All things being relative, this is a government contract/project, so I guess we should feel lucky it wasn't open port 23 telnet with a null password. Therefore, they'll probably get a reward for using that newfangled SSH encryption stuff (circa 1995, but who's keeping score?)
I find I rarely run completely out of work-related tasks, but I can understand sometimes needing to unplug from strictly-related work to reset the brain. When I need some "brain reset" time, I try to read up on something that at least tangentially relates to work, for example, I've been meaning to learn more about Ruby on Rails and some other newer (at least to this old guy) technologies.
I feel the more I learn and the more current I stay, the more valuable I am to my employer (and myself/future employers). Plus, if anyone were to ask, I can honestly say "I'm researching some possible implementations of the new [insert project name] system."
I should point out that this kind of pure guilt-free downtime is rare. You can always be updating that documentation *groan* or working on that nagging system with the logfile that always fills up the disk that you've been meaning to fix for months now...
I believe I registered in late 1998 or early 1999. I remember liking that my account number was the same as the year (or close enough)and therefore easy to remember...
I wish the review would have addressed which edition of the book was being discussed. I assume the 3rd because that's where the bn.com link points. I'm sitting here looking at my 1st and 2nd editions. I wonder if I should spring for the third. Bummer--I just bought the 2nd a few months back.
From TFA: "Would you avoid buying a PC with an Advanced Micro Devices chip inside because it wouldn't let you host an Internet conference call with six of your friends?"
No, I wouldn't avoid buying a PC with an AMD chip. I pretty much buy all AMD now, and I plan to continue. I would, however, be sure to not use software that tries to dictate to me what type of hardware I use. I wonder if this will backfire on Skype?
"Primary means of navigaion? Maybe for some illiterate dummy. I don't know what you use for navigation, but I still refuse to spend a money on GPS when I can buy a $2 map and get there just the same."
A map is not "just the same." My GPS in my car shows me exactly where I am on the map at that instant. With a paper map, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out where you are first, then where you need to be. This usually requires you to pull over and stop, instead of a quick glance at the dash.
The best feature of my GPS, the one that has paid for itself many times over, is automatic route recalculation. If I see my path ahead blocked by a monster traffic jam, I just pull off the highway, and the GPS automatically directs me via an alternate route along the side roads. It has saved me many an hour and potential lost consulting business. Getting the same result from a paper map would require I hire a full-time navigator.:)
"3M for example....you're allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time.
At 3M, you used to be allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time. Thanks to the new CEO/regime from GE, the 15% "Innovation Time" is quietly going the way of the dodo. The focus on stock price over all else (such as real, tangible, actual profits) will be the death of many a formerly powerful and truly innovative company, I expect.
No. Analog transmission is scheduled to stop in 2006, but with such a heavy level of investment in analog technology--both at the transmitter (content provider) and receiver (content consumer) ends, I highly doubt the cut-over to all digital will occur on schedule.
I mean, seriously, when it the last time you saw a technical conversion of this size and scope actually occur on schedule?
I also expect that when Joe Six-Packs T.V. stops working, the general populace might just get a might bit fired up over this whole issue and start calling for the folks in Washington's heads.
Ok, so I did this in middle school. We had a history teacher that would make us watch so many filmstrips and answer little quizzes about them. It didn't take us long to figure that we could cut the time it took to grind through a 20-minute filmstip by playing the 33rpm record at 45rpm.
Show of hands... how many of you got hit on by a recruiter?
Back in the days of.com irrational exuberence (sp?) it seemed like almost all of my attractive female friends with degrees in such hot-ticket majors like "communications" or "human services" ended up as tech recruiters. I guess the companys figured (rightly so) that undersexed geeks would respond more positively to an attractive member of the opposite sex. My ex-GF even went into tech recruiting, and the way she described it, they were practically encouraged to "flirt" a little, ask people out for drinks, etc., in order to keep their interest in working with the firm. Unusual? Probably not. Just like any other sales job where the name of the game is establishing and maintaining a relationship with the clients.
