Naah, seriously, take some form of martial arts. If you don't have size on your side, use it against your foe. Lots of geeks I know have some skill in some martial art or another, or actually served in the military.
Luckily, after age 13 I had size on my side though I was always a scrapper (and took my lumps).. And now I'm just a fuckin' mutant (I didn't so much grow as metastasize)..
First thing is, you really have to take everything a schoolteacher or administrator has to say with about 25 kilograms of salt. Figure out which teachers really care and which are merely coasting along to retirement. Both my parents were tenured teachers and could tear mine new orifices without blinking.
Funny story: My Kindergarten teacher calls my folks in for a conference because she (a dried-up biddy in her 70s) wanted to hold me back a grade. Why? Because I used multicolored crayons to color in a picture (within the lines, just using bright colors). Many parents who don't know any better may simply acquiesce with little thought, thinking the teacher is a professional. _My_ parents asked her if she asked me _why_ I did it.
She never even thought to ask me.
So, when they did, apparently (my folks told me this later on, during a particularly low time) I answered "Because it's tropical". I had spent 2 weeks with the family in Antigua, and had colored the scene in shades of the Caribbean.
For this they were going to hold me back in Kindergarten.
It gets even better. I was so cruelly taunted and harassed in that school that by the fifth grade my family took me out. It had gotten to the point where my teachers were making fun of me, though I could read high school SRA cards (10th or higher IIRC) in the 3rd grade. I was spending every day in the vice-principal's office during lunch for getting into fights or for not doing homework. They took me out and put me in a magnet school in Queens for grades 5-8. I wasn't there long: I ended up testing into a NYC-wide magnet school (Hunter College HS, which accepted.00025 of the NYC school population each year) and was there for grades 6-12. My commute was 1.25-1.5 hours _each way_ to school.
So for me, believe it or not, HS wasn't that bad. It was _elementary_ school which scarred me, and which scars have yet to heal.
My brother went to the local high school. His stories are much nastier. And he only pulled a kitchen knife on me, but he's always been more of a pacifist anyways.
Perhaps we should be stricter about who should be eligible to have kids? In this day and age it seems much more dangerous to cope with the product of bad parenting...
Besides, my right to own and carry weapons is guaranteed by the Constitution in the US. Which document guarantees my right to procreate? Which activity requires more responsibility?
... considering part of the reason the US has remained militarized to the extent that it has is because France has proven itself singularly incompetent in combat since, what, Crecy? Imagine a world in which France contributes actively and constructively towards maintaining a free and democratic Europe, instead of detonating atomic weapons on defenseless sea creatures, persecuting shopkeepers who dare to post signage in anything but their desperately beloved French tongue, and kowtowing like a cheap whore before Russia, Iraq, and many (if not most) other fetid sources of oppression around the world. I can't.
Though I admit, after flipping through the NRA's info pages on state gun laws, I'm very concerned that there isn't much mandatory instruction required across most of the country, I still believe that the 2nd amendment provides our ultimate protection against government abuse and injustice. However, we should really require some form of training in handling and firing weapons. It shouldn't be easier to get a gun than it is to get a car: both are deadly weapons.
And who cares, really, that most Americans only speak English? If you're going to learn only one language, that's the one to learn. Either that, or Mandarin. Better to save those brain cells for something in your field, and to learn your job's specialized language..
schadenfreude, roughly translated to 'taking pleasure at the suffering of others'.. Seeing the former BMOC tending bar on a tuesday after getting out of his drug treatment program, as you order a round of 25-year-old Macallans for your pals (which costs more than the fellow will pull in all evening), feels almost criminally good. Yes it's decadent and materialistic, but anything which rubs someones nose in something well-deservedly unpleasant gives me the warm fuzzies.
I am now a successful SysAdmin and marketing manager.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
It wasn't any outside influence that made them this way. They were born with it.
I think all carnivores or omnivores are born to kill at an instinctual level. Civility and the curtailing of violent urges are _learned_, and if not learned there isn't much that the poor soul can understand besides rage and fear. Perhaps these kids had much stronger urges than the norm, or their parents didn't do enough to teach them how to deal with problems in a civil manner, but don't forget the animal within.
And I tend to believe that any law-abiding citizen without a violent or felonious criminal record should be permitted to wear an un-concealed handgun after a reasonable amount of training and licensing. Just imagine how many lives would have been saved on the LIRR if a citizen could have shot Colin Ferguson as soon as he drew his rifle.
