Didnt the military (in the states) put a block on ordering any more of their chips after one screwed up and took out a pretty expensive plane/satellite or something?
Not that I've ever heard of. Working for a defence contractor, I've personally sold the United States Navy, Marines and Coast Guard several systems which had loads of TI parts in them. In fact, I often spec TI parts where possible, because their stuff is tough as nails.
I think it would be rather tough to do that, anyway: open up *anything* that doesn't have highly integrated chipsets, and you'll probably see an array of SN74xx chips, all with the little TI logo on them.
TI also makes ICs for a lot of other companies, too. I understand they fab for AMD, among others.
As for the cast aluminum accessory cards, take a look at this. Almost halfway down, you'll find a picture of an open "PEB". From left to right, the cards appear to be the "firehose" flex cable interface card and the 32k RAM expansion card (both in cast aluminum cases), a few empty slots, and then what appears to be a CorComp (aftermarket) RS-232 card and an unknown aftermarket diskette controller card. (You'll note that the aftermarket realized that TI was into overbuilding things.)
That's their *home* computer stuff. Cast aluminum cards. You should see their industrial electronics.
it scares me that they need to explicitly say 'no explosives', like there are a bunch of kids who wanted to sent TNT into space.
Along those lines, I've got a (formerly) solar calculator that has been running for over ten years continuously. Unless it breaks, I fully expect that it will continue to work long after I'm dead.
I painted its solar cell with the radium-based luminous paint that was used on clock and watch faces before it was discovered to be dangerous. It seems that the beta particles and low-energy gamma rays very well "illuminate" the solar cell.
You could easily power a D-I-Y microsatellite in this way, without having to have to engineer systems to deploy solar cells once in orbit.
Is that worse than the explosives?
Instead of using mechanical systems, motors or even explosives (ie. NASA loves exploding bolts - seriously) to deploy fragile solar cells by remote control, in orbit, all you'd need to do is make a nice little bundle of solar cells, coated in this paint, and packaged tightly to prevent damage. All of a sudden, for low-power satellites, you've got a viable power source.
I'm sure Cassini's controversial nuclear power source was a lot more refined, but it doesn't need to be complicated to work well.
As for the radium paint, look around antique shops, volunteer in the workshop of an aviation museum, etc. Old bottles of the paint occasionally turn up - just don't put them in your pockets, and make sure you've washed your hands after using them, and don't scrape the dried-on paint, because the dust is bad. Treat it like a lead-based paint, and you'll be quite safe.
Intel has often claimed that the 4004 was the first CPU chip. And it's generally accepted as fact.
However, it's not.
TI unveiled one in 1970. I can't even remember the part number because it didn't get any popularity, but itwas basically the entire CPU board from a TI minicomputer compressed onto one chip.
Hmmm. Okay, this is annoying. There's a link to RealPlayer media, but no link to Windows Media Player.
I'm running Windows 2000 here, my Linux box is in the other room, and my FreeBSD machine is in the kitchen.
One of the few benefits of using an odious operating system like Windows is that I have the choice between Windows Media Player and RealPlayer.
Of course, because of Real's tendencies to change default file associations and "help" you out in other ways, it's one of those rare and special things that sucks harder than Windows 95 Upgrade Edition.
Across the LAN that I administer at work, I've banned the installation of RealPlayer. For one thing, when it's installed, it takes over some electronics CAD files.
Until Real stops putting out spyware that changes all Windows file associations, they'll stay off my LAN. Windows Media Player really is the lesser of two evils.
national socialist german worker's party, translated. how's that for irony.
They're just like socialists today.
The Nazis gave everyone radios (Volksempfangers, "the Radio of the People", made of cardboard and bakelite, with little swastikas on them), promised everyone a job, a car (Volkswagen ("the Car of the People") Beetle), and a basic standard of living.
When they discovered that the huge tax burden imposed by this still couldn't pull Germany out of the depression, anger could be directed quite easily towards the Jews, the gays, the gypsies, etc.
"I wonder what happens if the bacteria works too good?"
Well, that's pretty simple to answer.
Bacteria consumes CO2 to turn it into oxygen and sugars.
CO2 not available for plants anymore. Plants die.
Government scraps all emissions testing programs, forces automakers to put carburetors and Kettering points back into cars, and then encourages everyone to buy SUVs.
Excess oxygen in air means that simply yawning can create drug-like euphoria. Yawning is banned, probably by the Republicans of such open-minded and fun-loving states as Mississippi and Alabama, and punishable by long jail terms. A criminal element springs up, which allows people to yawn - for a price. Starbucks shares skyrocket due to growth from law-abiding non-yawning citizens. Employers hire only people who are blood-tested to show high caffeine, because they're obviously not yawners; civil rights groups outraged.
With no grass and trees and stuff for the PETA-people to eat, they starve; while McDonalds takes over the market selling burgers made from genetically engineered cattle which chow down on the bacteria.
Lighting a cigarette becomes significantly more hazardous than it already is. Driving your Kettering-point-equipped Lincoln Navigator while smoking is now impossible, due to incandescence of the glowing ember being reflected off the inside of the windshield.
In short, probably not as much as you would expect.
Maybe the/. saga of MIR postings will stop once the leftover "chunks" (weighing up to 700kg/1500lb) hit the bottom of the ocean halfway between New Zealand and Chile
Okay. I'm taking orders right now.
Send me $50, and I'll send you a 1"x1" square of scorched iron and weird exotic alloys, cut from the side of a burned 1982 Ford F-150 that has already been through the car crusher.
For only $4000, you can have a "MIR guidance computer", made by putting a junked microwave oven timer board through a pottery kiln. Only two available.
Check out my other online sales: Used Berlin Wall chunks, recycled from the little precast concrete curbs that are put into parking lots. (Shhh! It's recycling!)
CD's here are cheap. we buy them in bulk (80) for under $1 CANADIAN a piece.
Yeah! They're really great, you buy them on the big spike in a Markham computer store, and they come pre-scratched!
If Canada didn't have the blank media tax, the $1 blank CDs might have recognizable brand names and might not be pre-scratched.
You americans are dumb sometimes. What's next? we all have Uber-Overclocked cpu's because we live in igloos and have no need for external cooling?
If I lived in Baffin Island, that would probably work. As it is, I have some novel CPU cooling systems of my own. My many American friends love to hop across the border and come up to Toronto to see my latest creation.
As soon as I get the Quickcam to work under FreeBSD, I'll invite Slashdot to the party, too.
Re: dumb Americans. No, Americans are not, as a whole, stupid. The United States wouldn't be the world's one remaining superpower if Americans were. Though, it's nice to know that I've got friends who, in Niagara Falls, NY, paid at Denny's using Canadian Tire Money.
