With all the security in place these days, only paying customers are going to be at the gates. If the fucking airports can't figure out how to pay their staff out of the 300-600$ per person per flight, that is not my problem.
After putting out that kind of money, I'm not going to pay 8$ to use wireless either.
My mother bought me a basic RCA TV in 1990, and it still works well today. My brother has worked his way through a number of modern sets, and after his recenty aquired 1983 thrift store Mitsubishi died, I passed him the RCA. As long as there is RF input to pass to it, and as long as the power button doesn't wear out completely, it may live for ten years more.
I think people have become accustomed to buying inexpensive items and writing them off when they fail. Who actually gets things repaired anymore?
My 386SX-16 still runs too. But who wants to run Windows 3.0 these days?
Most of the time, the family PC is in various states of brokenness. After a day of fixing stuff for other people, I don't want to spend yet one more evening clearing shit off of C:\.
1) Mario Kart Double Dash. (With the kids.) 2) Gauntlet or Gauntlet II on the GameCube. (Four players.) 3) Bosconian on the P&P. (With my son.) 4) Nethack on the PC. (Taking turns with the spouse.) 5) Halo on the PC. (If my brother is willing to play from his place.)
Not enough spare CPU for various agencies to slip spyware onto you box without you noticing. Even if they do, you're only a power cycle and a fresh floppy away from being sure the shit is gone.
I live in the Washington county now. Typically people say: "Oh, you're a computer guy. Do you work at Intel?" I shake my head no. They immediately reply: "Oh, Nike then?". I'm happy to work for a company that doesn't have any dependcies on Nike or Intel.
In last six or seven years, I've met at least a dozen Intel engineers. To the last one, they're convinced their shit doesn't stink. From the F00F bug, to the Itanium dbaucle, to making it impossible for open source projects to get docs on their network chips, they have stiff necks and not a clue of how to treat customers well.
AMD people may very well be jerks too, not being in Texas much, I wouldn't know.
There are going to be some overpriced houses and the occasional Lexus for sale in Beaverton. The local job market is going to be bloated with ex-Intel people. For us, that may be a good thing.
On a personal level, I know at least one friend and family that is moving out of the area to stay in the industry. I'm not excited about loosing them to Boise or SLC, but their kids have to eat.
1) Have something good, mildy interesting, and not controversial to say about each of the members of your group. "This is Brian, he has two young children, his hobby is sailing; he is our manager." "This is Steve. He is an accomplished latin-guitar player, and is the senior admin on our team." "This is Joy. She is an avid hiker, recently adopted a Welsh Corgi, and is in desktop support." This kind of banter leaves the new person some clues of what they can talk about in later conversations.
2) Educate youself on the shit-stupid phrases our language is mined with. Use "guidelines" intead of "rules of thumb", etc. Read a bit about languages, cultures and the like. People are much less uncomfortable when you have a rough idea where they are coming form.
3) Preconceptions about poeple are usually wrong, and are often less interesting than reality. You're better off without them.
4) If things went well, say something. "You did an excellent job on this." "We have a great team." "You rock." etc.
5) In my experience, there are still appropriate times and ways to say: "I like your dress." or "Those shoes are cool." or "I like your new haircut." or "You look sharp in that suit." If you're genuine, people will know you're not being a prick.
6) Misery loves company. If you happen to get an IT-gal in your group, keep the door open for a second. People play off of each others strengths, and people who are less isolated do better. This isn't survivor, you won't end up with an axis of evil or anything.
7) Help people outside of the old boys network. Doing so will make you flexible, build personal networks, and make for a strong position. And when unimaginative managers go looking for poeple to sack, you won't fit an easy category. If you do get sacked, you'll be in better shape to work a diverse customer base as a contractor.
8) Don't be afraid to work with a hottie. In a week you'll know at least one thing you hate about them, and then they won't intimidate you anymore. Besides, if they're on your side of the table, the people on the other side will be distracted and easier to maneuver.
9) If you don't know the gender of a name, ask a third party ahead of time.
10) Don't make assumptions about wanting, having, being able to have, or liking children. Not everyone wants to, is, is able to be, or likes being a breeder.
1) This isn't highschool, and the group you're talking about isn't a bunch of genders, its a bunch of people. The sooner you stop generalizing, and start thinking about the individuals, the better. Some people may be determined to not like your race, creed, gender, sex, politics, religion, music, hairstyle, clothes, body piercing, tatoos, choice of recreational drugs, etc. It isn't your job to change those people. As a professional, you can reasonably expect people to work with you, but they don't have to like you.
The again, you may find some lifelong friends within the stereotypical introverted group of social IT miscreants. You're likely to spend more time with them than with your S.O. anyway.
