Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

You aren't a UNIX nerd if you are saying copy on select is a PuTTY terminal method Doubly so since you can't find the CTRL key

Copy on select (and paste on middle button) has been a UNIX-staple since some of the earliest UNIX windowing environments.

I wasn't a UNIX nerd before 1998 at the very earliest, how about that?  I don't use an X server either, never have in fact, so most of the conventions from X11 are lost on me.  Plus I don't care for the middle-button-paste, reminds me of using Solaris IPCs in college, which is basically my entire X11 experience.  Even then, I still preferred the terminal.  I found out someone implemented SysV print queues on a few servers just recently and my skin crawled, so I might also be an elitist or something, I don't know.

Also, yes, I admit I know where CTRL-C is and it definitely isn't for copying text.  I've chosen vi mode and you cannot reason with me.  I'm not interested in pressing CTRL-C, CTRL-V all fucking day.

You are reminding me that I didn't intend to be a computer man.  I wanted to build airplanes, maybe even spacecraft if I was lucky.  Because of this, I didn't take any computer courses in school past CS101.  I've been forced to write "hello world" in a variety of languages, yet I had to teach myself shell scripting from the ground up since I wasn't really paying attention in class.  So now I'm supporting enterprise computers for the largest IT company in the world, but none of my five different majors were in computing.  It's sort of depressing.

I used to think all the browser inconsistencies were a form of job security and served as a crap filter to keep the retarded nephews out of the profession.

Job security is a motherfucker.

You must create a profile to save your game! An update for windows live is available! You have to update or you will be signed out! Your computer may restart! Your computer may hang! This is perfectly normal! Windows live is now taking over your computer! It will launch a separate install program! It will now launch on startup! Downloading Profile. This may take a few minutes! Another update for windows live is available! Downloading update! Please wait some more! Launching external installer! Again! We won't check for updates until after you sign in and download your profile! ANOTHER FUCKING UPDATE! YEAH!

Job security is a motherfucker.







I used CTRL-C, CTRL-V for that.  God, my fingers are tired.

[Lantyssa]

You are reminding me that I didn't intend to be a computer man.  I wanted to build airplanes, maybe even spacecraft if I was lucky.  Because of this, I didn't take any computer courses in school past CS101.  I've been forced to write "hello world" in a variety of languages, yet I had to teach myself shell scripting from the ground up since I wasn't really paying attention in class.  So now I'm supporting enterprise computers for the largest IT company in the world, but none of my five different majors were in computing.  It's sort of depressing.

It's not like the computer courses actually teach you anything useful either, so your education is as solid as any CompSci major!

[Paelos]

I know how to work excel and fix minor windows problems. I am therefore a god among men in an accounting office. Truly the one-eyed king scenario in action.

[Furiously]

I'm thinking of taking a sabbatical from computer/video gaming for a couple of months.  Maybe I'll do some writing and try to get in a little better shape and spend some time with the kids.  Anybody ever do a planned break from stuff like this?

I took three months off from work before my wife got pregnant. I spent the time doing home remodeling stuff. It was probably the most productive time in my life. I also lost like 25 lbs. If you can afford to do it. Do it.

Of course I was also running from a horrid boss.  I handed him my request for leave 30 minutes after he handed me my yearly review. I finally realized what a complete tool he was when he asked me, "This seems extremely soon after your yearly review, is this related?" I think I might have actually head-tilted.

Coming back to work was great, I was assigned to a new group with a boss that actually knew what his job was, was supportive of my approach to things and was supportive when I followed procedures instead of asking me to cut corners.

[IainC]

Microsoft's take on how awesome Windows Live is.

[Merusk]

If she'd get a damn job instead of sitting around the house all day with nothing but time to play games, she'd be pissed at all the live bullshit too.   

[Bunk]

To be fair, it's not just Live thats turned in to (er, always was) a convoluted mess. First time I installed Dragon Age 2, I wondered what everyone was bitching about. I had an OS crash this week, and started fresh with Win 7. Reinstalling DA2 wasn't bad - until it came to trying to find my add-ons again. I think I only relogged in to Bioware Social and my EA account about five times. (also, had no choice, couldn't load my save game until I got that one peice of DLC installed).