(Canadian Tire is a big and very poor quality department store that uses very official-looking paper "money" as an incentive to come back. The "currency" bears the name "Canadian" and has lots of cool pictures of snowtires and a stereotype Canadian dressed up against the winter.)
when pasty-faced computer geeks, surrounded by people who have provided for them since day one and afforded them every opportunity our society has to offer sits up and crows about
Pasty-faced? Nah. Quite healthy, occasionally suntanned (though not deliberately, it comes from the fact that I often spend summer days carring 100lb of tools through a junkyard while I'm looking for something).
Computer geek? Proudly. But also a car geek, an electronics geek, a literature geek, an A/V geek. Hell, even a radar geek. I've got a Decca 303 PPI on my roof and in my living room. I'm diversified.
Surrounded? Nah. I'm mostly a loner. I'm very feline, though I do enjoy the company of a few very close friends.
People who have provided everything for me? Hmmm. No. I'm a high school dropout; at least half of the reason for that is because - while it's not anyone else's business - I'm gay, and academic life was not for me because of the stresses of school.
High school, as a good-looking straight-looking, straight-acting gay guy who is being harassed by all the rest of the guys for the fact that I'm not going to the school dance, was a living hell. Unless you've lived it yourself, you cannot possibly understand.
Further, I failed my senior-level English Writing class because I was too busy writing a paying column for Popular Electronics magazine to bother doing an assignment where I had to read a book and regurgitate the info to "prove that you can write", as the teacher put it. Needless to say, the pointless futility of the task in the face of something where I could continue to make a name for myself merely helped to sour me on academia.
I didn't come out of the closet until I'd lived on my own for 4 years, at first working at a McDonalds, then gradually dragging myself to a sound and lighting company, and then to TV freelance work where I found myself, a leader in my field, doing sound for Bill Clinton. From there, to a position with a division of Litton.
Fine, though higher education and perhaps a more comfortable future was offered to me, I couldn't accept. With a lot of hard work, motivation and determination, I did it all myself.
Thank you very much.
Re:The Ganges: India's Sewer.
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Asking the government to act as Nanny to the world may seem like A Good Thing for those who are too weak and/or stupid to fend for themselves, but in the long run personal responsibility makes for a stronger society.
For sure!
I expect that one day, I'll end up living on the west coast.
When I get there, I'll get a nice little patch of land somewhere. And then I'll build a foundation of reinforced concrete secured to bedrock. And then I'll rent a welder. A big welder. And build a lovely steel-framed low-to-the-ground ranch house with a shock-mounted suspension.
I can get a structural engineer to sign off on that in a second. So what if the drywall has to be attached with machine screws?
It's either that or hope for government assistance when my house comes down and my family (including my favorite cars, computers and antique TV sets) gets squished.
I know is sounds rash, my telling a stinger to quit their job but re-read your posting; you know you have to get out of there.
I know. But woah, I agree 100% with everything that you have said there... actually, I didn't expect that.
The best thing you can do for yourself is escape the place, the best thing you can do for them is make way for someone else to fight the battles, highlight the problems, sink or swim.
I agree. I doubt my successor's failures will change the modus operandi at all, but one can only hope.
One of my personal weaknesses is that I have a very hard time walking away from an unsolved problem. And yet, there are times when a given problem can't be solved and you can ruin yourself by trying obsessively.
Case in point: you know those little computer-generated stereoscopic images that you stare at and eventually an image allegedly jumps out at you?
Not kidding, I once spent 9 hours staring at one. Wasted a Saturday: I never saw the image.
This is like one of those.
Save yourself.
Thank you. I will. I'm sure that I'll be fine. As it is, this is taking years off my life. Fortunately, I have loads of professional references and accolades.
Good luck.
I'm going for an interview tomorrow. Looks like a promising prospect, only a few minutes from Church and Wellesley(yay!), and 15 minutes from home. I interview well, so I expect that it's mine if I want it (ie. if I like the people).
When you get a message encoded with Spam Mimic, you'll assume it's spam and delete it. Great idea though.
It's brilliant! With a little refinement to the CGI form (ie., reading decoded text in the Encoding box is inconvenient at best), it's good enough to be a commercial service, IMHO.
The other problem is that when Carnivore et al. start to see spam coming from legitimate, otherwise in use e-mail addresses, then they can start sniffing.
I'm sure the algorithm is fairly simple. Maybe ROT13 letters placed as the first character of every third word or something like that. It's terrifyingly effective, too.
Is there anyway to get Lars formatted into a mp3 and just have him bounce on the net forever?
If only! Then, we could e-mail ourselves to work every day.
Course, I think Lars belongs on a heavily fragmented FAT16-formatted 100 megabyte Kalok hard drive with a bad spindle bearing...
Communism/Socialism 101.
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but spreading out wealth and education to try to ensure that fewer large groups get left behind not only will increase there ability to compete, it will also increase markets, which will increase the size of the available pie to be eaten.
You're going to spread out the wealth for which I work hard? You're going to take it from me?
Okay. Fine. Do it. So be it. If I can't keep what I work for, I won't work as hard. Screw it! Instead of enjoying the extra money that I would make if I opened that second business, I'll just sit back, throw my feet up on my ottoman, and watch television. It's not worth my time to do more.
And then the available pie shrinks.
What's the difference between socialism and communism?
Socialism seeks to ensure that everyone has a piece of the pie, regardless of how unfortunate they may be. It redistributes wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven't.
Communism redistributes the wealth equally among all the people of the society, regardless of work ethic, skills, ability, etc.
By my economics and political science training, the two are separated only by the premise behind which the wealth is distributed, but the net effect is the same.
Why does communism universally fail?
Because, if you can get your 300 rubles with or without going to work, how long are you gonna keep going to work?
Similarily, socialism doesn't work because if you can make as much money on welfare as you would if you were working, how long before you hit the welfare rolls and stay home watching Jerry Springer?
What does that do to the country's gross domestic product? And therefore to the prosperity of its people?
Yeah, people are lazy. That's right. If you try to use an economic philosophy that doesn't recognize that fact, you are doomed to failure. Communism is a great idea that can never work. And socialism provides everyone with a wonderful safety net that you cannot prevent people from abusing.
Capitalism may be unfair, but it's the best system man has come up with. It promotes hard work with success. It punishes laziness with failure. It's a terrific motivator.
If socialism is such a great thing, why is it that Canada is leaking skilled people to the United States inexorably? Biggest single reason: high taxes (used to pay huge social programs everywhere). Second biggest reason: unions, another socialist tool that seeks to redistribute wealth, interfere too much with running a business. Net effect: less businesses, and therefore jobs, stay in Canada.
Finally, if communism is such a great thing, why was there a Berlin Wall?
I worked for Litton-PRC for a summer as an intern and my "Supervisor" got hired at the same time. He was a complete idiot. He knew *nothing* about anything. He always had his reference book by his side (which btw didn't help him at all) and would always do stupid shit I had to fix. He also had an inferiority complex.
Oh, that's Pat, all right. But I don't attribute that to Litton at all: he was acquired almost accidentally by Litton.
