I don't know. I see headless NT boxes from time to time. They make pretty good routers and web servers, after all. A "free" machine that could run IIS would be a killer in some Windows shops.
OK. I'm not a Commodore guy. My first computer was an XT.
But still, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to use something a bit more modern to emulate that Commodore rather than use x amount of energy to run a 20MHz CPU and all the disk drives etc that normally attend a PC?
Other than sheer geek factor, what's the point of owning one of these?
Re:Remember in the good ole days
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Infinite Games?
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You aren't watching the right pr0n. Artistic stuff is out there, just not very common. Michael Zen and Andrew Blake both seem to be motivated by something other than gynecological imperative.
It could be argued that any porno with some measure of production value is artful on some level, and I genuinely enjoy the rare movie with a real plot and actors that remember their lines, and of course there are any number of really funny movies as well.
Yes. The above does represent my personal opinion. "too hot" is undoubtedly a subjective statement.
It is my belief that a large number of people have problems with nvidia cards in inadequately cooled cases, without attributing the problem to their graphics card. I've found that replacing certain common cards (such as the Vanta, M64 and GF2 MX, all of which are frequently used by white box builders) with cards of more modest thermal requirements (such as SiS730, Matrox G400, or ATI Rage) has substantially reduced the number of lock-ups and blue-screens in customer computers. This is my experience. If other people say they don't have problems with that hardware, good for them. I personally find that it's suspect.
The majority of time that any graphics card is used, it will display nothing but 2D, and its advanced features probably won't even be used. I know nvidia has to account for the outlying case of someone who does nothing but play 1600x1200 SoF2, but given that these cards will sooner or later make their way into mainstream business machines, given Dell's insistence on using nvidia cards, I still believe that they should spend more time on building a cooler (temperature) product and less on making "the fastest graphics card ever for at least the next six weeks", as they have done so far.
I've been telling people for a long time to avoid nvidia cards because they get too warm inside a case. Now they've released a card with heat sinks on one side and some kind of toad-shaped fan thing on the other.
Anyone ever spit (or put snow) on a hot stove?
I'll bet the same thing would happen if you spit on those heatsinks while this card is running.
Ridiculous.
I'm not going to sit here and say that this card has more power than it needs. Someday, in about three years, there probably WILL be computer games that need that much power.
But in the meantime, how much extra environmental work will the hobbyists and system builders using this SOB need to do to keep their PCs stable, cool and quiet? Seems to me that if nvidia invested all the extra time in designing a cooling solution such as the one that's been shown so far, maybe they could've done some extra engineering work to make sure they didn't NEED a cooling solution along those lines.
I've done tech work at just about every level, and I've used several POST cards. I honestly haven't found them to be THAT reliable. Sure, it's nice to have confirmation that something is broken, instead of the result of a loose cable or an installation "oops", but I'd far rather have a memory-test card than a post card. RAM problems can be a lot more annoying to diagnose IMO, while the times I've used POST cards, I either haven't learned anything from them, or I've gotten conflicting results from repeated uses.
I now work as a trainer. Training saves money and makes everyone's job easier, helpdesk-wise. The doofus who calls to find out how to use function X in his wordprocessor, or doesn't understand the filesystem on his PC, is undoubtedly wasting shitloads of time and money trying to understand the noisy beige box under his desk, and may be keeping your staff from taking a much more important call.
I know "Training is the first thing to go.", but if you've got a budget and a staff for it, it's probably worthwhile to track users with a "needs classroom time" flag in addition to everything else in your trouble calls.
I've done "level 3" support a few times (level 3 on a scale of "reads off the screen", "clueful about basic stuff" and "the guy who actually fixes things") in various Windows/NT/Netware environments.
1. Most successful helpdesk I ever worked on, hands down, was run by a woman who used to be a phone sex operator. She had a normal "professional" voice and a "get a rise out of a corpse" voice. It was utterly AMAZING how much of an impact that voice had on our helpdesk satistaction reports, even though the field techs never got any better in the time I was there.
Just the other side of the "don't just hire girls" thing.