The problem isn't guns, the internet, taunting, white rage, or ennui. It's bad parenting. I put up with a lot of shit as an American white male growing up in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood. I have been using computers since age 5, BBSes since age 8, playing RPGs since age 9, and was the beleagured fat kid since age 7.
I have never shot anyone, nor have I stabbed, garotted, poisoned, run over, or in any other way killed anyone, ever. I've gotten into fights, I've even broken noses, but I've never killed, though I have wanted to in the abstract.
Where does the restraint come from? The only place I can think of is from my strong, supportive family. Maybe these poor kids didn't have the kind of love and succour that adolescents need. And it's not because you need a housewife to take care of the kids all the time (my mom worked outside the home for 30+ years and I was a latchkey kid since Kindergarten). There's something either wrong with the parents themselves, or they failed to see the rage in their kids early enough to do something about it.
Then again, there's an awful large number of stupid people on this planet, the trouble is staying out of the way of their mistakes...
I'd say beginner tasks in unix are almost completely transferable: querying system performance, user management, scripting, daemon (mail, dns, web) config and maintenance, general 'changing the oil' tasks like disk utilization, log compression, simple backups.
Differentiation begins when you're buying different flavors for specific features, like LVM/JFS (which is slightly but annoyingly different among all platforms which have it), dynamic kernel configuration, clustering, etc. However, depending on how quickly you pick things up, you can usually hire consultants to do the heavy lifting and setup, and learn from them, and keep the manuals (you bought the manuals, right?;) and read them. Lord knows how quick I could master AIX because I had access to _all_ the manuals and _all_ the redbooks.. (in fact, btw, I got a set of the AIX thru 4.2 redbooks on CD-ROM as a going away present!;)
Experience really only helps when TSHTF and you need to get back up FAST. Experience, particularly platform-specific experience, decreases your downtime because you know the tricks and oddities of the system. Of course, time is money, and companies are willing to pay for that level of experience, but I find that an org can save lots of $$$ if it takes the time to analyze its needs properly and get the quantity and quality it really needs. My current shop really doesn't need someone as good as me, though I bring some general tech analysis skills along with my AIX/Sol/OSF/HPUX/Linux/SunOS/IRIX/Cisco, so I can help out in a decision-making meeting on tech matters.
Personally, I prefer people who are flexible and comfortable with technology, and have the analytical and troubleshooting skills to deal with unforseen or new things, over any certs or experience numbers. Experience is definitely good, but without flexibility, you're toast in this business. And I don't mean flexibility in 'are you flexible enough to work 70 hour weeks', I mean 'we just got this new RAID in, but it didn't come with drivers. Can you wire it to our 7013-590?' If you approach that latter question like a tiger approaches an ibex, that's the kind of tech I would have no problem consulting with..
I find that my day-to-day tasks really only require the basic->intermediate skills of building httpd.conf, sendmail.cf, named.conf, and the oil changing tasks. Every once in awhile you get the platform-specific bits (like Integrix RAID conf thru a TTY, DiskSuite software RAID, LVM/JFS, print service, etc) but those really don't happen on a day2day basis unless you're in a large shop..
Linux will give you a strong foundation and familiarity with GNU tools. More importantly, however, it will also get you used to finding out your own answers and sharing your own tips and techniques. By the time you're ready to deal with the other (proprietary|advanced) features, you'll have developed the correct approach (tools, dejanews, altavista, ORA) to handle any problem.
I've got mine hooked up to a 5.0 (subwoofer would get me evicted) DD/DTS system, it ROCKS..
Less than $400.. and the A110 might even be available for less than $300.. The A110 has the same DVD chipset as the Sony 7000, though the build quality isn't terribly impressive (though Panasonic tends to be hardy as hell)..
Now don't ask me about my Kenwood VR2090, or else I might just have to kill you.. Let's just say I shan't be thinking of Kenwood when it comes to upgrading..
And my 100W tuner + Klipsch 5.0 rig + DVD + 32SF35 came to less than $5000 total... Perfect sound for a 12x15 room...
