Re:stun guns are not that effective
on
Shocking Clothing
·
· Score: 1
I spent some time working the Mississippi as a towboater. Many of the people I worked with were fairly, uh, hardcore. My roommate at my first employee orientation was a standard-issue hellraiser. He had a fresh scar on his left temple from the sharp end of a clawhammer. He said (and I had no reason to doubt) that he'd been clubbed, sank to his knees, and kept swinging. If a man can have part of his scalp torn from his head and keep fighting, well, a piddly squirt of hot juice isn't about to stop him. Same goes for the shock toys.
Yep. I started working for EDS when I was 19. I began as a material handler in an electronic parts warehouse.
Their organization of supplies sucked, so I took it upon myself to redo the layout and database (with permission). This showed them I had initiative and creativity, and I got to ditch the parts-fetcher job and take of production scheduling.
I built Excel models to analyze demand and predict workflow. They worked pretty damn well, too.
Then our contract (we were repairing laptops for an unnamed company) ran out, mostly due to the two years of screwups that had led to the facilities change that had led (indirectly) to my hiring. So I had 60 (90?) days to find a job within the company.
I wound up on the tape floor of a massive datacenter in the Disaster Recovery Area group. We handled the task of sending out backups and taking them back as the generations expired or we had a need for recovery.
Everyone on the floor was eligible for operator training. I was in the first stage when we got a manager. The old one left a day before I came on board, so this was my first direct boss.
She was a nightmare. She had no concept of what we did or why we did it and she wasn't willing to learn. Instead, she spent her time buddying up to her boss and filtering coffee for the toilet.
It was intolerable, so I, being young and foolish, acted like an asshole. I got caught by a "every department needs to bring me at least two severed heads" decision, and I was on the street. Fucking stupid, but that's where experience comes from.
So, long story short, my anecdotal experience supports your contention that EDS is a place where a relatively untrained individual can learn mainframes. I used it as a place to learn what kissing up and fitting in is all about, which had greater application. Maybe I'll put it to good use.
My guy wrote a program that runs all the time. If it chokes and dies production grinds to a halt. So he wrote another program that checks to see if the first program is running. If it isn't, well, restart it.
The best part of working in a high rise is fantasizing about throwing people out the window.
Agreed. I probably over-comment, but I don't want to have to spend the time relearning the problem domain - I just want to read a comment that explains WHY the code exists. The code explains what and how quite nicely.
Urk. For single-threaded, non client-server stuff, yeah, FoxPro is badass. But the company I'm contracted to has tried to turn a desktop based auditing (lots of tiny tables) program into a server based system. Holy shit does it ever suck. Oh, I hate it.
Sorry. Just felt like bitching for a minute. Carry on.
A-fucking-men. (Ewwwwwww. I take it back. {But not in the back.}) Crap. Well, it's the thought process, so I'll leave it.
I love _Fire in the Valley_. Love it. Also, try _Dealers in Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age_, _Nerds 2.01: A Brief History of the Internet_, _The Second Coming of Steve Jobs_, and, as some other poster mentioned, _Hackers_.
Man, those were some heady times. My favorite part of _Fire in the Valley_:
Time and again, crazy dreamers had run up against resistance from accepted wisdom and had prevailed to realize their dreams. David Ahl, trying to convince Digital Equipment management that people would actually use computers in the home; Lee Felsenstein working in post-1960s Berkely to turn technology to populist ends; Ed Roberts looking for a loan to keep MITS afloat so it could build kit computers; Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard to get a piece of the dream; Steve Dompier flying to Alberquerque to check up on his Altair order; Dick Heiser and Paul Terrell opening stores to sell a product for which their friends told them there was no market; Mike Markkula backing two kids in a garage. Dreamers all. And Ted Nelson, the ultimate crazy dreamer, envisioning a new world and spending a lifetime trying to bring it to life. In one way or another, they were all dreaming of one thing: The personal computer, the packaging of the awesome power of computer technology into a little box that anyone could own. Today, changing the world is the little machine's job. The personal computer, once a truly revolutionary idea, has become a commonplace tool. But it's a revolutionarily empowering tool, and a tool that can empower revolutions. Just as the World Wide Web was invented on a NeXT cube, it is likely that the next technological revolution will be invented on a personal computer. Probably by some bright young hacker. She may even be reading this book right now.
Chills. Thanks for reminding me - I need to go read it again.
Ack. I'm busy rewriting an app that makes extensive use of FoxPro tables. And less extensive use of comments. And it was written by an Indian.
FoxPro is fast as hell for smallish tables with a single user, but get a bunch of people wanting the same table and it's ugly as hell.
Why, why, why are there 300 client tables instead of one client table with a client number field? Oh, that's right, because a 343,000 record table in FoxPro that has five different people hitting it is SLOW. Breaking the info up into individual tables reduces the chance of user-collision.
It's a mess. Why am I at work at 21:00 on Sunday? Because of this ugly pile of code. Oh well. At least I get paid.
