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User: barzok

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Comments · 1,538

  1. Keep it simple on In Search of the "Perfect" Pager Rotation? · · Score: 1

    In my group we have about a dozen people to rotate the pager through. Right now, each takes it for a week at a time - so you're only on-call about 4 times a year. We hand over the pager every Monday morning.

    We just picked someone at random to be the "first" and then went through the list of people in the group alphabetically, copied/pasted 3 times (to get about a year's worth) and then overlaid it on a calendar. If someone has a week they know will be bad, they can swap with someone right away. Holiday conflicts (both for people pulling duty on holidays regularly and people who will be away for the holiday) will come out pretty easily too - generally the younger/single people tend to go out of town to see family while those with spouses and kids will have family coming to them, and so on.

    The only trick is, when you're only on-call 4 times a year, a lot can change between each time you're carrying the pager, and you have to keep on top of it.

  2. Re:Don't like it? on Working Hard? · · Score: 1

    Of course it's not "officially expected" but you end up making up for that time anyway. Working a strict 40 hour week every week then taking your allotted vacation is frowned upon nowadays.

  3. Re:Don't like it? on Working Hard? · · Score: 1
    I don't bitch about not getting enough vacation time. What I do bitch about is the expectation that if I use it, I will "make up" that time later - what's the point of taking a day off if I have to put in 2 extra hours each day the next week? The company just got that time back. That and the fact that management won't allow me to make use of it "because we really need you here this week."

    I don't bitch about not getting overtime (except in extreme situations), but I do bitch when my extra efforts aren't recognized at all. Whether it be by money, a public pat on the back, a gift, or even a nice lunch out somewhere, I just want to know that my extra efforts are appreciated. I'm tired of hearing "you put in 10 hours of OT this pay period? Great! But there's more work to be done. You'll be putting in 15 extra hours next time around."

  4. Re:This will be another solid update on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Really? IE 6 (MS's "latest" web browser) doesn't support Win95, forcing an upgrade.

  5. Re:"Can you please turn off the filters?" on US Supreme Court Upholds CIPA · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm for civil liberties as much as the next guy, and I agree that filters generally suck, but how hard is it really for an adult to ask another adult to turn off the filters? They are known to block all sorts of legit sites, so it's not as if you're really asking to look at pr0n.
    In many cases, the librarians & aides don't have access to turn it off (the required login rights on the computer), or if they do, they don't have the password for the filter itself. And the person or people who can do it will require red tape be filed and probably aren't on-site when needed anyway. Remember, it's still a beauracracy.
  6. Re:Apologies? on Slashback: Sorveteria, Rockets, Anger · · Score: 1
    IF Metallica first apologizes for all the crap they pulled over Napster a few years ago.
    I'd be happier if they apologized for making St. Anger (the album). Have you heard that steaming pile yet? The title-track single was only the tip of the crapberg.
  7. Re:Works both ways on Black Box in Speeder's Car Helped Conviction · · Score: 1
    They just use the excuse that they are on a "silent run" as they don't want their sirens to disturb the citizens. Uh huh
    Riiiiight...that's almost believable at noon, on an interstate, with no houses within 2 miles, the cop doing 90 just so he can get to his speed trap hiding spot 15 seconds earlier.

    That's what I observed yesterday, anyway.

    I should clarify what I said before - it's lights and siren, or just lights.
  8. Re:Works both ways on Black Box in Speeder's Car Helped Conviction · · Score: 1

    The police are not above the law.

    As I recall (at least in this state), police and other emergency service-type people are not permitted to do anything you outlined above without lights/siren.

    But who's going to stop them?

  9. Re:US National Debt on Down and Out in White-Collar America · · Score: 1

    You forgot #4: we're working off surplus supplies in many cases. Rather than "ramping up" production of all the stuff needed to bomb the crap out of some country, we're pulling it out of storage to make sure it's used before it expires.

  10. Re:Four letters on 12/7 and Overtime on a Salary? · · Score: 1

    In my experience, management's memory for good things is far outlived by its ability to cling to bad moments.

    IOW, you aren't remembered for what you do, you're remembered for what you did wrong.

  11. Re:Sums It Up on RIAA Grabs Student's Life's Savings · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If the RIAA's case was obviously weak (which many here will agree with), it probably wouldn't have cost him $12,000 in legal fees to defend. Instead, he's left with $0 in the bank and everyone thinking "well, he must have thought he was in the wrong, else he wouldn't have given up."

    This "settlement" was a victory for the RIAA, nothing less.