Sysadmin has little to do with programming, software development, or artistic and scientific creativity
Possibly, though I'm sure Larry Wall or Randal Schwartz might have something to say about that
or even understanding how systems work
Bullshit. That's the _WHOLE POINT_! Sysadms, if anything, are often the _ONLY_ people who know how systems work and what they do. If you don't, then you better start looking for work..
average users who generally are just as intelligent, and oftem much, much more intelligent, than sysadmins
What planet do you live on? Most of my lusers are incompetent snots who expect everything NOW, and can't figure out why *.* doesn't work, can't handle case-sensitivity, and can't bloody spell anything.. And they keep giving me code to run on production systems that's full of leaks, 2MB static binaries to run as CGIs accessed twice a second... Fucking accounting jackasses who can't figure out why you can't run a production Oracle DB on a single drive (you can, but you could also build a jetliner without triple and quadruple redundant systems).. My pay seems mostly derived from the ability to not kill these people on a daily basis..
Or are you just a disgruntled user?
Learning these rules has almost nothing to do with intelligence, but only with having "mentors" who will accept the apprentice into the fold. It is a sham
Again, what planet do you live on? Or haven't you scanned the shelves at Borders or flipped pages at ora.com? I have received a total of 40 hours of formal education on Unix, and that was an AIX class which I could've _taught_.. Everything you need to know to get started in the field, you can learn from the Red Bible, ORA's books, systems docs (docs.sun.com for SPARCs), and manpages. You just need to train your mind to ask the right questions.. And don't represent yourself to be something you're not, but that's probably good advice for any field...
Sysadmins aren't necessarily paid for their skillset, though that's important. They're paid to be responsible for operation of systems that _must_ remain operable _all the time_. The skillset and ability of that admin (or, where skills are lacking, the availability of that admin) differ, but the customer only really cares that systems stay running as long as possible for as little $$$ as possible. uptime/cost is one of the more annoying ratios in my job.
Limitations admins may place on your privs and environment may seem (and can be) arbitrary, but think for a second: do you _really_ want root password? My policy on root is that it comes with a pager, and when TSHTF you are on the page list. Anything goes wrong with the system, you are a suspect. Because I'll be damned if I'm answering to Mr. PHB for some junk you did as root that you didn't document (or even understand)..
Besides, in some ways, admins shouldn't be coders, they should be hackers, because the admin's job is to figure out which piece is keeping the system from running optimally, and replace that piece...
.... I want it for the AC3 digital out! And the line doubler... Dream system is to hook a system with that pup to a projector and have 100" of DVD fun....
I would really like to get it as a stereo component formfactor, rather than some dopey console. We use CDs now. Why can't we get rackmount game players?
It makes sense particularly for PS2 as it will also be my next DVD player most likely..
Well, slacker, get cracking! You could probably wire a soft power switch to a serial port or something and use your carrier to indicate wheter the switch should be on or off...
All* of the dynamo economies in developing countries were primed by very heavy investment from the developed world, often through multi-nationals.
And don't forget about what happens when those investors get skittish, though in many cases those Asian tigers deserved precisely what they got (for having despotism, opaque trading, ego-stroking useless public projects, nepotism, corruption, etc)..
I suppose. Still: o College is _way_ overpriced and inefficient o They don't understand customer service o The most important thing I got out of it was my campus computer lab job and access to the net
I was able to grind my own keys after some time as a locksmith's apprentice, and now I can unlock some pretty sweet doors..;)
The reality of the IT world is that years of experience don't count for squat beyond a certain point. Anyone with three years of experience is now a "senior engineer." The way to make the bucks is to go I*N*D*E*P*E*N*D*E*N*T and then you have to talk the talk (and only sometimes walk the walk).
I've met (and cleaned up after) enough of these folks to know I could do it, if it werent for these damn scruples..;)
Learning to market yourself effectively will get you past that $100k/yr easily. I should know, I went independant two years ago and now I'm billing $135/hr and grossing over $250k/yr - and I am just a unix dude with exposure to admin, kernel, and application development but I was in the right place at the right time and was able to say the right words, so now I'm rolling in the dough (and it all goes straight to the bank, I still drive my 94 sentra).
