Something about hiccups being an instinctive reflex reminded me of a passage about drowning from the book.
Until the break point, a drowning person is said to be undergoing 'voluntary apnea,' choosing not to breathe. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes a sensation of darkness closing in from all sides, as in a camera aperture stopping down. The panic of a drowning person is mixed with an odd incredulity that it is actually happening. Having never done it before, the body--and the mind--do not know how to die gracefully. The process is filled with desperation and awkwardness. 'So this is drowning,' a drowning person might think. 'So this is how my life finally ends.' -- S. Junger
* installing Debian with only two floppies (great for old laptops with no CDROM)
* running firewall, NAT, dhcpd and caching DNS without a hard drive or CDROM - one floppy (with two floppies: FreeS/WAN daemon) - can YOU carry your firewall software in your pocket?
* maintaining my GPG keys on portable media (ok, I could use a key fob for that)
* booting a host with TomsRtBt (hello bbc-lnx or knoppix)
* performing network boots with a PXE or Etherboot floppy (I don't WANT to buy an EEPROM burner!)
* flashing my BIOS (ok, somebody else said it)
* telling some helpdesk drone, "Here, just toss this floppy in and do Start - Run - A:\setup.exe"
What's interesting to me is that if somebody fails the RHCE exam but gets all the RHCT portions of the RHCE exam correct, they still don't earn an RHCT. Red Hat hasn't quite figured this one out yet. I asked this question during one of RH's webcast presentations, and they said they didn't have plans at that time for implementing a "partial credit" solution.
Although I can see how in a given real-world scenario, one would expect an RHCE to perform a longer list of tasks in a given time frame (be they troubleshooting, installation, service configuration, etc.) than an RHCT, it still doesn't make sense to me why one wouldn't be able to walk away with at least the RHCT if they had performed well enough to have passed the RHCT exam. Instead, they would have to pay more to take the RHCT exam separately.
I'm not sure why this issue is important to me, except that I think it would be neat to earn the RHCE. I can't think of any other IT certs that employ any kind of partial credit system.
Linux and OSS help me love my job. SOunds corny and it is... and it's true. That I work for a.gov helps that much more... lots of opportunities to learn and spread the good word, plus there's a lot of stability. If I wasn't having this much fun I would probably stop my IT career pretty soon.
Only two states in the nation -- Oregon and New Jersey -- currently have an outright prohibition on self-serve gasoline sales. Their argument is twofold: first, that the volatile nature of gasoline requires respect and care when refueling; and second, there is an unfounded fear of an unacceptable danger to the public if unskilled consumers are able to dispense their own gas.
As previously stated, this fear is unfounded. In fact, the insurance industry makes no distinction in risk between self-service and full-serve outlets when assessing the risk of all human activities. Moreover, self-service is statistically safer by a substantial margin than attendant-serve outlets.
Opposition to self-serve has come from a small percentage of consumers, particularly older people and the disabled who require full-service assistance. The industry recognizes the legitimate concerns of these groups and is willing to work to ensure the availability of full-service at retail outlets. A complete ban on self-serve, on the other hand, is unfair restraint of trade, ignores the wants of the majority, and puts retailers in those locations that ban self-serve at a disadvantage.
just what the United States needs: another nationwide wireless air interface. not like we don't have enough already (1xRTT, GPRS, and WCDMA/UMTS already in testing).
Starting in May of 2001 I used CDPD with Omnisky on both Palm and PocketPC. The PocketPC setup was a Sierra Wireless AirCard 300 CDPD PC Card for Handhelds with an iPAQ 3670 (must pause to inhale... OK:-) in the Washington, DC metro area. It was the Omnisky network (which runs on Verizon on the Boston/NYC/Philly/Balt/Wash corridor) With a strong signal, it works pretty well... response times are spiffy, while content loads...er... eventually. Much better suited for IM than for browsing. All you need is one slight interruption of signal for the thing to get confused. At those times, I would usually need to stop whatever I was doing (browsing or IM), disconnect and reconnect the modem connection and start over. Sometimes, if the signal drop was very brief, it would be OK. When the signal was strong, though, I could IM and browse at the same time without it being very obvious that I was using a slow connection (to the other IM user, I mean). Another thing I disliked was the removable antenna on the AirCard... that thing was just waiting to be bent or lost. Also while the modem is on the batteries get sucked dry within couple of hours of constant use... and that's with the external battery contained in the iPAQ PC Card sled!
