The one question an IT geek can never answer. At 5pm email is working fine. At 8am the next day email is not working. No-one has been in the office from 5pm to 8am, so why did the email break? Oh, the disk was full, or there was an influx of spam or some other reason. So what does the IT geek do? He frees some space on the disk or he configures the spam filter to drop messages with a lower score. Two days later the email server is down again. What's the problem this time? Same thing, harddrive was full. Jesus Christ, can you please buy another fuckin' harddrive already or setup a nightly event to clean the temp files? Why does everything need to be babysitted?
Great thing that happened to me the other day. My DSL stopped working. I called IT. They called the provider. The provider said they'd get right on it. 8 hours went by. I called IT. IT called the provider. The provider escalated the request. 10 hours went by. I called IT. IT called the provider. The provider actually bothered to look up the account details. "Oh yeah, we sent you an email with new username details the other day." IT: "What email address did you send it to?" Provider: "The one you gave us." IT: "Which one is that?" Provider: "We don't know, it's on the form you filled in when you signed up." IT searches for the form, finds the email address, finds the email with the new user information. Fixes the username in my router and tells me it should all be working now. I reboot the router.. nope, still no good. 2 hours go by. I call IT to ask what is happening, they say they got "sidetracked". So they call the provider.. the provider says the password has changed too. So they change the password and tell me to retry. Still doesn't work. So now they call the provider straight away, the provider says the IP address has changed too. So IT changes the IP address in the router. Yah, we now have a carrier light.. no DNS though. Apparently the VPN needs to be reconfigured to use the new IP. IT does that. Still not working. 2 hours go by. Oh, yeah, forgot about that firewall rule.. need to add the new IP to that. Ok, should be working now. It is. Total elapsed time: 4 days. I had to ask "Why'd they change the username/password/ip address?" IT says: "No idea." So I have to ask: "Has this happened before?" IT: "Yeah, it happens all the time." So I gotta wonder, why has no-one put together a checklist of things to do when a DSL outage is reported? Why is it checking the username/password/ip address/VPN/firewall wasn't on that list?
So no, I don't give a shit if you were a tie either, but don't give me that crap about being perfect.
I think what it comes down to is that IT workers are still very mobile. If management tried to tell off IT for not wearing dress clothes to work at least 10% would quit, another 10% would just ignore the order and the remainder would just do the bare minimum to get by (bitching and moaning the whole time). If someone was to subsequently get fired for not wearing appropriate attire you'd probably have a revolt on your hands.
Uh huh. Again, I think some people need to stop getting their legal advice from tv. What are you going to do if you find a corporation guilty of a criminal act? Put the employees in prison, or just the papers of incorporation? Seriously, sometimes it's like talking to fuckin' goldfish with you people.
Wrong. Responsible companies, like, for example, Sun Microsystems, will simply not distribute software that they have not legally reviewed. I mentioned Sun simply because I've had the pleasure of dealing with their legal department. I hear Microsoft is much the same and just about every medium sized company I've worked with has demanded a legal review of my work before distributing it. The fact that Sony clearly didn't get a legal review done on XCP is evidence of a cockup of the most extreme kind. Should this class action lawsuit actually achieve anything Sony has absolutely no chance of defending itself, or countersuing First4Internet for any significant portion of what they'll have to pay.
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is the single most important piece of legislation affecting corporate governance, financial disclosure and the practice of public accounting since the US securities laws of the early 1930s.
This must be some sort of alternate universe where states charge corporations with criminal acts. Wouldn't the police have to identify which persons in the company were actually responsible for this criminal act and charge just those persons? Ya know, like ceasing the internal communications that have probably already disappeared from Sony's internal email servers?
Yeah, it's called due diligence and it's something large companies are notoriously bad at. Of course, nothing is going to happen. If the LAME dudes or DVD Jon were going to sue Sony they would have let us know by now.
It is NOT a production problem, but a distribution problem.
Any distribution problem can be solved by producing a product closer to the consumer. That is, if you don't have the issue of labour costs, which you don't, in a fully automated factory. The point is, curing world hunger is not something you can set out to do. It has to be a side effect of competing in local markets. If you can't make synthetic food for cheaper than traditional farming then it's nothing more than a boondoggle.