2. Proper procedure? Well, for crissakes, don't do a goddamn thing on paper. Nothing. Make a database. Use a text file. Something. Miscommunicated problems are going to happen, but papers detailing previous visits etc. get lost, and anyone who has been through the fun of "Oh, I just explained this to the other technician yesterday", or even the "What's your name and phone number?" will appreciate your helpdesk types actually having this information. Make folks enter the information for anything more than a 1-step call (eg "reset password") into some kind of online system that EVERYONE can look at. Fire the people who don't use it, or don't use it properly. The other side of this is, don't make support run around your trouble-tracking system. Nothing sounds worse to your users than "I hafta go open a support ticket before I can fix your solitaire icon." I've been in organizations (*cough*ABC*cough*) that's the case. An ideal would be a tracking system that can be accessed from deskside. Don't use your electronic system as a basis for tracking costs. Find some other way to do it. Invariably, stuff won't make it in the database, and for the low-level helpdesk guys, stuff like "target call lengths" just breed complacency.
3. Store user data off the local machines. Not necessarily someplace where it gets backed up every night, but someone who can access all their stuff from the PC in the next cube is going to complain less than the guy who has EVERYTHING on his "C:" drive. This is an administrative issue. Hopefully you have clueful admins.
4. Use.MSI and.ZAP-based installers for Windows software, and install stuff from network shares. Packaged installers are a lot easier to fix than the old fashioned kind. If you're REALLY good, append your install apps to some kind of a log, so that user apps can be restored quickly by the helpdesk guys. No more "But I also had Lotus Notes on my old PC!"
5. Make sure your field/deskside guys actually know how to do things. Man, there's nothing worse than finding out the dumbass you hired for desktop support doesn't know anything about DHCP or Outlook profiles or whatever. At a minimum, the guy you send deskside needs to have some knowledge of IP networking, your client-side standard software including the OS (most particularly the email client!) and the ability to speak (English) well enough to be understood by a native. Your deskside guy should be carrying a "gold disk" or two with common images, and should have some semblance of an understanding of how to find things on your network (like the share where you're keeping your apps). In a perfect world, he'd know how to use google, too.
6. Standardise your clients! Not a helpdesk thing (talk to your CIO), but it's a lot easier to support 3 client configs, one office suite and one email package, running on one OS, than it is to do 20 different types of PCs, three different office suites, four email systems and every OS microsoft has shat forth. Get a copy of GHOST or a similar program and take advantage of the similarities between your machines.
6a. Gold disks are our very best friends, but only if we've already taken the step of moving client data off the client PC.
7. Set standards of professionalism among your team. Best helpdesk I ever worked on, the standards were simple: No eating or drinking when outside our "helpdesk" area. No drinking while on the phone. Don't sit out in the client area if you aren't working on something. Keep swearing to a minimum (harder than I thought it would be!). Take EVERYTHING with you when you leave a desk or work area. We found that our customers didn't mind dress much - desks get crawled under, dusty printers had to be moved, etc, as long as there was at least a nod to business clothing... which translated into "wear something besides a tshirt. Tuck it in. Wear pants, not shorts, skirts or coulots. Every little bit helped.
8. Don't let the deskside guys spend too long with a single client. Have 'em report in to (whoever) after, say, 30 minutes on a ticket. If a guy is floundering trying to fix something, it should either be escalated to someone with a clue or the machine should be "refreshed" (gold disk or new hardware put into place).
9. Candy and a means of feedback. Don't laugh. Someone's day was interrupted. Leave them a little something for their trouble. Halloween-size bags of M&Ms might be a shameless ploy, but the guy who had to find something else to do for a half-hour while you fixed his PC deserves something for his time. Means of feedback? Well, electronic, since paper doesn't do anyone any good. Have someone senior do spot-checks on your tickets (i.e. contact the user), say, two days after the ticket is resolved, or one day into any open ticke and two days thereafter.
10. Have a means of dealing with assholes. Helpdesk guys are often contractors. "Real" employees sometimes get shitty with them. Some helpdesk guys are assholes too. Either way, there needs to be a real means of resolution with real consequences. The day an employee at a fortune 100 company called me a "Fucker" for my not being able to magically turn his CD-ROM into a CD-RW drive, and he got fired for it, I was absolutely stunned. Neither helpdesk people nor customers are being paid to be abused.
Zelzany's last published work was a goofy little shared-world type novel called "Happily Ever After". I only just read it, but your post reminded me of it, so I'll mention it.
The basic concept is, "What happens after the end of the Epic Fantasy Adventure(tm)?", which is as good a concept as any, but executed marvelously by each of the contributors.
There's an absolute gem of a short story in that collection by David Drake. I laughed loud and hard enough that the guy sitting next to me on the train got up and walked away. David Drake? The hard-bitten military SF guy? Yup. Cross "Conan" with "Monty Python" with "Hammer's Slammers" and you're on the right track.
Why not also mention George RR Martin's "Wild Cards" novels?