Fair enough. I've been a Perl hacker for about 7 years, but I tend to have too little patience to sit and debug memory leaks and pointer junk to make a living off it, though I can usually tickle bitchy code enough to get it to compile on various systems (AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux, DEC/OSF) as long as support for what the author looked like she wanted to do was there.. btw: seriously, look into buying a condo or house. You're getting raped anally by FedGov and NyGov if you aren't deducting mortgage interest, but then again you consult so you probably deduct toilet paper..;)
PS, even before I went independent, that boutique quant trading house on wallstreet, where Christos Zoulas used to work, damn can't remember their name, offered me $120k/yr as a salaried employee to do fancy-dancy admin work. So, for NYC I'd think $70k/yr is really low for a good sysadmin
Yah, but that would mean working for a bank again, and wearing a tie, and dealing with all the concomitant bullshit of an organization that relies on discipline to mitigate the stupidity of their workforce. My job might be (relatively) low-paid, but I actually work with smart people and I have some pretty neat perks (like about 200 IP addrs on a 10mbps frac-T3 to play with, my U10/333 + 24" 1920x1200 monitor, maytag-repairman work load (thanks to Solaris and Linux), shorts and t-shirt, sexy chicks to ogle, etc). I can double my pay by quadrupling my stress: what kind of return is that? I could have probably broken into 6 figures if I took that job at Deutsche Bank, but the place looked like a fucking meat grinder, and I had just had a year of Y2k at HSBC.. I had _no_ intention of trying that again..
I see where you're coming from, and I envy you your freedom, but I don't envy you your risk. For me, it's not quite all about the benjamins, but I admit I might be bitchier if I couldn't afford my 99 Grand Cherokee Limited.. (That's black with tan leather.. I call it Megaweapon..;)
I'll be at UBCon this weekend, probably playing Illuminati and checking out the dealer's room, and hoping they've brought back the swordsmiths..;)
Slashdot Mirror
is here, though a nytimes free login of one sort or another will be asked.
Naah, seriously, take some form of martial arts. If you don't have size on your side, use it against your foe. Lots of geeks I know have some skill in some martial art or another, or actually served in the military.
Luckily, after age 13 I had size on my side though I was always a scrapper (and took my lumps).. And now I'm just a fuckin' mutant (I didn't so much grow as metastasize)..
Coincidence?
READ THE BOOK!
First thing is, you really have to take everything a schoolteacher or administrator has to say with about 25 kilograms of salt. Figure out which teachers really care and which are merely coasting along to retirement. Both my parents were tenured teachers and could tear mine new orifices without blinking.
.00025 of the NYC school population each year) and was there for grades 6-12. My commute was 1.25-1.5 hours _each way_ to school.
Funny story: My Kindergarten teacher calls my folks in for a conference because she (a dried-up biddy in her 70s) wanted to hold me back a grade. Why? Because I used multicolored crayons to color in a picture (within the lines, just using bright colors). Many parents who don't know any better may simply acquiesce with little thought, thinking the teacher is a professional. _My_ parents asked her if she asked me _why_ I did it.
She never even thought to ask me.
So, when they did, apparently (my folks told me this later on, during a particularly low time) I answered "Because it's tropical". I had spent 2 weeks with the family in Antigua, and had colored the scene in shades of the Caribbean.
For this they were going to hold me back in Kindergarten.
It gets even better. I was so cruelly taunted and harassed in that school that by the fifth grade my family took me out. It had gotten to the point where my teachers were making fun of me, though I could read high school SRA cards (10th or higher IIRC) in the 3rd grade. I was spending every day in the vice-principal's office during lunch for getting into fights or for not doing homework. They took me out and put me in a magnet school in Queens for grades 5-8. I wasn't there long: I ended up testing into a NYC-wide magnet school (Hunter College HS, which accepted
So for me, believe it or not, HS wasn't that bad. It was _elementary_ school which scarred me, and which scars have yet to heal.
My brother went to the local high school. His stories are much nastier. And he only pulled a kitchen knife on me, but he's always been more of a pacifist anyways.
Perhaps we should be stricter about who should be eligible to have kids? In this day and age it seems much more dangerous to cope with the product of bad parenting...
Besides, my right to own and carry weapons is guaranteed by the Constitution in the US. Which document guarantees my right to procreate? Which activity requires more responsibility?
... considering part of the reason the US has remained militarized to the extent that it has is because France has proven itself singularly incompetent in combat since, what, Crecy? Imagine a world in which France contributes actively and constructively towards maintaining a free and democratic Europe, instead of detonating atomic weapons on defenseless sea creatures, persecuting shopkeepers who dare to post signage in anything but their desperately beloved French tongue, and kowtowing like a cheap whore before Russia, Iraq, and many (if not most) other fetid sources of oppression around the world. I can't.