I loved working for Litton - my experience with the company was basically the polar opposite of yours. I had the priviledge of working with some of the best people you could imagine. Leaders in their fields, who accepted and embraced my unique and eclectic skills and talents.
Pat was always there, but his influence was diluted by other people.
No sir, I'd be back at Litton in a second, even in a less interesting capacity than what I had. There's always something exciting happening at that company - like the current Northrop-Grumman potential merger.
And, I've been around electronics all my life; computers and analog electronics have always been passions of mine. Litton is one of the most prestigious names in the industrial/military electronics field, so every time I'd pull into the parking lot and look up at the big blue letters, it made me feel good. I couldn't wait to start my day.
You know, I really can't get over how offended you are by this. I appreciate your concern for this; however, please give me, a fellow Slashdot reader, the benefit of the doubt.
This is your freakin' BOSS! Heck, he's now part-owner of the company! Of course this person needs copies of every password and every account if only for the day you're not there (fired / quit / hit by a bus.)
Yes. But Pat also feels that he can do anything, and frequently attempts to.
We have a manufacturing facility in the rear of our building. And this is a man who decided that he could machine a part for one of our products faster than our expert machinist - just to prove to our machinist how things are done. Pat didn't remove his tie while standing at the lathe. Fortunately, after the lathe dragged him in by his tie, the tie tore before he got sucked into the lathe. His only injury was a bruise on the back of his neck.
Two weeks later, wearing a tie again, he was trying to show Renzo how to use the lathe.
The same sort of thing occurs around here with industrial electrical control systems, accounting systems, record keeping systems and computer systems.
This is what I am dealing with.
Sure they may screw up. Sure they may break things. You explain to them what's wrong and try to work it out. If they can't keep their fingers out of things then yeah, mebbe you should move on.
I'm working on it. (Moving on.)
Under Litton, there was stability: Pat couldn't do more than a given amount of damage without the corporate structure coming down on him. Pat was controlled. But because he now owns the company, he's outta control.
When we were Litton, the company was fun to work for. I was travelling all over. There were opportunities for promotion. I was proud to tell people the name of the company that I worked for. Now all that's gone: I have no reason to grin and put up with Pat. Except a bizarre loyalty towards the guy. I do like him. He is, honestly, a good guy, with nothing but the best of intentions, a great work ethic, but no ability to delegate, or know when he's in over his head. I've had enough.
There's more, but it involves information of a proprietary nature, specificially related to Pat, that I'm sure Litton wouldn't want me to talk about.
In the meantime so what it the place is full of 133MHz boxes with 1GB HDs and Win95a: Do they get the job done?
If they didn't crash all the time, absolutely. We have a couple of machines that run AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop, but those are the only higher-end machines that we need.
As for them crashing all the time, yeah, well, as you use Windows, you install applications. You uninstall applications. You crash the computer and damage the filesystem. You mix versions of system DLLs. And you're dealing with a version of Windows that's not known for the dubious honor of being Microsoft's most reliable.
Formatting and reinstalling the operating system (with the imperfect but far more stable Windows 95B) and reinstalling all the applications would be a low cost boost to productivity. It could easily be done everytime a position turns over, and since the machines are mostly standardized, could even be done with a script like OEMs use.
Would 150 spankin new 750MHz boxes with 20BG HDs and Win2K be worth the extra money right now?
Hell, no.
Will it be cheaper then keeping what they've got in place for another year?
Hell no. Besides, you don't depreciate computers as a capital expense over one year, unless you're doing something that needs a hell of a lot of power. You depreciate them out over two or three years, and then pat your IT guy on the back when he nurses 5 years and counting out of them.
Even so, with a simple format and reinstall of Windows 95B and the existing applications, they'll do the job for the forseeable future. They're great little Dell Optiplex machines, reliable, never seem to need anything more than a new power supply fan every now and then. Most of our applications are fairly old, and a lot of them are proprietary and were written in the early days of the 486, so there's not much upgrade path.
Next what were you doing putting a *nix box in this environment without having some backups trained?
Small company. No backup admin. Hell, the man's too cheap to buy anything more than a P100 as his domain server. (But it performs flawlessly, despite the slow CPU.) The guy won't even let me spend the time to set up a separate 486 machine that we have kicking around as our firewall: currently, the firewall (ipchains) and mail/DNS/webserver/etc. are in the same machine and are therefore relatively vulnerable.
The problem would have been the same if we'd been using Windows NT/2000/etc. as our server. The only one he might have been able to muddle through (with reboot after reboot after reboot before figuring out that the DSL modem is unplugged) is Windows 95. And we all know what a great firewall and robust server O/S that is.
There was a problem and your boss tried to fix it using the tools he knew. Yeah they were wrong, the question is does this technology belong there in the first place?
Probably not. But while I'm going to be forced to manage that which we apparently cannot handle, and I'm going to take the blame when something goes wrong, and no one is going to provide me with a budget for assistants to be around when I'm doing my other job functions, *I* will decide who gets the root password. Because it's coming down on my neck anyway; I'd prefer to only have *real* problems come down on my neck, not those caused by a bored boss with an open telnet window.
Again we run into the fired / quit / hit by a bus problem. Sounds like without you they're screwed.
This is true. The person who would have backed me up has a lower bullshit tolerance than I do, and quit six months ago. I've asked if I can hire a replacement and had it denied many times.
Frankly that's a stupid position to put any company in and for that alone your employer should consider replacing you (and themselves too.)
Linux was chosen over the only O/S Pat or the other staff could have handled, Windows 95, for the obvious reason that Windows 95 isn't much of a server. At the time, it wasn't a problem, there was someone else in the building who knew Linux. And, as it is, we chose Linux over FreeBSD because it's relatively easier to support.
Things have changed. The server is up and running. Replacing the server at the whim of staff turnover is not practical or wise.
Finally, I'm not irreplaceable. Virtually anyone who is likely to read this reply to you could probably sit down in front of the machine, hit the reset button on the front panel, and type "linux 1" just after the LILO prompt. So if I'm hit by a bus and someone puts in a DOS diskette and fdisks the hard drive, it's not my fault. I haven't done anything that requires any more than basic Linux skills to adjust.
Similarly, if your network card is halting the system when Windows 95 is starting up, and you format the hard drive because you don't know that you could have hit F8 to start up in safe mode and repair the problem, are you at fault for attempting to administer a system with which you're unfamiliar, or is it the IT guy's fault for choosing the wrong O/S?
They need Windows skills - they've got 150 boxes of it and run the company on it. Then there's the one *nix box. Sure it required less cash investment up-front but it's odd-ball-out and apparently only one hostile employee knows how to run it.
Right. And a Netware fileserver. No one here knows anything about Netware. (I can set up the Netware client in my sleep, but the server was not to be touched.) The Litton guys administered it remotely, and very protectively, before we were sold off. And, as I indicated, the other guy who knew *NIX wrote his resignation (which was exactly four words long and faxed in) six months ago, just a couple of weeks after Litton sold us off and the place went to hell.