The Palm setup was a Vx with the Novatel Wireless sled. This, of course, was a bit less bulky than the iPAQ with the PC Card sled, and I liked the retractable antenna. However, unlike the iPAQ where you could charge both batteries simultaneously, you have to charge the Palm and the sled separately. Also it seemed like the Palm combo was just as vulnerable to network holes and spottiness.
I stopped using both accounts because of the inconveniences caused apparantly by the hardware's inability to hold on to a signal. What was gained in convenience by the small form factor was more than washed out by those problems. I would rather wait for a GSM+GPRS-based solution (only because I perceive GPRS to be both faster and less spotty, not because I have empirical data comparing the two).
The only problem I see is that your current employer would then always wonder if you were looking for a new job.
I wouldn't take this into consideration at all. First, if he moves to a new job, the new employer may also always wonder if he were looking for a new job (depending on how quickly he accepted), so you have a very similar perception transferred from the old employer to the new employer. Second, the perception of "not being part of the team anymore" depends more on what you do with the job you have today and people's perception of your attitude with that. You can look for a new job and be committed 100% to the one you have. Then your coworkers would be less likely to notice or assume that you're looking. Of course you have to BE committed not LOOK like you're committed... most people can tell the difference.
All of the main news bits in the article---the DW/HP partnership, the move to Linux, Spirit,--- were announced by Carly Fiorina during her keynote address at the LinuxWorld Expo in New York in January.
Furthermore, at that address they handed out complimentary copies of Shrek with a Tux sticker slapped on the cover saying "Rendered with Linux" so why is anyone saying it was rendered with IRIX???
From the ActiveBuddy CEO response (below the article):
Would you rather your child engaged in an IM session with a stranger who found their screen name in a chat room, or with a friendly, well-mannered "bot" that plays by rules of propriety too often ignored in today's world of crass media overload, seeking audience regardless of the cost to morals and proper social behavior?
How about NEITHER!?!??! This is infuriating! Just because your people figured out how to port ELIZA to IM doesn't make it ethically OK to open the door to this kind of thing.
and when they say 9-5 on a government job, they MEAN 9-5.
The Fed gov't has an interesting way of doing math when it comes to hours, BTW. For every 4 hours worked, you earn a 15-minute break... which comes out of the 4 hours worked. As a result, an 8-hour day starting at 9:00 ends at 5:30.
Additionally, some places have alternate work schedule (AWS) where, if you work eight 9-hour days and one 8-hour day in a 2-week (40-hour) pay period, you get the tenth day off. My 9-hour day goes from 7:30 - 5:00.
Actually the new puppy uses GPRS for packet data, not Mobitex like the 957 and other older models.
This actually troubles me somewhat. Read around on the 'Net about what mobile devices worked on 9/11 in NYC, and you'll generally find that Blackberries on Mobitex worked fine while other networks were jammed. Don't know if GPRS (which is really new) would provide the same reliability... anyone know?
Slashdot Mirror
Laughed my head off....
Clik: "Should we invite Microsoft to our Open-Source Conference?"
Clak: "Duh, I dunno, but I saw their ads on Slashdot so OSDN must think it's OK. Isn't that the same thing?"
But in three years after tenure, I'd lay $1000 that the teacher is going to be making a bit more than the RHCE high school kid.
probably, but will the teacher realize an 8-10% average pay raise every year???
And whatever you do, don't eat poppyseed bagels!!!!
Doesn't this sound like childbirth in reverse?
(and would thus have to replace one day):
* installing Debian with only two floppies (great for old laptops with no CDROM)
* running firewall, NAT, dhcpd and caching DNS without a hard drive or CDROM - one floppy (with two floppies: FreeS/WAN daemon) - can YOU carry your firewall software in your pocket?
* maintaining my GPG keys on portable media (ok, I could use a key fob for that)
* booting a host with TomsRtBt (hello bbc-lnx or knoppix)
* performing network boots with a PXE or Etherboot floppy (I don't WANT to buy an EEPROM burner!)
* flashing my BIOS (ok, somebody else said it)
* telling some helpdesk drone, "Here, just toss this floppy in and do Start - Run - A:\setup.exe"
What's interesting to me is that if somebody fails the RHCE exam but gets all the RHCT portions of the RHCE exam correct, they still don't earn an RHCT. Red Hat hasn't quite figured this one out yet. I asked this question during one of RH's webcast presentations, and they said they didn't have plans at that time for implementing a "partial credit" solution.
Although I can see how in a given real-world scenario, one would expect an RHCE to perform a longer list of tasks in a given time frame (be they troubleshooting, installation, service configuration, etc.) than an RHCT, it still doesn't make sense to me why one wouldn't be able to walk away with at least the RHCT if they had performed well enough to have passed the RHCT exam. Instead, they would have to pay more to take the RHCT exam separately.
