im on an Army flag football team. its only "flag" football if you have the ball, the rest of us are hitting each other, HARD. its "flag" football, so we have no pads or helmets.
trust me, some people (myself included) will play as hard without pads as with them. a torn quad (two places), dislocated shoulder (hurts a/lot/ more than it looks in Lethal Weapon), sprained wrist, perpetually (during the season) sprained thumbs, concussion (elbow to the head), broken nose (looks like it never happened!), and bruises all over my body are not enough to take away from my love of playing.
pads extend players' careers. having only played without pads, i'll burn out in the next few seasons (might be next season, the shoulder may preclude any more). some things you can only do when youre young.
im not following the "news" de jour, so i may be misunderstanding you when you say "cha-ching". This Neely fella doesnt pocket any of the lodging money. if he cant even claim it via receipt, then he has no opportunity to even get at it. its not like they give us wads of cash, its all on a govt travel card or a personal credit card. if its not on the govt travel card, it doesnt exist. if its not on your personal credit card, it would be silly to ask for reimbursement. if you're getting at the hotel giving free rooms in exchange for business... well, at least thats a good deal for us taxpayers.
RM (resource management) is tough to work around. hell, getting some new DOORS (regular solid doors) in a few buildings here requires 20 pages of paperwork and a cost-benefit analysis that only a few in our Battalion have the expertise to complete correctly. skirting rules is/very/ possible, but you have to be a good liar and be willing to take a lot of risk. the only real times having 'juice' matters is when you get caught in your lie. that determines if you get punished according to regulation or are allowed to live another day (figuratively speaking). if others are enabling your lies, it will be even harder to escape with just a warning.
im not saying there are no ways around, but theyre very risky and the benefit (some measly TDY money?) is not usually worth it. and im a cynic, one who understands the position i've risen to in my favorite Theater is not worth the $15k/yr or so i could (50/50 odds) scam off my various TDYs, or $20k/yr for housing (100% odds, too easy!), etc... there are better things to lie for.
That is incorrect, though you are probably just speaking as an ignorant cynic and are already aware of the fact. I can book any hotel room i want, below or above the area lodging rate (most hotels know what the rate is and lock their govt rate to it). however if i go above that rate, i pay the difference out of my own pocket (and you dont get to keep unused lodging funds). you must provide receipts for lodging, so anything billed to the room that cant be proven to be in direct support of your work (internet, hookers, etc) comes out of your pocket.
on my last TDY i didnt want to stay in the same backwoods hotel the guy with the authorized vehicle was staying at, so i booked another hotel (at the govt rate) and rented a car. that car was not authorized, so i paid for it out of pocket. no way around it.
there is no "pull", and if you lie on your trip report to justify having spent over the allowed rate, that is simply defrauding the government. other people's jobs rely on you doing it accurately and within reg, so unless you know someone in the RM chain that is willing to lose their job and possibly face jailtime for you, you are bound to the TDY allowances.
a lot of this stuff is more going to virtual servers (consolidation) than a massive centralized data center. for instance, my battalion has three data centers (over three physical installations) and theyre dumping one of them by relocating as many physical servers to virtualized ones (and physically moving ones that cannot be virtualized at this time) in one of the other two. gets rid of a lot of servers and saves a lot of money on electricity/lifecycle/service contracts/backups/etc, but doesnt get rid of any sysadmins (though a few have to move offices). regardless of manpower, thats $datacenters - 1 in the grand DoD scheme of things.
other stuff like the "cloud" (bullshit term for a DoD owned centralized data center) exchange server migration does remove a lot of servers, but most working IT in the DoD know that everyone does dozens of jobs already and losing one server (even an exchange server) just means you have more time to focus on all your other projects. we also get bigger mailboxes and it costs a lot less, seems like a good deal.
Not certain where you work, but I believe there are laws against firing or making life unlivable if you are selected by jury duty. Somehow millions of people a year seem to do jury time and not come out the other end selling window washes at the stoplight. My previous employer paid me my regular salary during the time I was on jury duty. YMMV, but I would talk to a lawyer to be certain.
I agree that some of the decisions that come out of high-profile jury trials are absolutely baffling, but we also have idiot judges ruling on stuff they dont even comprehend, lawyers arguing technical cases with information that makes no sense, and "expert" witnesses that present illogical conclusions to sway that judge or jury member that doesnt know any better. the whole thing is a roll of the dice.