Most folks would replace that with some other Win-type box & solution to use the skills & technologies in-house.
That issue has been broached when I've suggested that I hire someone else to serve as my backup and assistant. However, if I can't even get funding for a copy of Windows 2000 and a fast enough box upon which to run it, am I gonna get the assistant? Sadly, it's all moot: no one knows Windows 2000/NT. Except me. It would be exactly the same problem as the Linux box.
Hell, I'm probably one of only two people in the whole building who knows what DHCP stands for, though I'm sure most of them could set their computers not to use it if I instructed them how.
Does that give you some idea?
Then they'd get you to spend the next few weeks documenting the hell out of everything, including all passwords & accounts.
That's done. I keep it hidden in a place where Pat won't find it, so that I can give it to him when I leave.
However, it's well enough hidden that Pat won't find it in the unlikely event that I get hit by a bus: that will require someone with the skills to type "linux 1" at the LILO prompt. Not tough. All the usernames and passwords are in a clearly labelled text file in/root/. That information is part of my backup cycle as well, so it's duplicated elsewhere. And yeah, passwords in plain text in my machine are probably a bad idea, but a "l337 hax0r" still needs root access to get at them. By the time someone's broken in and gotten root access, I think my user accounts will be the least of my worries.
Next bring a third party in to audit the place and come up to speed on your systems. Finally train someone else as the Jr.-Admin in case you're gone & to ease any future transitions.
Yup.
I grow weary. You know, by now, why that ain't happening.
Frankly with your attitude you're not long for this place.
That's true. My attitude sucks. I've been under incredible pressure, working like a magician pulling increasingly large rabbits out of decreasingly large hats, staying with the company out of a bizarre loyalty to the source of my torment, despite the fact that I get better offers every day.
I finally got my first facial tick this week. Some muscle above and a little to the side of my left eye ticks spontaneously whenever I think of the office.
I get pounding migraine headaches on Sunday nights. I experience feelings of euphoria as Friday appears closer on my calendar.
Though I'd managed to quit smoking, I've been buying John Player Specials. JPS. Black death. Health Canada advises that they have 1.5mg of nicotine per cigarette. I've been chain smoking them. One after another. I detest my own personal odor and the yellow stains all over my hands and teeth.
How would you feel?
If you don't quit it sounds like you'll soon be fired. You sound burnt out and hostile
Yup.
You're perceptive enough almost to be a personnel manager; however, your overall tone this entire time has been that the source of my problems is me. In my experience, personnel managers are more savvy and experienced in office politics than that. So, what do you do; what is your angle that gives you the bizarre viewpoint that doesn't understand that the position that I am in is, in fact, possible?
as well as overly-posessive of the companies assets.
Yeah. Well, I'm responsible for keeping them working. I get blamed when they don't work. Therefore, I will protect them, until I will no longer be blamed for downtime.
It's likely your boss was just doing all of this to prepare for the day your key-card no longer works.
He still hasn't read the book on Linux that I gave him for Christmas.
Sounds more to me like he's sick of fixing problems caused by other people's ignorance rather than overly-possessive of company assets. And that is a rather common complaint in my experience.
Thank you. That's right. But there are a couple of other points:
I get blamed when he screws up the system, so it's an act of self-preservation to help prevent him from doing so. For example, when our ISP went down, the Linux box would have automatically reconnected when our ISP came back up - if he hadn't decided it was broken and turned it off.
While the horrified poster to which you're replying is right - I'm tired of him and my attitude does suck - I still like the guy enough to try to look out for him and do what's best for him. Giving him a placebo root is honestly best for him.
Sorry, Dude. You're not a Communist.
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I know that I will always protect myself and my family before I help someone else... Ok, ok, I'm a communist. So sue me.
Nope, you're not a communist.
A communist would say that you have to share all the wealth equally. Therefore, yourself and your family would only get as much time and care as everyone else, even if you happened to be a better provider.
Money is, after all, only a tangible representation of time.
Many people around the world are looking at exploding populations and hunger, but a people who cannot feed themselves do not have access to birth control, which would give them the freedom to intelligently consider the repurcussions of reproductions.
It's not rocket science to figure out that if you can't feed your kids now, having two more of them is not going to improve the situation.
Contraception and abortion (yes abortion) give a society reproductive options that help control exploding populations and societies time to develop new economic options. Without those options they simply have to rely on high infant mortality.
Or, how about abstinence? That's the lowest-tech form of birth control that I know of. And it's the most foolproof.
Surely, they've figured out that if you insert Tab "A" into Slot "B", a few months later, you'll have another mouth to feed?
And yet, if they continue doing it anyway, they're clearly not capable of recognizing patterns. Pattern recognition is one of the hallmarks of any measure of intelligence.
So, they're probably not very intelligent, and are therefore probably too weak to survive the process of natural selection.
I'm actually not an environmentalist. I believe our fellow humans come first. Way to shoot down an argument I didn't make.
And yet, in another reply, you capitalized the "N" in nature.
I've encountered a lot of socialists in my time and they all claim that they're environmentalists.
I live in a socialist country, you realize. I've been to meetings of a socialist party, the "New Democratic Party" (and lemme tell you, it wasn't by choice). I'm also very much aware of socialist policy. If you're a socialist (which you've admitted you are) you must be that one in a thousand that isn't an environmentalist.
it sucks to share the pipe with other people who have no restrictions on how much Porn they can download. Those 'wide open' providers are nice if you're a bandwidth hog. They suck for everybody else.
No worse than the average teenage with Napster on any broadband connection.
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Here's some more hopelessly overbuilt TI stuff.
...Misty, water-colored memories...
Didnt the military (in the states) put a block on ordering any more of their chips after one screwed up and took out a pretty expensive plane/satellite or something?
Not that I've ever heard of. Working for a defence contractor, I've personally sold the United States Navy, Marines and Coast Guard several systems which had loads of TI parts in them. In fact, I often spec TI parts where possible, because their stuff is tough as nails.
I think it would be rather tough to do that, anyway: open up *anything* that doesn't have highly integrated chipsets, and you'll probably see an array of SN74xx chips, all with the little TI logo on them.
TI also makes ICs for a lot of other companies, too. I understand they fab for AMD, among others.
As for the cast aluminum accessory cards, take a look at this. Almost halfway down, you'll find a picture of an open "PEB". From left to right, the cards appear to be the "firehose" flex cable interface card and the 32k RAM expansion card (both in cast aluminum cases), a few empty slots, and then what appears to be a CorComp (aftermarket) RS-232 card and an unknown aftermarket diskette controller card. (You'll note that the aftermarket realized that TI was into overbuilding things.)
That's their *home* computer stuff. Cast aluminum cards. You should see their industrial electronics.