I'm not sure why this issue is important to me, except that I think it would be neat to earn the RHCE. I can't think of any other IT certs that employ any kind of partial credit system.
Linux and OSS help me love my job. SOunds corny and it is... and it's true. That I work for a .gov helps that much more... lots of opportunities to learn and spread the good word, plus there's a lot of stability. If I wasn't having this much fun I would probably stop my IT career pretty soon.
Egads! Vocabulary creationism rivaling Dubya! How misinappropriate!
I have used a fake email address with realplayer since 1998. points to /dev/null. has never been a problem.
If you think real.com is being deceptive, you could complain about it.
I'd have to say a petroleum SIG isn't the place to go for unbiased research.
/. for that matter. ;-)
True. Neither is
From The Western States Petroleum Association:
are there enough vampires in sunnyvale to sustain the show for another season?
just what the United States needs: another nationwide wireless air interface. not like we don't have enough already (1xRTT, GPRS, and WCDMA/UMTS already in testing).
Offtopic, but when I saw your .sig I thought the lead singer of U2 had started his own Political Action Committee.
"Komen says he has no desire to turn his organization into a platform for Microsoft publicity...."
:-)
Except that it already has become a platform for Microsoft publicity... just not the kind of publicity Microsoft might want.
You're better off with a Nokia 9290 Communicator. Not only is there ssh software, RSA makes a SecurID client for it.
Of course, the Communicators are friggin' shoe phones that cost a bit more than $200 (more like $600).
The Palm setup was a Vx with the Novatel Wireless sled. This, of course, was a bit less bulky than the iPAQ with the PC Card sled, and I liked the retractable antenna. However, unlike the iPAQ where you could charge both batteries simultaneously, you have to charge the Palm and the sled separately. Also it seemed like the Palm combo was just as vulnerable to network holes and spottiness.
I stopped using both accounts because of the inconveniences caused apparantly by the hardware's inability to hold on to a signal. What was gained in convenience by the small form factor was more than washed out by those problems. I would rather wait for a GSM+GPRS-based solution (only because I perceive GPRS to be both faster and less spotty, not because I have empirical data comparing the two).
HTH!
The only problem I see is that your current employer would then always wonder if you were looking for a new job.
I wouldn't take this into consideration at all. First, if he moves to a new job, the new employer may also always wonder if he were looking for a new job (depending on how quickly he accepted), so you have a very similar perception transferred from the old employer to the new employer. Second, the perception of "not being part of the team anymore" depends more on what you do with the job you have today and people's perception of your attitude with that. You can look for a new job and be committed 100% to the one you have. Then your coworkers would be less likely to notice or assume that you're looking. Of course you have to BE committed not LOOK like you're committed... most people can tell the difference.
I'd really like to see Miss Cleo, fake human growth hormone pseudoscience, etc.... all put out of business.
Check it out.
COPA = Child Online Protection Act
COPPA = Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
Get it?
Got it?
Good.
All of the main news bits in the article---the DW/HP partnership, the move to Linux, Spirit,--- were announced by Carly Fiorina during her keynote address at the LinuxWorld Expo in New York in January.
Furthermore, at that address they handed out complimentary copies of Shrek with a Tux sticker slapped on the cover saying "Rendered with Linux" so why is anyone saying it was rendered with IRIX???
How about NEITHER!?!??! This is infuriating! Just because your people figured out how to port ELIZA to
IM doesn't make it ethically OK to open the door to this kind of thing.
The Fed gov't has an interesting way of doing math when it comes to hours, BTW. For every 4 hours worked, you earn a 15-minute break... which comes out of the 4 hours worked. As a result, an 8-hour day starting at 9:00 ends at 5:30.
Additionally, some places have alternate work schedule (AWS) where, if you work eight 9-hour days and one 8-hour day in a 2-week (40-hour) pay period, you get the tenth day off. My 9-hour day goes from 7:30 - 5:00.
From Andrea Douglas:
Why even bother saying this?? If I have been living in a cave, I wouldn't be listening anyway!
Actually the new puppy uses GPRS for packet data, not Mobitex like the 957 and other older models.
This actually troubles me somewhat. Read around on the 'Net about what mobile devices worked on 9/11 in NYC, and you'll generally find that Blackberries on Mobitex worked fine while other networks were jammed. Don't know if GPRS (which is really new) would provide the same reliability... anyone know?