And your comments about the people who serve on juries... what the hell? because you arent "clever" enough to lie or think of some excuse as to why you cannot participate in jury duty, you are "not smart enough"? i hope you never go to trial, if all the people you would deem intelligent enough to entrust your future were also "too smart" to serve.
Some of us are IT professionals working for the US government... seems kind of relevant to me, even if it doesn't to you. I don't own any apple products, yet I don't complain about all the apple stories that get posted.
Yes, the right wing media's vicious anti-insect meat campaign. cant get away from that one...
it is worth it to save the planet? i dont know if it tastes good or not (havent had the opportunity to try it yet), but what is the point of living if you're forced to eat things you think are disgusting? its one thing to be forced to use a different vehicle technology or lightbulb, its another to mandate a new way of life, especially one that eschews a large part of a person's culture. what other ways should people have their lives made unenjoyable to save the planet?
For those that dont know, this guy (among others of course) has been integral to opening up the Wii and now the PS3 for homebrew. Very interesting writer too, explains on his website much of the details of working around the various "fixes" Nintendo applied to try and close the holes in their code. He is definitely not an asshole, and those of us who care about openness on these consoles (or just enjoy running homebrew on them) owe a lot to him and the teams he works with.
As much money goes into defense, i can see how this is the popular opinion. However, the Army does indeed have a budget, and things like ipods and other PEDs are in no way considered disposable except in extreme circumstances (such as special forces on active deployment).
They might like to spend $75 million on a single plane, but there isnt enough money in our IT (Signal Battalion) budget for a desk that isnt from the 1950s and falling apart for one of my soldiers to sit at.
doesnt matter if something was Wikileaked or not, unless it was declassified, it is classified and must be treated as such. making classified documents public does not declassify them and thus does not complicate spillage procedures at all. perhaps it makes it "redundant", however consider the following: Forunately/unfortunately, when classified documents are leaked online they typically retain their classification markings. The fortunate part is that it makes detection easier. The unfortunate part is that it makes publicly leaked classified documents indistinguishable from non-leaked classified documents until a formal review has been done. the end result is the same, and this wastes our tax dollars by keeping me and my soldiers at work late.
regarding a major pacific northwest software company source code leak: there's always Tor, usenet, limewire, etc... we all know that stopping Assange will do absolutely nothing to curb anything but the wikileaks.org domain name. im not advocating anything, simply acknowledging the fact that in this day and age, if someone wants to release data anonymously, there are too many ways to stop them from doing so once they have their hands on it. damn, they do make my job a lot more difficult though...
How does one determine classification? Only the originator or an uninterested third party is allowed to even VIEW the document, as need-to-know disallows even the highest information security officer (going by Army reg, at least) from even looking at the contents. When a content or perimeter scanner catches a file based on SECRET markings, it doesnt automatically tell us what the file is and if its on WikiLeaks or not. it needs to go through a formal identification, classification, and possible necessary sanitizing procedure. keeping classified data off nonclassified systems SAVES taxpayer dollars because we arent wasting our time doing spillage procedures against data that has been either intentionally or unintentionally "declassified" (quotes only for the latter).
though if you want, you can continue to pretend to know what the f*ck youre talking about as you continue to give your tax dollars to people like me who do this for a living.
There is a proposition on the ballot in Alaska this november for a $380M bond. The verbage states its for "educational facilities", however the money can only be spent on a new sports arena at one of our state colleges. If I hadn't read up on the prop, I would have seen it on the ballot, decided "this seems like a good waste of money" and voted yes. I believe Califonians were tricked that way too (though you never know, they are Californians after all).
lie on the ground, follow ford, eat the peanuts, follow ford, safety! though then youre blind and deaf in the vogon cruiser, which was another significant puzzle IMO.
i had a hell of a time when i was 10 or so trying to stop the dozer from wrecking my house and having a flying brick smash my head in. i had read the book and listened to the radio series multiple times and i knew what to do, i had to "lay" in the mud, but it wouldnt let me! finally i did "lie" in the mud and could progress. still irks me a little that they didnt make lay == lie in the game for kids such as myself.
i was doing an rsync mirror from one hard drive to another every evening (cron of course). now iv got incrementals out of 5 minutes of work. thanks for the recommendation!
