Everyone's touting this as a great magazine (well, most everyone anyway).
Someone mentioned Unix Review. I was getting that one for a while and then it went under and turned its remaining subscriptions over to Sys|Admin. So I had a subscription for a little while. The ones I got then weren't very impressive though so I let it lapse.
I'd see it once in a while in the book store, browse through it and occasionally see something that looked interesting and I'd pick it up. But seldom did I find it consistently good enough to justify resubscribing. For a while there I made a point in picking it up each month and it seemed like every other issue had nothing that interested me, while the ones with some info were ok. The problem of course is that even if it finally got as good as everyone said, I was already at the point where I just didn't bother to even look at it.
I've been working with computers in one manner or another since 1979 or so. Currently I'm a Unix sysadmin working from home. On the current contract, I swap a "hot pager" with my peers one week in 8. While I was on call (24x7) two weeks ago, I got pages for run queues, disk space, password reset (at 10pm), and kill off processes. Fortunately that week they were all before 11pm so I didn't miss sleep. On other weeks I've had to take the following day off I've been so tired. We can only apply patches or otherwise make changes during a 3 hour window starting at 3am on Sunday mornings every other week. Occasionally we can get dispensation and do it Saturday morning instead.
The previous contract I was on call once every 7 days, once every 7 weekends and one holiday (it was an odd schedule:) ). Things didn't happen all that often there so we'd only get paged once in a while.
I've also worked on places where we were all on call 24x7 but only because overnight issues happen so seldom that it didn't really matter.
So it depends on where you're working and how important the infrastructure is. Obviously the third example wasn't really a mission critical shop (a Headquarters environment) where the second one was a little more critical (security monitoring) and the one I'm on now is highly mission critical (I've heard that depending on the server, it's a million dollars a minute for downtime). And I just interviewed at a shop with even more critical requirements (emergency services).
I imagine there'd be a lot of Vista like "are you sure you want to veer left" sort of prompts until you trained your brain the right way to interface with the computer.
We only pay for internet access and get basic cable as part of the package. After our 28" TV bailed late last year, we finally broke down and bought a Sony HD TV. When we plugged it in, we discovered the channels had changed slightly (in the upper areas) and we got some of the HD channels plus a bunch of music channels. We pay an additional $15 a month to one of the video stores (MVP) which gives us three "free" movies as often as we can watch them.
Weirdly we have one channel that seems to be someone at the station watching random movies. I think it's a guy since "he" fast forwards through all the chick scenes to the action:) Another channel plays current movies but no sound and another plays for 30 minutes or so then cuts out.
A couple of years back we got the digital package (6 month deal) and tried to watch it but just didn't like 500+ channels especially since we couldn't remove the channels we didn't want to watch.
Hey, it just says 150,000 IBM jobs. There are contractors that are part of that number. This article (http://www.wral.com/business/local_tech_wire/opin ion/blogpost/1374664/) says what I've been thinking. 1,315 IBM employees and an unknown number of contractors. Since contractors get 2 days notice, by the time the article came out in the paper, the contractors were already gone. Note it does say that employees got 30 days notice. Contractors don't get that, at least not in my experience.
I know of 10 contractors that were let go and 2 regulars. I know of another team that lost 15 of their 23 member team but don't know the breakdown.
Don't know about the numbers or how true all this is, but of the teams I know of (having worked there previously and we keep in touch), one team lost _all_ their contractors (5) and 1 regular. Another lost a regular that I know. A third team lost 15 of their 23 member team. The group I'm currently with lost 5 contractors (our team is mostly contractor; heck I think we have two regulars).
I noticed the news article I saw locally said IBM was laying off 1,300 people, giving them 30 days to find new employment within or outside IBM. The problem is, contractors are given 2 days notice, not 30 and were already gone by the time the article came out in the paper. The regulars got 30 days. So I'd have to believe that the 1,300 were full timers and didn't include contractors, just based on what the article said (FWIW).
Yep, I have the same problem with a Ubuntu 5.1 live cd (official distro) and a burned ISO for 6.1 I think. Boots the XP cd without a problem. I can even see the data on the CDs so they're readable to the system. Just not bootable (dvd is the primary boot device with the hard disk being the backup). I swapped DVD players with no luck.
I wasn't denigrating their overall duties, just pointing out that it seemed from reading this case, a lot of their time would be researching previous case law to find relevant cites in order to make their decision. Of course if they didn't find something relevant, they have to make new law which is harder to do. And the decision is made after reading all the relevant cites so interpretation is also part of the process. But that's also research.
The guy has two websites, one complaining about a North Carolina polititian and the other about China. He submits his ads to Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo who either ignore him or refuse to run the ads. Google and Yahoo even delists his sites. He sues all (dropping AOL later) saying the companies are public places (like malls) and he should be allowed free speech. He also says there's a common law contract such as between innkeepers and guests.
The judges take each item and reply that it doesn't apply and dismisses each claim. Google et.al. are not Inns, Shopping Malls are private companies and not subject to free speech laws. He's not a citizen of Delaware so not applicable. No actual damages occurred so no claims are valid.
The only charge left is breach of contract between Google and this guy.