Or you install OpenBSD and have a firewalling router with one line of configuration. ONE. I'm not kidding.
(Score:0, Troll)
Could someone please explain to me how that was a troll?
So, just because the post suggests that there might be something out there that is better for a specific task than Linux, it's a troll?
[sigh] Slashdot is rapidly degenerating into a demonstration of why the masses should not be allowed to vote.
it scares me that they need to explicitly say 'no explosives', like there are a bunch of kids who wanted to sent TNT into space.
Along those lines, I've got a (formerly) solar calculator that has been running for over ten years continuously. Unless it breaks, I fully expect that it will continue to work long after I'm dead.
I painted its solar cell with the radium-based luminous paint that was used on clock and watch faces before it was discovered to be dangerous. It seems that the beta particles and low-energy gamma rays very well "illuminate" the solar cell.
You could easily power a D-I-Y microsatellite in this way, without having to have to engineer systems to deploy solar cells once in orbit.
Is that worse than the explosives?
Instead of using mechanical systems, motors or even explosives (ie. NASA loves exploding bolts - seriously) to deploy fragile solar cells by remote control, in orbit, all you'd need to do is make a nice little bundle of solar cells, coated in this paint, and packaged tightly to prevent damage. All of a sudden, for low-power satellites, you've got a viable power source.
I'm sure Cassini's controversial nuclear power source was a lot more refined, but it doesn't need to be complicated to work well.
As for the radium paint, look around antique shops, volunteer in the workshop of an aviation museum, etc. Old bottles of the paint occasionally turn up - just don't put them in your pockets, and make sure you've washed your hands after using them, and don't scrape the dried-on paint, because the dust is bad. Treat it like a lead-based paint, and you'll be quite safe.
Intel has often claimed that the 4004 was the first CPU chip. And it's generally accepted as fact.
However, it's not.
TI unveiled one in 1970. I can't even remember the part number because it didn't get any popularity, but itwas basically the entire CPU board from a TI minicomputer compressed onto one chip.
The patent wasn't issued until 1973.
"Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit, microprocessor and microcomputer. Being first is our tradition."
- TI Product Manual
Fact: Texas Instruments makes more chips every day than Frito-Lay.
Fact: Texas Instruments made the first 16-bit CPU chip, too - the TMS9900. It was used in TI-99/4A home computers and Patriot guided missiles.
Fact: Most TI stuff is built to almost military specs: the home computer's cards were cased in cast aluminum.
Intel is just an annoying little upstart, and the Pentium 4 is merely the continued evolution of the 4004, which was merely a hand calculator chip.
Oh, yeah, and TI did that, too, also in 1971. Only, I'd submit that Intel didn't complete the job, the 4004 required support ICs. TI's didn't.
"It's in Windows Media or Real media."
Hmmm. Okay, this is annoying. There's a link to RealPlayer media, but no link to Windows Media Player.
I'm running Windows 2000 here, my Linux box is in the other room, and my FreeBSD machine is in the kitchen.
One of the few benefits of using an odious operating system like Windows is that I have the choice between Windows Media Player and RealPlayer.
Of course, because of Real's tendencies to change default file associations and "help" you out in other ways, it's one of those rare and special things that sucks harder than Windows 95 Upgrade Edition.
Across the LAN that I administer at work, I've banned the installation of RealPlayer. For one thing, when it's installed, it takes over some electronics CAD files.
Until Real stops putting out spyware that changes all Windows file associations, they'll stay off my LAN. Windows Media Player really is the lesser of two evils.
Anyone know of a port to Linux?
national socialist german worker's party, translated. how's that for irony.
They're just like socialists today.
The Nazis gave everyone radios (Volksempfangers, "the Radio of the People", made of cardboard and bakelite, with little swastikas on them), promised everyone a job, a car (Volkswagen ("the Car of the People") Beetle), and a basic standard of living.
When they discovered that the huge tax burden imposed by this still couldn't pull Germany out of the depression, anger could be directed quite easily towards the Jews, the gays, the gypsies, etc.
Socialism is evil, and never works.
Blame Canada, indeed.
Quoted from article:
"I wonder what happens if the bacteria works too good?"
Well, that's pretty simple to answer.
Bacteria consumes CO2 to turn it into oxygen and sugars.
CO2 not available for plants anymore. Plants die.
Government scraps all emissions testing programs, forces automakers to put carburetors and Kettering points back into cars, and then encourages everyone to buy SUVs.
Excess oxygen in air means that simply yawning can create drug-like euphoria. Yawning is banned, probably by the Republicans of such open-minded and fun-loving states as Mississippi and Alabama, and punishable by long jail terms. A criminal element springs up, which allows people to yawn - for a price. Starbucks shares skyrocket due to growth from law-abiding non-yawning citizens. Employers hire only people who are blood-tested to show high caffeine, because they're obviously not yawners; civil rights groups outraged.
With no grass and trees and stuff for the PETA-people to eat, they starve; while McDonalds takes over the market selling burgers made from genetically engineered cattle which chow down on the bacteria.
Lighting a cigarette becomes significantly more hazardous than it already is. Driving your Kettering-point-equipped Lincoln Navigator while smoking is now impossible, due to incandescence of the glowing ember being reflected off the inside of the windshield.
In short, probably not as much as you would expect.
[grin]
Quoted from article:
Maybe the /. saga of MIR postings will stop once the leftover "chunks" (weighing up to 700kg/1500lb) hit the bottom of the ocean halfway between New Zealand and Chile
Okay. I'm taking orders right now.
Send me $50, and I'll send you a 1"x1" square of scorched iron and weird exotic alloys, cut from the side of a burned 1982 Ford F-150 that has already been through the car crusher.
For only $4000, you can have a "MIR guidance computer", made by putting a junked microwave oven timer board through a pottery kiln. Only two available.
Check out my other online sales: Used Berlin Wall chunks, recycled from the little precast concrete curbs that are put into parking lots. (Shhh! It's recycling!)
Limited quantity available. Act now.
CD's here are cheap. we buy them in bulk (80) for under $1 CANADIAN a piece.
Yeah! They're really great, you buy them on the big spike in a Markham computer store, and they come pre-scratched!
If Canada didn't have the blank media tax, the $1 blank CDs might have recognizable brand names and might not be pre-scratched.
You americans are dumb sometimes. What's next? we all have Uber-Overclocked cpu's because we live in igloos and have no need for external cooling?If I lived in Baffin Island, that would probably work. As it is, I have some novel CPU cooling systems of my own. My many American friends love to hop across the border and come up to Toronto to see my latest creation.
As soon as I get the Quickcam to work under FreeBSD, I'll invite Slashdot to the party, too.
Re: dumb Americans. No, Americans are not, as a whole, stupid. The United States wouldn't be the world's one remaining superpower if Americans were. Though, it's nice to know that I've got friends who, in Niagara Falls, NY, paid at Denny's using Canadian Tire Money.