[Sky]

You are reminding me that I didn't intend to be a computer man.  I wanted to build airplanes, maybe even spacecraft if I was lucky.  Because of this, I didn't take any computer courses in school past CS101.  I've been forced to write "hello world" in a variety of languages, yet I had to teach myself shell scripting from the ground up since I wasn't really paying attention in class.  So now I'm supporting enterprise computers for the largest IT company in the world, but none of my five different majors were in computing.  It's sort of depressing.

Although I was originally looking for a career in the music industry, I've been using computers since 1975. Having zero point zero college degrees locks a lot of doors. I'd be more viable if I had a fucking bachelor in dog grooming, despite eleven years of work experience now. 

To be fair, though...there are a couple linings to the current cloudy forecast. I've already networked with a couple guys in the cert prep class and have a really interesting prospect. Only have to turn our lives upside down and abandon our elderly mothers to act on it 

[Morat20]

Yeah, that always gets me -- especially since they have it working smoothly and well on Xbox. But their PC implementation is just plain fucked up.

[Yegolev]

It's not like the computer courses actually teach you anything useful either, so your education is as solid as any CompSci major!

This is definitely the outlook I have had for a long time but there have been other things going on lately which have reminded me that I really wanted to do something else.  The education would help me, though, since I don't really understand certain basic computing concepts as well as I would like to.  The solution is most likely to enter an engineering/architecture position and then I can just be a chin-stroking douchebag all day, ignoring details best left to the proletariat.

To be fair, though...there are a couple linings to the current cloudy forecast. I've already networked with a couple guys in the cert prep class and have a really interesting prospect. Only have to turn our lives upside down and abandon our elderly mothers to act on it 

It's not what you know, it's who you know.  But knowing things is also great.

[Morat20]

The education would help me, though, since I don't really understand certain basic computing concepts as well as I would like to.  The solution is most likely to enter an engineering/architecture position and then I can just be a chin-stroking douchebag all day, ignoring details best left to the proletariat.

Experience can do the same as education, but education isn't a substitute for experience -- years of working and learning on your own will teach you most (if not all) of what a proper education in the field will (although you're more likely to have blind spots and missing information) but education doesn't really teach you the hands-on applicability that 'real life' work in the field does.

Some stuff I know, off-hand from education, that would have taken painful (and probably expensive) trial-and-error and searching-fucking-google at work. Other stuff I didn't learn at school, but did at work.

You probably have a pretty good grasp of the basics anyways -- you'd find a BS in CS to be a bit of a breeze. Although in my experience, practically every 'self-taught' coder I know should be required to take a basic DB design course. As shocking as it may be, the design that makes for 'easy SQL calls on the programmer's part' is so very rarely an efficient DB design.

[Lantyssa]

My database course was abysmal.  It actually turned me off of trying to use them for over a decade.  It wasn't until I was doing volunteer work and had to learn that I found I actually enjoy doing stuff with them.

[Morat20]

My database course was abysmal.  It actually turned me off of trying to use them for over a decade.  It wasn't until I was doing volunteer work and had to learn that I found I actually enjoy doing stuff with them.

Yeah, so was my first course. "Here's five weeks of relational algebra or calculus" (I can never remember which is which) and a lot of "normalization" stuff that is unconnected to practice. It's important, but we'll just say "efficiency" and not clue you in to why.

My second, however, had the theory mixed with a lot of practical examples -- explaining whys and wherefores made a difference. Then again, I've never done well with pure theory. (One reason I suck so much at higher math. I need concrete examples -- Laplace transforms were meaningless gunk to me until I learned how to apply them in a circuits class. THEN they made sense.)

[Engels]

I had an invaluable course on computer hardware at a community college, of all places. There were dozens of office park, carpeted corridors with cubicles that offered to get me my A+ <snort> certification in just 5 weeks, but instead I went to this community college where they had a mess of broken computers on tables and the course was basically about making working computers from heaps of scrap. Best education I could have asked for.

