"Would you sell your grandmother to get a contract?" Negative answers get you thrown out into the street.
Oh I like that one. Yes, very apt. Can you get a deceitful grabbing weasel to put a good face on his being so? If so, they'll be an excellent sales person.
It's an interesting idea and no mistake. I guess you could 'deal with' natural conditions, simply by ensuring your data barges are geographically distributed and 'DR capable'. I'm still unconvinced though - anything at sea gets significantly more expensive - it's not just the weather, as much as continuous strain that a salt water, constantly moving environment applies to something.
I suppose that could be offset against energy/cooling costs and ground rent, but... I'm pretty sure that in terms of square feet, a yacht costs more than an apartment.
Just so. I can think of at least one incidence through my career - one where 'us IT guys' recommended, specced and budgeted a network upgrade. For 5 years in a row, we asked, got it approved, and then had it withdrawn by manglement in the budget negotiations, because 'things were fine'.
So suffice to say our 155Mb ATM network backbone gradually built up pressure, and... well, with the best will in the world, we kept it going - steadily increasing overheads on callout and whatnot, because stuff needed a kick increasingly.
It all came to a head 5 years later, in a bit of a catastrophic failure - 'just one more straw' on the camels back, and all that, at which point there was rabble, rabbling about who's 'fault' it was. Never a problem, until it's a crisis in some places.
IT systems do fail spectacularly, but the competent incompetent will ensure that's not 'their fault' - the possiblities for something like that are _huge_ as to what might have caused it, from anything from the hardware on up.
Errors are made, sure, but how many of those are directly attributable to a particular person? And of those, how many are incompetence rather than 'honest mistake' (e.g. miscommunication?)
EVE has a skill system such that each skill goes from 0 to 5. Level 5 takes some 80% of the training time, but once you're there, that's it. No more improvements to be had.
So strictly speaking, it's true - I have played a long time, you will never have as many skillpoints as me.
However the fact remains that it's only ever a proportion of my skillpoints that are in use in a given ship, and once those are maxed (or near maxed - I haven't maxed most of mine, even 4 years in) then it's close enough as makes no difference.
An old character can fly more stuff, but not specifically any given thing particuarly better than a younger, specialised character. You'll never be able to fly as many ships as I can, but you will be able to kick my arse with a given ship class quite soon.
The other balance factor is, of course, that EVE 'level' doesn't have that much of a skew on 'awesome'. A super ultra veteran who really knows his stuff and is flying an expensive ship/fit can _maybe_ take on 2:1 odds. Perhaps longer, if the opposition is clueless, but they're taking a massive gamble at that point. If they lose, they die and their 'more expensive' is destroyed/dropped as loot.
So all in all, the skill advancement system isn't something I've a problem with - I really like it, because at 20 years or so of skill training time (yes, really) it's all about what you want to advance next, not about 'getting to max level'.
In some business cultures, working long hours is recognised as a problem - literally, that this employee, for whatever reason, cannot complete an assigned task within the normal working hours. This means they require additional support.
In others, it's seen as a good thing - face time as a measure of productivity and devotion to the company. People... not -forced- exactly, but certainly pressured and co-erced into putting in hours above and beyond their contract.
Thing is, Henry T. Ford found out... some years ago... that moving employees from 6x12 hour day working week, to 5x8hour day working week, had no difference on productivity, and huge benefits for morale and motiviation.
The key problem is this (as the whole discussion). In the absence of a better understanding of what someone is doing, it's often easier to fall into the trap of assuming more hours = more work. Particularly in 'white collar' jobs, that's just not the case.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
Of course, concise code isn't always a virtue either - it's sometimes better to write something more verbosely, because it's easier to debug than a classic per line-noise obfu.
Which I guess would underline the point.
No, my problem's more complicated - I do 'systems admin'. How do you measure my productivity?
I can't say I've pirated anything in a while - I'm at a point where 'good enough to waste time playing' means 'good enough to pay for'. I'm a huge fan of C&C in general, and bought... pretty much all of them (ok, I may have missed C&C 3), although I've been spoilt a bit by Supreme Commander. RA3 is not something I will be buying with that DRM on. There you go EA. One lost sale as a result of your policy.
It is unacceptable to rootkit your software as piracy defense. It does nothing to stop piracy, but it does annoy me, as the legitimate consumer.
No no. 820 and 820.000 is not the same thing. The latter implies a degree of precision of measurement. An engineer would slap you upside the head for bringing him a 1mm bolt, when he asked you for a 1.00mm bolt.
819.5
819.9995
The difference is very important.
Of course, given we're talking about an integer, it's more likely to be a typo and a missing comma, but what's slashdot without a little pedantry?
There's a difference between going out and enjoying a beer, and the first impression you deliver by posting the pics to your facebook.
Which I think would be the point of the article. I fully expect potential employers to be searching stuff, and I know I have a distinctive enough name that I'll 'show up'. I therefore make sure that anything directly linkable to me, reflects the positive impression I want to make.
I'm following the release of these with interest. The real key is how well they've done with the interface - the rest of the specs look pretty awesome. Unfortunately that's also not something you can just check out on a website.
