Re:Ex-Military IT staff described in a nutshell.
on
The Living Dilbert?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I left the Airforce back in 1995 after 12 years in. Pretty much all your observations are what I encountered. BTW.. We were so behind the times when I started, we used punch cards and our "mainframe" had 640k of core memory. Probably 90% of my knowledge is self directed or OJT. The good news is that companies like someone that can learn new stuff fast and are quick to adapt.
Your ideas about money are similar to what mine were. I ended up starting at $30k in '95 and ended up at $60k after 7 years at MCI. Yep, MCI, which went down the toilet and me along with it. MCI was Dilbertville, but my job after that was in the medical field. I work in the radiology department at a hospital as a PACS administrator. Slight cut in pay, but the work is way more rewarding, and it is as far from Dilbert as can be. If I was at a corporate hospital, it would still be Dilbert, as I have friends that work for one of those. But at the independent, non-corporate place I work, patient care comes ahead of politics or money.
I'm telling you it doesn't even see the partitions. So I can't very well format them. I suppose if I was really determined, I could boot another linux, say Mandriva, and format the partitions and then try the installer again. Just the fact that it doesn't see the partitions makes me too nervous though. Like it might mangle my disk because it is "confused".
I heard tell that alternate might allow installation on existing linux partitons. As it is right now, I have never been able to install ubuntu as it can't see the existing EXT3 partitions or swap partiton that I have from a current Mandriva install.
Until they fix their disk partitioner to see existing partition, I consider it not ready.
BTW some people said run gparted from the desktop before I run the installer. It doesn't see the partitions either.
Our local Phone Coop is much like that. $100 month gets my phone, cable, HBO, DSL with an honest 1mb/300k. Plus I get a profit share check from them every year that makes the actual cost much less. The plan that the mentioned at the last Coop meeting is to put everything on fiber over copper in the next few years. Just in time forthe digital televison switchover.
Besides, I'd be willing to bet that most of those 'knuckleheads' you speak of probably pirate their Windows to save a few hundred bucks to spend on GPU.
Actually, you have a good point. I buy all my game software, but the the big pirates in our lan gaming group are usually the guys with the more expensive rigs.
The knuckleheads that dump cubic dollars into their PC's to game are the market for vista. And the n00bs that buy machines pre-loaded. Gaming consoles have basically passed PC's in performance, and especially in performance vs price. Despite the fact that Microsoft sells it, the 360 would be a much better way to go. If I ever decided to modernize my gaming, I'd go with a console,and keep my PC for the already large amount of great games I have and will continue to play.
With adblock and filterset.g and blocked cookies all my defaults, it worked fine for me with no meta-refresh and crap. The article was worthless however.
MPAA you have thepiratebay.org to thank for that sale Same thing with me. Several HBO shows I got hooked on from bittorrent convinced me to subscribe to HBO. On top of that I have bought several DVD sets based on stuff I have downloaded. Season 1 of the new Doctor Who is coming up and will be buying that.
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
They're Pinky and The Brain Yes, Pinky and The Brain One is a genius The other's insane. They're laboratory mice Their genes have been spliced They're dinky They're Pinky and The Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain Brain.
There are a few problems with mediaportal. Fairly steep hardware requirements, and the need to pay the Microsoft tax. If I want to make a DVR/media box, I want to have something I can afford by scrounging the hardware and using free operating systems.
The reason it kills our connection, is that we are getting our bandwidth from the hotel where we hold our events. This is an old post from our network admin.
Yes, this is a problem. Yes, the hotel has free wireless. Yes, they limit one IP to 5-ish connects (active TCP or UDP sessions) per IP. Yes, they clampped it down because we hogged/ALL/ the bandwidth one LAN w/ Steam. Yes, I shut off the steam ports in our firewall at the next LAN to prevent it from hogging our limited connections-per-IP and preventing/all/ access. And it still sucked if 2 people wanted to surf (yes you/frequently/ set up multiple connections to load a single page, and if you don't know why, read the source for a few pages with ads).
Any questions?