The interesting thing in general that I learned was that judges and lawyers are basically researchers. They take each point and find case law that's already been rendered and reference it in their judgements. The case is actually more interesting reading because of that.
Probably a reference to Weird Al's movie, UHF. When the kid finds the marble in the oatmeal, he wins and gets to "drink from the firehose!" *Yaaahhhhhh!!!* He sits on a mechanical horse (like in front of stores) and Stan Spitowski flips it on and blows the kid off the back of the horse.
Shockingly, spending time with my SO means I have to watch Gilmore Girls, Desperate Housewives, CSI, Law and Order, Missing, Monk, House, 2 1/2 Men, and 24. I like some of them and can tolerate most of the others. But Gilmore Girls, that's torture.
I tried to time the pauses between conversations on Gilmore Girls and couldn't find a stopwatch that could record time in that small of increments.
I do spend time with her on the couch with the Powerbook. I have earphones plugged in and have watched Office Space, Heavy Metal, Blues Brothers, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Con Air recently. Does that count?
I think most of us here are reasonably adept at finding the answer without resorting to a pay site. I've had EE trickle up on the occasional search until I habitually tack on a -"experts-exchange" to my technical google searches. My daughter seems to like EE though but she's transitioning from helpdesk to a beginning sysadmin.
I'd say that a free site like Yahoo! Answers is probably worth about what you'd expect. I did ask one question about my guitar that was answered to my satisfaction (electrical problem with the jack). I feel the signal to noise ratio is pretty high though.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone's touting this as a great magazine (well, most everyone anyway).
Someone mentioned Unix Review. I was getting that one for a while and then it went under and turned its remaining subscriptions over to Sys|Admin. So I had a subscription for a little while. The ones I got then weren't very impressive though so I let it lapse.
I'd see it once in a while in the book store, browse through it and occasionally see something that looked interesting and I'd pick it up. But seldom did I find it consistently good enough to justify resubscribing. For a while there I made a point in picking it up each month and it seemed like every other issue had nothing that interested me, while the ones with some info were ok. The problem of course is that even if it finally got as good as everyone said, I was already at the point where I just didn't bother to even look at it.
[John]
It took me 2 years of playing back in the mid 80's to finally beat hack (1.0.3 I believe or possibly nethack). That was a proud moment to me.
[John]
I've been working with computers in one manner or another since 1979 or so. Currently I'm a Unix sysadmin working from home. On the current contract, I swap a "hot pager" with my peers one week in 8. While I was on call (24x7) two weeks ago, I got pages for run queues, disk space, password reset (at 10pm), and kill off processes. Fortunately that week they were all before 11pm so I didn't miss sleep. On other weeks I've had to take the following day off I've been so tired. We can only apply patches or otherwise make changes during a 3 hour window starting at 3am on Sunday mornings every other week. Occasionally we can get dispensation and do it Saturday morning instead.
:) ). Things didn't happen all that often there so we'd only get paged once in a while.
The previous contract I was on call once every 7 days, once every 7 weekends and one holiday (it was an odd schedule
I've also worked on places where we were all on call 24x7 but only because overnight issues happen so seldom that it didn't really matter.
So it depends on where you're working and how important the infrastructure is. Obviously the third example wasn't really a mission critical shop (a Headquarters environment) where the second one was a little more critical (security monitoring) and the one I'm on now is highly mission critical (I've heard that depending on the server, it's a million dollars a minute for downtime). And I just interviewed at a shop with even more critical requirements (emergency services).
[John]
Yea, my default google search for tech questions generally end with excluding the "expert sex change" site.
5 thumbs down
[John]
I imagine there'd be a lot of Vista like "are you sure you want to veer left" sort of prompts until you trained your brain the right way to interface with the computer.
[John]
Cool, one step closer to the Organians. First we have to turn into weebles then we evolve into beings of energy.
[John]
Fsck Yea! Like my geek code says:
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GIT d- s+: a+ C++++ US++++$ UL++++$ UB++++ UH++++$ P++ L++ E--- W+++ N+++
K w++ O M+ V PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t+ 5+ X+ R+++ tv b+++ DI++++ D++ G+++ e
h--(++) r+++ y+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Obligatory Shadowrun Geek Code as well:
-----BEGIN SHADOWRUN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 0.22
SRGC SR1+ SR2++ SR3+++ SR4++ h+ b+++ B835+/700+ UB++ ?IE RN-- DMP W+ dk++ gm++ P--
------END SHADOWRUN GEEK CODE BLOCK------
[John]
We only pay for internet access and get basic cable as part of the package. After our 28" TV bailed late last year, we finally broke down and bought a Sony HD TV. When we plugged it in, we discovered the channels had changed slightly (in the upper areas) and we got some of the HD channels plus a bunch of music channels. We pay an additional $15 a month to one of the video stores (MVP) which gives us three "free" movies as often as we can watch them.
:) Another channel plays current movies but no sound and another plays for 30 minutes or so then cuts out.
Weirdly we have one channel that seems to be someone at the station watching random movies. I think it's a guy since "he" fast forwards through all the chick scenes to the action
A couple of years back we got the digital package (6 month deal) and tried to watch it but just didn't like 500+ channels especially since we couldn't remove the channels we didn't want to watch.