I'm actually looking for a touchscreen phone/mobile device.
So far the HTC Touch (Diamond | Pro) and the Samsung Omnia (8Gb|16Gb) are looking promising contenders. They each seem to be doing different things with it, but doing at least a useful selection of them 'better than the competitors'.
Which is good, as I'm still not sold on the iPhone.
I'd be inclined to agree entirely. Cut the monkeys out the loop, and hand them over to the 'responsible authority' to delegate as they wish. Sometimes that includes giving them straight back to the monkeys, admittedly, but there's some stuff I won't do, that I theoretically could as a sysadmin, without approval of the board of directors of a company.
I'd qualify the 'your boss is your boss' thing. I think a Sysadmin _does_ have a grounds for professionalism and ethics - just because your boss demands that you go raid the email server to see where that cute secretary he fancies hangs out, doesn't mean you should comply.
Now, as regards passwords and what not, I would be inclined to agree - you've got no right as a professional to lock out the owner of the kit, from their stuff. However I'd also say escalating it higher because there's 'serious ethical implications' in some situations isn't unreasonable. Not that this necessarily relates to this particular case - I don't know the details, so I won't comment - I just wanted to point out that there are good and valid reasons not to comply with a demand like this from your direct 'boss'.
It's grossly unprofessional to 'ransom' you're employer in such a way. The job of a _good_ sysadmin, is essentially to make himself redundant. I consider it professionally acceptable to leave it 'almost' redundant, in the 'can read slashdot all day, and provide a good service' kind of sense.
Oh I'm fairly sure it happened to someone at some point in some form. I'm just curious as to how many of the incidences I've heard are actually the case, or more an 'adopt an urban legend' cases.
Your London may be inferior. Ours definitely warrants a 'City' moniker. Especially when The City of London is distinct from the conurbation that is known as London. And the City of London is actually fairly small - almost exactly a square mile - but... well, you know what they say. It's not the size, it's how you use it.
I have heard many variants on this particular story.
Most seem to include a server getting hidden by construction work, but exact details of how it was discovered and what OS/job it was doing are variable.
Sadly it seems this is one urban legend that snopes couldn't lay to rest for me.
Although I did at one time, find a box of sun kit, in our 'goods out'. We'd sent them back to sun, and had to fight to claim our discount (they still gave them the discount in the end) but it turns out they'd never been sent, and had been sat in our goods out for nearly 8 years.
No no. "The City" is quite clearly "The City of London". And no where near San Francisco. (I wonder if they use Cisco hardware though, which might make the San Fran - Cisco more apt)
Superstition is a useful thing. Something doesn't have to be 'true' to be 'of value'.
What supersition, and it's bigger brother religion have in common, is it's a way of building rules of conduct. It's a way of transcending and thinking that there is actually more to things than 'you're born, you fumble around, you die, game over'. But it's also a way of making assertions that are _generally_ useful - you get people to believe, for example, eating pigs is unholy, because... well, pigs carry a lot of diseases that can really mess you up.
But in an age where it's hard to actually _prove_ that sort of thing, then it's far easier to deal with it with 'but god/the spirits' said so.
There's also the hopeful aspect - put aside the futility of the now, your reward for a hard life is in the future. Lets face it, life could be pretty miserable if you were just a peasant who'd plough fields until he died. It's only natural that a coping strategy evolved.
Religion and superstition provide us with the myths, that make the proletariat comfortable. That let those wise enough to 'know' influence those that 'believe'.
Those myths have been useful to our society - even the scientific method is built upon an established consensus.
But generally speaking, it's just a form of Myth Management.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh I like that one. Yes, very apt. Can you get a deceitful grabbing weasel to put a good face on his being so? If so, they'll be an excellent sales person.
I suppose that could be offset against energy/cooling costs and ground rent, but ... I'm pretty sure that in terms of square feet, a yacht costs more than an apartment.
So suffice to say our 155Mb ATM network backbone gradually built up pressure, and... well, with the best will in the world, we kept it going - steadily increasing overheads on callout and whatnot, because stuff needed a kick increasingly.
It all came to a head 5 years later, in a bit of a catastrophic failure - 'just one more straw' on the camels back, and all that, at which point there was rabble, rabbling about who's 'fault' it was. Never a problem, until it's a crisis in some places.
Errors are made, sure, but how many of those are directly attributable to a particular person? And of those, how many are incompetence rather than 'honest mistake' (e.g. miscommunication?)
So strictly speaking, it's true - I have played a long time, you will never have as many skillpoints as me.
However the fact remains that it's only ever a proportion of my skillpoints that are in use in a given ship, and once those are maxed (or near maxed - I haven't maxed most of mine, even 4 years in) then it's close enough as makes no difference.
An old character can fly more stuff, but not specifically any given thing particuarly better than a younger, specialised character. You'll never be able to fly as many ships as I can, but you will be able to kick my arse with a given ship class quite soon.
The other balance factor is, of course, that EVE 'level' doesn't have that much of a skew on 'awesome'. A super ultra veteran who really knows his stuff and is flying an expensive ship/fit can _maybe_ take on 2:1 odds. Perhaps longer, if the opposition is clueless, but they're taking a massive gamble at that point. If they lose, they die and their 'more expensive' is destroyed/dropped as loot.