2) Be thouroughly competent at something. Preferrably something three quarters of the group isn't already good at. If there is a unavoidable conflict on skill A, and you're the more versatile person of the two, consider building up skill B. Some people will assume you got the job in preference to someone more capable, but less diverse. Make sure they're not right.
3) No matter how personable, charming, or charismatic you are, mooching time and energy from everyone in the group isn't an option. People will go to lengths to help you, but they won't like you for it.
4) Don't make a semi-public phone call to your girlfriend every monday at lunch time, to talk about how your underwear-model boyfriend banged you so much over the weekend that you have a bladder infection. One, because it just TMI. Two, just because you can get laid any given weekend, doesn't mean that everyone else can. Even if the marrieds are having just as much sex as you are, they may be liking it less.
5) The same goes for politics and religion. Unless your name is Jessica Hawn, or Monica Lewinsky, keep that shit to yourself.
6) Somewhere in your organization, there is typically a butch CIO or IT director that periodically makes life hell for half the floor. Don't become fast public friends with this person just cause you both have tits. (Or if you'd prefer to get into managment, do it. But be ready for every hardcore geek to hate and silently sabotage you for it.) The same applies to department heads from the other business units.
7) Find some de-sexualized physical expression you're comfortable with. If you or someone on your team does something kick-ass, then you need a high-five, fist bump, boo-yah yell, happy dance, or something to let everyone know that you're celebrating with them. The fact that impersonal contact is not a big deal will help keep you from being a sex goddess in everyones minds. Limp handshakes are right out.
8) If you're a clothes horse, please occasionally wear something as plain and frugal as the median. People gradually get resentful if its obvious you spend two people's income on clothes.
9)If you do go out with the group, and the group orders a pizza, eat a freaking slice. Save the salad for sometime when you eat with the salad eaters. And if you're not alchohol averse, drink half a light beer, it won't kill you. If you want a cosmo, drink it as the second drink.
Might as well go after the person that sold the materials to make meth out of. After all, the ingredients are now a part of the crime.
I'm suprised that people don't encrypt all payloads, and ship the keys separately. Even the **AA would get tired of downloading TB of unencryptable junk.
If you feel obligated to read everything Heinlein wrote, at least buy a used copy of "For Us, The Living". Not much chance you'll want to keep it for very long.
Three quarters of the book is an attempt to tell how engineering principles were applied to 1939 era economics to create the super duper year 2086. To fill in between the bricks, there is a story about an oversimplified aircar, and the idea that an engineer from 1939 will face no difficulty in fitting in 147 years later.
In ten years, you'll be 40. When you look back, what you did for a living may not be as big a deal as you think. Your relationship(s) may be a bigger solace.
If your parents are still living, see them at least once a year for the next 10 years.
After 28, you can't rely on your metabolism to keep you in shape. If you don't already have one, pick a physical activity you won't get bored with, preferably something not too dangerous.
Do you play any instruments? If you start practicing now, you should be able to play by the time you're 40, and even better by the time you're 50.
Sometimes the best job is one that lots of people aren't after. Yes there are lots of jobs for coders, but there is lots of supply too.
If you don't keep a journal, start. Some things in life are cyclic, and you won't notice them unless you can review what happened in past years.
My wife mentioned tonight that key fob transmitters may not be allowed either. Who knows, maybe they'll even start making everyone check their cellphones and laptops.
If the popo don't get the cooperation of the public in closing open access points, they'll go looking for a law. Any number of commercial WiFi providers will put up the PAC funds, and open access points will become an FCC nono.
In the interests of national security, any specs China puts up for securing access points will be blocked by the puppets on the IEEE. Cisco et al does not want to miss out on a cut of the next generation of access points.
If it follows the recent pattern, there will be a follow up story about this pair of Chinese mathematicians hiring other Chinese mathematicians to pretend the proof is real.
Slashdot Mirror
Its payback for the bleeders at BT that made Sun call yp NIS.
With all the security in place these days, only paying customers are going to be at the gates. If the fucking airports can't figure out how to pay their staff out of the 300-600$ per person per flight, that is not my problem.
After putting out that kind of money, I'm not going to pay 8$ to use wireless either.
The whole story sounds like an episode of ATHF. The ghost of Christmas past from the future shows up, and claims that SGI is back from Chapter 11.
Frylock gets excited, but ultimately SGI destroys Carl's car.
A slingbox is a device sold at RadioShack for people to lazy or inept to hack their Tivo or use DVD Decrypter to rip DVDs.
It looks like an oversize bar of baker's chocolate, painted silver, with holes drilled in it.
You have to sell the exercise bike to keep the PC running? Oh, you meant pedal?
