All of our machines at work get standardized names. Workstations get XXX-Wyyy-zzzz and servers get XXX-Syyy-zzzz where XXX is the initials of the company, yyy is a site number, and zzzz is a serial number. Any deviation from this scheme is grounds for disciplinary action. Customers think silly names are unprofessional.
I was referring to simply letting the engine run mixture-normal until the tanks ran dry and it died out. I didn't want to try explaining fuel/air mixture to a layperson and was trying to keep my explanation simple.
I was taught to kill the engine with the mag switch and then pull to ICO, because doing it in the other order was hard on the (old, high-time) engines in the trainers we were using. After we got a new airplane with a newer engine, we did it in the other order.
Actually, you don't need to hotwire an airplane. Just disconnect the grounding wires from the magnetos and turn the prop over by hand, and away she goes. The engine is electrically powered by its own rotation and does not need a battery and alternator to keep it running. To stop one, you have to ground out the magnetos or shut off the fuel supply. There is actually an item in the preflight checklists of most small aircraft to verify that the grounding switches still operate, otherwise you will have problems shutting down at your destination. (It's hard on the engine to kill it by starving it of fuel, and drains the carb float bowls which can complicate restarting.)
This sounds unsafe, but this is by design - They didn't want an electrical fault to kill an engine. The radios and such will die without the battery, but as long as the engine has fuel and air, it will turn.
ADS-B issues every aircraft a unique, trackable ID number that can be used to issue bills to every aircraft that passes through an area. This means the sky will now become a big toll road.
The problem is, once you give the government jurisdiction to decide who can and cannot use the Internet, they will use that power to further their own interests rather than yours.
No politician will ever vote to decrease his own power.
True, but most of the people who spout this stuff are not going to resort to actual physical violence. They just sling verbal abuse and leave. Take away their ability to abuse you verbally and you have disarmed them. The few that DO get physically violent are criminals and should be prosecuted as such.
Seriously, all they need to do is collectively start ignoring the hell out of everyone who says "nigger". Just ignore them! It's that easy! They'll try harder, shout louder, or whatever, but just ignore them harder. All you have to do is ignore harder than they shout. People say nigger because it gets a rise out of you. It's taboo, it's bad, and so on. By reacting to it you give them exactly what they want - The power to make you react at their whim. Stop giving them that power! If everyone does this, the word no longer has any power and it will die out. (For a good example of how this comes to be, look at homosexuals and their new crusade against the word "gay". It wasn't offensive to them until someone told them it was supposed to be offensive. Now that they are reacting to it and getting offended by it, usage of the word as a slur has skyrocketed. The original meaning is all but completely forgotten.)
Racial equality doesn't happen when everyone is too scared to say anything for fear of getting sued or beaten. Racial equality happens when nobody cares who is what race anymore.
Well, I don't like being asked to babysit the children, and I hate the idea that technology is being used to do what managers are too lazy and/or scared to do. However, I am a direct report to the owner, and the owner has directed that preventing employee misbehavior is my technological duty rather than his managerial duty.
I have done everything within my power to increase productivity, I have given the sales manager almost everything he has asked me for, but every time I generate a new report or tool for him he uses it for about two weeks and then forgets about it.
Yes, I do hope I don't work for your company, because this company is dying and rightfully so. This company doesn't deserve success. A lot of the company runs on custom code I wrote, so I plan to stay until the end. I'm hoping for a drastic turn-around in managerial style, or maybe a replacement sales manager and operations manager from corporate, but really just to make it plain to everyone involved that when the corpse hits the floor, the blood won't be on my hands. If I bail out early, they won't be able to support my code because the owner won't hire someone competent (and anyone with the necessary skill will know to avoid this place like the sinking ship that it is) and they'll blame me for stabbing them in the back, allowing the real perpetrators to escape. If I stay, I can make sure the blame goes to the right place.
None of our sales guys give enough of a shit to visit client sites, which is probably why we are going bankrupt. But to answer your question, we have a small pool of laptops, preloaded with a standard image, that is joined to the network and sent with a salesman when they do go out. They're allowed to copy data between the laptop and the network, but they have to sign out the laptop, and I get an audit trail if something stupid happens. So far this is only used to go to conventions.
Easy, same way I handle it at our office with our terminal server: "You can't do that."
Employees have no business copying CDs worth of data to (or worse, from) the office. In the eight years since the implementation of our terminal server environment, I have had exactly zero cases where there was a legitimate need to copy large amounts of data from the terminal server.
Your computer at work is for working, not playing games when you think nobody is watching. Almost all of the complaints I get from employees wanting a "real PC" instead of a thin client revolve around their desire to screw around on the clock without being detected.