There are two major Army regulations and one DOD directive that cover this sort of thing (use of media, access control, etc) and local SOPs built on those regulations. any IA office can tell you what they are off the top of their heads because they are basically the Army IA bible. there are multiple and INCREDIBLY COMPREHENSIVE inspections and accreditations that must be passed and signed off on for a network to be operational (i was involved in a particular one that was the SECOND of FOURTY to have passed on the first try).
let me tell you, the Army is way TOO secure in a lot of ways; ways that make people's jobs more difficult for absolutely no benefit in security posture. incidents like this and the afganistan thumb drive spillage drive the higher-ups to shove aside well thought-out policies that some people fail to enforce and implement simple and draconian quick-fix policies like "no external media whatsoever" that some people will STILL fail to enforce.
the problem is people, and while we do our best to make sure only the most trustworthy ones have access to sensitive or greater information, it can never be perfect.
The parent is right-on. i eat a TON of sushi when i am in japan, and the only time there is nori on it is when i have ikura (salmon eggs) or those really tiny ebi.
i also question the study. i ate another TON of korean nori (dont know the korean word for it) on my last trip and had no intestinal issues or even new pooping habits or results. someone in another post mentioned japanese being "special" in a bunch of bullshit ways. iv also heard from japanese that they cannot properly digest inferior non-japanese rice. they believe it. from a country where EVERY little village has a specialty that sets itself apart from every other little village, its not surprising they would want to portray that about their people/country/culture to the rest of the world. its complete bullshit, but i still love the place ^__^
classifying things is easy. iv got a CD with a document on it. i tagged the CD with SECRET markings. now its SECRET and it doesnt go on unclassified systems or get seen/handled by people without proper clearance and need to know.
of course that wouldnt neccesarily hold up to scrutiny if the document was controversial and not actually SECRET, but the fact remains that its that easy to do it in the army.
Single 27yr-old attractive white male from Alaska (that makes me REALLY white!) here.i have a closely-trimmed beard, nice haircut, nice clothes, and always smile and be very polite with the security folks that deal with me (last thing i want is to piss one of THEM off!). i get searched EVERY time, even on return-trip tickets. i either check a large backpack with no carry-ons or take the backpack as a carryon with no checked luggage and i get searched either way.
i must fit SOME profile to be searched so frequently. i cant imagine what, but it doesnt matter too much. i know the drill and its over quickly (two minutes or so), and in japan they dont bother finding a male 'pat-downer' and the security girls reach down the front of my pants to check the zipper or something. maybe thats why i dont complain.
i was leaving seattle for a business trip (with US Army ORDERS, Army ID, etc) a few months back and my business laptop (US Army tagged) was 'suspect.' the girl doing the swabs and questioning was so disinterested in what she was doing that its possible she was asleep the whole time. i also got searched.
i think the problem most people have with the TSA and their screening process are the agents like in my anecdote above. its obvious they dont give a shit, they do a visibly poor job, and in the end its a farce and everyone knows it.
i went to a maid cafe with some friends on my most recent trip to japan. it was creeeeeepy and the beer was way too expensive. they did have games, but they were more like simple board games and "moe" versions of jan ken po.
there were a number of sullen-looking men sitting alone that lit up when a girl came by. these people had "gold cards" (it was an @Home maid cafe "level" system), so they were regulars. that was the creepiest part, i couldnt imagine being a girl and working there.
regardless, i did get my picture taken with one of the girls while wearing bunny ears (for 800yen) and everyone cheered at the gaikokujin doing something embarassing.
and yeah youre right, arcades are badass. i like to go to arcades with male friends, and game centers with female friends ^_^
this is absolutely true. part of what made Demons Souls so great was that it was so well balanced. when you died, 99% of the time it was your own fault. also, you could play through the game knowing that a pile of rocks wasnt going to fall on you or the floor open up when you stepped on it. there were no cheap hits that artificially added 'difficulty' (frustration).
Slashdot Mirror
im on an Army flag football team.