Back sometime in 1997, I was on a consulting gig in a city where a lot of my college buds had landed after graduation. We went out one night and were playing the "so...what are you up to these days?" game. One particularly lovely lady who was the object of many a man's fancy in college and I got to talking, and somehow I got to ranting about how the tech headhunters were driving me crazy, they had no idea what skills they were asking for, how they were the used car salesmen of the industy, etc. She listened politely to my rant and then after I was done, I asked, "So...what are you doing these days?
"I'm a technical recruiter," she said with a forced smile.
"...who wants to make idle chit-chat with some register jockey?"
That, my friend, depends entirely on how attractive she is. Don't tell me: You've never played "Rate the Register Girl"?
I take a pass by the registers on the way in, then rank my top three choices by register/aisle number. If I'm going to suffer the pain of shopping, I might as well make it a tad more enjoyable by flirting and chatting up the cute cashier.
Fortunately, I was able to take advatage of some good timing and a family safety net to return home to the family farm. I haven't driven tractor since high school, but it's kind of like riding a bike. I have to admit, after cutting all my expenses and doing "real work" here for my family, I might find it hard to return to a cube farm working for the man.
Security Through Obscurity
on
Hamvention
·
· Score: 1
I usually go to great pains to make my car look "non-hammish" (hide the radios, stow the whips) when I park in an unfamiliar or urban area. At Dayton, all my mobile antennas don't stick out so much--they kind of get lost in the crowd, so I don't worry quite so much.
--Chuck, KF9FR
Re:available bandwidth?
on
Hamvention
·
· Score: 1
IMHO, physical crowding of bodies is a bigger problem than frequency congestion.
I once saw a guy at a local hamfest that was so fat he was wearing a mumu. Floral print and everything. No kidding.
Could just be Wisconsin (where I did most of my hamming), but it sure seemed like a lot of fellas in the hobby were on the "super-size" side of the scale.
Re:available bandwidth?
on
Hamvention
·
· Score: 2, Informative
At [Dayton] Hamvention, you bet there is a bandwidth crowding problem...especially on the more popular 2M and 440 bands. Almost every available frequency is in use. Most of my crew has now got 6M or 1.2GHz capability in their HTs, so we're hoping to move off to somewhere a little less crowded at Dayton this year.
--Chuck, KF9FR
Re:Oh, simpler times...
on
Hamvention
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...some blame "the internet" and others say that it's "young people" who have no interest anymore in technical hobbies.
I blame the Internet and cable TV. No kidding. I was headed to a Linux Business Expo in the Twin Cities a couple years ago with some of my close (and very interested in technical hobbies) friends. We drove my car, and I was tuning around the HF bands as we made our way across town in the morning hours. The guys were interested for all of about 2 minutes. They were extremely disappointed that I couldn't just dial up whatever country they wanted. No kidding. It was like they expected me to dial in the [Japan|Germany|Mexico|France] channel, and have a open direct line to the country immediately.
Once I explained that HF SSB mobile was more "art" in the sense that you had to bascially take what was on depending on the time of day, band conditions, whether someone was actually on, etc., they lost all interest.
All too used to punching in a channel or a web address and having content delivered immediately, I guess.
You can catch edited episodes of Buffy daily on FX...
How are the episodes edited? Are they edited for content or just so FX can squeeze four episodes into a 24-hour period (which they were doing in 2002, I believe).
I always thought the sure sign of a show's demise was when I could catch more than one episode a day in syndication/reruns. I think on some days I can see 5-6 episodes of Buffy if I wanted to. Talk about Slayer overload. With so much exposure, it doesn't take long to get to "Bored Now," no matter how good the show.
"Note to IBM: make a native Linux client for Notes, so we can stop having to use the Domino webmail interface."
What's the real reason there hasn't been a Notes client for Linux yet? Anyone have some insight here?
Slashdot Mirror
All things being relative, this is a government contract/project, so I guess we should feel lucky it wasn't open port 23 telnet with a null password. Therefore, they'll probably get a reward for using that newfangled SSH encryption stuff (circa 1995, but who's keeping score?)
