Some years ago, us sysadmins went from pagers to cell phones, with the alert system sending SMS via email, which is very close in function than what we used to get from pagers. I typically set the phone to some loud and obnoxious sound for a text, something that will wake me up. People who know me, know the very specific noise it makes.
One critical disadvantage we noticed right away is that cell phones don't last very long on a full charge. Even in the days before smartphones that last less than a day on a full charge, cell phones did not have the longevity of pagers, which could go a whole week or more on one battery.
Soon the practice was for the on-call person to carry about his or her person a cell phone and a spare battery. It was common to see an admin with the large bulge in their cargo pant thigh pocket for the cell phone and a slightly smaller bulge in other thigh pocket for the spare battery.
When cell phones with non-replaceable batteries started appearing, we got special dispensation to keep using a model with a replaceable battery. Now with external batteries being available, I don't know if this is still critical or just a convenience, but personally I prefer to swap out the battery rather than have a weight dangling off the phone.
If you decide to go with a pager, you should probably check on pager range, as it might have changed since the old days, as fewer people are using them. Whereas, I believe (but am not positive) that SMS works while roaming.
I actually don't know. I've owned Apple desktop machines but never a laptop, (I consider them overpriced, and I hate machines that prevent me from working on them) so don't have experience either way. Attempting to make a joke on Apple's expense, and apparently it wasn't funny enough.
If they set the previous trend, is it not trendy when they follow it? If they set a standard that has characteristics considered trendy, is that not trendy?
> I don't know what the hell that is but it cannot be the cord the article is about, because the cord MS is sending is just the cord that goes between the power brick and Surface Pro, so it doesn't have a plug.
Probably a stock photo. I bet if we use Google Images to search for it, we'd find it in some stock collection.
You mean like Apple does with it's silicone-rubber cables that resist cracking...
You forgot to include the obligatory "/s". The rubber shielding on Apple's power cables is anything but crack-resistant.
(Not that I'm suggesting Microsoft's choices don't suck, but don't hold up Apple as an example to aspire to in this instance.)
I think the design goal was to look and feel expensive and trendy. How it wears is a different discussion.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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I also wanted to say, a more authoritarian government (which is currently the only way Sanders-style socialism could work) merely replaces corporate masters with political masters. In some cases, the same damned people. I don't see this as an improvement.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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I also wanted to say: Libertarianism ia a journey, not a destination. It's been described as a bus going towards some goal of government cut to the bone, and you and I may choose to get off the bus along the way. If government in its current state is a bus, a libertarian might want to get on to slam on the brakes, turn the bus around, and get it going in the right direction. If you're just continuing on the same route, but slower, that's a good indication that you've lost the principles you started with.
You correctly point out that the people who govern us are not machines or angels but just regular people who often lose their way. People who are under tremendous pressure to compromise their principles. When we give more power to government, we are giving power to these people. In my mind, there's not a lot of difference between a billionaire business mogul calling the shots for his own benefit, or a millionaire politician calling the shots for his or her own benefit. It's still all about power. It's only the message that changes.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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I think, when it comes down to it, if you're running for election for a government job, you are either not a libertarian, or you stop being one shortly after you win the election.
It's true that this happens. But other than making the best choices within the current system, and working to elect people who will reduce the corruption, what else do we have? "occupying" demonstrably doesn't work.
Re: Hammerheads in Vermont
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Any position can be made to seem ridiculous when taken to extremes. Taxes for highway, military, infrastructure, can be said to be part of the cost of living, and well within government purview as originally set up. Don't like it, you're free to live somewhere else. But taking money you'd use to buy a non-infrastructure resource and then giving you an overpriced, shoddy but "official" government replacement, is also a rather sad utopia. "The even distribution of poverty" comes to mind.
Re: Hammerheads in Vermont
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All of these people, all of these different ideas, and every election year we're presented with either side of the same coin. A coin fixated, by design, on emotional matters that ultimately lead nowhere. That's the "shiny thing" spun and dangled with one hand before the electorate while the other gets to work on real policy in a shadow.
It's almost as if we'd be better off if we had more to choose from than "Door #1" or "Door #2."
No kidding. But barring that, about the best we can do is choose which primary we want to be a part of, because more interesting decisions are made there than in the general.
Re: Hammerheads in Vermont
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It's still theft. Any more than cops grifting shop owners is theft. Just on a slightly different scale.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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> Who's "choices" will be taken away by moderately raising taxes on those in the very top tax brackets?