[Rasix]

My database course was abysmal.  It actually turned me off of trying to use them for over a decade.  It wasn't until I was doing volunteer work and had to learn that I found I actually enjoy doing stuff with them.

Heh, I loved my database classes.  In fact, I tried really hard to land any jobs related to DBs during my career fair.  Unfortunately that career fair ran from Sep 10-13 2001.  

It helped that the class was well balanced between theory and practical use.  The professor that taught the class even wrote my recommendation for grad school admission.  

Overall, my degrees have felt a little worthless to me throughout my time at my current employer. But then again, I didn't really expect my career to take the path it has gone.  Information development and test? OK.  I probably would have picked those last on a list of prospective jobs related to my degree.  But a job is a job.  And a well paying job with great benefits is definitely a job.

If anything, a broad base of knowledge and some hands on experience different bits of technology has helped me in that it doesn't take me long at all to adjust to new job positions or assignments with very little or no formal training.  Being able to see the big picture and understand the technology on levels some of my peers don't has helped distinguish me.

Is that worth the 6.5 years of school and thousands of dollars in debt? Not sure entirely.  College sure was a lot of fun.  

[Trippy]

Jesus fucking christ, windows live is such a piece of shit. All I wanted to do is play SINGLE FUCKING PLAYER red faction: guerilla. FUCK.

You must create a profile to save your game! An update for windows live is available! You have to update or you will be signed out! Your computer may restart! Your computer may hang! This is perfectly normal! Windows live is now taking over your computer! It will launch a separate install program! It will now launch on startup! Downloading Profile. This may take a few minutes!

Another update for windows live is available! Downloading update! Please wait some more! Launching external installer! Again! We won't check for updates until after you sign in and download your profile! ANOTHER FUCKING UPDATE! YEAH! Installing windows live sign-in assistant! A different and third program! I can't wait to play my SINGLE PLAYER GAME after three fucking separate updates!

Games for Windows LIVE client has stopped working. Check online for a solution and close the program? Restart.... Windows Live licensing and agreement terms have changed! Please read the agreement! Oh my fucking god, windows live crashes when I hit alt-esc! I continue playing, and find out that I can't save the game without it! So I get to exit out and restart! And never tab out! AWESOME, THANKS WINDOWS LIVE AND THQ!

Ask schild sometime how many times I've started one of our Steam chats with "fucking steam" because it had to update itself, sometimes multiple times, before it would let me fucking chat with fucking somebody.

[Chimpy]

So, the University of Illinois has a txt message alert system that sends a message to all Students/Staff/Factulty as well as affiliated businesses and the press.

Today they sent out a message to all the people on the list: ""Active shooter at BUILDING NAME/INTERSECTION. Escape area if safe to do so or shield/secure your location."

It was an error, someone was updating the template and hit send instead of save.

It is spring break so almost no one is around, but they were talking about it at the private dorm I do part time network admin work at around lunchtime. Apparently WGN radio in Chicago went on air to report the shooter as soon as they got word of the message. Heh.

[Nebu]

Overall, my degrees have felt a little worthless to me throughout my time at my current employer.

The goal of college isn't so much the information part, but rather to teach you a) the language of your field and b) how to teach yourself.  Most intelligent people know this already, making their college experience feel like a waste of time.  

I ask myself daily what value I bring to students.  The only answer that I come up with is that I hone their analytical skills and teach them to learn things for themselves in a questioning manner.

[RhyssaFireheart]

So at what point does snarking and complaining about the department admin's "competence" turn to possibly trying to actively get her replaced, even though she's been here almost 2 years? 

Maybe some of my comments are more along the lines of "the straw that broke the camel's back" kind of bitching though.  Apparently her shortcomings are rather well known and it maybe be getting to the point where something needs to be done.

The thing that set me off is we obviously have managed print services here.  Toner cartridges and Images drums get down to a certain point, replacements are automatically re-ordered and sent to the department.  Yesterday, we got a delivery and admin says to me "we just got another pink one and now we have 3 for some reason.  I don't know why they keep sending these to us."

