Agricultural College
Wonderful quote from Tom Lehrer in an introduction to one of his songs
"He was majoring in Animal Husbandry - until he got found out"
(and I wonder what Tom would have said or sung about the times we are now existing in )
Wipe that chocolate off your face and settle in for another story from the archives of The Register's Who, Me? collection of reader confessions. Today's story sees the return of an On Call contributor and, while we are always wary of crossing the streams, especially in these troubled times, it seemed the thing to do where an …
That would be Dr Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall-bladder.
"His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day."
(Intro to "In Old Mexico", An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer)
I too was the class genius in my freshman year of uni. There was an intro to computers class (I don't remember the exact title) that was a requirement for all students regardless of major. The class taught basic MS-DOS 4, Word processing (Wordperfect 5.1), Spreadsheet (Lotus 123 v2) and other basics. None of the PCs were networked. Most in my class were non-Comp Sci majors so were clueless but I tutored as many as I could so they could get a passing grade.
Beer icon because I got invited to a lot of frat parties as thanks!
Yeah, I was thinking of that as well... Lots of things on the computer can be twisted to do something other than their intended use. I know students used to rename their iTunes library sharing name to the answers to tests. I also heard about kids swapping one ear but and they could hear what was happening in the next room etc...
I once taught a computer lab and one (or more?) of the students discovered the weakness of the X11 protocol and starting popping up windows on other student's screens. After laughing I said to him (who was a good student), "Cute, but let's tone this down a bit."
I've noticed that higher ups don't have a sense of humor and frown on explosions, network hacking etc.
Risk aversion. For career managers there is no benefit for them to letting staff/students/ have any freedom to explore. At best the other guy will benefit, but not themselves. At worst they will land in the shit and their managers will almost certainly be the ones who throw them in there.
Ahh yes - the Netware "SEND" command. First thing I removed from every SYS:PUBLIC folder on every server I ever built from Netware 2.1 to Netware 5.0.
Not sure I agree with the writer's description of NDS as being as painful as that - for the site I worked with it allowed us to establish login accounts for 25,000 students - and this was in 1995 running Netware 4.11. By mid 90's everyone should have been running Netware 3.11, release data I believe was Valentine's day 1991, after 3.0 came out in late 1989.
Yeah, I was thinking the same NDS was great. Far better than Microsoft's Directory Services at the time (and in some ways better than it is now)..
The demise of Novell Netware, I feel was solely down to the lack of a GUI and then being late to catch up. Fine for people who were well versed in NDS speak but for many the Windows GUI administration was way easier and the Novell GUI tools felt like poor bolt-ons that came too late.
There were a few opportunities when i was younger, when I could have moved from special education to respectively educational IT support or training and I'd perhaps (?) have had an easier life. But I stayed with teaching because I was very good at getting kids reading, and pretty good at Leadership, though I hated admin and I could never have gone higher because that would have meant becoming a full-time desk jockey.
But still, there are times when I wonder...........
"..."Microsoft Office", the IT equivalent of going shoulder-deep in a cow's posterior and wiggling one's fingers around, James Herriot style."
Which reminds me... around the same time/not long after would have been the emergence of "Back Orifice" from the "Cult of the Dead Cow"
Note: following link has an image of cow's posterior, ready for a vet's gloved hand
https://web.archive.org/web/20180715070715/http://www.cultdeadcow.com/tools/bo.html
My career has happened mostly by accident. I was brought up next to a mixed arable farm and for many years I could imagine no finer ambition than to be a mixed arable farmer - I like cows plus you get to drive a combine harvester and how cool is that? If I hadn't fallen into IT I might have been a mixed arable farmer after all. One thing would be different is I had. I'd have to deal with a hell of lot less bullshit.
I worked full time in IT, first as a 9-5er and then as a conslutant, until I had enough loot to purchase this ranch. Or, as I like to put it, I've retired from IT into a life of sun-up to long past sun-down 7 days per week dumb heavy work. (I still dabble in IT consulting ... new farm equipment is expensive!)
I absolutely love it, and wouldn't have it any other way. Working with the critters and the land is far more honest than any corporate career.
Something similar happened to me around 20 years ago. Having decided to stop screwing around and actually work for a living I took a year out and did City-and-Guilds. However it transpires that the course I'm on A) had no real-world currency with the intended profession and B) Even if I DID get a job, it didn't pay well as many are called and few are chosen C) I wasn't likely to be chosen, as I didn't got to the "right school". So. F*ck that.
I had discovered that years of gaming had basically equipped me for Helpdesk work, though. So I started to do that instead. And here I am. My one regret about my IT career is that I didn't start it ten years earlier (immediately after leaving school). That said, I had a lot of fun without one.