Posts by Mark 85

Re: Cheap flexible version

I just have an unpaid intern carry around a tablet running Skype.

Save a few dollars more and instead of a tablet, just have them carry a large picture around. Maybe a dumb cellphone (not a smart one) for verbal abuse.

Re: Facebook, the AOL of the 21st Century

I'm not so sure it's even that good.....

Re: He twists and he turns

Then first chance he gets he disappears to Equador

I rather like that idea.. let's just get someone to airdrop him in from, say 10,000 feet. Lots of nice jungle there for him to hide and get lost in and hopefully never be heard from again.

Well there's that. And as long as they keep holding meetings on it, no schedule will actually be forthcoming or implemented. For those not liking this idea, just suggest to the appropriate people that they have more meetings to discuss things....

Re: Devonian?

So David Icke was almost right! We very nearly were ruled by 19 foot tall lizards...

That and we would have been 19 foot tall lizards......

Re: So?

I can't speak for all locations, all insurance companies, etc. Only for what I've seen with my own eyes.

The word goes out when the auditors are coming. There'll be a mad dash in the customer service and claims areas to hide paper.. privacy screens come out from under the desks.... the day after the auditors leave, the privacy screens go back under the desk, and paper suddenly reappears magically.

In IT, they don't ever look at the servers via screens or examine the admin logs. They look at a logbook or a paper print-out of a log.

I really believe there's more break-ins coming and we'll have more discussions along this line.... I wouldn't be surprised if the break-ins are already underway and the companies just don't know it.

Hell, we have 5,000 employees and per the CIO, we have almost as many servers: mainframes, web-facing, departmental, test, etc. It's a no-win job trying to secure them all and even harder if there's any turnover in personnel. They discovered 20 servers last year that hadn't been used in 5 years or updated, but there they sat... connected to the network and happily idling. Overlooked, never used for much, and never audited because the sysadmin who set them up was made redundant before he got the paperwork done on their being launched.

Re: Permission to ask a COMPLETELY off-topic question…?

Simples.. your third paragraph about costs explains it all. Telephony cables use one of (I'm thinking this right...) 3 sizes only of connector and all the commercial connectors are for that particular cable which is a standard. Even the connections are standard. The round stuff.. not so much standard anymore as connectors (especially in AppleLand) are proprietary. Plus many of the round ones have shielding.... it's tough to shield a flat cable economically.

Re: I have a cunning plan...

Good point. I was just thinking the same thing. Given the nature of the paranoia and the way certain agencies work, that's a reasonable question.

Or, will this just be a nice excuse to ramp up the surveillance?

Exactly. We in IT have been "trained" to be monitored. Thus the collective helplessness.

Re: For those of you wondering, 2.05 = 7 ^ exp(-1)

Hell... I didn't even know what question to ask. But thanks for that.. now to go Google and read.

Re: Did you miss the part where...

No, didn't miss it at all. There's lots of ways to game the system as Chicago has proved in the past. If suddenly enough ballots popped up to change the election and from the same location, I think they would be noticed. Or at least I would hope they would be noticed that something was amiss.

Re: The oil tide is ebbing

Not only are they over-producing, it's also being under-used. The shale oil fields and the fracking bandwagon that everyone jumped on has contributed a lot to the glut. The under-used is now coming from the power generation plants and there's some drop in demand due to more efficient autos. As folks have moved to CFL and LED bulbs, the demands for power have dropped.

As some point, the oil companies will stop pumping the stuff from the ground, the stock in the tanks will drop and price per barrel will rise. There will be a shakeout which appears to have started just by the amount of layoffs going on. I don't see demand going up too much as a large base of power needs have been cut by the new light bulbs but we'll see.

Dumping of oil on the market is already starting mostly by the Sauds. I think part of the problem right now is them. Whether they wanted the US oil companies to stop drilling in the States and buy from them or to punish someone (Russia? Certain Middle-Eastern countries?) is one of those things we'll never know on why they did drop the price in the first place. If the prices go too far down, they'll be screaming and cut back their production to force the market back up.

Re: I just wish IE would die gracefully

Er... no. It should die screaming in the night. Then every developer who had to put with that piece of crap needs to be invited to pour a glass of their favorite libation on it's grave... properly filtered through one's kidney's first. A good libation should not just be poured on the ground.

Re: The real story here

It does make one have to wonder how many times has Social Security or some other government agency been broken into but never reported. The insurance companies are getting hit hard so I would expect the Feds to be a prime target also.

Re: Eclipse?

If it were a unicorn, you might have been onto something....

Re: San Francisco to Seattle, eh????

Only on the California side. In Oregon, it drops to 65. Then there's advisories north of the California boarder (and one particular town with a nasty hairpin turn) where the recommended speed is 50.