Ok, now that we all know that it's our fault for using Steam and getting the free internet admin folks pissed, let's UPDATE THE DAMN THING BEFORE YOU COME TO THE LAN or QUIT USING IT! enraged
Any suggestions on getting around that 5-ish connects-per-IP issue? It exists in hardware/software that we don't own or have access to.
The hard solution involves me spending about 8 hours allocating IP's on the outside of the firewall to each IP on the inside... And configuring all the damn firewall rules to direct traffic appropriately... Which will be a bitch... And then another 8 testing and troubleshooting... And then if I made a typo in one address in one rule, we get to troubleshoot that on the spot when some poor soul gets that address from DHCP at the LAN...
And then every one of you that fires up and uses Steam will promptly get your IP blocked by the free internet admin guys/AND YOU'LL COME OVER AND BITCH AT ME, ANYWAY/! enraged
Have you a small idea why network folks don't like Steam yet? annoyed
Anyway, I have an alternate possibility that/MIGHT/ allow the multiple-outside-IP's deal w/o that much config shit, but it'll involve reconfiguring our DHCP server, DNS, and programmatically rebuilding the firewall rules... Which I think I can do w/o spending a total fkton of time on it... But it still won't keep the free internet admins from blocking Steam users by IP... And you'll still come bitch at me...
Maybe part of it is the big brother called Steam. I didn't buy HL2 because of Steam, even though I loved HL1. I couldn't tell you if HL2 is better/worse, or whatever, 'cause my only exposure to it is watching other people play.
BTW, Steam has killed our lan gaming events. It takes up too much bandwidth trying to phone home so it ends up killing the network for everyone else. Especially if not everyone is updated before they get to the lan, which is usually the case. The amount of people showing up for an event dropped alot after Steam killed it.
Actually he used to do that, but I mentioned to him one time that the only time he called me was for tech support. Also, if I visited him, most of my time was spent working on his computer, and not being social. Now he has gone too far the other direction.
Sometimes I don't understand my dad. He was a commercial pilot for 7 years, and a systems analyst for 25 years. He has had a PC for decades, starting with a kaypro. He still doesn't know how to configure his machine or keep from being owned by spyware. My stepmom got him a laptop for christmas, and it was running like mollases inside of a month. He took it to one of the local rip-off shops who charged him $200 to clean it. Arrrghh!
We use AIT3 to backup medical images at the hospital I work at. We have had tons of problems with them. Our AIT2's and DATs have been rock solid though.
Supposedly AIT5's are due out later this year. I think they are supposed to hold 500GB uncompressed.
Exactly.. it me be ok for some things, but given the vagaries of the net, you might not be able to rely on it to edit a file. I have the same problem at work with Office delivered VIA Citrix. It will lock up in the middle of editing, or I won't be able to lauch the application. I fixed that problem by installing Open Office.
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I left the Airforce back in 1995 after 12 years in. Pretty much all your observations are what I encountered. BTW.. We were so behind the times when I started, we used punch cards and our "mainframe" had 640k of core memory. Probably 90% of my knowledge is self directed or OJT. The good news is that companies like someone that can learn new stuff fast and are quick to adapt.
Your ideas about money are similar to what mine were. I ended up starting at $30k in '95 and ended up at $60k after 7 years at MCI. Yep, MCI, which went down the toilet and me along with it. MCI was Dilbertville, but my job after that was in the medical field. I work in the radiology department at a hospital as a PACS administrator. Slight cut in pay, but the work is way more rewarding, and it is as far from Dilbert as can be. If I was at a corporate hospital, it would still be Dilbert, as I have friends that work for one of those. But at the independent, non-corporate place I work, patient care comes ahead of politics or money.
Gesundheit!
I'm telling you it doesn't even see the partitions. So I can't very well format them. I suppose if I was really determined, I could boot another linux, say Mandriva, and format the partitions and then try the installer again. Just the fact that it doesn't see the partitions makes me too nervous though. Like it might mangle my disk because it is "confused".
I heard tell that alternate might allow installation on existing linux partitons. As it is right now, I have never been able to install ubuntu as it can't see the existing EXT3 partitions or swap partiton that I have from a current Mandriva install.