  12. Re:Nobody knows on Has the Internet Changed College? · · Score: 1
    It has probably drastically cut down people going to see the prof during his office hours to ask silly little questions and also improves professor to class communication. Email does the same thing as well.
    While it may have improved prof to class communcation, prof to student communication/relations has probably slid for the same reason - the number of people going to office hours for this type of thing (and then getting into another conversation) has dropped.
  13. Re:Interesting... on Build Your Own Fuel Injection Computer · · Score: 1

    Then it only makes sense that the HEMI would have it, considering Dodge's parent company (same as Mercedese - Daimler-Benz).

  14. Re:Interesting... on Build Your Own Fuel Injection Computer · · Score: 3, Insightful
    As the government takes more control (with OBD-III) along with the carmakers, expect to see less "home-tuning" as time goes on. Even with recent OBD-II vehicles things are getting difficult. And it requires deep pockets, plus a lot of equipment.

    Really, if you're into this sort of thing, you're probably better off restoring an older car, and dropping in a crate engine with a bolt-on fuel injection kit like Edelbrock offers, then tuning that.

  15. Re:Interesting... on Build Your Own Fuel Injection Computer · · Score: 5, Informative
    Cadillac still has it, it's part of the Northstar system. But, it's only for use in emergencies - if you lose your coolant, it shuts down half the engine at a time to pump air through to cool it off.

    Word on the street is that Dodge's new 5.7L HEMI has or will have in a near-future iteration cylinder shutoff for when you don't need all 8 sucking down the gas.

  16. Re:fist pr0st! on Microsoft to Pay AOL $750M in Settlement · · Score: 1
    I'd love to see Gecko just force-injected into 30 million users' lives but there's reality to face. There's a lot of sites out there that won't work right with anything but IE. Or look screwy in Gecko. Not because Gecko's bad, but because the code is bad but IE lets it go. Or it's IE-specific code.

    30 million AOL-ites getting pushed into a web were suddenly nothing looks the same...AOL's going to get hammered on tech support, and web "developers" who don't know (or care) about coding to W3C spec will bitch and moan till the cows come home that AOL broke their site and caused them to lose business.

    That being said, I hold out some hope that AOL does convert to Gecko on Win32. Mostly because I'm not one of those "developers" who doesn't care about W3C compliance.

  17. Re:That is a load of crap... on Are Standards Groups Stifling Innovation? · · Score: 1
    Try CSS2 sometime. I had to rework a design a few months ago because I couldn't use CSS2 constructs like input[type=text] to style all my text input boxes - had to switch to classes & IDs. While the final solution was perfectly valid, it resulted in extra work & code.

    Microsoft is with IE6 today where Netscape was with NS 4 in 1999, technology-wise. Stagnant and holding people back from doing really powerful stuff easily.

  18. You're cheap on SGI Announces Restructuring, Cuts 400 Jobs · · Score: 3, Informative

    You may be replacing someone who had been there for 10 years. You'll cost them less. In 10 years, you'll be the one getting let go.

  19. Re:The biggest mistake on Review: Matrix: Reloaded · · Score: 1

    No, it was an EMP from the other hovercraft that took out the sentinels, and probably also put him in the coma.

  20. Re:Laser on Last-Mile Solution For A Rural Land Co-op? · · Score: 1

    Until those hurricanes that Florida is so famous for come knocking on the door.

  21. Re:Not too hard... on Building Your Own KVM Switch...With Audio Connectors? · · Score: 1

    I think the idea was to have on switch to do it all, not have to switch two boxes each time he changes computers.

  22. Didn't they do this years ago? on Sniffing Out Cancer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    But it was a little more low-tech. I seem to remember some group of scientists training dogs to do this very thing - don't recall which breed they preferred, but there was definitely one breed that was better than others at it.

    Sure would make the news easier to take from a dog than some weird machine.

  23. OK, I'll say it on Land Speed Record Broken: 0-6,400 in Six Seconds · · Score: 5, Funny

    6400 MPH should be enough for anyone.

  24. Re:There's a Reasonable, Albeit Draconian Solution on A Timeline Of Spam And Antispam · · Score: 1
    We license drivers. How many idiots do you see on the road every day when you drive to and from work, who do not pay a penalty for being idiots? Think licensing computer users would be any more effective?

    Then again, I think driver licensing is too lax anyway. Changing a tire should be a required piece of it unless you are physically incapable of doing it.

  25. Re:Women In CS? on Calling All Computer Science Women? · · Score: 2

    Let us know how many women are in your classes in your final year. My first year there were a lot of women in the CS classes (relatively speaking), but they thinned out tremendously and by the time I graduated there were only a handful.