Bringing back the memories...I remember working as a "Disaster Recovery Area Team Lead" (read "idiot who pulls the eject jobs from the silos in the morning and puts them on the truck in the afternoon"). We had, lessee, 60+ StorageTeK silos. Man, I got to where I could fly from silo to silo, hitting them faster than the jobs. That was a useful skill - it meant a three minute nap waiting on the doors to fill. What a shit way to spend a life. I'm glad it's behind me.
I went to Radio Shack today at lunch and spent $20 on the cable. It actually works - you do NOT need the SnapSync software that they'll try to sell you. Just download the software, unpack it, and when you plug in the cable get your drivers out of the unpacked folders. Then install the software and you're good to go.
I work two jobs - one as a maintenance programmer for a freight bill auditing company, one as a deckhand on the Mississippi. I've been dying for a way to get connected on the river - this could be it.
The trouble with that is drug tests don't look for raw drugs, they look for metabolites of drugs.br/>Maybe straight coke would show something, but it isn't really the molecules they're testing for. Good thought, though.
In the US, people have a constitutional right to privacy
Are you sure? I don't think that is the case. I think there is a tradition of "a reasonable expectation of privacy" but I do not believe that there is anything in the Constitution guaranteeing privacy.
RYP: Very interesting. I spend a lot of time trying to put my head in a particular mode (but not quite that much time). I just grabbed a great book a few hours ago called "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" (about Paul Erdös) and I recommend it without reservation.
Look to someone other than Sony to provide you with a life.
Moron.
Earth. It's where we both live. There are things that are fun, things that are boring, things that are fair, things that are rigged.
A company puts out a game designed to make them money. Is it any surprise when they tinker with the formula, trying to increase their take? C'mon! It's how things are done.
Quitcher bitchin' and find another way to spend your time and money.
My father works for a funeral home. Last April a man was assulted, robbed, and killed. In the course of the incident the victim managed to kill his assailant. Bravo.
The victim was in his sixties. He was taking his customary morning stroll.
Slashdot Mirror
I spent some time working the Mississippi as a towboater. Many of the people I worked with were fairly, uh, hardcore.
My roommate at my first employee orientation was a standard-issue hellraiser. He had a fresh scar on his left temple from the sharp end of a clawhammer.
He said (and I had no reason to doubt) that he'd been clubbed, sank to his knees, and kept swinging.
If a man can have part of his scalp torn from his head and keep fighting, well, a piddly squirt of hot juice isn't about to stop him. Same goes for the shock toys.
Yep. I started working for EDS when I was 19.
I began as a material handler in an electronic parts warehouse.
Their organization of supplies sucked, so I took it upon myself to redo the layout and database (with permission).
This showed them I had initiative and creativity, and I got to ditch the parts-fetcher job and take of production scheduling.
I built Excel models to analyze demand and predict workflow.
They worked pretty damn well, too.
Then our contract (we were repairing laptops for an unnamed company) ran out, mostly due to the two years of screwups that had led to the facilities change that had led (indirectly) to my hiring.
So I had 60 (90?) days to find a job within the company.
I wound up on the tape floor of a massive datacenter in the Disaster Recovery Area group.
We handled the task of sending out backups and taking them back as the generations expired or we had a need for recovery.
Everyone on the floor was eligible for operator training.
I was in the first stage when we got a manager.
The old one left a day before I came on board, so this was my first direct boss.
She was a nightmare.
She had no concept of what we did or why we did it and she wasn't willing to learn.
Instead, she spent her time buddying up to her boss and filtering coffee for the toilet.
It was intolerable, so I, being young and foolish, acted like an asshole.
I got caught by a "every department needs to bring me at least two severed heads" decision, and I was on the street.
Fucking stupid, but that's where experience comes from.
So, long story short, my anecdotal experience supports your contention that EDS is a place where a relatively untrained individual can learn mainframes.
I used it as a place to learn what kissing up and fitting in is all about, which had greater application.
Maybe I'll put it to good use.
My guy wrote a program that runs all the time.
If it chokes and dies production grinds to a halt.
So he wrote another program that checks to see if the first program is running.
If it isn't, well, restart it.
The best part of working in a high rise is fantasizing about throwing people out the window.
Agreed. I probably over-comment, but I don't want to have to spend the time relearning the problem domain - I just want to read a comment that explains WHY the code exists. The code explains what and how quite nicely.
most of my friends were on F-1 visas
...and that doesn't skew your perception one little bit, does it?
Urk.
For single-threaded, non client-server stuff, yeah, FoxPro is badass.
But the company I'm contracted to has tried to turn a desktop based auditing (lots of tiny tables) program into a server based system.
Holy shit does it ever suck.
Oh, I hate it.
Sorry.
Just felt like bitching for a minute.
Carry on.
Thank you.
A-fucking-men.
(Ewwwwwww. I take it back. {But not in the back.})
Crap.
Well, it's the thought process, so I'll leave it.
I love _Fire in the Valley_. Love it.