New editions of those novels, plus some new volumes, have been released in the last year or so. I was happy to see them.
Also, I think the "Thieve's World" series is worth digging up, if you've never read it.
I just found a set of Lieber's "Lankhmar" series at a library books sale. I hadn't read them. They're new to me.:P
Walter Jon Williams has written some pretty solid cyberpunkish sci-fi.
And rather than new, why not find some good vintage stuff, like Alfred Bester. There's a joy in finding great books in the $.25 bin at the used book store.
I'm a trainer. I teach Comptia (A+, N+, Server+) and Microsoft (the MCSE/MCSA ones) exams.
I'm not *really* a trainer. I'm a guy who has a whole bunch of certifications. I have about six years of experience as a consultant-type, but I'm doing training now. Training means not have to look for work every x months, and I like that.
Here's the deal: Nearly as I can tell, there are about three different types of training out there. There is "diploma mill" training, the MCSE in 2-weeks or your money back bullshit. Maybe that works for smoeone who is already an MCSE. It doesn't help the guy who hasn't touched a PC in three years. There's also "softball" training. Teach straight out of a book, do gentle lessons, and hope students are smart enough to pick up the slack with their own motivation. For some people, a step in the right direction is good enough. Mostly, though, training of this sort isn't going to lead to long-term retention of information, and it's of dubious use for certification exams. I started out teaching this way. The last way to teach is never-ending lab exercises. This requires students motivated and interested in the material (i.e. do the reading beforehand) and a LOT of time. You'll retain more knowledge of a complex process if you've actually carried it out. The important thing an instructor can add here is overarching understanding of the process. Following a recipie online is great for getting the job done, but a good teacher can explain WHY things are the way they are, and deeper understanding should hopefully transfer to general success on these exams, even if you miss a point here or there. Of course, if you're OK with the "big picture", you can probably get just as far in the lab you have set up at home. I don't always have time to do the labs I want during class, but I always make time before and/or after for extra lab work, on top of normal classroom time. It helps my students a lot.
Of course, every training place will tell you their stuff is hands on. That certainly isn't the case. Ask to sit in on a class or two. If you're paying $2000 for a class, they shouldn't have any problem with that. Judge for yourself.
Finally, places that trumpet unusually high pass-rates are probably doing something slightly unethical to get them. I've heard stories. I'm sure others have, too.
Whatever the subject, if you're paying for a class, what you're paying for is a knowledgable instructor and adequate facilities. Those are things you can't judge without some first-hand experience.
Other things: Seems to me that the most respected IT certs all have a hands-on component. Master CNE, RHCE, most Cisco exams. Something to keep in mind when you become the 1,000,000th person to pass 70-210.
A great generalist IT guy is an awesome resource to have, but I always tell my students that it's a hard row to hoe. I always suggest to my students that becoming an expert in a subject besides Windows Support or hardware repair, will probably get them more attention within the field than bog-standard A+/N+/MCSE certs.
(AP) Across the nation, child molesters, kiddie-porn addicts, NAMBLA Members, Catholic Priests and other pederasts dropped their pants in a moment of tribute as Steve "The Great Enabler" Case announced his resignation from AOL Time-Warner (AOLTW) today.
Said shavedbi_86, a dude who pretends to be a chick in various online forums, as he dropped trou in an internet cafe in downtown Bangor, Maine: "Man, [Steve Case]... damn. I dunno where else I'd be able to indulge my recurring fantasies of having a minor female cross state lines to have lesbian intercourse with me, if it weren't for AOL. Under [Steve Case's] guidance, AOL has grown from a small, regional communication system for perverts in Virginia, to an international hub for child pornography. God bless you Mr. Case!"
Law enforcement officials were also quick to comment. "Although some are quick to judge AOL for its congregation of sexual predators, we'd like to applaud Mr. Case for the family-friendly nature of his service. I myself enjoy the occasional meeting in an AOL chat room, knowing that I can trade porno in peace and security, guarded by the AOL Terms of Service from any foul-mouthed, anti-social behavior in its chat rooms", said Mr. A------t, a justice department official, on condition of anonymity.
Said president George Bush, upon hearing of the resignation: "Whad'ya mean it's pronounced New-CLEE-er?"
Other famous Americans, including Bugs Bunny and Superman, also expressed regret at Mr. Case's resignation.
Mr. Case, who now prefers to be called simply "Heather", could not be reached for comment.
