over multiple write erases
I seem to remember seeing a hydraulic press/punch being used by someone - - put a nice one inch hole in the hard drive and that was that but it wouldn't take long to take them out and just smash the platters with a sledgehammer...or using the sledgehammer itself on the hd may be fun too
I took this path (from hardware to desktop to network) many years ago and am pretty happy with it -
based on your question it doesn't sound like you're starting from square one but doing hardware work - you take that hardware work and the experience you get with the desktop software and get the Microsoft equivlant or thereabouts - then you can sell yourself to an employer as a guy who knows both, even if you only have minimial experience in the cert category
If you chose to go on to networking you'll have a much easier time with the GNS3 simulator that runs Cisco IOS - but I'd say get certified or entry in the field you want to hop up to next
we would occasionally get some folks wanting to upgrade and we'd often point them to the refurbished computers because to upgrade a 486 to a top of the line pentium would after install fees, cost MORE then buying a new pc - (kinda still holds true today actually)
for those wondering - after parts/motherboard/video card/memory/CD ROM - count approx 50-100 bucks PER component installed - (we were doing free memory upgrades while you wait on laptops back when they were 3k and locked away in a secure room) -
did we need to charge that much for a basic memory upgrade - no - but every tech was expected or wanted to do $75/hr worth of business - think I broke that limit one time - a lot of times you might throw a box on the counter, start it's boot cycle or a repair boot floppy, and then fire up a 2nd one in the meantime
I did CompUSA repair work in the late 90's - in fact it was my first tech job so in some respects I'm grateful for it and in others I'm not - This was back in the day when top of the line HD's were 8.4 gigs and memory was sold behind the counter
We always ran an above the board shop but let's face it - that goes from manager to manager - a lot of our guys (myself included) were just young people though we had an antique or two around to fix Apples and Printers -
some of the issues we saw were Operating issues - this got to be a major headache - format/reinstall is what we eventually ended up doing across the board - we can't fix OS problems like that
Viruses were horrible but at the time, most were bootable from floppy and most boot floppies cleaned them out - those were the good ol' days
we would occasionally get some folks wanting to upgrade and we'd often point them to the refurbished computers because to upgrade a 486 to a top of the line pentium would after install fees, cost less then buying a new pc - (kinda still holds true today actually)
we'd have people wanting free advice, drivers, help - we'd do what we could but at the end of the day you can only do so much over the phone - so much of the work was diagnostic/detective work with no easy 1 spot fix...
and we had some fun stories - like the PC that came in for repair with the gay porn desktop wallpaper - which then showed out thru the window of the shop into the main store for a couple minutes before he came back to the pc - and the wife who returned a PC in the AM only to have the husband want the same PC back (with no data lost) that evening - (yep, full of porn, which in dial up days took time to acquire)
my favorite is a virus infected and OS damaged custom built beast our master tech worked on for two days - two weeks later the guy came back complaining of the same issues - we asked if he had done anything to the pc and he pointed out that to get his data back, he restored from the tape backup he made 3 weeks ago - DOH!
I could see where mom and pop shops in the strip malls might be angling for a quick buck, but never saw horror stories like that at my shop
Slashdot Mirror
I worked as a network engineer/contractor near 2001 for Dow when they were merging with Cargill - trying to mix an OSPF and ISIS network and they ran DecNet - good times
the big Computer tournaments are run by TCEC at chessdom.com - there it would be paired against other engines, of whom Komodo and Stockfish have been pretty much dominating every year since season 2 -
truth is, all computer chess is computer vs. computer nowadays - the losses come from different evaluations of positions - then the programmers try to correct it, etc - but since all engines are running the same hardware with resources, the best performers should win -
you can follow Season 8 (round 1b right now) here
http://tcec.chessdom.com/live....
I will get the PFD this year - I've been here since April of 2013 but was only eligible after my full year of residency in 2014 - and there's a lot of conditions (like shipping your passport in) - so don't expect to park a tent behind Carrs/Safeway and get it down the line
This is a kickback from our natural resources - it's also cyclical based on I think a 5 year average of the price of oil - that means it's going to start going down next year as gas starts to plummet
We do have issues with finance in the state - no state income tax is fine but everything is about 15% more expensive (more so on Kodiak or in the Bush) - so it def. balances out - the PFD makes it a little easier for lower income workers to make it up here where the cost of living is higher. A recent poll suggested residents would rather start paying a state tax than tap the PFD for infrastructure - so we'll see how much longer we go without a sales or state income tax - (and some of the more touristy spots DO have a sales tax)
As it turns out my wife got a job up here and my boss lets me Telecommute in my job as a Network Engineer - the GCI fiber just went in so I get 100mb download and 5mb upload but a 300gb cap - however I have a verizon hotspot the company got me for emergencies. I can get 100ms response to Minneapolis - so it's pretty well connected at least in the big cities along the underwater fiber. Out in Nome and most of the bush, they're running Microwave/Fiber to get them some better response but wouldn't be good for low latency/high bandwidth stuff
RB
don't forget the October sales that spring up - I remember two years ago - the pfd was low (like 724 or something) - and some Tactical Shop had a deal where you could buy any gun of combo of guns up to $750 for $724 :)
word came down a few months ago from on high - we need to learn how to do SDN and become experts at it - we have none of it in our environment and no one knows how to support it or what our use for it would be - and we're the network guys but Cisco must be trying to sell us something
or Somewhere...someone...got their hands on a Network Week magazine - one of our dumbass Level 1 phone dorks musta left it in the john.