In 100% of the cases where the employee was granted a PC instead of a terminal, later investigation revealed unauthorized usage within one month, ranging from forging call sheets to play flash games to a salesman using over 75% of the company's total internet transfer in one month at myspace.
Replying to cancel incorrect moderation. Can we have a "cancel moderation" button on posts we have moderated, please? This is twice I've had to do this.
If the reason for the EULA is to keep me from making backup copies or owning my own works created via the software, I object.
If the reason for the EULA is to keep me from embedding spyware in the software and trying to distribute my trojanized version as the legitimate version (or an "enhanced" version of the legitimate version), I do not object.
Given the frequency with which novice users are told to replace IE with Firefox on Windows platforms, if the second case were not explicitly forbidden by license, it would be common practice by evil types wishing to exploit the user community and internet at large for their own personal profit.
If taking steps to stop evil behavior that damages the internet at large makes Firefox non-free-software to RMS and his followers, I would consider that to be an acceptable trade-off.
Why can't we do a union, but do it better?
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 1
We're a bunch of IT professionals. There's no reason that we should have a union like all of the other non-IT unions. We could well make a union that has entrance exams and recurring certification to weed out the useless sub-par types that pollute other unions. The point of a union is supposed to be collective bargaining power, not guaranteed employment. People are supposed to want to hire union employees because they're supposed to be guaranteed to do jobs right. Maybe if IT unionized and the union were run properly, the daily security disasters, passwords sent in clear text, and so on would become less common. Right now very few IT people have any motivation to learn anything beyond how to play games at work without being caught. Anyone can claim to know anything and half-ass their way through it via Google and copy-pasting. Maybe a union would provide the means to change that.
Here in Illinois, it's like going on safari in some strange uncharted wilderness. You never know what you're going to encounter or how they will react to you, so you need to be stealthy and unobtrusive. The best specimens are rare and react badly to photography. I'm surprised National Geographic doesn't do a special on it.
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All of our machines at work get standardized names. Workstations get XXX-Wyyy-zzzz and servers get XXX-Syyy-zzzz where XXX is the initials of the company, yyy is a site number, and zzzz is a serial number. Any deviation from this scheme is grounds for disciplinary action. Customers think silly names are unprofessional.
I was referring to simply letting the engine run mixture-normal until the tanks ran dry and it died out. I didn't want to try explaining fuel/air mixture to a layperson and was trying to keep my explanation simple.
I was taught to kill the engine with the mag switch and then pull to ICO, because doing it in the other order was hard on the (old, high-time) engines in the trainers we were using. After we got a new airplane with a newer engine, we did it in the other order.
Actually, you don't need to hotwire an airplane. Just disconnect the grounding wires from the magnetos and turn the prop over by hand, and away she goes. The engine is electrically powered by its own rotation and does not need a battery and alternator to keep it running. To stop one, you have to ground out the magnetos or shut off the fuel supply. There is actually an item in the preflight checklists of most small aircraft to verify that the grounding switches still operate, otherwise you will have problems shutting down at your destination. (It's hard on the engine to kill it by starving it of fuel, and drains the carb float bowls which can complicate restarting.)
This sounds unsafe, but this is by design - They didn't want an electrical fault to kill an engine. The radios and such will die without the battery, but as long as the engine has fuel and air, it will turn.
Personally I would much rather have useful than pretty.
Touche!
(I would type that properly but slash doesn't do UTF-8...)
Maybe you should have taken an English major?
Obligatory Joke: Do you know how to tell an English major when you meet one?
It's easy: They say "Would you like fries with your meal?" instead of "Want fries with that?"
ADS-B issues every aircraft a unique, trackable ID number that can be used to issue bills to every aircraft that passes through an area. This means the sky will now become a big toll road.
This is like coming in to your office on a Monday and finding a CNN news crew waiting in your lobby.
Meh. We need a "-1 Not Funny" so when one of my jokes goes over like a lead balloon my karma doesn't get blammed.
SPAH SAPPEN MAH DISTRIBUTION!
The problem is, once you give the government jurisdiction to decide who can and cannot use the Internet, they will use that power to further their own interests rather than yours.
No politician will ever vote to decrease his own power.
Will there be a Hourai as well? ^_^
Newton.
True, but most of the people who spout this stuff are not going to resort to actual physical violence. They just sling verbal abuse and leave. Take away their ability to abuse you verbally and you have disarmed them. The few that DO get physically violent are criminals and should be prosecuted as such.