/lot/ more than it looks in Lethal Weapon), sprained wrist, perpetually (during the season) sprained thumbs, concussion (elbow to the head), broken nose (looks like it never happened!), and bruises all over my body are not enough to take away from my love of playing.
its only "flag" football if you have the ball, the rest of us are hitting each other, HARD. its "flag" football, so we have no pads or helmets.
trust me, some people (myself included) will play as hard without pads as with them. a torn quad (two places), dislocated shoulder (hurts a
pads extend players' careers. having only played without pads, i'll burn out in the next few seasons (might be next season, the shoulder may preclude any more). some things you can only do when youre young.
im not following the "news" de jour, so i may be misunderstanding you when you say "cha-ching".
/very/ possible, but you have to be a good liar and be willing to take a lot of risk. the only real times having 'juice' matters is when you get caught in your lie. that determines if you get punished according to regulation or are allowed to live another day (figuratively speaking). if others are enabling your lies, it will be even harder to escape with just a warning.
This Neely fella doesnt pocket any of the lodging money. if he cant even claim it via receipt, then he has no opportunity to even get at it. its not like they give us wads of cash, its all on a govt travel card or a personal credit card. if its not on the govt travel card, it doesnt exist. if its not on your personal credit card, it would be silly to ask for reimbursement.
if you're getting at the hotel giving free rooms in exchange for business... well, at least thats a good deal for us taxpayers.
RM (resource management) is tough to work around. hell, getting some new DOORS (regular solid doors) in a few buildings here requires 20 pages of paperwork and a cost-benefit analysis that only a few in our Battalion have the expertise to complete correctly.
skirting rules is
im not saying there are no ways around, but theyre very risky and the benefit (some measly TDY money?) is not usually worth it.
and im a cynic, one who understands the position i've risen to in my favorite Theater is not worth the $15k/yr or so i could (50/50 odds) scam off my various TDYs, or $20k/yr for housing (100% odds, too easy!), etc... there are better things to lie for.
That is incorrect, though you are probably just speaking as an ignorant cynic and are already aware of the fact.
I can book any hotel room i want, below or above the area lodging rate (most hotels know what the rate is and lock their govt rate to it). however if i go above that rate, i pay the difference out of my own pocket (and you dont get to keep unused lodging funds). you must provide receipts for lodging, so anything billed to the room that cant be proven to be in direct support of your work (internet, hookers, etc) comes out of your pocket.
on my last TDY i didnt want to stay in the same backwoods hotel the guy with the authorized vehicle was staying at, so i booked another hotel (at the govt rate) and rented a car. that car was not authorized, so i paid for it out of pocket. no way around it.
there is no "pull", and if you lie on your trip report to justify having spent over the allowed rate, that is simply defrauding the government.
other people's jobs rely on you doing it accurately and within reg, so unless you know someone in the RM chain that is willing to lose their job and possibly face jailtime for you, you are bound to the TDY allowances.
a lot of this stuff is more going to virtual servers (consolidation) than a massive centralized data center.
for instance, my battalion has three data centers (over three physical installations) and theyre dumping one of them by relocating as many physical servers to virtualized ones (and physically moving ones that cannot be virtualized at this time) in one of the other two. gets rid of a lot of servers and saves a lot of money on electricity/lifecycle/service contracts/backups/etc, but doesnt get rid of any sysadmins (though a few have to move offices). regardless of manpower, thats $datacenters - 1 in the grand DoD scheme of things.
other stuff like the "cloud" (bullshit term for a DoD owned centralized data center) exchange server migration does remove a lot of servers, but most working IT in the DoD know that everyone does dozens of jobs already and losing one server (even an exchange server) just means you have more time to focus on all your other projects. we also get bigger mailboxes and it costs a lot less, seems like a good deal.
iED
Not certain where you work, but I believe there are laws against firing or making life unlivable if you are selected by jury duty. Somehow millions of people a year seem to do jury time and not come out the other end selling window washes at the stoplight.
My previous employer paid me my regular salary during the time I was on jury duty. YMMV, but I would talk to a lawyer to be certain.
I agree that some of the decisions that come out of high-profile jury trials are absolutely baffling, but we also have idiot judges ruling on stuff they dont even comprehend, lawyers arguing technical cases with information that makes no sense, and "expert" witnesses that present illogical conclusions to sway that judge or jury member that doesnt know any better. the whole thing is a roll of the dice.