Once you actually get a silent PC (I made one of mine silent by sticking it in a closet in the room adjoining my media room, and just running long cables for everything), then you have the joy of discovering that everything else around you makes noise, too. My neighbor's pipes are loud. So is my refridgerator. Even my TV and DVD player make more noise than I would've thought.
If you're going to be so fanatical as to water cool a power supply, all I can say is, good luck with all the new stuff you'll eventually find annoying.
Unfortunately, some fucktard at Microprose cancelled it two years ago.
Our best hope is that one of the projects on http://www.classicgaming.com/mom/projects.html will turn into something beautiful.
I play an average of two games of MoM a week. Still. A great way to use my 9700AIW, I know, but I just haven't found anything that's as much fun. Wish it did network play. The AI doesn't use any of the killer strategies a human player would...
Halfling Slingers + 10 books in Life + warlord + Crusade + Call to Arms + Lionheart + Invulnerability + Endurance = One stack of a "normal", low cost unit that brings down Sky Drakes and 900EP Champions with one hit and can stand up to everything those units can dish out.
Talk about cheating.
I always thought Zombie Mastery was good for a laugh, too. When I play as a Death Wizard, I don't play Master of Magic, I play "Night of the Living Dead"
I haven't seen anything about cages yet. Nor Electroshock. Nor Horse tranquilizers. Nor locking the tyke in the basement/attic a la Bart's Evil twin Hugo. Nor a "Misery"-style hobbling. There's plenty of worse suggestions!
Or having the kid arrested. Believe it or not, I have heard of that situation. There are probably other non-custodial solutions available, but from what I've read, you're right, there probably isn't any help available for you, if you want to keep your child in your home. Check with your county health department or Visiting Nurses Association. Sometimes you can get four or six hours a week of nursing care for loved ones in your situation.
Of course, I'm the sort of bastard that thinks that children should be kept in cages anyway... and that parents should need a license to have children. But then, I also got a vasectomy when I turned 25.
Flame away on that topic.
Alright, now I'll try to be more helpful.
Perhaps you could call the local assisted living community (*cough*Nursing Home*cough*)and ask what they do about wandering alzheimer's patients. The situation has some similarities to that condition as well. I have a grandmother with alzheimer's. She's still fit and can walk unaided. Sometimes she's even coherent. But she has no impulse control and no desire to hang around the bedridden folk. Somehow, the facility she lives in manages to keep her in the building.
I don't imagine you'd need too much work to get a german shepherd to keep your son inside, either. Whoever said that before me probably had the best idea of the bunch.
This is going to sound crass, but the biggest single reason that I know micropayments aren't ready yet is that the porn people haven't figured them out yet.
When I think about content online that I'm willing to pay some amount of money to access, porn makes it onto the list. Some other no-doubt worthy sites don't.
I don't want to pay $10 a month to access exclusive adult content. I want to pay $1 (or maybe only $.25 - some sites have "try free for a day, just givde us your Visa number" but that's a well-known scam anyway) and just get to the handfull of images/movies/whatever I visited the site to get. Basic economics... and it could be applied anywhere.
But the porn people have the most desired content online. They know it. They could make it happen. Either they have chosen not to, or they haven't gotten it to work yet (and I'll admit that I've not found a site that's tried), which tells me that either the interest isn't there or it's just not workable.
So, all I can say to the people screaming about micropayments is, if the porno sites aren't doing it, the rest of the web won't either. When they get around to needing to grow their market again, they'll make it happen, and suddenly the idea will be more palatable to everyone.
If that's the case, why are MSN Searches so goddamn useless? I'm not trolling. I'm serious. I spend a good bit of time drilling into people "If you want to search, go to w-w-w dot g-o-o-g-l-e dot com and quit clicking on that useless Search button". For probably 80% of the stuff I search for, I'll get a different "top 10" result from MSN Search compared to google (and, of course, google's top 10 usually has the page I want). MSN Search makes nice thumbnails of the page, yes (and bloody useful that is on a 28.8 modem connection!), but invariably the first few pages of results will be junk. Do MSN Searches include paid-for results or something? Or do they use an older index?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know. I see headless NT boxes from time to time. They make pretty good routers and web servers, after all. A "free" machine that could run IIS would be a killer in some Windows shops.
VMS is a lot like Unix if you type "posix" at a prompt. :)
OK. I'm not a Commodore guy. My first computer was an XT.
But still, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to use something a bit more modern to emulate that Commodore rather than use x amount of energy to run a 20MHz CPU and all the disk drives etc that normally attend a PC?
Other than sheer geek factor, what's the point of owning one of these?