(Canadian Tire is a big and very poor quality department store that uses very official-looking paper "money" as an incentive to come back. The "currency" bears the name "Canadian" and has lots of cool pictures of snowtires and a stereotype Canadian dressed up against the winter.)
when pasty-faced computer geeks, surrounded by people who have provided for them since day one and afforded them every opportunity our society has to offer sits up and crows about
Pasty-faced? Nah. Quite healthy, occasionally suntanned (though not deliberately, it comes from the fact that I often spend summer days carring 100lb of tools through a junkyard while I'm looking for something).
Computer geek? Proudly. But also a car geek, an electronics geek, a literature geek, an A/V geek. Hell, even a radar geek. I've got a Decca 303 PPI on my roof and in my living room. I'm diversified.
Surrounded? Nah. I'm mostly a loner. I'm very feline, though I do enjoy the company of a few very close friends.
People who have provided everything for me? Hmmm. No. I'm a high school dropout; at least half of the reason for that is because - while it's not anyone else's business - I'm gay, and academic life was not for me because of the stresses of school.
High school, as a good-looking straight-looking, straight-acting gay guy who is being harassed by all the rest of the guys for the fact that I'm not going to the school dance, was a living hell. Unless you've lived it yourself, you cannot possibly understand.
Further, I failed my senior-level English Writing class because I was too busy writing a paying column for Popular Electronics magazine to bother doing an assignment where I had to read a book and regurgitate the info to "prove that you can write", as the teacher put it. Needless to say, the pointless futility of the task in the face of something where I could continue to make a name for myself merely helped to sour me on academia.
I didn't come out of the closet until I'd lived on my own for 4 years, at first working at a McDonalds, then gradually dragging myself to a sound and lighting company, and then to TV freelance work where I found myself, a leader in my field, doing sound for Bill Clinton. From there, to a position with a division of Litton.
Fine, though higher education and perhaps a more comfortable future was offered to me, I couldn't accept. With a lot of hard work, motivation and determination, I did it all myself.
Thank you very much.
Asking the government to act as Nanny to the world may seem like A Good Thing for those who are too weak and/or stupid to fend for themselves, but in the long run personal responsibility makes for a stronger society.
For sure!
I expect that one day, I'll end up living on the west coast.
When I get there, I'll get a nice little patch of land somewhere. And then I'll build a foundation of reinforced concrete secured to bedrock. And then I'll rent a welder. A big welder. And build a lovely steel-framed low-to-the-ground ranch house with a shock-mounted suspension.
I can get a structural engineer to sign off on that in a second. So what if the drywall has to be attached with machine screws?
It's either that or hope for government assistance when my house comes down and my family (including my favorite cars, computers and antique TV sets) gets squished.
Good to see a fellow Libertarian on Slashdot.
I know is sounds rash, my telling a stinger to quit their job but re-read your posting; you know you have to get out of there.
I know. But woah, I agree 100% with everything that you have said there... actually, I didn't expect that.
The best thing you can do for yourself is escape the place, the best thing you can do for them is make way for someone else to fight the battles, highlight the problems, sink or swim.I agree. I doubt my successor's failures will change the modus operandi at all, but one can only hope.
One of my personal weaknesses is that I have a very hard time walking away from an unsolved problem. And yet, there are times when a given problem can't be solved and you can ruin yourself by trying obsessively.
Case in point: you know those little computer-generated stereoscopic images that you stare at and eventually an image allegedly jumps out at you?
Not kidding, I once spent 9 hours staring at one. Wasted a Saturday: I never saw the image.
This is like one of those.
Save yourself.Thank you. I will. I'm sure that I'll be fine. As it is, this is taking years off my life. Fortunately, I have loads of professional references and accolades.
Good luck.I'm going for an interview tomorrow. Looks like a promising prospect, only a few minutes from Church and Wellesley(yay!), and 15 minutes from home. I interview well, so I expect that it's mine if I want it (ie. if I like the people).
If you were watching Millionaire last night, you'd know that Lars' mental program would fit quite nicely in 640K.
That's still a few Vic-20s short of a C-64.
Oh.. and we are all pretty convinced security through obscurity is not security, but this was about privacy through obscurity
Heh... It's privacy through being forwarded, with an attached nasty note, to abuse@luser's_isp.com.
When you get a message encoded with Spam Mimic, you'll assume it's spam and delete it. Great idea though.
It's brilliant! With a little refinement to the CGI form (ie., reading decoded text in the Encoding box is inconvenient at best), it's good enough to be a commercial service, IMHO.
The other problem is that when Carnivore et al. start to see spam coming from legitimate, otherwise in use e-mail addresses, then they can start sniffing.
I'm sure the algorithm is fairly simple. Maybe ROT13 letters placed as the first character of every third word or something like that. It's terrifyingly effective, too.
Is there anyway to get Lars formatted into a mp3 and just have him bounce on the net forever?
If only! Then, we could e-mail ourselves to work every day.
Course, I think Lars belongs on a heavily fragmented FAT16-formatted 100 megabyte Kalok hard drive with a bad spindle bearing...
but spreading out wealth and education to try to ensure that fewer large groups get left behind not only will increase there ability to compete, it will also increase markets, which will increase the size of the available pie to be eaten.
You're going to spread out the wealth for which I work hard? You're going to take it from me?
Okay. Fine. Do it. So be it. If I can't keep what I work for, I won't work as hard. Screw it! Instead of enjoying the extra money that I would make if I opened that second business, I'll just sit back, throw my feet up on my ottoman, and watch television. It's not worth my time to do more.
And then the available pie shrinks.
What's the difference between socialism and communism?
Socialism seeks to ensure that everyone has a piece of the pie, regardless of how unfortunate they may be. It redistributes wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven't.
Communism redistributes the wealth equally among all the people of the society, regardless of work ethic, skills, ability, etc.
By my economics and political science training, the two are separated only by the premise behind which the wealth is distributed, but the net effect is the same.
Why does communism universally fail?
Because, if you can get your 300 rubles with or without going to work, how long are you gonna keep going to work?
Similarily, socialism doesn't work because if you can make as much money on welfare as you would if you were working, how long before you hit the welfare rolls and stay home watching Jerry Springer?
What does that do to the country's gross domestic product? And therefore to the prosperity of its people?
Yeah, people are lazy. That's right. If you try to use an economic philosophy that doesn't recognize that fact, you are doomed to failure. Communism is a great idea that can never work. And socialism provides everyone with a wonderful safety net that you cannot prevent people from abusing.
Capitalism may be unfair, but it's the best system man has come up with. It promotes hard work with success. It punishes laziness with failure. It's a terrific motivator.
If socialism is such a great thing, why is it that Canada is leaking skilled people to the United States inexorably? Biggest single reason: high taxes (used to pay huge social programs everywhere). Second biggest reason: unions, another socialist tool that seeks to redistribute wealth, interfere too much with running a business. Net effect: less businesses, and therefore jobs, stay in Canada.