I live in AK now and have been to Nome where gas is $6 a gallon
Why? Because there's no ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE to Nome
You not only have to build a bridge to one of the most remote parts of the Seward Peninsula - You have to then build an entire road for hundreds of miles down the Seward Peninsula to Fairbanks over land that is varying between Permafrost and regular road - (and you can build for one or the other but the permafrost is changing) - Sure, you could build an "Ice Road" but same situation -
I'm not saying it's the WORST idea in the world - Anchorage has the 2nd busiest Air Cargo terminal in the US - (Nashville is 1st I think) and we're ideally situated for Air over the North Pole, and maybe Naval thru the Northwest passage, - but there's no Rail line - and no Road from the Seward Peninsula to the Lower 48 - Hell, half the villages out there are still on the honey bucket system. The Bridge would probably come ashore at Wales, and you can drive to Nome - but from there you're back to Cargoship - so will the US create that kind of Infrastructure in AK? We can't even get the broken stuff fixed so I don't foresee new stuff.
FYI - the Road to Nome has been tossed back and forth but there's no palate in AK right now for new Infrastructure since the budget deficit caused by dropping oil prices.
RB
they may be able to source say, something like network support overseas, but at the end of the day, when hardware fails or need replacement or new installs in data centers in the US, you still need those guys who can do cabling, swap 6509's and so forth -
I think the idea of a overseas proof career in IT are over, however. Ensuring you are always at the top of your game and being up on the latest skills even if it eats some of your personal time can go a long way though
RB
komodo won but it has been the main contender with stockfish for a while. I think it has been number two in the last two or three tourneys
I could see a story where as a Replicant, his cells were programmed to appear to age as the years went by for the same reason they would implant false memories - to keep the unit thinking it was human and able to do it's job
OR they could ditch that train of thought and just say he was never a Replicant in the first place like most of non-geek America believes, but making him one gives a lot of room for the plot to be better than him just coming back out of retirement to hunt more skinjobs
this was probably the hardest game I played in the old days - it took me a month to figure out all it's secrets and figure out how to get the Ark of the Covenant - (the final tricky point was snagging a parachute on a branch that dragged you into the mesa the Ark was buried in) -
but man when I beat it - holy crap - also the first Atari game I recall where you needed to play it with both joysticks - one to select items and one to move the guy
RB
when I got the MSCE in the late 90's, there was a TCP/IP test - my friends recommended (correctly) that I take it first - it was the toughest but if you don't know that you're hurting on the other 5 - but that was years and years ago
Billy, with GNS3 and IOU integration in a Virtualbox, you can recreate enough routing and switching topologies to pass the CCNA without buying any hardware - I would argue it's much easier now than when I got my ccna (1999) and folks had to buy 2500's used for 500 bucks each to get the hands on
of course, you could read Todd Lammle's CCNA book back then and pass it but I digress
RB
I've been a Cisco networking guy for 10+ years - the 6500 series is a Distribution/Core technology for the LAN - it's definitely been milked over the years but the 4500 series is basically designed to phase it out
some of the 7600 routers (the older bricks) - I can also understand - but seriously - if you are a core internet provider, why the hell are you using a 6500 router for the BGP routing table of the internet? Put that thing in a dorm room and buy yourself an ASR 9000
RB
in AK, GCI - the broadband provider, has caps and I've gotten a 250gb cap - since I telecommute, I couldn't risk being slowed down but our Internet essentially comes in via underwater cable from Seattle
Actually, I usually only hit 60% of it even downloading 1-2gb a day of stuff like linux distros, tv torrents, and so forth - but it's a pain when your pc crashes and you blow 20% of your bandwidth redownloading your games
it would burn someone hosting 50TB of ripped mp3's on torrents - but meh
in my field - (network operations/engineering) - my skillset has to essentially rotate out every few years - a CCIE told me if we weren't learning whole new skillsets, we were obsolete in 5 years -
having said that, being in a huge company with a complicated network gives one a bit of security from knowledge of where things work, but several old timers I knew grinding till retirement let their skills go - and as the legacy technology went out, they became less and less useful till they were basically 1st level techs
RB
I already have to tell friends and family to use a alphanumeric password not based on a dictionary word - I was helping a friend find out why her wireless charges were so high, and using backtrack and some basic documentation - (knowing almost nothing about wireless security) - I was able to find out her wireless password based on the fact she was using a regular word in my dictionary list
wireless = never safe
lilke most of us in the 90's, I loved the X-wing/Tie Fighter assault games - you're IN the tie fighter, man - awesome!