The kind that does not allow WiFi for security reasons.
I find I rarely run completely out of work-related tasks, but I can understand sometimes needing to unplug from strictly-related work to reset the brain. When I need some "brain reset" time, I try to read up on something that at least tangentially relates to work, for example, I've been meaning to learn more about Ruby on Rails and some other newer (at least to this old guy) technologies.
I feel the more I learn and the more current I stay, the more valuable I am to my employer (and myself/future employers). Plus, if anyone were to ask, I can honestly say "I'm researching some possible implementations of the new [insert project name] system."
I should point out that this kind of pure guilt-free downtime is rare. You can always be updating that documentation *groan* or working on that nagging system with the logfile that always fills up the disk that you've been meaning to fix for months now...
I believe I registered in late 1998 or early 1999. I remember liking that my account number was the same as the year (or close enough)and therefore easy to remember...
/me sees the "is is" in my last comment. Argh.
Apparently I need to stop posting today, since I can't seem to get anything right.
Ah yes. There is is. Must have been the incorrect use of "it's" that confused me.
I wish the review would have addressed which edition of the book was being discussed. I assume the 3rd because that's where the bn.com link points. I'm sitting here looking at my 1st and 2nd editions. I wonder if I should spring for the third. Bummer--I just bought the 2nd a few months back.
No, I wouldn't avoid buying a PC with an AMD chip. I pretty much buy all AMD now, and I plan to continue. I would, however, be sure to not use software that tries to dictate to me what type of hardware I use. I wonder if this will backfire on Skype?
When will Perl 6 ever get done?
How about just using Ceren Ercen (the Latex-clad BSD babe)? :)
A map is not "just the same." My GPS in my car shows me exactly where I am on the map at that instant. With a paper map, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out where you are first, then where you need to be. This usually requires you to pull over and stop, instead of a quick glance at the dash.
The best feature of my GPS, the one that has paid for itself many times over, is automatic route recalculation. If I see my path ahead blocked by a monster traffic jam, I just pull off the highway, and the GPS automatically directs me via an alternate route along the side roads. It has saved me many an hour and potential lost consulting business. Getting the same result from a paper map would require I hire a full-time navigator. :)
"3M for example....you're allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time.
At 3M, you used to be allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time. Thanks to the new CEO/regime from GE, the 15% "Innovation Time" is quietly going the way of the dodo. The focus on stock price over all else (such as real, tangible, actual profits) will be the death of many a formerly powerful and truly innovative company, I expect.
"Analog transmission stops in 2006."
No. Analog transmission is scheduled to stop in 2006, but with such a heavy level of investment in analog technology--both at the transmitter (content provider) and receiver (content consumer) ends, I highly doubt the cut-over to all digital will occur on schedule.
I mean, seriously, when it the last time you saw a technical conversion of this size and scope actually occur on schedule?
I also expect that when Joe Six-Packs T.V. stops working, the general populace might just get a might bit fired up over this whole issue and start calling for the folks in Washington's heads.
Ok, so I did this in middle school. We had a history teacher that would make us watch so many filmstrips and answer little quizzes about them. It didn't take us long to figure that we could cut the time it took to grind through a 20-minute filmstip by playing the 33rpm record at 45rpm.
Hey kids: Remember vinyl record? No? Damn, I'm getting old.
Show of hands... how many of you got hit on by a recruiter?
.com irrational exuberence (sp?) it seemed like almost all of my attractive female friends with degrees in such hot-ticket majors like "communications" or "human services" ended up as tech recruiters. I guess the companys figured (rightly so) that undersexed geeks would respond more positively to an attractive member of the opposite sex. My ex-GF even went into tech recruiting, and the way she described it, they were practically encouraged to "flirt" a little, ask people out for drinks, etc., in order to keep their interest in working with the firm. Unusual? Probably not. Just like any other sales job where the name of the game is establishing and maintaining a relationship with the clients.