Though I admit, after flipping through the NRA's info pages on state gun laws, I'm very concerned that there isn't much mandatory instruction required across most of the country, I still believe that the 2nd amendment provides our ultimate protection against government abuse and injustice. However, we should really require some form of training in handling and firing weapons. It shouldn't be easier to get a gun than it is to get a car: both are deadly weapons.
And who cares, really, that most Americans only speak English? If you're going to learn only one language, that's the one to learn. Either that, or Mandarin. Better to save those brain cells for something in your field, and to learn your job's specialized language..
schadenfreude, roughly translated to 'taking pleasure at the suffering of others'.. Seeing the former BMOC tending bar on a tuesday after getting out of his drug treatment program, as you order a round of 25-year-old Macallans for your pals (which costs more than the fellow will pull in all evening), feels almost criminally good. Yes it's decadent and materialistic, but anything which rubs someones nose in something well-deservedly unpleasant gives me the warm fuzzies.
Crime rates in regions where gun posession is prevelant are pretty much never lower than regions where it is not
Can you cite a URL for this research?
Then what about OKC? A coupla yahoos with a van and fertilizer.. Who sez next time it isn't a military target instead of a federal building?
Necessity remains the mother of invention..
I am now a successful SysAdmin and marketing manager.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
It wasn't any outside influence that made them this way. They were born with it.
I think all carnivores or omnivores are born to kill at an instinctual level. Civility and the curtailing of violent urges are _learned_, and if not learned there isn't much that the poor soul can understand besides rage and fear. Perhaps these kids had much stronger urges than the norm, or their parents didn't do enough to teach them how to deal with problems in a civil manner, but don't forget the animal within.
And I tend to believe that any law-abiding citizen without a violent or felonious criminal record should be permitted to wear an un-concealed handgun after a reasonable amount of training and licensing. Just imagine how many lives would have been saved on the LIRR if a citizen could have shot Colin Ferguson as soon as he drew his rifle.
"An armed society is a polite society"
The problem isn't guns, the internet, taunting, white rage, or ennui. It's bad parenting. I put up with a lot of shit as an American white male growing up in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood. I have been using computers since age 5, BBSes since age 8, playing RPGs since age 9, and was the beleagured fat kid since age 7.
I have never shot anyone, nor have I stabbed, garotted, poisoned, run over, or in any other way killed anyone, ever. I've gotten into fights, I've even broken noses, but I've never killed, though I have wanted to in the abstract.
Where does the restraint come from? The only place I can think of is from my strong, supportive family. Maybe these poor kids didn't have the kind of love and succour that adolescents need. And it's not because you need a housewife to take care of the kids all the time (my mom worked outside the home for 30+ years and I was a latchkey kid since Kindergarten). There's something either wrong with the parents themselves, or they failed to see the rage in their kids early enough to do something about it.
Then again, there's an awful large number of stupid people on this planet, the trouble is staying out of the way of their mistakes...
just a quickie: isn't there a SCO emulator for Linux?
Um, yeah, but that's _old_ source... I want to know where the source that's _currently_ running is....
.... is a link to the most recent source code tarball.. Anonymous CVS would be nice, but I don't want to push it.
;)
Anyone care to join me in a 'free the Slashdot source' movement? (0.5 *
I'd say beginner tasks in unix are almost completely transferable: querying system performance, user management, scripting, daemon (mail, dns, web) config and maintenance, general 'changing the oil' tasks like disk utilization, log compression, simple backups.
;) and read them. Lord knows how quick I could master AIX because I had access to _all_ the manuals and _all_ the redbooks.. (in fact, btw, I got a set of the AIX thru 4.2 redbooks on CD-ROM as a going away present! ;)
Differentiation begins when you're buying different flavors for specific features, like LVM/JFS (which is slightly but annoyingly different among all platforms which have it), dynamic kernel configuration, clustering, etc. However, depending on how quickly you pick things up, you can usually hire consultants to do the heavy lifting and setup, and learn from them, and
keep the manuals (you bought the manuals, right?
Experience really only helps when TSHTF and you need to get back up FAST. Experience, particularly platform-specific experience, decreases your downtime because you know the tricks and oddities of the system. Of course, time is money, and companies are willing to pay for that level of experience, but I find that an org can save lots of $$$ if it takes the time to analyze its needs properly and get the quantity and quality it really needs. My current shop really doesn't need someone as good as me, though I bring some general tech analysis skills along with my AIX/Sol/OSF/HPUX/Linux/SunOS/IRIX/Cisco, so I can help out in a decision-making meeting on tech matters.