After the multiplayer - (X-wing vs. Tie Fighter) - I was always disappointed they didn't keep upgrading and updating that universe - the Dark Forces/Jedi Academy games were good - but Battlefront didn't do much for me - neither did Rebellion - (a Masters of Orion ripoff) - it seemed like they were always a few months behind whatever the big thing was and came out with less interesting products sometimes...
really miss the old X-wing and Tie Fighter games though....dang - wish I had them set up on a 486 somewhere
RB
average life expectancy according to an article on the BBC is extended by only 3 months -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8367614.stm
with results like that, you have to overcharge like hell to get your money cause the patients will only be around three more months than usual if they weren't taking the drug -
but if you're desperate and dying anyways, why not blow 2 months salary on a 120 day supply, right? And yet, I have no sympathy for the drug companies - I wonder why....could it be their way of using lawsuits to keep generics off the market for a few extra years while they re-release a "timed" version of their product?
Drug companies are vultures - and I'd love to see more university/public funding of this research for the public interest and less for the profit motive - especially when lives are at stake
been running the 10.x version on my netbook but I'm kinda used to that left handed vertical menu by now :D
I will update this thread if I have any gotchas
RB
I think I'd definitely trust physical destruction (take apart, rip platters out, smash with hammer, dispose) over multiple write erases
I seem to remember seeing a hydraulic press/punch being used by someone - - put a nice one inch hole in the hard drive and that was that but it wouldn't take long to take them out and just smash the platters with a sledgehammer...or using the sledgehammer itself on the hd may be fun too
RB
good lord, what certifications are you spending 100K for - I have maybe blown 1k over 10 years on my Cisco certifications?
I took this path (from hardware to desktop to network) many years ago and am pretty happy with it -
based on your question it doesn't sound like you're starting from square one but doing hardware work - you take that hardware work and the experience you get with the desktop software and get the Microsoft equivlant or thereabouts - then you can sell yourself to an employer as a guy who knows both, even if you only have minimial experience in the cert category
If you chose to go on to networking you'll have a much easier time with the GNS3 simulator that runs Cisco IOS - but I'd say get certified or entry in the field you want to hop up to next
er - change this sentence -
we would occasionally get some folks wanting to upgrade and we'd often point them to the refurbished computers because to upgrade a 486 to a top of the line pentium would after install fees, cost MORE then buying a new pc - (kinda still holds true today actually)
for those wondering - after parts/motherboard/video card/memory/CD ROM - count approx 50-100 bucks PER component installed - (we were doing free memory upgrades while you wait on laptops back when they were 3k and locked away in a secure room) -
did we need to charge that much for a basic memory upgrade - no - but every tech was expected or wanted to do $75/hr worth of business - think I broke that limit one time - a lot of times you might throw a box on the counter, start it's boot cycle or a repair boot floppy, and then fire up a 2nd one in the meantime
RB
I did CompUSA repair work in the late 90's - in fact it was my first tech job so in some respects I'm grateful for it and in others I'm not - This was back in the day when top of the line HD's were 8.4 gigs and memory was sold behind the counter
We always ran an above the board shop but let's face it - that goes from manager to manager - a lot of our guys (myself included) were just young people though we had an antique or two around to fix Apples and Printers -
some of the issues we saw were Operating issues - this got to be a major headache - format/reinstall is what we eventually ended up doing across the board - we can't fix OS problems like that
Viruses were horrible but at the time, most were bootable from floppy and most boot floppies cleaned them out - those were the good ol' days
we would occasionally get some folks wanting to upgrade and we'd often point them to the refurbished computers because to upgrade a 486 to a top of the line pentium would after install fees, cost less then buying a new pc - (kinda still holds true today actually)
we'd have people wanting free advice, drivers, help - we'd do what we could but at the end of the day you can only do so much over the phone - so much of the work was diagnostic/detective work with no easy 1 spot fix...
and we had some fun stories - like the PC that came in for repair with the gay porn desktop wallpaper - which then showed out thru the window of the shop into the main store for a couple minutes before he came back to the pc - and the wife who returned a PC in the AM only to have the husband want the same PC back (with no data lost) that evening - (yep, full of porn, which in dial up days took time to acquire)
my favorite is a virus infected and OS damaged custom built beast our master tech worked on for two days - two weeks later the guy came back complaining of the same issues - we asked if he had done anything to the pc and he pointed out that to get his data back, he restored from the tape backup he made 3 weeks ago - DOH!
I could see where mom and pop shops in the strip malls might be angling for a quick buck, but never saw horror stories like that at my shop
RB
so printing my myspace address on the back of a CD like I did 3 years ago was a bad idea?
crap
www.myspace.com/russbro - say hello to www.facebook.com/russbrownmusic