And your comments about the people who serve on juries... what the hell? because you arent "clever" enough to lie or think of some excuse as to why you cannot participate in jury duty, you are "not smart enough"? i hope you never go to trial, if all the people you would deem intelligent enough to entrust your future were also "too smart" to serve.
Some of us are IT professionals working for the US government... seems kind of relevant to me, even if it doesn't to you.
I don't own any apple products, yet I don't complain about all the apple stories that get posted.
Get over it and move on.
Yes, the right wing media's vicious anti-insect meat campaign. cant get away from that one...
it is worth it to save the planet? i dont know if it tastes good or not (havent had the opportunity to try it yet), but what is the point of living if you're forced to eat things you think are disgusting? its one thing to be forced to use a different vehicle technology or lightbulb, its another to mandate a new way of life, especially one that eschews a large part of a person's culture.
what other ways should people have their lives made unenjoyable to save the planet?
For those that dont know, this guy (among others of course) has been integral to opening up the Wii and now the PS3 for homebrew.
Very interesting writer too, explains on his website much of the details of working around the various "fixes" Nintendo applied to try and close the holes in their code.
He is definitely not an asshole, and those of us who care about openness on these consoles (or just enjoy running homebrew on them) owe a lot to him and the teams he works with.
</deserved asskissing>
As much money goes into defense, i can see how this is the popular opinion. However, the Army does indeed have a budget, and things like ipods and other PEDs are in no way considered disposable except in extreme circumstances (such as special forces on active deployment).
They might like to spend $75 million on a single plane, but there isnt enough money in our IT (Signal Battalion) budget for a desk that isnt from the 1950s and falling apart for one of my soldiers to sit at.
doesnt matter if something was Wikileaked or not, unless it was declassified, it is classified and must be treated as such. making classified documents public does not declassify them and thus does not complicate spillage procedures at all. perhaps it makes it "redundant", however consider the following: Forunately/unfortunately, when classified documents are leaked online they typically retain their classification markings. The fortunate part is that it makes detection easier. The unfortunate part is that it makes publicly leaked classified documents indistinguishable from non-leaked classified documents until a formal review has been done. the end result is the same, and this wastes our tax dollars by keeping me and my soldiers at work late.
regarding a major pacific northwest software company source code leak: there's always Tor, usenet, limewire, etc... we all know that stopping Assange will do absolutely nothing to curb anything but the wikileaks.org domain name. im not advocating anything, simply acknowledging the fact that in this day and age, if someone wants to release data anonymously, there are too many ways to stop them from doing so once they have their hands on it.
damn, they do make my job a lot more difficult though...
No. is not.
How does one determine classification? Only the originator or an uninterested third party is allowed to even VIEW the document, as need-to-know disallows even the highest information security officer (going by Army reg, at least) from even looking at the contents.
When a content or perimeter scanner catches a file based on SECRET markings, it doesnt automatically tell us what the file is and if its on WikiLeaks or not. it needs to go through a formal identification, classification, and possible necessary sanitizing procedure.
keeping classified data off nonclassified systems SAVES taxpayer dollars because we arent wasting our time doing spillage procedures against data that has been either intentionally or unintentionally "declassified" (quotes only for the latter).
though if you want, you can continue to pretend to know what the f*ck youre talking about as you continue to give your tax dollars to people like me who do this for a living.
I'm actually FROM Sitka and I don't see how this story is important.
There is a proposition on the ballot in Alaska this november for a $380M bond. The verbage states its for "educational facilities", however the money can only be spent on a new sports arena at one of our state colleges. If I hadn't read up on the prop, I would have seen it on the ballot, decided "this seems like a good waste of money" and voted yes. I believe Califonians were tricked that way too (though you never know, they are Californians after all).
lie on the ground, follow ford, eat the peanuts, follow ford, safety!
though then youre blind and deaf in the vogon cruiser, which was another significant puzzle IMO.
i had a hell of a time when i was 10 or so trying to stop the dozer from wrecking my house and having a flying brick smash my head in. i had read the book and listened to the radio series multiple times and i knew what to do, i had to "lay" in the mud, but it wouldnt let me!
finally i did "lie" in the mud and could progress. still irks me a little that they didnt make lay == lie in the game for kids such as myself.
i was doing an rsync mirror from one hard drive to another every evening (cron of course). now iv got incrementals out of 5 minutes of work.
thanks for the recommendation!