Personally I would love it if protein synthesis became plausible in my lifetime. First you'd sell these factories to third world countries where defending a corporate asset is a lot easier than defending farmland. Instantly curing world hunger. Then you'd see 100% synthesised meat alternatives appearing in vegetarian food outlets - there's already some of this, Quorn being the most famous, but their manufacturing methods are too expensive to have an effect on the mainstream. Then we'll see synthesised meat appearing in shopping centre refrigeration cabinets. When you have the choice between $21.99/kg steak vs $1.99/kg synthesised meat you'll at least give it a go. From there, the future is our playground. We can shut down factory farms. We can reclaim land for foresting. We can build self sufficient space habitates without needing to launch millions of tonnes of topsoil for crops.
Potato, patato. Point is, the Ask Slashdotter is pretending he's in a corporate environment and then saying he's trying to cut costs. If you find yourself in a corporation that needs to cut costs on IT you don't Ask Slashdot, you fuckin' run.
If you were a systems administrator in a corporate environment you wouldn't be trying to save money. You'd use the best available software for the job and that software is Symantec Ghost so pony up tech boy.
Maybe you'd like read4me. It uses bayesian filtering on the server to choose which articles you're likely to enjoy. You train it by rating it's performance or clicking on titles that interest you.
You what? Being interested in other people's lives is hardly a new phenomena. I believe they used to call it "gossip". The internet just made it possible to rant on about yourself without people running for the door. Kinda like one too many pints at the local.
Slashdot Mirror
Why did it break in the first place?
The one question an IT geek can never answer. At 5pm email is working fine. At 8am the next day email is not working. No-one has been in the office from 5pm to 8am, so why did the email break? Oh, the disk was full, or there was an influx of spam or some other reason. So what does the IT geek do? He frees some space on the disk or he configures the spam filter to drop messages with a lower score. Two days later the email server is down again. What's the problem this time? Same thing, harddrive was full. Jesus Christ, can you please buy another fuckin' harddrive already or setup a nightly event to clean the temp files? Why does everything need to be babysitted?
Great thing that happened to me the other day. My DSL stopped working. I called IT. They called the provider. The provider said they'd get right on it. 8 hours went by. I called IT. IT called the provider. The provider escalated the request. 10 hours went by. I called IT. IT called the provider. The provider actually bothered to look up the account details. "Oh yeah, we sent you an email with new username details the other day." IT: "What email address did you send it to?" Provider: "The one you gave us." IT: "Which one is that?" Provider: "We don't know, it's on the form you filled in when you signed up." IT searches for the form, finds the email address, finds the email with the new user information. Fixes the username in my router and tells me it should all be working now. I reboot the router.. nope, still no good. 2 hours go by. I call IT to ask what is happening, they say they got "sidetracked". So they call the provider.. the provider says the password has changed too. So they change the password and tell me to retry. Still doesn't work. So now they call the provider straight away, the provider says the IP address has changed too. So IT changes the IP address in the router. Yah, we now have a carrier light.. no DNS though. Apparently the VPN needs to be reconfigured to use the new IP. IT does that. Still not working. 2 hours go by. Oh, yeah, forgot about that firewall rule.. need to add the new IP to that. Ok, should be working now. It is. Total elapsed time: 4 days. I had to ask "Why'd they change the username/password/ip address?" IT says: "No idea." So I have to ask: "Has this happened before?" IT: "Yeah, it happens all the time." So I gotta wonder, why has no-one put together a checklist of things to do when a DSL outage is reported? Why is it checking the username/password/ip address/VPN/firewall wasn't on that list?
So no, I don't give a shit if you were a tie either, but don't give me that crap about being perfect.
I think what it comes down to is that IT workers are still very mobile. If management tried to tell off IT for not wearing dress clothes to work at least 10% would quit, another 10% would just ignore the order and the remainder would just do the bare minimum to get by (bitching and moaning the whole time). If someone was to subsequently get fired for not wearing appropriate attire you'd probably have a revolt on your hands.