[John]
So, the dog licking his ass and balls and then giving you a sloppy kiss isn't a bit gross?
Dude!
[John]
Ask IBM. Two days notice for contractors.
[John]
Then why all the cuts at IBM? 3,700 sysadmins in exchange for 19,000 Indians. 52,000 Indians hired since 2003.
[John]
This word is not the word you think it is.
[John]
Hey, it just says 150,000 IBM jobs. There are contractors that are part of that number. This article (http://www.wral.com/business/local_tech_wire/opin ion/blogpost/1374664/) says what I've been thinking. 1,315 IBM employees and an unknown number of contractors. Since contractors get 2 days notice, by the time the article came out in the paper, the contractors were already gone. Note it does say that employees got 30 days notice. Contractors don't get that, at least not in my experience.
I know of 10 contractors that were let go and 2 regulars. I know of another team that lost 15 of their 23 member team but don't know the breakdown.
[John]
Don't know about the numbers or how true all this is, but of the teams I know of (having worked there previously and we keep in touch), one team lost _all_ their contractors (5) and 1 regular. Another lost a regular that I know. A third team lost 15 of their 23 member team. The group I'm currently with lost 5 contractors (our team is mostly contractor; heck I think we have two regulars).
I noticed the news article I saw locally said IBM was laying off 1,300 people, giving them 30 days to find new employment within or outside IBM. The problem is, contractors are given 2 days notice, not 30 and were already gone by the time the article came out in the paper. The regulars got 30 days. So I'd have to believe that the 1,300 were full timers and didn't include contractors, just based on what the article said (FWIW).
Feel free to extrapolate from the small sample.
[John]
Yep, I have the same problem with a Ubuntu 5.1 live cd (official distro) and a burned ISO for 6.1 I think. Boots the XP cd without a problem. I can even see the data on the CDs so they're readable to the system. Just not bootable (dvd is the primary boot device with the hard disk being the backup). I swapped DVD players with no luck.
[John]
Hey! I have a 10GB monthly limit at my subscription porn site. :)
Bastages.
[John]
I wasn't denigrating their overall duties, just pointing out that it seemed from reading this case, a lot of their time would be researching previous case law to find relevant cites in order to make their decision. Of course if they didn't find something relevant, they have to make new law which is harder to do. And the decision is made after reading all the relevant cites so interpretation is also part of the process. But that's also research.
[John]
The guy has two websites, one complaining about a North Carolina polititian and the other about China. He submits his ads to Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo who either ignore him or refuse to run the ads. Google and Yahoo even delists his sites. He sues all (dropping AOL later) saying the companies are public places (like malls) and he should be allowed free speech. He also says there's a common law contract such as between innkeepers and guests.
The judges take each item and reply that it doesn't apply and dismisses each claim. Google et.al. are not Inns, Shopping Malls are private companies and not subject to free speech laws. He's not a citizen of Delaware so not applicable. No actual damages occurred so no claims are valid.
The only charge left is breach of contract between Google and this guy.
The interesting thing in general that I learned was that judges and lawyers are basically researchers. They take each point and find case law that's already been rendered and reference it in their judgements. The case is actually more interesting reading because of that.
[John]
Probably a reference to Weird Al's movie, UHF. When the kid finds the marble in the oatmeal, he wins and gets to "drink from the firehose!" *Yaaahhhhhh!!!* He sits on a mechanical horse (like in front of stores) and Stan Spitowski flips it on and blows the kid off the back of the horse.
:)
Awesome movie
[John]
Don't know if it's on Google's maps, but GeoEye has done it already.
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_5047747
[John]
Shockingly, spending time with my SO means I have to watch Gilmore Girls, Desperate Housewives, CSI, Law and Order, Missing, Monk, House, 2 1/2 Men, and 24. I like some of them and can tolerate most of the others. But Gilmore Girls, that's torture.
I tried to time the pauses between conversations on Gilmore Girls and couldn't find a stopwatch that could record time in that small of increments.
I do spend time with her on the couch with the Powerbook. I have earphones plugged in and have watched Office Space, Heavy Metal, Blues Brothers, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Con Air recently. Does that count?
Until oil is found under Birmingham.
[John]
What, do they all have to electronic?
I picked up Shadowrun again and got together, face to face with a group of local gamers. Playing a bit of Warhammer RPG next weekend as well.
I also played a couple of board games with a different local group.
I did play some Doom3 back in the summer and got a bit farther along than I did last time before I got bored with it.
[John]
Obviously you don't live in California.
[John]
I think most of us here are reasonably adept at finding the answer without resorting to a pay site. I've had EE trickle up on the occasional search until I habitually tack on a -"experts-exchange" to my technical google searches. My daughter seems to like EE though but she's transitioning from helpdesk to a beginning sysadmin.
I'd say that a free site like Yahoo! Answers is probably worth about what you'd expect. I did ask one question about my guitar that was answered to my satisfaction (electrical problem with the jack). I feel the signal to noise ratio is pretty high though.
[John]