 

The pink one was a magenta image drum and when I went to check the printer last night, found out that not one did it need a magenta, but also a cyan image drum.  Oh, and both were low enough that it would explain why we now had multiples if they hadn't been changed when the reorder alerts first went out.  She would just stack them in the storage cube and not investigate.   

Got the extras taken care of and given to support and mentioned to her that when we get sent one of those, it means the printer needs to be changed out.  I'm fine with her not knowing how to do that (even though it's dead easy) but perhaps mentioning to someone that it needs to be done?  Not to mention there are duties which she should be handling (like training coordination) which are done by another employee because the admin just can't handle all that. 

[Merusk]

A friend's Facebook status this afternoon:

The state law says that Detroit cannot have a Casino in the city if the population is under 800K people....according to the recent census, Detroit is currently 750K......and there are 3 Casinos....

Whoops. 

On a positive note, I'm employed through the end of April beginning next Tuesday. Hooray. Now for the next month I only have to send out job apps to places I want to work instead of filling out an arbitrary number of irrelevant apps so I can get my government stipend.

[Morat20]

The goal of college isn't so much the information part, but rather to teach you a) the language of your field and b) how to teach yourself.  Most intelligent people know this already, making their college experience feel like a waste of time.  

I found my college education came in handy at two points: When I first started working, and then again about 5 or 6 years later.

When I first started working, it meant -- at least the related courses - I had a good handle on the lingo, the basics, a solid ground of semi-applicable experience, and the basics I'd need to get myself up to speed in whatever I was hired to do when it came to coding or even IT work. I still did a ton of on the job learning, but I wasn't lost -- just inexperienced.

Then about 5 or 6 years later (and one reason I decided to get a Master's) was the realization that I had moved forward enough where all that theory I'd neglected and hadn't paid much attention to was suddenly important, and I was making design decisions that weighing goals and techniques that I needed more than a 'gut feel' for, where I wanted some actual framework for my decisions.

Suddenly knowing about, say, algorithm efficiencies and data structure pros and cons and database schemas and normal forms meant I wasn't reinventing the wheel. I could make logical, coherent design choices based off my experience because my education had given me a framework for it. Without the education, the formal theory, I might or might not have made the same choices -- but I had more to work on than just "what I've done before".

Getting the Master's, well -- I went out of my way to chose professors that had a habit of doing contracting work on the side, or talked a lot about their real-world experience. So my data mining guy talked with experience, my DB professor had made a name for himself by solving some particularly knotty issues involving bank databases and real-time transaction recording, and my numerical methods/modeling professor knew my manager back when he (the professor) had taken one look at a NASA decision tree that was designed to diagnose and repair data loss due to antenna problems and replaced it with a neural net that performed dozens of times faster and was 4 times as reliable (this was, admittedly, back in the 90s).

These were guys that knew where theory and experience met and how to wring the most out of it. Sadly not all of them were like that (my programming language and compiler theory professor was just totally incoherent!), and of course they all prefered the academic life -- but they tended to pair theory with application in a way I really appreciated.

And that showed up in my 'real' work.

[WayAbvPar]

A friend's Facebook status this afternoon:

The state law says that Detroit cannot have a Casino in the city if the population is under 800K people....according to the recent census, Detroit is currently 750K......and there are 3 Casinos....

Whoops. 

On a positive note, I'm employed through the end of April beginning next Tuesday. Hooray. Now for the next month I only have to send out job apps to places I want to work instead of filling out an arbitrary number of irrelevant apps so I can get my government stipend.

Residents are fleeing Detroit faster than money out of gambler's wallets (apparently they have a city income tax on top of state and federal....no wonder no one wants to live there!).

And congrats! Any chance it will turn into a full time gig, or at least make the next step easier?

[Merusk]

There's a chance at both.  Since it will be commercial project experience it will make me more attractive to other potential employers.  If the firm gets more jobs and still needs help, my contract will be extended.  No benefits but I'm through the wife anyway and I doubt that a 70 person firm could do better than Staples on rates and I've got an IRA so no worries on lack of 401(k) access.