You aren't watching the right pr0n. Artistic stuff is out there, just not very common. Michael Zen and Andrew Blake both seem to be motivated by something other than gynecological imperative.
It could be argued that any porno with some measure of production value is artful on some level, and I genuinely enjoy the rare movie with a real plot and actors that remember their lines, and of course there are any number of really funny movies as well.
I disagree. I've found that nvidia cards are too hot ALL the time, not just while playing 3D games.
Yes. The above does represent my personal opinion. "too hot" is undoubtedly a subjective statement.
It is my belief that a large number of people have problems with nvidia cards in inadequately cooled cases, without attributing the problem to their graphics card. I've found that replacing certain common cards (such as the Vanta, M64 and GF2 MX, all of which are frequently used by white box builders) with cards of more modest thermal requirements (such as SiS730, Matrox G400, or ATI Rage) has substantially reduced the number of lock-ups and blue-screens in customer computers. This is my experience. If other people say they don't have problems with that hardware, good for them. I personally find that it's suspect.
The majority of time that any graphics card is used, it will display nothing but 2D, and its advanced features probably won't even be used. I know nvidia has to account for the outlying case of someone who does nothing but play 1600x1200 SoF2, but given that these cards will sooner or later make their way into mainstream business machines, given Dell's insistence on using nvidia cards, I still believe that they should spend more time on building a cooler (temperature) product and less on making "the fastest graphics card ever for at least the next six weeks", as they have done so far.
I've been telling people for a long time to avoid nvidia cards because they get too warm inside a case. Now they've released a card with heat sinks on one side and some kind of toad-shaped fan thing on the other.
Anyone ever spit (or put snow) on a hot stove?
I'll bet the same thing would happen if you spit on those heatsinks while this card is running.
Ridiculous.
I'm not going to sit here and say that this card has more power than it needs. Someday, in about three years, there probably WILL be computer games that need that much power.
But in the meantime, how much extra environmental work will the hobbyists and system builders using this SOB need to do to keep their PCs stable, cool and quiet? Seems to me that if nvidia invested all the extra time in designing a cooling solution such as the one that's been shown so far, maybe they could've done some extra engineering work to make sure they didn't NEED a cooling solution along those lines.
I've done tech work at just about every level, and I've used several POST cards. I honestly haven't found them to be THAT reliable. Sure, it's nice to have confirmation that something is broken, instead of the result of a loose cable or an installation "oops", but I'd far rather have a memory-test card than a post card.
RAM problems can be a lot more annoying to diagnose IMO, while the times I've used POST cards, I either haven't learned anything from them, or I've gotten conflicting results from repeated uses.
So I lied. A little more crap from me.
I now work as a trainer.
Training saves money and makes everyone's job easier, helpdesk-wise. The doofus who calls to find out how to use function X in his wordprocessor, or doesn't understand the filesystem on his PC, is undoubtedly wasting shitloads of time and money trying to understand the noisy beige box under his desk, and may be keeping your staff from taking a much more important call.
I know "Training is the first thing to go.", but if you've got a budget and a staff for it, it's probably worthwhile to track users with a "needs classroom time" flag in addition to everything else in your trouble calls.
I've done "level 3" support a few times (level 3 on a scale of "reads off the screen", "clueful about basic stuff" and "the guy who actually fixes things") in various Windows/NT/Netware environments.
.MSI and .ZAP-based installers for Windows software, and install stuff from network shares. Packaged installers are a lot easier to fix than the old fashioned kind. If you're REALLY good, append your install apps to some kind of a log, so that user apps can be restored quickly by the helpdesk guys. No more "But I also had Lotus Notes on my old PC!"
1. Most successful helpdesk I ever worked on, hands down, was run by a woman who used to be a phone sex operator. She had a normal "professional" voice and a "get a rise out of a corpse" voice. It was utterly AMAZING how much of an impact that voice had on our helpdesk satistaction reports, even though the field techs never got any better in the time I was there.
Just the other side of the "don't just hire girls" thing.
2. Proper procedure? Well, for crissakes, don't do a goddamn thing on paper. Nothing. Make a database. Use a text file. Something. Miscommunicated problems are going to happen, but papers detailing previous visits etc. get lost, and anyone who has been through the fun of "Oh, I just explained this to the other technician yesterday", or even the "What's your name and phone number?" will appreciate your helpdesk types actually having this information. Make folks enter the information for anything more than a 1-step call (eg "reset password") into some kind of online system that EVERYONE can look at. Fire the people who don't use it, or don't use it properly.