Run the numbers. That wouldn't make the slightest difference. It's a matter of orders of magnitude.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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That doesn't necessarily make Rand Paul a socialist. Like his father he has Libertarian leanings, which means he'll agree with socialists on some stuff, and with conservatives on other stuff. (In other words, both parties get to hate him.)
He wants to have america have a "spiritual rebirth" and he's making Bushlike pronouncements from aircraft carriers.
If you want to run as a Republican, they will tell you what you believe. And none of it is libertarian in the least.
Or do libertarians have no principles whatsoever?
I hesitate because on the one hand that's simply quoting the D party line, and on the other hand, it is somewhat true. If you're talking about a Mitch McConnell republican, I absolutely agree with you. But as is a classic Democrat (socially and fiscally liberal), a classic Republican, (socially and fiscally conservative) is half a Libertarian. Finding them is the chore. Trump is absolutely, very definitely, without a doubt, no question about it,...not one. But neither is Romney. Or McCain.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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"fiscal conservatism" But no one in the GOP is fiscally conservative...
That is a problem. But it's not correct to say "no one", but simply that they're hard to find.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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You correctly (although somewhat pejoratively) point out the choice a libertarian has to make in every election. I happen to think fiscal conservatism is at the moment more important than social liberalism, (because the fastest, most effective way to take away people's choices is to take away their fiscal discretion) so I'm going with the Republicans for now. Well, some of them. The ones that are actually fiscally conservative. Next election I might re-register and participate in the other primary, depending on the issues.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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That doesn't necessarily make Rand Paul a socialist. Like his father he has Libertarian leanings, which means he'll agree with socialists on some stuff, and with conservatives on other stuff. (In other words, both parties get to hate him.)
Stating the obvious is news? Seriously, it's been the case from the very early days that sysadmins have access to confidential information. Used to be we had access to everything. Due to siloing, not so much anymore, but still way more than most people think. (a) People keep sensitive information of various levels of sensitivity on computers. (b) Other people are hired to manage, maintain and repair these computers (a) + (b) =...you figure it out.
It has been long the case that sysadmins have had access to information that we needed to keep to ourselves. Perhaps three times in my career, I've had managers outside my department request that I break into user's accounts to retrieve information. How you handle such requests tells a lot about your personal integrity.
Of course there are valid reasons to dig into people's stuff -- properly vetted legal investigations, terminated employees and so forth. But when a manager asked me to dig into people's history to see if they were visiting job sites, I politely declined and referred him to my manager. And the guy who wanted to know if his girlfriend was dating someone else. C'mon, you knew what you were getting into when you started an office romance.
Practice erring on the side of privacy, and you build trust in the organization. How could an exec trust you to be in charge of his stuff if you have a history of digging into his employees' stuff?
There was a time, for instance, when any video recording/playback set of features was first used for pr0n, and then gradually migrated to legitimate use.
Are you implying watching pr0n is not legitimate use?
Duly noted. I guess I mean non-pr0n use. There's probably a better word but I can't think of one right now.
> If this is a real story, and your management team actually said that, they're either really, really stupid, or they really think that you can't get a new job on short notice.
I can verify that this happens. Awhile back my manager was replaced by an H1B manager, (true story!) in what might be described as a hostile takeover, and then new manager started replacing locals with H1B contractors, but more open about it -- stated in team meeting that he would concentrate on H1B contractors for all new hires for budgetary reasons -- only pulled from his country of origin, coincidentally. Shortly afterwards, we were all required to document our jobs in minute detail and start providing daily (!) status reports. I started interviewing immediately, but didn't get out in time, got laid off, but since I had started the process ahead of time, was only out of work for a couple weeks. I'd strongly suggest that OP do the same.
Someone else suggested giving incorrect information in the training -- I wouldn't go that far, hm, incomplete might be ok. But my experience, from an outsourcing that I happened to have survived (in a different role), is that, even if you make every good-faith effort to transfer complete knowledge on how to do the job, they'll find a way to screw themselves over. Because to a certain extent, you really do get what you pay for.
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Some years ago, us sysadmins went from pagers to cell phones, with the alert system sending SMS via email, which is very close in function than what we used to get from pagers. I typically set the phone to some loud and obnoxious sound for a text, something that will wake me up. People who know me, know the very specific noise it makes.