Personally, I prefer people who are flexible and comfortable with technology, and have the analytical and troubleshooting skills to deal with unforseen or new things, over any certs or experience numbers. Experience is definitely good, but without flexibility, you're toast in this business. And I don't mean flexibility in 'are you flexible enough to work 70 hour weeks', I mean 'we just got this new RAID in, but it didn't come with drivers. Can you wire it to our 7013-590?' If you approach that latter question like a tiger approaches an ibex, that's the kind of tech I would have no problem consulting with..
I find that my day-to-day tasks really only require the basic->intermediate skills of building httpd.conf, sendmail.cf, named.conf, and the oil changing tasks. Every once in awhile you get the platform-specific bits (like Integrix RAID conf thru a TTY, DiskSuite software RAID, LVM/JFS, print service, etc) but those really don't happen on a day2day basis unless you're in a large shop..
Linux will give you a strong foundation and familiarity with GNU tools. More importantly, however, it will also get you used to finding out your own answers and sharing your own tips and techniques. By the time you're ready to deal with the other (proprietary|advanced) features, you'll have developed the correct approach (tools, dejanews, altavista, ORA) to handle any problem.
Panasonic A110/120 is your best bet.
I've got mine hooked up to a 5.0 (subwoofer would get me evicted) DD/DTS system, it ROCKS..
Less than $400.. and the A110 might even be available for less than $300.. The A110 has the same DVD chipset as the Sony 7000, though the build quality isn't terribly impressive (though Panasonic tends to be hardy as hell)..
Now don't ask me about my Kenwood VR2090, or else I might just have to kill you.. Let's just say I shan't be thinking of Kenwood when it comes to upgrading..
And my 100W tuner + Klipsch 5.0 rig + DVD + 32SF35 came to less than $5000 total... Perfect sound for a 12x15 room...
Sysadmin has little to do with programming, software development, or artistic and scientific creativity
Possibly, though I'm sure Larry Wall or Randal Schwartz might have something to say about that
or even understanding how systems work
Bullshit. That's the _WHOLE POINT_! Sysadms, if anything, are often the _ONLY_ people who know how systems work and what they do. If you don't, then you better start looking for work..
average users who generally are just as intelligent, and oftem much, much more intelligent, than sysadmins
What planet do you live on? Most of my lusers are incompetent snots who expect everything NOW, and can't figure out why *.* doesn't work, can't handle case-sensitivity, and can't bloody spell anything.. And they keep giving me code to run on production systems that's full of leaks, 2MB static binaries to run as CGIs accessed twice a second... Fucking accounting jackasses who can't figure out why you can't run a production Oracle DB on a single drive (you can, but you could also build a jetliner without triple and quadruple redundant systems).. My pay seems mostly derived
from the ability to not kill these people on a
daily basis..
Or are you just a disgruntled user?
Learning these rules has almost nothing to do with intelligence, but only with having "mentors" who will accept the apprentice into the fold. It is a sham
Again, what planet do you live on? Or haven't you scanned the shelves at Borders or flipped pages at ora.com? I have received a total of 40 hours of formal education on Unix, and that was an AIX class which I could've _taught_.. Everything you need to know to get started in the field, you can learn from the Red Bible, ORA's books, systems docs (docs.sun.com for SPARCs), and manpages. You just need to train your mind to ask the right questions.. And don't represent yourself to be something you're not, but that's probably good advice for any field...
Sysadmins aren't necessarily paid for their skillset, though that's important. They're paid to be responsible for operation of systems that _must_ remain operable _all the time_. The skillset and ability of that admin (or, where skills are lacking, the availability of that admin) differ, but the customer only really cares that systems stay running as long as possible for as little $$$ as possible. uptime/cost is one of the more annoying ratios in my job.
Limitations admins may place on your privs and environment may seem (and can be) arbitrary, but think for a second: do you _really_ want root password? My policy on root is that it comes with a pager, and when TSHTF you are on the page list. Anything goes wrong with the system, you are a suspect. Because I'll be damned if I'm answering to Mr. PHB for some junk you did as root that you didn't document (or even understand)..