Seriously, all they need to do is collectively start ignoring the hell out of everyone who says "nigger". Just ignore them! It's that easy! They'll try harder, shout louder, or whatever, but just ignore them harder. All you have to do is ignore harder than they shout. People say nigger because it gets a rise out of you. It's taboo, it's bad, and so on. By reacting to it you give them exactly what they want - The power to make you react at their whim. Stop giving them that power! If everyone does this, the word no longer has any power and it will die out. (For a good example of how this comes to be, look at homosexuals and their new crusade against the word "gay". It wasn't offensive to them until someone told them it was supposed to be offensive. Now that they are reacting to it and getting offended by it, usage of the word as a slur has skyrocketed. The original meaning is all but completely forgotten.)
Racial equality doesn't happen when everyone is too scared to say anything for fear of getting sued or beaten. Racial equality happens when nobody cares who is what race anymore.
So stop caring!
Well, I don't like being asked to babysit the children, and I hate the idea that technology is being used to do what managers are too lazy and/or scared to do. However, I am a direct report to the owner, and the owner has directed that preventing employee misbehavior is my technological duty rather than his managerial duty.
I have done everything within my power to increase productivity, I have given the sales manager almost everything he has asked me for, but every time I generate a new report or tool for him he uses it for about two weeks and then forgets about it.
Yes, I do hope I don't work for your company, because this company is dying and rightfully so. This company doesn't deserve success. A lot of the company runs on custom code I wrote, so I plan to stay until the end. I'm hoping for a drastic turn-around in managerial style, or maybe a replacement sales manager and operations manager from corporate, but really just to make it plain to everyone involved that when the corpse hits the floor, the blood won't be on my hands. If I bail out early, they won't be able to support my code because the owner won't hire someone competent (and anyone with the necessary skill will know to avoid this place like the sinking ship that it is) and they'll blame me for stabbing them in the back, allowing the real perpetrators to escape. If I stay, I can make sure the blame goes to the right place.
None of our sales guys give enough of a shit to visit client sites, which is probably why we are going bankrupt. But to answer your question, we have a small pool of laptops, preloaded with a standard image, that is joined to the network and sent with a salesman when they do go out. They're allowed to copy data between the laptop and the network, but they have to sign out the laptop, and I get an audit trail if something stupid happens. So far this is only used to go to conventions.
Easy, same way I handle it at our office with our terminal server: "You can't do that."
Employees have no business copying CDs worth of data to (or worse, from) the office. In the eight years since the implementation of our terminal server environment, I have had exactly zero cases where there was a legitimate need to copy large amounts of data from the terminal server.
Your computer at work is for working, not playing games when you think nobody is watching. Almost all of the complaints I get from employees wanting a "real PC" instead of a thin client revolve around their desire to screw around on the clock without being detected.
In 100% of the cases where the employee was granted a PC instead of a terminal, later investigation revealed unauthorized usage within one month, ranging from forging call sheets to play flash games to a salesman using over 75% of the company's total internet transfer in one month at myspace.
They ALREADY want that, which is why Europe, Russia, and China are all working on GPS replacements.
Replying to cancel incorrect moderation. Can we have a "cancel moderation" button on posts we have moderated, please? This is twice I've had to do this.
And when your service is shut off for excessive downloading?
If the reason for the EULA is to keep me from making backup copies or owning my own works created via the software, I object.
If the reason for the EULA is to keep me from embedding spyware in the software and trying to distribute my trojanized version as the legitimate version (or an "enhanced" version of the legitimate version), I do not object.
Given the frequency with which novice users are told to replace IE with Firefox on Windows platforms, if the second case were not explicitly forbidden by license, it would be common practice by evil types wishing to exploit the user community and internet at large for their own personal profit.
If taking steps to stop evil behavior that damages the internet at large makes Firefox non-free-software to RMS and his followers, I would consider that to be an acceptable trade-off.
We're a bunch of IT professionals. There's no reason that we should have a union like all of the other non-IT unions. We could well make a union that has entrance exams and recurring certification to weed out the useless sub-par types that pollute other unions. The point of a union is supposed to be collective bargaining power, not guaranteed employment. People are supposed to want to hire union employees because they're supposed to be guaranteed to do jobs right. Maybe if IT unionized and the union were run properly, the daily security disasters, passwords sent in clear text, and so on would become less common. Right now very few IT people have any motivation to learn anything beyond how to play games at work without being caught. Anyone can claim to know anything and half-ass their way through it via Google and copy-pasting. Maybe a union would provide the means to change that.
But would you publish it without DRM?
Here in Illinois, it's like going on safari in some strange uncharted wilderness. You never know what you're going to encounter or how they will react to you, so you need to be stealthy and unobtrusive. The best specimens are rare and react badly to photography. I'm surprised National Geographic doesn't do a special on it.