One critical disadvantage we noticed right away is that cell phones don't last very long on a full charge. Even in the days before smartphones that last less than a day on a full charge, cell phones did not have the longevity of pagers, which could go a whole week or more on one battery.
Soon the practice was for the on-call person to carry about his or her person a cell phone and a spare battery. It was common to see an admin with the large bulge in their cargo pant thigh pocket for the cell phone and a slightly smaller bulge in other thigh pocket for the spare battery.
When cell phones with non-replaceable batteries started appearing, we got special dispensation to keep using a model with a replaceable battery. Now with external batteries being available, I don't know if this is still critical or just a convenience, but personally I prefer to swap out the battery rather than have a weight dangling off the phone.
If you decide to go with a pager, you should probably check on pager range, as it might have changed since the old days, as fewer people are using them. Whereas, I believe (but am not positive) that SMS works while roaming.
> but Time described the acquisition as "game changing,"
Yeah, but they always say that. I think a marketing content creator would get fired if he failed to work "game changing" into the text somewhere.
> It remains to be seen what this will do for the future of MySpace ...
Who knows, maybe they'll re-skin it and make another go. Everyone wants to be the next Facebook.
I actually don't know. I've owned Apple desktop machines but never a laptop, (I consider them overpriced, and I hate machines that prevent me from working on them) so don't have experience either way. Attempting to make a joke on Apple's expense, and apparently it wasn't funny enough.
When something sets the trend, how is it trendy?
If they set the previous trend, is it not trendy when they follow it? If they set a standard that has characteristics considered trendy, is that not trendy?
> I don't know what the hell that is but it cannot be the cord the article is about, because the cord MS is sending is just the cord that goes between the power brick and Surface Pro, so it doesn't have a plug.
Probably a stock photo. I bet if we use Google Images to search for it, we'd find it in some stock collection.
You forgot to include the obligatory "/s". The rubber shielding on Apple's power cables is anything but crack-resistant.
(Not that I'm suggesting Microsoft's choices don't suck, but don't hold up Apple as an example to aspire to in this instance.)
I think the design goal was to look and feel expensive and trendy. How it wears is a different discussion.
I also wanted to say, a more authoritarian government (which is currently the only way Sanders-style socialism could work) merely replaces corporate masters with political masters. In some cases, the same damned people. I don't see this as an improvement.
I also wanted to say: Libertarianism ia a journey, not a destination. It's been described as a bus going towards some goal of government cut to the bone, and you and I may choose to get off the bus along the way. If government in its current state is a bus, a libertarian might want to get on to slam on the brakes, turn the bus around, and get it going in the right direction. If you're just continuing on the same route, but slower, that's a good indication that you've lost the principles you started with.
You correctly point out that the people who govern us are not machines or angels but just regular people who often lose their way. People who are under tremendous pressure to compromise their principles. When we give more power to government, we are giving power to these people. In my mind, there's not a lot of difference between a billionaire business mogul calling the shots for his own benefit, or a millionaire politician calling the shots for his or her own benefit. It's still all about power. It's only the message that changes.
I think, when it comes down to it, if you're running for election for a government job, you are either not a libertarian, or you stop being one shortly after you win the election.
It's true that this happens. But other than making the best choices within the current system, and working to elect people who will reduce the corruption, what else do we have? "occupying" demonstrably doesn't work.
Any position can be made to seem ridiculous when taken to extremes. Taxes for highway, military, infrastructure, can be said to be part of the cost of living, and well within government purview as originally set up. Don't like it, you're free to live somewhere else. But taking money you'd use to buy a non-infrastructure resource and then giving you an overpriced, shoddy but "official" government replacement, is also a rather sad utopia. "The even distribution of poverty" comes to mind.
All of these people, all of these different ideas, and every election year we're presented with either side of the same coin. A coin fixated, by design, on emotional matters that ultimately lead nowhere. That's the "shiny thing" spun and dangled with one hand before the electorate while the other gets to work on real policy in a shadow.
It's almost as if we'd be better off if we had more to choose from than "Door #1" or "Door #2."
No kidding. But barring that, about the best we can do is choose which primary we want to be a part of, because more interesting decisions are made there than in the general.
It's still theft. Any more than cops grifting shop owners is theft. Just on a slightly different scale.
> Who's "choices" will be taken away by moderately raising taxes on those in the very top tax brackets?