Also, try _Dealers in Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age_, _Nerds 2.01: A Brief History of the Internet_, _The Second Coming of Steve Jobs_, and, as some other poster mentioned, _Hackers_.
Man, those were some heady times.
My favorite part of _Fire in the Valley_:
Time and again, crazy dreamers had run up against resistance from accepted wisdom and had prevailed to realize their dreams.
David Ahl, trying to convince Digital Equipment management that people would actually use computers in the home;
Lee Felsenstein working in post-1960s Berkely to turn technology to populist ends;
Ed Roberts looking for a loan to keep MITS afloat so it could build kit computers;
Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard to get a piece of the dream;
Steve Dompier flying to Alberquerque to check up on his Altair order;
Dick Heiser and Paul Terrell opening stores to sell a product for which their friends told them there was no market;
Mike Markkula backing two kids in a garage.
Dreamers all.
And Ted Nelson, the ultimate crazy dreamer, envisioning a new world and spending a lifetime trying to bring it to life.
In one way or another, they were all dreaming of one thing: The personal computer, the packaging of the awesome power of computer technology into a little box that anyone could own.
Today, changing the world is the little machine's job.
The personal computer, once a truly revolutionary idea, has become a commonplace tool.
But it's a revolutionarily empowering tool, and a tool that can empower revolutions.
Just as the World Wide Web was invented on a NeXT cube, it is likely that the next technological revolution will be invented on a personal computer.
Probably by some bright young hacker.
She may even be reading this book right now.
Chills.
Thanks for reminding me - I need to go read it again.
Ack.
I'm busy rewriting an app that makes extensive use of FoxPro tables.
And less extensive use of comments.
And it was written by an Indian.
FoxPro is fast as hell for smallish tables with a single user, but get a bunch of people wanting the same table and it's ugly as hell.
Why, why, why are there 300 client tables instead of one client table with a client number field? Oh, that's right, because a 343,000 record table in FoxPro that has five different people hitting it is SLOW. Breaking the info up into individual tables reduces the chance of user-collision.
It's a mess. Why am I at work at 21:00 on Sunday? Because of this ugly pile of code. Oh well. At least I get paid.
Ahem.
Linux?
Shit, we run a virtual NT with SQL Server 2000 in a partition.
Bringing back the memories...I remember working as a "Disaster Recovery Area Team Lead" (read "idiot who pulls the eject jobs from the silos in the morning and puts them on the truck in the afternoon"). We had, lessee, 60+ StorageTeK silos.
Man, I got to where I could fly from silo to silo, hitting them faster than the jobs. That was a useful skill - it meant a three minute nap waiting on the doors to fill.
What a shit way to spend a life. I'm glad it's behind me.
Right here
I went to Radio Shack today at lunch and spent $20 on the cable.
It actually works - you do NOT need the SnapSync software that they'll try to sell you.
Just download the software, unpack it, and when you plug in the cable get your drivers out of the unpacked folders.
Then install the software and you're good to go.
I work two jobs - one as a maintenance programmer for a freight bill auditing company, one as a deckhand on the Mississippi. I've been dying for a way to get connected on the river - this could be it.
The trouble with that is drug tests don't look for raw drugs, they look for metabolites of drugs.br />Maybe straight coke would show something, but it isn't really the molecules they're testing for.
Good thought, though.
In the US, people have a constitutional right to privacy
Are you sure? I don't think that is the case. I think there is a tradition of "a reasonable expectation of privacy" but I do not believe that there is anything in the Constitution guaranteeing privacy.
Don't worry, Jack. Someone out here got it.
RYNElsewhere: Thanks. It's a nice milestone.
RYP: Very interesting. I spend a lot of time trying to put my head in a particular mode (but not quite that much time). I just grabbed a great book a few hours ago called "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" (about Paul Erdös) and I recommend it without reservation.
I don't think that the sigfiles get indexed in Google - you have to be logged in to see them and the Googlebot isn't logged in.
Of course, I could be wrong.
FYI: Ctrl+Esc has the same function as the Windows key
Just so you know, CTRL+ESC + L doesn't work the same as Window Key + L in Windows XP Professional.
I see it clearly.
You're a loser.
Look to someone other than Sony to provide you with a life.
Moron.
Earth. It's where we both live.
There are things that are fun, things that are boring, things that are fair, things that are rigged.
A company puts out a game designed to make them money.
Is it any surprise when they tinker with the formula, trying to increase their take?
C'mon!
It's how things are done.
Quitcher bitchin' and find another way to spend your time and money.
It isn't about me.
It's about the next guy.
My father works for a funeral home.
Last April a man was assulted, robbed, and killed.
In the course of the incident the victim managed to kill his assailant.
Bravo.
The victim was in his sixties.
He was taking his customary morning stroll.
I love this story,
Touch me and die.
Fuck you.
Twice.
With something sharp and rusty.
Fuck you.
Twice.
With something sharp and rusty.
Fuck you.
Twice.
With something sharp and rusty.
Fuck you.
Twice.
With something sharp and rusty.
Fuck you.
Twice.
With something sharp and rusty.