They're one of the larger local firms, so they like to staff up and down on a per-project basis like game companies do.  With enough experience/ exposure I should be able to land a job at a firm that doesn't do such nonsense or, if I excel, land a project manager position with them.

[Sand]

So at what point does snarking and complaining about the department admin's "competence" turn to possibly trying to actively get her replaced, even though she's been here almost 2 years? 

Best business advice I was ever given by a friend in the same line of work.
"Fire fast and fire often." 
Its not so much that I am making someone unemployed, but rather I am helping them to transition to their new field of employment! 

[JWIV]

A friend's Facebook status this afternoon:

The state law says that Detroit cannot have a Casino in the city if the population is under 800K people....according to the recent census, Detroit is currently 750K......and there are 3 Casinos....

Whoops.  

On a positive note, I'm employed through the end of April beginning next Tuesday. Hooray. Now for the next month I only have to send out job apps to places I want to work instead of filling out an arbitrary number of irrelevant apps so I can get my government stipend.

Residents are fleeing Detroit faster than money out of gambler's wallets (apparently they have a city income tax on top of state and federal....no wonder no one wants to live there!).

And congrats! Any chance it will turn into a full time gig, or at least make the next step easier?

Maryland has a local piggyback tax as well, so that doesn't seem all that uncommon.  Federal & State, then your county or city adds somewhere between 1-3% on top of your state.

edited to fix my terrible posting skills

[Bunk]

My new ringtone as of five minutes ago: ringtone

The question is, is it worth it to annoy others as much as it will annoy me?

[RhyssaFireheart]

My new ringtone as of five minutes ago: ringtone

The question is, is it worth it to annoy others as much as it will annoy me?

Well, depends on how strong you are and how many people you want to really annoy.

And I think it's time to take lunch outside the office today, before I even more seriously consider hurting the department admin. She has been whining all morning that "it's supposed to rain every day we're down in Orlando next week!" ZOMFG!11!!!!!eleventy!!11! And she's not even whining to me! It's her talking on all the personal calls she gets and the co-workers asking when she's leaving (NOT SOON ENOUGH!). Look, weather forecasts change but you'll be in Florida instead of Illinois. You know, the state where it snowed yesterday. Okay, didn't snow much, but still....

[ghost]

The question is, is it worth it to annoy others as much as it will annoy me?

Generally, yes!   

[Sky]

I put a version of Bach's Prelude by Andres Segovia on my phone for a ringtone. Bad move - now I don't want to answer the phone, I want to listen to the song.

[bhodi]

I am an awful, uncultured person because that just reminds me of dwarf fortress.

[HaemishM]

Microsoft's take on how awesome Windows Live is.

One minute of that video makes me want to punch babies.

[Yegolev]

(although you're more likely to have blind spots and missing information)

This is the thing I would like to gain.  For the most part, the coursework would be useless, but there are things I just don't get about computers.  I think the big revelation was the day I found out about the truss command.

My ability to do my job, however, doesn't depend on anything you would learn at a traditional school except how to manage workload and other metaskills.

Also, saw Prince last night in Charlotte.  Fantastic.  Afterwards, I had a gall bladder attack, apparently.  I'll be scheduling a MRI soon.

[ghost]

Also, saw Prince last night in Charlotte.  Fantastic.

My wife and I saw him down here in San Antonio a few years ago.  He was really, really good.  His talent is staggering.  It was also one of the oddest groups of concert goers I've ever seen.  There were 87 year old African American ladies with walkers, teenie boppers, college aged kids, middle agers.  Very cool atmosphere. 

Sorry about the Gallbladder.  Get it out!

[Yegolev]

Well, the interesting thing about removing a gall bladder is that your cholesterol skyrockets.  I'm already borderline, 190 last I checked.  In addition to anything else that is done, I'm probably going to have a go at being vegetarian.

[Merusk]

The good news keeps coming, eh.