Besides, in some ways, admins shouldn't be coders, they should be hackers, because the admin's job is to figure out which piece is keeping the system from running optimally, and replace that piece...
What was your username again?
*clickety-click*
.... I want it for the AC3 digital out! And the line doubler... Dream system is to hook a system with that pup to a projector and have 100" of DVD fun....
And maybe HDTV would be nice someday...
I would really like to get it as a stereo component formfactor, rather than some dopey console. We use CDs now. Why can't we get rackmount game players?
It makes sense particularly for PS2 as it will also be my next DVD player most likely..
They now look like Yahoo! for christsakes!
Naah, Yahoo's better. More functional and fewer graphics.
The new SGI is here, and it looks hideous....
It doesn't make my coffee, yet...
/home/me/coffeemaker -1 /home/me/coffeemaker -0
Well, slacker, get cracking! You could probably wire a soft power switch to a serial port or something and use your carrier to indicate wheter the switch should be on or off...
0 8 * * * 1-5
0 10 * * * 1-5
Or go for the whole thing and wire your sockets with X10..
All* of the dynamo economies in developing countries were primed by very heavy investment from the developed world, often through multi-nationals.
And don't forget about what happens when those investors get skittish, though in many cases those Asian tigers deserved precisely what they got (for having despotism, opaque trading, ego-stroking useless public projects, nepotism, corruption, etc)..
Yes, quite a bit so. People weren't butchering each other to uphold US policies, for starts.
Yeah, they were butchering each other over centuries-old tribal/caste/religious/racial battles...
I suppose. Still:
;)
o College is _way_ overpriced and inefficient
o They don't understand customer service
o The most important thing I got out of it was my campus computer lab job and access to the net
I was able to grind my own keys after some time as a locksmith's apprentice, and now I can unlock some pretty sweet doors..
The reality of the IT world is that years of experience don't count for squat beyond a certain point. Anyone with three years of experience is now a "senior engineer." The way to make the bucks is to go I*N*D*E*P*E*N*D*E*N*T and then you have to talk the talk (and only sometimes walk the walk).
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I've met (and cleaned up after) enough of these folks to know I could do it, if it werent for these damn scruples..
Learning to market yourself effectively will get you past that $100k/yr easily. I should know, I went independant two years ago and now I'm billing $135/hr and grossing over $250k/yr - and I am just a unix dude with exposure to admin, kernel, and application development but I was in the right place at the right time and was able to say the right words, so now I'm rolling in the dough (and it all goes straight to the bank, I still drive my 94 sentra).
Fair enough. I've been a Perl hacker for about 7 years, but I tend to have too little patience to sit and debug memory leaks and pointer junk to make a living off it, though I can usually tickle bitchy code enough to get it to compile on various systems (AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux, DEC/OSF) as long as support for what the author looked like she wanted to do was there.. btw: seriously, look into buying a condo or house. You're getting raped anally by FedGov and NyGov if you aren't deducting mortgage interest, but then again you consult so you probably deduct toilet paper..
PS, even before I went independent, that boutique quant trading house on wallstreet, where Christos Zoulas used to work, damn can't remember their name, offered me $120k/yr as a salaried employee to do fancy-dancy admin work. So, for NYC I'd think $70k/yr is really low for a good sysadmin
Yah, but that would mean working for a bank again, and wearing a tie, and dealing with all the concomitant bullshit of an organization that relies on discipline to mitigate the stupidity of their workforce. My job might be (relatively) low-paid, but I actually work with smart people and I have some pretty neat perks (like about 200 IP addrs on a 10mbps frac-T3 to play with, my U10/333 + 24" 1920x1200 monitor, maytag-repairman work load (thanks to Solaris and Linux), shorts and t-shirt, sexy chicks to ogle, etc). I can double my pay by quadrupling my stress: what kind of return is that? I could have probably broken into 6 figures if I took that job at Deutsche Bank, but the place looked like a fucking meat grinder, and I had just had a year of Y2k at HSBC.. I had _no_ intention of trying that again..
I see where you're coming from, and I envy you your freedom, but I don't envy you your risk. For me, it's not quite all about the benjamins, but I admit I might be bitchier if I couldn't afford my 99 Grand Cherokee Limited.. (That's black with tan leather.. I call it Megaweapon..
I'll be at UBCon this weekend, probably playing Illuminati and checking out the dealer's room, and hoping they've brought back the swordsmiths..