The other side of this is, don't make support run around your trouble-tracking system. Nothing sounds worse to your users than "I hafta go open a support ticket before I can fix your solitaire icon." I've been in organizations (*cough*ABC*cough*) that's the case. An ideal would be a tracking system that can be accessed from deskside.
Don't use your electronic system as a basis for tracking costs. Find some other way to do it. Invariably, stuff won't make it in the database, and for the low-level helpdesk guys, stuff like "target call lengths" just breed complacency.
3. Store user data off the local machines. Not necessarily someplace where it gets backed up every night, but someone who can access all their stuff from the PC in the next cube is going to complain less than the guy who has EVERYTHING on his "C:" drive. This is an administrative issue. Hopefully you have clueful admins.
4. Use
5. Make sure your field/deskside guys actually know how to do things. Man, there's nothing worse than finding out the dumbass you hired for desktop support doesn't know anything about DHCP or Outlook profiles or whatever. At a minimum, the guy you send deskside needs to have some knowledge of IP networking, your client-side standard software including the OS (most particularly the email client!) and the ability to speak (English) well enough to be understood by a native. Your deskside guy should be carrying a "gold disk" or two with common images, and should have some semblance of an understanding of how to find things on your network (like the share where you're keeping your apps). In a perfect world, he'd know how to use google, too.
6. Standardise your clients! Not a helpdesk thing (talk to your CIO), but it's a lot easier to support 3 client configs, one office suite and one email package, running on one OS, than it is to do 20 different types of PCs, three different office suites, four email systems and every OS microsoft has shat forth. Get a copy of GHOST or a similar program and take advantage of the similarities between your machines.
6a. Gold disks are our very best friends, but only if we've already taken the step of moving client data off the client PC.
7. Set standards of professionalism among your team. Best helpdesk I ever worked on, the standards were simple: No eating or drinking when outside our "helpdesk" area. No drinking while on the phone. Don't sit out in the client area if you aren't working on something. Keep swearing to a minimum (harder than I thought it would be!). Take EVERYTHING with you when you leave a desk or work area. We found that our customers didn't mind dress much - desks get crawled under, dusty printers had to be moved, etc, as long as there was at least a nod to business clothing... which translated into "wear something besides a tshirt. Tuck it in. Wear pants, not shorts, skirts or coulots. Every little bit helped.
8. Don't let the deskside guys spend too long with a single client. Have 'em report in to (whoever) after, say, 30 minutes on a ticket. If a guy is floundering trying to fix something, it should either be escalated to someone with a clue or the machine should be "refreshed" (gold disk or new hardware put into place).
9. Candy and a means of feedback. Don't laugh. Someone's day was interrupted. Leave them a little something for their trouble. Halloween-size bags of M&Ms might be a shameless ploy, but the guy who had to find something else to do for a half-hour while you fixed his PC deserves something for his time. Means of feedback? Well, electronic, since paper doesn't do anyone any good. Have someone senior do spot-checks on your tickets (i.e. contact the user), say, two days after the ticket is resolved, or one day into any open ticke and two days thereafter.
10. Have a means of dealing with assholes. Helpdesk guys are often contractors. "Real" employees sometimes get shitty with them. Some helpdesk guys are assholes too. Either way, there needs to be a real means of resolution with real consequences. The day an employee at a fortune 100 company called me a "Fucker" for my not being able to magically turn his CD-ROM into a CD-RW drive, and he got fired for it, I was absolutely stunned. Neither helpdesk people nor customers are being paid to be abused.
Well, OK. That's probably enough crap from me.
Zelzany's last published work was a goofy little shared-world type novel called "Happily Ever After". I only just read it, but your post reminded me of it, so I'll mention it.
The basic concept is, "What happens after the end of the Epic Fantasy Adventure(tm)?", which is as good a concept as any, but executed marvelously by each of the contributors.
There's an absolute gem of a short story in that collection by David Drake. I laughed loud and hard enough that the guy sitting next to me on the train got up and walked away. David Drake? The hard-bitten military SF guy? Yup. Cross "Conan" with "Monty Python" with "Hammer's Slammers" and you're on the right track.
Why not also mention George RR Martin's "Wild Cards" novels?
:P
New editions of those novels, plus some new volumes, have been released in the last year or so. I was happy to see them.
Also, I think the "Thieve's World" series is worth digging up, if you've never read it.
I just found a set of Lieber's "Lankhmar" series at a library books sale. I hadn't read them. They're new to me.