Finally, if communism is such a great thing, why was there a Berlin Wall?
And, why is it gone?
Oh, that's Pat, all right. But I don't attribute that to Litton at all: he was acquired almost accidentally by Litton.
I loved working for Litton - my experience with the company was basically the polar opposite of yours. I had the priviledge of working with some of the best people you could imagine. Leaders in their fields, who accepted and embraced my unique and eclectic skills and talents.
Pat was always there, but his influence was diluted by other people.
No sir, I'd be back at Litton in a second, even in a less interesting capacity than what I had. There's always something exciting happening at that company - like the current Northrop-Grumman potential merger.
And, I've been around electronics all my life; computers and analog electronics have always been passions of mine. Litton is one of the most prestigious names in the industrial/military electronics field, so every time I'd pull into the parking lot and look up at the big blue letters, it made me feel good. I couldn't wait to start my day.
I feel your pain.Ugh. You know it, all right. Thank you.
You know, I really can't get over how offended you are by this. I appreciate your concern for this; however, please give me, a fellow Slashdot reader, the benefit of the doubt.
This is your freakin' BOSS! Heck, he's now part-owner of the company! Of course this person needs copies of every password and every account if only for the day you're not there (fired / quit / hit by a bus.)
Yes. But Pat also feels that he can do anything, and frequently attempts to.
We have a manufacturing facility in the rear of our building. And this is a man who decided that he could machine a part for one of our products faster than our expert machinist - just to prove to our machinist how things are done. Pat didn't remove his tie while standing at the lathe. Fortunately, after the lathe dragged him in by his tie, the tie tore before he got sucked into the lathe. His only injury was a bruise on the back of his neck.
Two weeks later, wearing a tie again, he was trying to show Renzo how to use the lathe.
The same sort of thing occurs around here with industrial electrical control systems, accounting systems, record keeping systems and computer systems.
This is what I am dealing with.
Sure they may screw up. Sure they may break things. You explain to them what's wrong and try to work it out. If they can't keep their fingers out of things then yeah, mebbe you should move on.
I'm working on it. (Moving on.)
Under Litton, there was stability: Pat couldn't do more than a given amount of damage without the corporate structure coming down on him. Pat was controlled. But because he now owns the company, he's outta control.
When we were Litton, the company was fun to work for. I was travelling all over. There were opportunities for promotion. I was proud to tell people the name of the company that I worked for. Now all that's gone: I have no reason to grin and put up with Pat. Except a bizarre loyalty towards the guy. I do like him. He is, honestly, a good guy, with nothing but the best of intentions, a great work ethic, but no ability to delegate, or know when he's in over his head. I've had enough.
There's more, but it involves information of a proprietary nature, specificially related to Pat, that I'm sure Litton wouldn't want me to talk about.
In the meantime so what it the place is full of 133MHz boxes with 1GB HDs and Win95a: Do they get the job done?
If they didn't crash all the time, absolutely. We have a couple of machines that run AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop, but those are the only higher-end machines that we need.
As for them crashing all the time, yeah, well, as you use Windows, you install applications. You uninstall applications. You crash the computer and damage the filesystem. You mix versions of system DLLs. And you're dealing with a version of Windows that's not known for the dubious honor of being Microsoft's most reliable.
Formatting and reinstalling the operating system (with the imperfect but far more stable Windows 95B) and reinstalling all the applications would be a low cost boost to productivity. It could easily be done everytime a position turns over, and since the machines are mostly standardized, could even be done with a script like OEMs use.
Would 150 spankin new 750MHz boxes with 20BG HDs and Win2K be worth the extra money right now?
Hell, no.
Will it be cheaper then keeping what they've got in place for another year?
Hell no. Besides, you don't depreciate computers as a capital expense over one year, unless you're doing something that needs a hell of a lot of power. You depreciate them out over two or three years, and then pat your IT guy on the back when he nurses 5 years and counting out of them.
Even so, with a simple format and reinstall of Windows 95B and the existing applications, they'll do the job for the forseeable future. They're great little Dell Optiplex machines, reliable, never seem to need anything more than a new power supply fan every now and then. Most of our applications are fairly old, and a lot of them are proprietary and were written in the early days of the 486, so there's not much upgrade path.
Next what were you doing putting a *nix box in this environment without having some backups trained?
Small company. No backup admin. Hell, the man's too cheap to buy anything more than a P100 as his domain server. (But it performs flawlessly, despite the slow CPU.) The guy won't even let me spend the time to set up a separate 486 machine that we have kicking around as our firewall: currently, the firewall (ipchains) and mail/DNS/webserver/etc. are in the same machine and are therefore relatively vulnerable.
The problem would have been the same if we'd been using Windows NT/2000/etc. as our server. The only one he might have been able to muddle through (with reboot after reboot after reboot before figuring out that the DSL modem is unplugged) is Windows 95. And we all know what a great firewall and robust server O/S that is.
There was a problem and your boss tried to fix it using the tools he knew. Yeah they were wrong, the question is does this technology belong there in the first place?
Probably not. But while I'm going to be forced to manage that which we apparently cannot handle, and I'm going to take the blame when something goes wrong, and no one is going to provide me with a budget for assistants to be around when I'm doing my other job functions, *I* will decide who gets the root password. Because it's coming down on my neck anyway; I'd prefer to only have *real* problems come down on my neck, not those caused by a bored boss with an open telnet window.
Again we run into the fired / quit / hit by a bus problem. Sounds like without you they're screwed.
This is true. The person who would have backed me up has a lower bullshit tolerance than I do, and quit six months ago. I've asked if I can hire a replacement and had it denied many times.
Frankly that's a stupid position to put any company in and for that alone your employer should consider replacing you (and themselves too.)
Linux was chosen over the only O/S Pat or the other staff could have handled, Windows 95, for the obvious reason that Windows 95 isn't much of a server. At the time, it wasn't a problem, there was someone else in the building who knew Linux. And, as it is, we chose Linux over FreeBSD because it's relatively easier to support.
Things have changed. The server is up and running. Replacing the server at the whim of staff turnover is not practical or wise.
Finally, I'm not irreplaceable. Virtually anyone who is likely to read this reply to you could probably sit down in front of the machine, hit the reset button on the front panel, and type "linux 1" just after the LILO prompt. So if I'm hit by a bus and someone puts in a DOS diskette and fdisks the hard drive, it's not my fault. I haven't done anything that requires any more than basic Linux skills to adjust.
Similarly, if your network card is halting the system when Windows 95 is starting up, and you format the hard drive because you don't know that you could have hit F8 to start up in safe mode and repair the problem, are you at fault for attempting to administer a system with which you're unfamiliar, or is it the IT guy's fault for choosing the wrong O/S?