Back in the days of
Back sometime in 1997, I was on a consulting gig in a city where a lot of my college buds had landed after graduation. We went out one night and were playing the "so...what are you up to these days?" game. One particularly lovely lady who was the object of many a man's fancy in college and I got to talking, and somehow I got to ranting about how the tech headhunters were driving me crazy, they had no idea what skills they were asking for, how they were the used car salesmen of the industy, etc. She listened politely to my rant and then after I was done, I asked, "So...what are you doing these days?
"I'm a technical recruiter," she said with a forced smile.
Ooops.
No problem: Get the source RPM and build it yourself. Go here, get the Samba 3.0 source RPM (SRPM) and build it using:
/usr/src/redhat/RPMS).
rpmbuild --rebuild
And it should compile you some nice RPMS to install (hint: look under
"...who wants to make idle chit-chat with some register jockey?"
That, my friend, depends entirely on how attractive she is. Don't tell me: You've never played "Rate the Register Girl"?
I take a pass by the registers on the way in, then rank my top three choices by register/aisle number. If I'm going to suffer the pain of shopping, I might as well make it a tad more enjoyable by flirting and chatting up the cute cashier.
Fortunately, I was able to take advatage of some good timing and a family safety net to return home to the family farm. I haven't driven tractor since high school, but it's kind of like riding a bike. I have to admit, after cutting all my expenses and doing "real work" here for my family, I might find it hard to return to a cube farm working for the man.
I usually go to great pains to make my car look "non-hammish" (hide the radios, stow the whips) when I park in an unfamiliar or urban area. At Dayton, all my mobile antennas don't stick out so much--they kind of get lost in the crowd, so I don't worry quite so much.
--Chuck, KF9FR
IMHO, physical crowding of bodies is a bigger problem than frequency congestion.
I once saw a guy at a local hamfest that was so fat he was wearing a mumu. Floral print and everything. No kidding.
Could just be Wisconsin (where I did most of my hamming), but it sure seemed like a lot of fellas in the hobby were on the "super-size" side of the scale.
At [Dayton] Hamvention, you bet there is a bandwidth crowding problem...especially on the more popular 2M and 440 bands. Almost every available frequency is in use. Most of my crew has now got 6M or 1.2GHz capability in their HTs, so we're hoping to move off to somewhere a little less crowded at Dayton this year.
--Chuck, KF9FR
...some blame "the internet" and others say that it's "young people" who have no interest anymore in technical hobbies.
I blame the Internet and cable TV. No kidding. I was headed to a Linux Business Expo in the Twin Cities a couple years ago with some of my close (and very interested in technical hobbies) friends. We drove my car, and I was tuning around the HF bands as we made our way across town in the morning hours. The guys were interested for all of about 2 minutes. They were extremely disappointed that I couldn't just dial up whatever country they wanted. No kidding. It was like they expected me to dial in the [Japan|Germany|Mexico|France] channel, and have a open direct line to the country immediately.
Once I explained that HF SSB mobile was more "art" in the sense that you had to bascially take what was on depending on the time of day, band conditions, whether someone was actually on, etc., they lost all interest.
All too used to punching in a channel or a web address and having content delivered immediately, I guess.
--Chuck, KF9FR
And, fear not good citizens, CNN.com was right on the ball, since they had already prepared the obituary on their web server sometime last month.
You can catch edited episodes of Buffy daily on FX...
How are the episodes edited? Are they edited for content or just so FX can squeeze four episodes into a 24-hour period (which they were doing in 2002, I believe).
I always thought the sure sign of a show's demise was when I could catch more than one episode a day in syndication/reruns. I think on some days I can see 5-6 episodes of Buffy if I wanted to. Talk about Slayer overload. With so much exposure, it doesn't take long to get to "Bored Now," no matter how good the show.
"Note to IBM: make a native Linux client for Notes, so we can stop having to use the Domino webmail interface." What's the real reason there hasn't been a Notes client for Linux yet? Anyone have some insight here?