So all in all, the skill advancement system isn't something I've a problem with - I really like it, because at 20 years or so of skill training time (yes, really) it's all about what you want to advance next, not about 'getting to max level'.
In others, it's seen as a good thing - face time as a measure of productivity and devotion to the company. People ... not -forced- exactly, but certainly pressured and co-erced into putting in hours above and beyond their contract.
Thing is, Henry T. Ford found out ... some years ago ... that moving employees from 6x12 hour day working week, to 5x8hour day working week, had no difference on productivity, and huge benefits for morale and motiviation.
The key problem is this (as the whole discussion). In the absence of a better understanding of what someone is doing, it's often easier to fall into the trap of assuming more hours = more work. Particularly in 'white collar' jobs, that's just not the case.
Which I guess would underline the point.
No, my problem's more complicated - I do 'systems admin'. How do you measure my productivity?
It is unacceptable to rootkit your software as piracy defense. It does nothing to stop piracy, but it does annoy me, as the legitimate consumer.
You may now mod me overrated by screwing up my own pedantry.
819.5 819.9995 The difference is very important.
Of course, given we're talking about an integer, it's more likely to be a typo and a missing comma, but what's slashdot without a little pedantry?
I can confirm this. Signed up to stay in touch with some ex colleagues, but have since had several invitations to interview as a direct result.
Which I think would be the point of the article. I fully expect potential employers to be searching stuff, and I know I have a distinctive enough name that I'll 'show up'. I therefore make sure that anything directly linkable to me, reflects the positive impression I want to make.
Nostalgia rules, but not like it used to.
Actually, Civ4 I had a problem with too, but only because I was terrible at it, and kept getting barbarianed.
Now Civ4 is a guaranteed timesink. Civ2 looks a bit ... old, and Civ1 is still one of the most awesome games I ever played.
I'm following the release of these with interest. The real key is how well they've done with the interface - the rest of the specs look pretty awesome. Unfortunately that's also not something you can just check out on a website.
So far the HTC Touch (Diamond | Pro) and the Samsung Omnia (8Gb|16Gb) are looking promising contenders. They each seem to be doing different things with it, but doing at least a useful selection of them 'better than the competitors'.
Which is good, as I'm still not sold on the iPhone.
I'd be inclined to agree entirely. Cut the monkeys out the loop, and hand them over to the 'responsible authority' to delegate as they wish. Sometimes that includes giving them straight back to the monkeys, admittedly, but there's some stuff I won't do, that I theoretically could as a sysadmin, without approval of the board of directors of a company.
Now, as regards passwords and what not, I would be inclined to agree - you've got no right as a professional to lock out the owner of the kit, from their stuff. However I'd also say escalating it higher because there's 'serious ethical implications' in some situations isn't unreasonable. Not that this necessarily relates to this particular case - I don't know the details, so I won't comment - I just wanted to point out that there are good and valid reasons not to comply with a demand like this from your direct 'boss'.
Wait, you mean blame it all on the guy who left (be it through death or a cushy new job) isn't standard practice everywhere?
When you're fighting fires, you're failing.
I mean, Sun has the 'Server 54' reference from 2001: http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2001-05/sunflash.20010521.3.xml
Your London may be inferior. Ours definitely warrants a 'City' moniker. Especially when The City of London is distinct from the conurbation that is known as London. And the City of London is actually fairly small - almost exactly a square mile - but ... well, you know what they say. It's not the size, it's how you use it.
Most seem to include a server getting hidden by construction work, but exact details of how it was discovered and what OS/job it was doing are variable.
Sadly it seems this is one urban legend that snopes couldn't lay to rest for me.
Although I did at one time, find a box of sun kit, in our 'goods out'. We'd sent them back to sun, and had to fight to claim our discount (they still gave them the discount in the end) but it turns out they'd never been sent, and had been sat in our goods out for nearly 8 years.
No no. "The City" is quite clearly "The City of London". And no where near San Francisco. (I wonder if they use Cisco hardware though, which might make the San Fran - Cisco more apt)
What supersition, and it's bigger brother religion have in common, is it's a way of building rules of conduct. It's a way of transcending and thinking that there is actually more to things than 'you're born, you fumble around, you die, game over'. But it's also a way of making assertions that are _generally_ useful - you get people to believe, for example, eating pigs is unholy, because ... well, pigs carry a lot of diseases that can really mess you up.
But in an age where it's hard to actually _prove_ that sort of thing, then it's far easier to deal with it with 'but god/the spirits' said so.
There's also the hopeful aspect - put aside the futility of the now, your reward for a hard life is in the future. Lets face it, life could be pretty miserable if you were just a peasant who'd plough fields until he died. It's only natural that a coping strategy evolved.
Religion and superstition provide us with the myths, that make the proletariat comfortable. That let those wise enough to 'know' influence those that 'believe'.
Those myths have been useful to our society - even the scientific method is built upon an established consensus.
But generally speaking, it's just a form of Myth Management.