They need Windows skills - they've got 150 boxes of it and run the company on it. Then there's the one *nix box. Sure it required less cash investment up-front but it's odd-ball-out and apparently only one hostile employee knows how to run it.
Right. And a Netware fileserver. No one here knows anything about Netware. (I can set up the Netware client in my sleep, but the server was not to be touched.) The Litton guys administered it remotely, and very protectively, before we were sold off. And, as I indicated, the other guy who knew *NIX wrote his resignation (which was exactly four words long and faxed in) six months ago, just a couple of weeks after Litton sold us off and the place went to hell.
Most folks would replace that with some other Win-type box & solution to use the skills & technologies in-house.
That issue has been broached when I've suggested that I hire someone else to serve as my backup and assistant. However, if I can't even get funding for a copy of Windows 2000 and a fast enough box upon which to run it, am I gonna get the assistant? Sadly, it's all moot: no one knows Windows 2000/NT. Except me. It would be exactly the same problem as the Linux box.
Hell, I'm probably one of only two people in the whole building who knows what DHCP stands for, though I'm sure most of them could set their computers not to use it if I instructed them how.
Does that give you some idea?
Then they'd get you to spend the next few weeks documenting the hell out of everything, including all passwords & accounts.
That's done. I keep it hidden in a place where Pat won't find it, so that I can give it to him when I leave.
However, it's well enough hidden that Pat won't find it in the unlikely event that I get hit by a bus: that will require someone with the skills to type "linux 1" at the LILO prompt. Not tough. All the usernames and passwords are in a clearly labelled text file in /root/. That information is part of my backup cycle as well, so it's duplicated elsewhere. And yeah, passwords in plain text in my machine are probably a bad idea, but a "l337 hax0r" still needs root access to get at them. By the time someone's broken in and gotten root access, I think my user accounts will be the least of my worries.
Next bring a third party in to audit the place and come up to speed on your systems. Finally train someone else as the Jr.-Admin in case you're gone & to ease any future transitions.
Yup.
I grow weary. You know, by now, why that ain't happening.
Frankly with your attitude you're not long for this place.
That's true. My attitude sucks. I've been under incredible pressure, working like a magician pulling increasingly large rabbits out of decreasingly large hats, staying with the company out of a bizarre loyalty to the source of my torment, despite the fact that I get better offers every day.
I finally got my first facial tick this week. Some muscle above and a little to the side of my left eye ticks spontaneously whenever I think of the office.
I get pounding migraine headaches on Sunday nights. I experience feelings of euphoria as Friday appears closer on my calendar.
Though I'd managed to quit smoking, I've been buying John Player Specials. JPS. Black death. Health Canada advises that they have 1.5mg of nicotine per cigarette. I've been chain smoking them. One after another. I detest my own personal odor and the yellow stains all over my hands and teeth.
How would you feel?
If you don't quit it sounds like you'll soon be fired. You sound burnt out and hostile
Yup.
You're perceptive enough almost to be a personnel manager; however, your overall tone this entire time has been that the source of my problems is me. In my experience, personnel managers are more savvy and experienced in office politics than that. So, what do you do; what is your angle that gives you the bizarre viewpoint that doesn't understand that the position that I am in is, in fact, possible?
as well as overly-posessive of the companies assets.
Yeah. Well, I'm responsible for keeping them working. I get blamed when they don't work. Therefore, I will protect them, until I will no longer be blamed for downtime.
It's likely your boss was just doing all of this to prepare for the day your key-card no longer works.
He still hasn't read the book on Linux that I gave him for Christmas.
Sounds more to me like he's sick of fixing problems caused by other people's ignorance rather than overly-possessive of company assets. And that is a rather common complaint in my experience.
Thank you. That's right. But there are a couple of other points:
I get blamed when he screws up the system, so it's an act of self-preservation to help prevent him from doing so. For example, when our ISP went down, the Linux box would have automatically reconnected when our ISP came back up - if he hadn't decided it was broken and turned it off.
While the horrified poster to which you're replying is right - I'm tired of him and my attitude does suck - I still like the guy enough to try to look out for him and do what's best for him. Giving him a placebo root is honestly best for him.
I know that I will always protect myself and my family before I help someone else... Ok, ok, I'm a communist. So sue me.
Nope, you're not a communist.
A communist would say that you have to share all the wealth equally. Therefore, yourself and your family would only get as much time and care as everyone else, even if you happened to be a better provider.
Money is, after all, only a tangible representation of time.
Many people around the world are looking at exploding populations and hunger, but a people who cannot feed themselves do not have access to birth control, which would give them the freedom to intelligently consider the repurcussions of reproductions.It's not rocket science to figure out that if you can't feed your kids now, having two more of them is not going to improve the situation.
Contraception and abortion (yes abortion) give a society reproductive options that help control exploding populations and societies time to develop new economic options. Without those options they simply have to rely on high infant mortality.Or, how about abstinence? That's the lowest-tech form of birth control that I know of. And it's the most foolproof.
Surely, they've figured out that if you insert Tab "A" into Slot "B", a few months later, you'll have another mouth to feed?
And yet, if they continue doing it anyway, they're clearly not capable of recognizing patterns. Pattern recognition is one of the hallmarks of any measure of intelligence.
So, they're probably not very intelligent, and are therefore probably too weak to survive the process of natural selection.
I'm actually not an environmentalist. I believe our fellow humans come first. Way to shoot down an argument I didn't make.
And yet, in another reply, you capitalized the "N" in nature.
I've encountered a lot of socialists in my time and they all claim that they're environmentalists.
I live in a socialist country, you realize. I've been to meetings of a socialist party, the "New Democratic Party" (and lemme tell you, it wasn't by choice). I'm also very much aware of socialist policy. If you're a socialist (which you've admitted you are) you must be that one in a thousand that isn't an environmentalist.
And yet you capitalized "Nature".
Most people don't do that.
Interesting.
it sucks to share the pipe with other people who have no restrictions on how much Porn they can download. Those 'wide open' providers are nice if you're a bandwidth hog. They suck for everybody else.
No worse than the average teenage with Napster on any broadband connection.
When was the last time you saw the human species do anything NATURAL besides eat shit and fuck?
Ants are natural. They came about before us, and therefore without human intervention.
Ants build complex civilizations with heirarchial structures.
Tools are things that I build with available materials in order to simplify my existance.
My computer is a communications and entertainment tool.
Shelter is a tool for keeping me warm and dry.
Ants build shelter.
Therefore, ants build tools.
Ants are, again, natural.
Tools are therefore natural.
Therefore, my notebook computer is natural.
Almost all of what ants do is based on building or acquiring tools or food or reproduction.
Almost all of what humans do is based on building or acquiring tools or food or reproduction.
Human behavior is therefore natural.
If ants build a civilization where there is insufficient food to feed themselves, they die.
If humans build a civilization where there is insufficient food to feed themselves, they die.
Therefore, intervening would not be a natural act.
I fail to see where my thinking is wrong here.