Until they fix their disk partitioner to see existing partition, I consider it not ready.
BTW some people said run gparted from the desktop before I run the installer. It doesn't see the partitions either.
Our local Phone Coop is much like that. $100 month gets my phone, cable, HBO, DSL with an honest 1mb/300k. Plus I get a profit share check from them every year that makes the actual cost much less. The plan that the mentioned at the last Coop meeting is to put everything on fiber over copper in the next few years. Just in time forthe digital televison switchover.
Besides, I'd be willing to bet that most of those 'knuckleheads' you speak of probably pirate their Windows to save a few hundred bucks to spend on GPU.
Actually, you have a good point. I buy all my game software, but the the big pirates in our lan gaming group are usually the guys with the more expensive rigs.
The knuckleheads that dump cubic dollars into their PC's to game are the market for vista. And the n00bs that buy machines pre-loaded. Gaming consoles have basically passed PC's in performance, and especially in performance vs price. Despite the fact that Microsoft sells it, the 360 would be a much better way to go. If I ever decided to modernize my gaming, I'd go with a console,and keep my PC for the already large amount of great games I have and will continue to play.
Do..You..Want..Some..More??
With adblock and filterset.g and blocked cookies all my defaults, it worked fine for me with no meta-refresh and crap. The article was worthless however.
MPAA you have thepiratebay.org to thank for that sale
Same thing with me. Several HBO shows I got hooked on from bittorrent convinced me to subscribe to HBO. On top of that I have bought several DVD sets based on stuff I have downloaded. Season 1 of the new Doctor Who is coming up and will be buying that.
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
Best tags ever!
wireless, stupid, dumb, scary, crash (tagging beta)
They're Pinky and The Brain
Yes, Pinky and The Brain
One is a genius
The other's insane.
They're laboratory mice
Their genes have been spliced
They're dinky
They're Pinky and The Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain.
No more mouse organ music?
There are a few problems with mediaportal. Fairly steep hardware requirements, and the need to pay the Microsoft tax. If I want to make a DVR/media box, I want to have something I can afford by scrounging the hardware and using free operating systems.
How about the Ken Burns Effect combined with the Alan Parsons Project?
Boy.. that sure looks easy...
http://www.gaztronics.net/rsync.php
Maybe part of it is the big brother called Steam. I didn't buy HL2 because of Steam, even though I loved HL1. I couldn't tell you if HL2 is better/worse, or whatever, 'cause my only exposure to it is watching other people play.
BTW, Steam has killed our lan gaming events. It takes up too much bandwidth trying to phone home so it ends up killing the network for everyone else. Especially if not everyone is updated before they get to the lan, which is usually the case. The amount of people showing up for an event dropped alot after Steam killed it.
Kudos to the editors! I dig silly krap like this.
Actually he used to do that, but I mentioned to him one time that the only time he called me was for tech support. Also, if I visited him, most of my time was spent working on his computer, and not being social. Now he has gone too far the other direction.
Sometimes I don't understand my dad. He was a commercial pilot for 7 years, and a systems analyst for 25 years. He has had a PC for decades, starting with a kaypro. He still doesn't know how to configure his machine or keep from being owned by spyware. My stepmom got him a laptop for christmas, and it was running like mollases inside of a month. He took it to one of the local rip-off shops who charged him $200 to clean it. Arrrghh!
I don't have the stats on the newer tape systems, but last time I checked, the shelf life of a tape is not much more than 18 months.
I don't know where you got that, but we occasionally pull data off of 10 year old dat tapes. They are very reliable.
We use AIT3 to backup medical images at the hospital I work at. We have had tons of problems with them. Our AIT2's and DATs have been rock solid though.
Supposedly AIT5's are due out later this year. I think they are supposed to hold 500GB uncompressed.
Exactly.. it me be ok for some things, but given the vagaries of the net, you might not be able to rely on it to edit a file. I have the same problem at work with Office delivered VIA Citrix. It will lock up in the middle of editing, or I won't be able to lauch the application. I fixed that problem by installing Open Office.