My mother bought me a basic RCA TV in 1990, and it still works well today. My brother has worked his way through a number of modern sets, and after his recenty aquired 1983 thrift store Mitsubishi died, I passed him the RCA. As long as there is RF input to pass to it, and as long as the power button doesn't wear out completely, it may live for ten years more.
I think people have become accustomed to buying inexpensive items and writing them off when they fail. Who actually gets things repaired anymore?
My 386SX-16 still runs too. But who wants to run Windows 3.0 these days?
Most of the time, the family PC is in various states of brokenness. After a day of fixing stuff for other people, I don't want to spend yet one more evening clearing shit off of C:\.
1) Mario Kart Double Dash. (With the kids.)
2) Gauntlet or Gauntlet II on the GameCube. (Four players.)
3) Bosconian on the P&P. (With my son.)
4) Nethack on the PC. (Taking turns with the spouse.)
5) Halo on the PC. (If my brother is willing to play from his place.)
I'm a social gamer.
Or you can send a jedi in an x-wing fighter. Just make sure to use a rayshielded torpedo.
If they aren't lying to displace Vonage, their in colusion with the local networks to make the public think the only path to HiDef is Digital cable.
Hello! ATSC exists!
Not enough spare CPU for various agencies to slip spyware onto you box without you noticing. Even if they do, you're only a power cycle and a fresh floppy away from being sure the shit is gone.
If pay as you go service does arrive, I hope that it is "sender pays".
I live in the Washington county now. Typically people say: "Oh, you're a computer guy. Do you work at Intel?" I shake my head no. They immediately reply: "Oh, Nike then?". I'm happy to work for a company that doesn't have any dependcies on Nike or Intel.
In last six or seven years, I've met at least a dozen Intel engineers. To the last one, they're convinced their shit doesn't stink. From the F00F bug, to the Itanium dbaucle, to making it impossible for open source projects to get docs on their network chips, they have stiff necks and not a clue of how to treat customers well.
AMD people may very well be jerks too, not being in Texas much, I wouldn't know.
There are going to be some overpriced houses and the occasional Lexus for sale in Beaverton. The local job market is going to be bloated with ex-Intel people. For us, that may be a good thing.
On a personal level, I know at least one friend and family that is moving out of the area to stay in the industry. I'm not excited about loosing them to Boise or SLC, but their kids have to eat.
DRM is ripping movies you bought so you can skip the FBI warning.
DRM is ripping music you bought so it works on the player they don't want it to.
DRM is downloading a crack for software you bought, so you don't have register it.
DRM is changing a CMOS bit so your wireless card works in a system it isn't type accepted for.
Anything you have to break to make it work is DRM.
Apple and Google coming together? I read that as Commodore and Compuserve. Or maybe Atari and Yahoo.
Microsoft has pimped the corpse of VMS for all its worth.
Ditto for Apple and NextStep, Linus and the Solaris manuals.
DragonflyBSD is only place any real innovation going on these days. Not that anyone is noticing. Yawn.
1) Have something good, mildy interesting, and not controversial to say about each of the members of your group. "This is Brian, he has two young children, his hobby is sailing; he is our manager." "This is Steve. He is an accomplished latin-guitar player, and is the senior admin on our team." "This is Joy. She is an avid hiker, recently adopted a Welsh Corgi, and is in desktop support." This kind of banter leaves the new person some clues of what they can talk about in later conversations.
2) Educate youself on the shit-stupid phrases our language is mined with. Use "guidelines" intead of "rules of thumb", etc. Read a bit about languages, cultures and the like. People are much less uncomfortable when you have a rough idea where they are coming form.
3) Preconceptions about poeple are usually wrong, and are often less interesting than reality. You're better off without them.
4) If things went well, say something. "You did an excellent job on this." "We have a great team." "You rock." etc.
5) In my experience, there are still appropriate times and ways to say: "I like your dress." or "Those shoes are cool." or "I like your new haircut." or "You look sharp in that suit." If you're genuine, people will know you're not being a prick.
6) Misery loves company. If you happen to get an IT-gal in your group, keep the door open for a second. People play off of each others strengths, and people who are less isolated do better. This isn't survivor, you won't end up with an axis of evil or anything.
7) Help people outside of the old boys network. Doing so will make you flexible, build personal networks, and make for a strong position. And when unimaginative managers go looking for poeple to sack, you won't fit an easy category. If you do get sacked, you'll be in better shape to work a diverse customer base as a contractor.
8) Don't be afraid to work with a hottie. In a week you'll know at least one thing you hate about them, and then they won't intimidate you anymore. Besides, if they're on your side of the table, the people on the other side will be distracted and easier to maneuver.
9) If you don't know the gender of a name, ask a third party ahead of time.
