Posts by Peter Simpson 1

Re: H-1B visas [ ... ]

Also, don't allow H-1Bs to replace currently employed U.S. workers, as you have seen in some of these IT outsourcing deals where H-1Bs are brought in and the the U.S. workers are forced to train them as replacements, and then shoved out the door.

Well, you see, that never actually happens. What does happen is:

- Due to cost cutting, the decision is made to outsource a particular function or department

- The employees currently doing the job are given the shove

- A third party contracting company, who just happens to employ H-1B labor gets the contract

So you see? No US workers lost their jobs to H-1B labor!

H-1B has been abused for years. Back to *at least* the early 90s. Some of the job postings were hilariously specific as to skills and education, but the punchline was the ridiculously low pay for a job requiring a Masters and 25-20 years experience. Of course there were no US applicants.

Fax...for when you want to send a slow, low resolution, black and white copy of an document you could easily have scanned and attached to an email.

Re: No drivers.

Funny you should mention...

My company-issued laptop runs Win10. With the work-at-home being normal now, I took the time to equip my Fortress of Solitude (basement office) with a decent (i.e.: free and robust) laser printer, to wit: a very clean used Laserjet 5M*. Bought a JetDirect card for it ($20 on eBay) and put it on my home network.

The company laptop installed it as the default printer and all was well.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. IT discovered my laptop needed updates. Duly installed, and I spent a day getting things back the way I like them (and deleting XBox stuff, etc -- why this is installed on an "industry Pro" version of Windows, I don't know) and noticed the printer was missing.

After a little investigation, I find that sometime between the last update my PC had and the most recent one, HP removed the PCL5 driver from Win10. Now...why would they do that? Go to HP website...older version of the PCL driver is not to be found. And PCL6 is not downward compatible with PCL5 (at least as far as the LJ5 is concerned).

Could HP be trying to get me to buy a new printer? One, perhaps, with the ability to "expire" toner cartridges whenever HP's cash flow takes a dip? You might certainly think that, I couldn't possibly comment.

Luckily, The Internet came to the rescue. Some nice chap has archived the old HP PCL5 drivers for Win10. They install quite easily and...my printer is working again. Except every print job now pops up a little warning telling me: "black toner almost empty". Goodness me, and I just installed a new cartridge and have printed maybe three pages off it.

So HP has chosen not to offer driver support for "older" printers. I'm sure this was a huge burden for them, and I find their actions quite reasonable...NOT!

*The LJ5M is built like a tank, metal chassis, easily repairable and the necessary parts are inexpensive and readily available, since the LJ5 was sold by the millions and is still doing service as the default office printer, even in my company's offices. Mine was offered free and broken by a local law office. $150 worth of parts (a rebuilt fuser assy for $125 and a $25 gear) and it's like new. Repair instructions, of course, on YouTube.

Re: Yes, right.

Thanks God there's always an underling to take the legal responsibility of CEO's decisions.

[Baldrick]

"I have a cunning plan, m'lord..."

[/Baldrick]

Re: Efficacy of warning messages

Live and learn :-)

Re: Anon to protect the innocent...

I once worked on a project where the client insisted on an audio capability (to play nice tunes on startup IIRC).

I suggested to the firmware designer that we shouldn't let this opportunity go to waste, and provided him with a file of HAL saying his signature line: "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

When the machine was booted in maintenance mode, and an error occurred, Hal told you about it.

Re: Driving for dummies.

Manual transmissions save lives!

// try texting while driving a stick

Re: King Dick

I would have gone with Ridgid Tools, myself

https://www.ridgid.com/us/en/manual-threading

Re: Good for competition?

Obviously, at some level, you need to look outside the local area. But there's an obligation to provide employment for people in the area, where that is a reasonable option.

I'd argue that importing IT people from India (or, in general, overseas) is in the long term, detrimental to the local economy. The H1B program is being blatantly misused to do exactly that. These are IT people, not professors. IT is a job doable by any graduate of a 2-year trade/technical school with a few years' apprenticeship. There is no reason to import people to do a job which has been done by locals for many years...except to lower costs. If you are a corporation who values your environment, you should offer jobs to your neighbors, because, in the long term, you want to be a good corporate citizen.

Re: APR

How much would you like me to lend you at 36%?

Re: $10 switches are fine

I dunno...there's something about a bank buying a used switch/router for $10 (out of some bloke's car boot in a carpark after work?) that just doesn't inspire any level of confidence at all in their IT infrastructure.

Smoke, fire and all that...

Re: 40K????

Simply place the cooked canard between two sheets of waxed paper, on a flat surface behind the rear tyre of your vehicle, and shift into reverse...

Voila! Your own 40k duck press! And it doubles as transportation.

