
Re: "even non-STEM fields"
Is that why we refer to them as bad actors - sorry.
1003 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jul 2015
That is only if you are contracting.
The previous poster was talking about a trade as I read it plumber, electrician, gas engineer etc. most of the those I know are self employed doing domestic work, no IR35 there, mind you if you don’t have the customers you won’t earn much. But there are other ways of working besides contracting for big companies.
The idea that because we (the employer) paid for a one day course in prehistory demands the right to force you into servitude for a millennium needs to be killed off completely.
Where I work we get training (sometimes too much) on new products, and it you want to get trained on an item it will be granted as long as it is relevant - they won’t pay network engineers to do underwater basket weaving for example.
They understand that we need to use new products and more importantly know how to use it properly. We are installing a new monitoring solution and everyone using the product did a two day course to make setting it up easier and we knew how to get it running.
We had the opposite problem, laser link between two buildings which failed due to freezing fog (the beam was refracting off the ice crystals in the air.
We also had an architect designed special with bare concrete walls in a meeting room, the poor installation guy was driven mad trying to get the av mics to work without reverb, eventually I think they did go out and buy some heaven curtains to hang on the walls as sound deadening.
But I use a text editor for config files and making quick notes. Ok on a Mac I use BBEdit rather than notepad but the same applies. I generally want a text editor to write a script In (Usually Cisco ios) or compare two files to spot the differences - which definitely does not need AI assistance…
Want a quick note on how to do something, need to edit a csv file, all of those need something simple, quick and accurate.
On windows notepad++ fills the hole, on the Mac BBEdit on Linux take your choice (not getting involved in which editor is better here)
I had to get glasses recently not for close to that is fine but for distance as I was realising that road signs were getting harder to read.
The shock is when you first put them on and suddenly realise how bad your eyes had got. The only problem is as they are distance glasses I can no longer read the computer screen with them on, so in the office I do without unless we are using a big meeting room screen.
That feeling is well known to most it people especially when some manager comes up with a new idea.
Fortunately my managers are mostly sensible (in case they are reading the register).
Mind you the latest idea is a partner landing zone to handle big file transfers which keep hiring the limit in the firewall for vpn throughput. So that was a useful meeting apart from the fact I know have more work to do to ratify the design and then work out how to implement it… probably needed a month ago as well..
Sounds like it, my work mac well I can go days without starting word, most of my work is done in web browsers or terminal sessions, the biggest drain on it is running teams, slack, Webex, zoom and outlook for email - it depends on who I am talking to which messaging app you need (and most of the are internal staff)
It was a long time ago (almost 30 years now) but I worked for a company making control systems for factories, one of the jobs we had to meet a short circuit test. This basically dropped a solid lump of copper across 3 phas busbar and the test was it the machine had to stay intact for a set number of seconds and automatically shut down,
I didn’t witness the test but those who did said it was terrifying watching something that you throught was strong just buckle and destroy itself in a few seconds.
If they are talking about this much power in a rack then they must have to pass a similar the same test, or I doubt the dc operator will let them install the rack.
I think you have missed the reference
“Ministry of truth” refers to George Orwell’s 1984 when the objective was to rewrite information to fit the party line.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_in_Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Yes CISA needs to be an independent source of truth but it must be free from political interference.
That is exactly what I do with my tv, I use an Apple TV box for streaming (you can choose Roku, fire etc) but the tv doesn’t connect to the internet and is used as a panel with the built in tuner, but no smart apps or other services.
If the Apple TV goes end of life which it may be in a few years, I will replace it with another box whereas the tv is a lot more expensive
On internal documents I tend drop easter eggs into long documents - a recently design document for the wireless network ran to 80+ pages. Halfway through the document is a reference to new SSID names (which were very silly), and the description of why roaming needed to use a common platform with a multi building campus. The reason given was "better snacks" as for why someone would move between buildings.
However I keep them clean, rather than anything too rude. Although in a previous job I did write in a document that my named boss won't have read this far.... He did and when mentioned I just said it good at least you read until the end...