"Hey that's a nice shirt... are you gay!?"
Hey, that's a nice comment, I think I'll sue you for sexual discrimination, *ka-ching!*
Way to preach to the choir homeboy.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with criminal law. Again, goldfish.
Uh huh. Again, I think some people need to stop getting their legal advice from tv. What are you going to do if you find a corporation guilty of a criminal act? Put the employees in prison, or just the papers of incorporation? Seriously, sometimes it's like talking to fuckin' goldfish with you people.
Wrong. Responsible companies, like, for example, Sun Microsystems, will simply not distribute software that they have not legally reviewed. I mentioned Sun simply because I've had the pleasure of dealing with their legal department. I hear Microsoft is much the same and just about every medium sized company I've worked with has demanded a legal review of my work before distributing it. The fact that Sony clearly didn't get a legal review done on XCP is evidence of a cockup of the most extreme kind. Should this class action lawsuit actually achieve anything Sony has absolutely no chance of defending itself, or countersuing First4Internet for any significant portion of what they'll have to pay.
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is the single most important piece of legislation affecting corporate governance, financial disclosure and the practice of public accounting since the US securities laws of the early 1930s.
And this is relevant how?
Pfft, it takes 30 seconds to call the EFF, who have the power of millionairs like John Gilmore behind them.
Uhhh, it causes your CD burning software not to work.. and in many cases it caused people's CD/DVD drives not to work.
This must be some sort of alternate universe where states charge corporations with criminal acts. Wouldn't the police have to identify which persons in the company were actually responsible for this criminal act and charge just those persons? Ya know, like ceasing the internal communications that have probably already disappeared from Sony's internal email servers?
Yeah, I didn't notice any problems playing these CDs on my Amiga either.
Yeah, it's called due diligence and it's something large companies are notoriously bad at. Of course, nothing is going to happen. If the LAME dudes or DVD Jon were going to sue Sony they would have let us know by now.
Jesus christ, have you heard of due diligence?
It is NOT a production problem, but a distribution problem.
Any distribution problem can be solved by producing a product closer to the consumer. That is, if you don't have the issue of labour costs, which you don't, in a fully automated factory. The point is, curing world hunger is not something you can set out to do. It has to be a side effect of competing in local markets. If you can't make synthetic food for cheaper than traditional farming then it's nothing more than a boondoggle.
Shame he's rarely funny.
Personally I would love it if protein synthesis became plausible in my lifetime. First you'd sell these factories to third world countries where defending a corporate asset is a lot easier than defending farmland. Instantly curing world hunger. Then you'd see 100% synthesised meat alternatives appearing in vegetarian food outlets - there's already some of this, Quorn being the most famous, but their manufacturing methods are too expensive to have an effect on the mainstream. Then we'll see synthesised meat appearing in shopping centre refrigeration cabinets. When you have the choice between $21.99/kg steak vs $1.99/kg synthesised meat you'll at least give it a go. From there, the future is our playground. We can shut down factory farms. We can reclaim land for foresting. We can build self sufficient space habitates without needing to launch millions of tonnes of topsoil for crops.
Typical article from the Piq, completely fails to summarise a complex scientific discovery in the most verbose way possible.
Potato, patato. Point is, the Ask Slashdotter is pretending he's in a corporate environment and then saying he's trying to cut costs. If you find yourself in a corporation that needs to cut costs on IT you don't Ask Slashdot, you fuckin' run.
If you were a systems administrator in a corporate environment you wouldn't be trying to save money. You'd use the best available software for the job and that software is Symantec Ghost so pony up tech boy.
As an aside, are there any thoughts on why the engineering applications appear to be so overlooked by the open source community?
Because they're really really hard.
Wikipedia to the rescue.
Maybe you'd like read4me. It uses bayesian filtering on the server to choose which articles you're likely to enjoy. You train it by rating it's performance or clicking on titles that interest you.
Shut up and get back to moaning! It's a soldier's right to complain.
You what? Being interested in other people's lives is hardly a new phenomena. I believe they used to call it "gossip". The internet just made it possible to rant on about yourself without people running for the door. Kinda like one too many pints at the local.