Run the numbers. That wouldn't make the slightest difference. It's a matter of orders of magnitude.
That doesn't necessarily make Rand Paul a socialist. Like his father he has Libertarian leanings, which means he'll agree with socialists on some stuff, and with conservatives on other stuff. (In other words, both parties get to hate him.)
He wants to have america have a "spiritual rebirth" and he's making Bushlike pronouncements from aircraft carriers.
If you want to run as a Republican, they will tell you what you believe. And none of it is libertarian in the least.
Or do libertarians have no principles whatsoever?
I hesitate because on the one hand that's simply quoting the D party line, and on the other hand, it is somewhat true. If you're talking about a Mitch McConnell republican, I absolutely agree with you. But as is a classic Democrat (socially and fiscally liberal), a classic Republican, (socially and fiscally conservative) is half a Libertarian. Finding them is the chore. Trump is absolutely, very definitely, without a doubt, no question about it, ...not one. But neither is Romney. Or McCain.
"fiscal conservatism"
But no one in the GOP is fiscally conservative...
That is a problem. But it's not correct to say "no one", but simply that they're hard to find.
You correctly (although somewhat pejoratively) point out the choice a libertarian has to make in every election. I happen to think fiscal conservatism is at the moment more important than social liberalism, (because the fastest, most effective way to take away people's choices is to take away their fiscal discretion) so I'm going with the Republicans for now. Well, some of them. The ones that are actually fiscally conservative. Next election I might re-register and participate in the other primary, depending on the issues.
That doesn't necessarily make Rand Paul a socialist. Like his father he has Libertarian leanings, which means he'll agree with socialists on some stuff, and with conservatives on other stuff. (In other words, both parties get to hate him.)
Stating the obvious is news? Seriously, it's been the case from the very early days that sysadmins have access to confidential information. Used to be we had access to everything. Due to siloing, not so much anymore, but still way more than most people think. (a) People keep sensitive information of various levels of sensitivity on computers. (b) Other people are hired to manage, maintain and repair these computers (a) + (b) = ...you figure it out.
It has been long the case that sysadmins have had access to information that we needed to keep to ourselves. Perhaps three times in my career, I've had managers outside my department request that I break into user's accounts to retrieve information. How you handle such requests tells a lot about your personal integrity.
Of course there are valid reasons to dig into people's stuff -- properly vetted legal investigations, terminated employees and so forth. But when a manager asked me to dig into people's history to see if they were visiting job sites, I politely declined and referred him to my manager. And the guy who wanted to know if his girlfriend was dating someone else. C'mon, you knew what you were getting into when you started an office romance.
Practice erring on the side of privacy, and you build trust in the organization. How could an exec trust you to be in charge of his stuff if you have a history of digging into his employees' stuff?
I missed a lot of ads by turning flash off. Now I'll have to try one of those other solutions.
There was a time, for instance, when any video recording/playback set of features was first used for pr0n, and then gradually migrated to legitimate use.
Are you implying watching pr0n is not legitimate use?
Duly noted. I guess I mean non-pr0n use. There's probably a better word but I can't think of one right now.
I know. I know! But I can't. If it's traced back it would be bad for me.
> and who will bring this to you? at&t"
Given that AT&T is my ISP, in fact they *are* bringing it to me.
But perhaps not in the way they intended.
I don't think AT&T is a serious player anymore. But they made good commercials.
It's about damn time.
> If this is a real story, and your management team actually said that, they're either really, really stupid, or they really think that you can't get a new job on short notice.
I can verify that this happens. Awhile back my manager was replaced by an H1B manager, (true story!) in what might be described as a hostile takeover, and then new manager started replacing locals with H1B contractors, but more open about it -- stated in team meeting that he would concentrate on H1B contractors for all new hires for budgetary reasons -- only pulled from his country of origin, coincidentally. Shortly afterwards, we were all required to document our jobs in minute detail and start providing daily (!) status reports. I started interviewing immediately, but didn't get out in time, got laid off, but since I had started the process ahead of time, was only out of work for a couple weeks. I'd strongly suggest that OP do the same.
Someone else suggested giving incorrect information in the training -- I wouldn't go that far, hm, incomplete might be ok. But my experience, from an outsourcing that I happened to have survived (in a different role), is that, even if you make every good-faith effort to transfer complete knowledge on how to do the job, they'll find a way to screw themselves over. Because to a certain extent, you really do get what you pay for.