Walter Jon Williams has written some pretty solid cyberpunkish sci-fi.
And rather than new, why not find some good vintage stuff, like Alfred Bester. There's a joy in finding great books in the $.25 bin at the used book store.
I'm a trainer. I teach Comptia (A+, N+, Server+) and Microsoft (the MCSE/MCSA ones) exams.
I'm not *really* a trainer. I'm a guy who has a whole bunch of certifications. I have about six years of experience as a consultant-type, but I'm doing training now. Training means not have to look for work every x months, and I like that.
Here's the deal: Nearly as I can tell, there are about three different types of training out there. There is "diploma mill" training, the MCSE in 2-weeks or your money back bullshit. Maybe that works for smoeone who is already an MCSE. It doesn't help the guy who hasn't touched a PC in three years.
There's also "softball" training. Teach straight out of a book, do gentle lessons, and hope students are smart enough to pick up the slack with their own motivation. For some people, a step in the right direction is good enough. Mostly, though, training of this sort isn't going to lead to long-term retention of information, and it's of dubious use for certification exams. I started out teaching this way.
The last way to teach is never-ending lab exercises. This requires students motivated and interested in the material (i.e. do the reading beforehand) and a LOT of time. You'll retain more knowledge of a complex process if you've actually carried it out. The important thing an instructor can add here is overarching understanding of the process. Following a recipie online is great for getting the job done, but a good teacher can explain WHY things are the way they are, and deeper understanding should hopefully transfer to general success on these exams, even if you miss a point here or there. Of course, if you're OK with the "big picture", you can probably get just as far in the lab you have set up at home. I don't always have time to do the labs I want during class, but I always make time before and/or after for extra lab work, on top of normal classroom time. It helps my students a lot.
Of course, every training place will tell you their stuff is hands on. That certainly isn't the case. Ask to sit in on a class or two. If you're paying $2000 for a class, they shouldn't have any problem with that. Judge for yourself.
Finally, places that trumpet unusually high pass-rates are probably doing something slightly unethical to get them. I've heard stories. I'm sure others have, too.
Whatever the subject, if you're paying for a class, what you're paying for is a knowledgable instructor and adequate facilities. Those are things you can't judge without some first-hand experience.
Other things: Seems to me that the most respected IT certs all have a hands-on component. Master CNE, RHCE, most Cisco exams. Something to keep in mind when you become the 1,000,000th person to pass 70-210.
A great generalist IT guy is an awesome resource to have, but I always tell my students that it's a hard row to hoe. I always suggest to my students that becoming an expert in a subject besides Windows Support or hardware repair, will probably get them more attention within the field than bog-standard A+/N+/MCSE certs.
(AP) Across the nation, child molesters, kiddie-porn addicts, NAMBLA Members, Catholic Priests and other pederasts dropped their pants in a moment of tribute as Steve "The Great Enabler" Case announced his resignation from AOL Time-Warner (AOLTW) today.
Said shavedbi_86, a dude who pretends to be a chick in various online forums, as he dropped trou in an internet cafe in downtown Bangor, Maine: "Man, [Steve Case]... damn. I dunno where else I'd be able to indulge my recurring fantasies of having a minor female cross state lines to have lesbian intercourse with me, if it weren't for AOL. Under [Steve Case's] guidance, AOL has grown from a small, regional communication system for perverts in Virginia, to an international hub for child pornography. God bless you Mr. Case!"
Law enforcement officials were also quick to comment. "Although some are quick to judge AOL for its congregation of sexual predators, we'd like to applaud Mr. Case for the family-friendly nature of his service. I myself enjoy the occasional meeting in an AOL chat room, knowing that I can trade porno in peace and security, guarded by the AOL Terms of Service from any foul-mouthed, anti-social behavior in its chat rooms", said Mr. A------t, a justice department official, on condition of anonymity.
Said president George Bush, upon hearing of the resignation: "Whad'ya mean it's pronounced New-CLEE-er?"
Other famous Americans, including Bugs Bunny and Superman, also expressed regret at Mr. Case's resignation.
Mr. Case, who now prefers to be called simply "Heather", could not be reached for comment.
Once you actually get a silent PC (I made one of mine silent by sticking it in a closet in the room adjoining my media room, and just running long cables for everything), then you have the joy of discovering that everything else around you makes noise, too.
My neighbor's pipes are loud. So is my refridgerator. Even my TV and DVD player make more noise than I would've thought.
If you're going to be so fanatical as to water cool a power supply, all I can say is, good luck with all the new stuff you'll eventually find annoying.