10) Don't make assumptions about wanting, having, being able to have, or liking children. Not everyone wants to, is, is able to be, or likes being a breeder.
1) This isn't highschool, and the group you're talking about isn't a bunch of genders, its a bunch of people. The sooner you stop generalizing, and start thinking about the individuals, the better. Some people may be determined to not like your race, creed, gender, sex, politics, religion, music, hairstyle, clothes, body piercing, tatoos, choice of recreational drugs, etc. It isn't your job to change those people. As a professional, you can reasonably expect people to work with you, but they don't have to like you.
The again, you may find some lifelong friends within the stereotypical introverted group of social IT miscreants. You're likely to spend more time with them than with your S.O. anyway.
2) Be thouroughly competent at something. Preferrably something three quarters of the group isn't already good at. If there is a unavoidable conflict on skill A, and you're the more versatile person of the two, consider building up skill B. Some people will assume you got the job in preference to someone more capable, but less diverse. Make sure they're not right.
3) No matter how personable, charming, or charismatic you are, mooching time and energy from everyone in the group isn't an option. People will go to lengths to help you, but they won't like you for it.
4) Don't make a semi-public phone call to your girlfriend every monday at lunch time, to talk about how your underwear-model boyfriend banged you so much over the weekend that you have a bladder infection. One, because it just TMI. Two, just because you can get laid any given weekend, doesn't mean that everyone else can. Even if the marrieds are having just as much sex as you are, they may be liking it less.
5) The same goes for politics and religion. Unless your name is Jessica Hawn, or Monica Lewinsky, keep that shit to yourself.
6) Somewhere in your organization, there is typically a butch CIO or IT director that periodically makes life hell for half the floor. Don't become fast public friends with this person just cause you both have tits. (Or if you'd prefer to get into managment, do it. But be ready for every hardcore geek to hate and silently sabotage you for it.) The same applies to department heads from the other business units.
7) Find some de-sexualized physical expression you're comfortable with. If you or someone on your team does something kick-ass, then you need a high-five, fist bump, boo-yah yell, happy dance, or something to let everyone know that you're celebrating with them. The fact that impersonal contact is not a big deal will help keep you from being a sex goddess in everyones minds. Limp handshakes are right out.
8) If you're a clothes horse, please occasionally wear something as plain and frugal as the median. People gradually get resentful if its obvious you spend two people's income on clothes.
9)If you do go out with the group, and the group orders a pizza, eat a freaking slice. Save the salad for sometime when you eat with the salad eaters. And if you're not alchohol averse, drink half a light beer, it won't kill you. If you want a cosmo, drink it as the second drink.
Might as well go after the person that sold the materials to make meth out of. After all, the ingredients are now a part of the crime.
I'm suprised that people don't encrypt all payloads, and ship the keys separately. Even the **AA would get tired of downloading TB of unencryptable junk.
So, if you see pirated media, shoplift it?
If you feel obligated to read everything Heinlein wrote, at least buy a used copy of "For Us, The Living". Not much chance you'll want to keep it for very long.
Three quarters of the book is an attempt to tell how engineering principles were applied to 1939 era economics to create the super duper year 2086. To fill in between the bricks, there is a story about an oversimplified aircar, and the idea that an engineer from 1939 will face no difficulty in fitting in 147 years later.
Red Dwarf was inspired by Dark Star. Pinback and Lister are similar charcters.
In ten years, you'll be 40. When you look back, what you did for a living may not be as big a deal as you think. Your relationship(s) may be a bigger solace.
If your parents are still living, see them at least once a year for the next 10 years.
After 28, you can't rely on your metabolism to keep you in shape. If you don't already have one, pick a physical activity you won't get bored with, preferably something not too dangerous.
Do you play any instruments? If you start practicing now, you should be able to play by the time you're 40, and even better by the time you're 50.
Sometimes the best job is one that lots of people aren't after. Yes there are lots of jobs for coders, but there is lots of supply too.
If you don't keep a journal, start. Some things in life are cyclic, and you won't notice them unless you can review what happened in past years.
My wife mentioned tonight that key fob transmitters may not be allowed either. Who knows, maybe they'll even start making everyone check their cellphones and laptops.
If the popo don't get the cooperation of the public in closing open access points, they'll go looking for a law. Any number of commercial WiFi providers will put up the PAC funds, and open access points will become an FCC nono.
In the interests of national security, any specs China puts up for securing access points will be blocked by the puppets on the IEEE. Cisco et al does not want to miss out on a cut of the next generation of access points.
If it follows the recent pattern, there will be a follow up story about this pair of Chinese mathematicians hiring other Chinese mathematicians to pretend the proof is real.
You wouldn't like Microsoft US President Simulator then. Even with the Vice President add on pack.