Re: Don't worry, the upgrade will probably fail

Linux Mint seems to work quite well. I run it at home and on a second PC at work, and it's very solid.

The rest of my family runs Apple gear.

My work runs Win7. It's OK, so long as I don't have to deal with the upkeep. Except that it has decided not to see my USB keyboard. Good thing I had a PS2 one in the drawer. Can't be arsed to figure out why the USB one doesn't work...already spent an hour on it, that's more than enough.

At the office -- repairs being made to the concrete parking garage to reduce leakage and improve drainage. Crumbling concrete being jackhammered and replaced.

Fast forward 6-8 months. The heavens open, a deluge of Biblical severity occurs. The folks in the downstairs offices begin crying out for help due to 3-4 inches of water on the floor and a healthy flow.

A soggy wall seems to be the source.

The plumbers arrive. The cast iron drain pipe from the flat roof runs through the soggy wall. At floor level is a cleanout plug, welded in place by rust. Around the cleanout plug, more rust, but not as strong as that holding the cleanout plug in place. The drain pipe has failed, allowing the runoff from the roof to enter the building.

Further detective work ensues to discover why the pipe failed. After all, there should be no back pressure, the water should have just kept going to the storm drain, right? Well, the investigation reveals that the drainage pipe is blocked. Where? A long way away, seems to be under the garage somewhere. A very solid blockage....

Measurements are made, jackhammers produced, and excavation begins.

A 10 foot section of drainpipe under the garage floor is found to have been filled with concrete during the "repairs" half a year ago. It is replaced. The rusty section of drainpipe in the wall is replaced and a shiny new cleanout plug is installed. The soggy wall is replaced. Runoff from the roof again flows unimpeded to the storm drain. All is well again.

At a rummage sale that summer, a recycled life ring is purchased and presented to the building manager, who accepts it with good humor. All repair to the pub.

Re: Be safe, use a chicken-scented burner phone

'Parson's Nose'

Mum always used to call it the 'Pope's Nose'

(and then immediately told us kids we should never say that)

// she was an escaped Catholic...

Muff Divers

I wonder if they sell t-shirts?

Re: On behalf of the human race

TRUMP / PALIN 2016

Twice the crazy -- twice the fun!

// not really

// God, please no

// how much crazier will it get?

Re: "a rundown of your driving"

I'd like to see some research results that indicate a correlation between the quantities measurable thorough the OBDII connector and accident rate.

For example: do frequent rapid deceleration events correlate more highly with increased accidents or only with increased brake wear?

Just because the insurance company has declared certain measurable quantities as indicators of "bad driving", doesn't mean there's any basis in fact.

What with all the layoffs and such, the standard of journalistic accuracy here in the Colonies is not what it once was.

// Walter Winchell spinning fast enough to power a small town

Re: as if owning IT antiquity was one of those positive character traits

Oh, and I also have a stack of IBM 5081 devices (Google them if you dare!).

No need.

Face down, 9 edge first.

// shopping list in the right-hand pocket.

Re: Last question should have been...

How do you feel?

(c) Like I need a trip to the pub...

Re: Follow the Money

CSB time:

A company I worked for, back in the 90s, bought some hard-to-find chips at an obscene price from a used parts broker (you know, those guys that come up first in a Google search for obsolete parts)

They installed them in the boards, no surprise, they all failed test. Come to find out, some bright light in purchasing couldn't find the parts in distributor stock, so he decided to show some initiative and used a parts broker. Last time we ever did THAT.

Another favourite trick of these guys, is to buy "failed test" ICs from salvage companies (or steal them from the manufacturer while they're not looking) -- these are parts off the chip manufacturer's assembly line that got packaged, but for some reason failed testing. They are then sold by parts brokers as the genuine item.

Several years back, I bought some RAM DIMMs from a well-known vendor. They were made by a company I'd not heard of before. They all worked fine, but all failed within 6 months -- too late for any warranty claims. I have to admire the skill of the manufacturer -- timing is everything.

Tomfoolery?

TomCATfoolery, Shirley?

Re: Using the company mail server

A true BOFH would have filed the email under the names of the two people involved. Just in case, sometime in the future, one of them happened to be in a position to do him a "favour".

// Friday, innit?

// yeah, he did the right thing

Re: What a...

Your "thick forest of hair" is still there...it's just migrated off your head down to your back.

// no thanks necessary, glad to help!

Re: 1080p drone for 50,000 pounds each?

For that price, they had better come with a large flashing blue light and a yellow and blue checked paint scheme.

Re: Meanwhile, in t'mill

Mmmm...raccoon porn...kinky!

:-)

// say it in Hedly Lamarr's voice from Blazing Saddles