Bourbon
Unfortunately, some fucktard at Microprose cancelled it two years ago.
Our best hope is that one of the projects on http://www.classicgaming.com/mom/projects.html will turn into something beautiful.
I play an average of two games of MoM a week. Still. A great way to use my 9700AIW, I know, but I just haven't found anything that's as much fun. Wish it did network play. The AI doesn't use any of the killer strategies a human player would...
Halfling Slingers + 10 books in Life + warlord + Crusade + Call to Arms + Lionheart + Invulnerability + Endurance = One stack of a "normal", low cost unit that brings down Sky Drakes and 900EP Champions with one hit and can stand up to everything those units can dish out.
Talk about cheating.
I always thought Zombie Mastery was good for a laugh, too. When I play as a Death Wizard, I don't play Master of Magic, I play "Night of the Living Dead"
I haven't seen anything about cages yet. Nor Electroshock. Nor Horse tranquilizers. Nor locking the tyke in the basement/attic a la Bart's Evil twin Hugo. Nor a "Misery"-style hobbling. There's plenty of worse suggestions!
Or having the kid arrested. Believe it or not, I have heard of that situation. There are probably other non-custodial solutions available, but from what I've read, you're right, there probably isn't any help available for you, if you want to keep your child in your home. Check with your county health department or Visiting Nurses Association. Sometimes you can get four or six hours a week of nursing care for loved ones in your situation.
Of course, I'm the sort of bastard that thinks that children should be kept in cages anyway... and that parents should need a license to have children. But then, I also got a vasectomy when I turned 25.
Flame away on that topic.
Alright, now I'll try to be more helpful.
Perhaps you could call the local assisted living community (*cough*Nursing Home*cough*)and ask what they do about wandering alzheimer's patients. The situation has some similarities to that condition as well. I have a grandmother with alzheimer's. She's still fit and can walk unaided. Sometimes she's even coherent. But she has no impulse control and no desire to hang around the bedridden folk.
Somehow, the facility she lives in manages to keep her in the building.
I don't imagine you'd need too much work to get a german shepherd to keep your son inside, either. Whoever said that before me probably had the best idea of the bunch.
This is going to sound crass, but the biggest single reason that I know micropayments aren't ready yet is that the porn people haven't figured them out yet.
When I think about content online that I'm willing to pay some amount of money to access, porn makes it onto the list. Some other no-doubt worthy sites don't.
I don't want to pay $10 a month to access exclusive adult content. I want to pay $1 (or maybe only $.25 - some sites have "try free for a day, just givde us your Visa number" but that's a well-known scam anyway) and just get to the handfull of images/movies/whatever I visited the site to get. Basic economics... and it could be applied anywhere.
But the porn people have the most desired content online. They know it. They could make it happen. Either they have chosen not to, or they haven't gotten it to work yet (and I'll admit that I've not found a site that's tried), which tells me that either the interest isn't there or it's just not workable.
So, all I can say to the people screaming about micropayments is, if the porno sites aren't doing it, the rest of the web won't either. When they get around to needing to grow their market again, they'll make it happen, and suddenly the idea will be more palatable to everyone.
Comments?
If that's the case, why are MSN Searches so goddamn useless? I'm not trolling. I'm serious. I spend a good bit of time drilling into people "If you want to search, go to w-w-w dot g-o-o-g-l-e dot com and quit clicking on that useless Search button".
For probably 80% of the stuff I search for, I'll get a different "top 10" result from MSN Search compared to google (and, of course, google's top 10 usually has the page I want). MSN Search makes nice thumbnails of the page, yes (and bloody useful that is on a 28.8 modem connection!), but invariably the first few pages of results will be junk.
Do MSN Searches include paid-for results or something? Or do they use an older index?
Hey! I got a foe!
Let me know how that works out for you.
Dude, what the hell do you expect when they're using Intercal as their base dev platform?
:)
Guess I'd better watch out. One of the two surviving Hurd developers might have mod points.
Cripes I'm a nerd.
.exe unlike previous versions (I don't have an NT4 machine handy to check that far back).
sol.exe for Windows 2000 is a 32-bit
If you play solitaire on Win95 or 98 long (hours!) enough, you probably WILL crash the machine.
Also, the Win2000 version has an autoplay feature (right-click) that isn't present in earlier versions.
Oddly, the 2000 version of Sol.exe does not work on previous versions of Windows.
Yup, easy filtering. Now I have a way to filter out some of those stupid kid's sites that are keeping me from finding more porno.