There are two major Army regulations and one DOD directive that cover this sort of thing (use of media, access control, etc) and local SOPs built on those regulations. any IA office can tell you what they are off the top of their heads because they are basically the Army IA bible.
there are multiple and INCREDIBLY COMPREHENSIVE inspections and accreditations that must be passed and signed off on for a network to be operational (i was involved in a particular one that was the SECOND of FOURTY to have passed on the first try).
let me tell you, the Army is way TOO secure in a lot of ways; ways that make people's jobs more difficult for absolutely no benefit in security posture. incidents like this and the afganistan thumb drive spillage drive the higher-ups to shove aside well thought-out policies that some people fail to enforce and implement simple and draconian quick-fix policies like "no external media whatsoever" that some people will STILL fail to enforce.
the problem is people, and while we do our best to make sure only the most trustworthy ones have access to sensitive or greater information, it can never be perfect.
the fucking hoopleheads probably never even considered Al
The parent is right-on.
i eat a TON of sushi when i am in japan, and the only time there is nori on it is when i have ikura (salmon eggs) or those really tiny ebi.
i also question the study. i ate another TON of korean nori (dont know the korean word for it) on my last trip and had no intestinal issues or even new pooping habits or results.
someone in another post mentioned japanese being "special" in a bunch of bullshit ways. iv also heard from japanese that they cannot properly digest inferior non-japanese rice. they believe it.
from a country where EVERY little village has a specialty that sets itself apart from every other little village, its not surprising they would want to portray that about their people/country/culture to the rest of the world.
its complete bullshit, but i still love the place ^__^
classifying things is easy.
iv got a CD with a document on it. i tagged the CD with SECRET markings. now its SECRET and it doesnt go on unclassified systems or get seen/handled by people without proper clearance and need to know.
of course that wouldnt neccesarily hold up to scrutiny if the document was controversial and not actually SECRET, but the fact remains that its that easy to do it in the army.
too bad i wasted all my mod points yesterday
+5 nicely done
Single 27yr-old attractive white male from Alaska (that makes me REALLY white!) here.i have a closely-trimmed beard, nice haircut, nice clothes, and always smile and be very polite with the security folks that deal with me (last thing i want is to piss one of THEM off!).
i get searched EVERY time, even on return-trip tickets.
i either check a large backpack with no carry-ons or take the backpack as a carryon with no checked luggage and i get searched either way.
i must fit SOME profile to be searched so frequently. i cant imagine what, but it doesnt matter too much. i know the drill and its over quickly (two minutes or so), and in japan they dont bother finding a male 'pat-downer' and the security girls reach down the front of my pants to check the zipper or something. maybe thats why i dont complain.
i was leaving seattle for a business trip (with US Army ORDERS, Army ID, etc) a few months back and my business laptop (US Army tagged) was 'suspect.' the girl doing the swabs and questioning was so disinterested in what she was doing that its possible she was asleep the whole time. i also got searched.
i think the problem most people have with the TSA and their screening process are the agents like in my anecdote above. its obvious they dont give a shit, they do a visibly poor job, and in the end its a farce and everyone knows it.
i had the same problem with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." too much grinch, too much christmas.
if you didnt want to see american patriotism then dont watch movies with titles of american national holidays!
i went to a maid cafe with some friends on my most recent trip to japan. it was creeeeeepy and the beer was way too expensive.
they did have games, but they were more like simple board games and "moe" versions of jan ken po.
there were a number of sullen-looking men sitting alone that lit up when a girl came by. these people had "gold cards" (it was an @Home maid cafe "level" system), so they were regulars.
that was the creepiest part, i couldnt imagine being a girl and working there.
regardless, i did get my picture taken with one of the girls while wearing bunny ears (for 800yen) and everyone cheered at the gaikokujin doing something embarassing.
and yeah youre right, arcades are badass.
i like to go to arcades with male friends, and game centers with female friends ^_^
this is absolutely true.
part of what made Demons Souls so great was that it was so well balanced. when you died, 99% of the time it was your own fault.
also, you could play through the game knowing that a pile of rocks wasnt going to fall on you or the floor open up when you stepped on it. there were no cheap hits that artificially added 'difficulty' (frustration).