I had one similar but it was ibm type 1 cabling, we had a port that didn’t work well, so decided to replace the patch cabinet, now from the cabinet to the central reception was about 150 feet (45m) we started pulling the patch cable out no big deal it should have been less than 2 metres but this was long and curled up in the bottom of the cabinet, well we managed to get to the reception door without either end being unplugged so that was about a 100m patch lead which then went off to a desk near the reception door, this was replaced.
The thing is for those youngsters who have never encountered it, is that type 1 cable is big and heavy modern cable is a lot lighter but this wire must have weighed in at about 15kg. Considering it is 4cores of 0.6mm cable it will draw about 7amps per core you can almost run a 240v kettle on a single cable…
I don’t miss working on it.
I think that must be why my employers like contractors.
HR don't get involved in the interviewing of contractors.
Contractor comes in and if they are suitable will get a contract extension or made an offer to go perm (this happened with myself and another contractor who I recommended when they were looking for more people)
The second puts mine to shame, my worst was deleting the entire vlan database off a site with 80 switches - I had to go and console to each one separately as the management vlan had gone down, what should have been a 2 hour evening piece of work was a 12hour overnight. But the site was running at 8am when everyone else came in.
I deal with the networking side, and have a simple process for dealing with people
If you don’t know how to do it ask
I will spend time going through stuff with you.
But if you don’t know what you are doing and don’t ask. Then you are on your own.
And if you screw up admit it….. people are a lot more lenient when you are honest (mostly)
We all make mistakes I’ve done plenty of them but stopping and thinking is the best approach.
Case in point I was working remotely and just starting the drive back to office and got a call.
Me: what’s up
Caller ; we have a problem
Me: what has gone wrong?
Caller: I turned spanning tree off on a core switch uplink port and now the network is running odd. I can’t connect to the switch
Me: well I am two hours away, so go and tell management and then power down that core wait 5 minutes hopefully the network will stabilise and then power it back up again.
Caller: do I have to tell management ?
Me: well if you don’t they will find out and trying to cover it up is not a good look.
They did keep their job but why they wanted to do the port change in the first place is still a mystery…..
Up vote for auto shenanigans one of the best channels around.
Regarding electric charging, I have said for a long time said that you don’t need any apps for electric charging, all it needs to do it take a payment card (contactless or pin) and give you electricity.
I don’t have an electric car I just pull up at a pump dump diesel or petrol (depending on which vehicle I am in) and then pay at pump or at the counter and drive off. I can even pay using cash if I want.
I certainly don’t have an app for paying and if the local garage started that then I would go somewhere else.
Or get the famous weather forecasting rock…
And Train the AI on these rules
If the rock is wet, it's raining.
If the rock is swinging, the wind is blowing.
If the rock casts a shadow, the sun is shining.
If the rock does not cast a shadow and is not wet, the sky is cloudy.
If the rock is difficult to see, it is foggy.
If the rock is white, it is snowing.
If the rock is coated with ice, there is a frost.
If the ice is thick, it's a heavy frost.
If the rock is bouncing, there is an earthquake.
If the rock is under water, there is a flood.
If the rock is warm, it is sunny.
If the rock is missing, there is a tornado.
If the rock is wet and swinging violently, there is a hurricane.
If the rock can be felt but not seen, it is night time.
If the rock has white splats on it, watch out for birds.
If the rock is levitating, you're stoned.
If there are two rocks, you're drunk.
This reminds me of a job I did a few years ago, firmware upgrade 2 switches. Did the checks loaded the new firmware and told the device to reboot.
The switch (2960x) was still unresponsive 20 minutes later so wandered down to the comms room and plugged into the console port
rrrrrrrwrrrrrrrwrrrrrrrwrrrrrrrw
It had a microcode update over an hour after the reboot it finally came back to life.
For some reason I didn’t do the second switch that night.
Still not as bad as rebooting a switch after deleting the old image and BEFORE copying the new image over, that one I had to upload the boot image via the serial port.
As soon as I read the hovering comment I thought about the ball mice. Other things I have seen is the user running out of desk space to reach the edge of the screen, not realising that they could pick the mouse up move their hand and put it down again - or even better make the cursor move further for a given input which solves the problem permanently.
No if that happened on a graphics tablet that outdated be interesting…
Yep, I don’t know when these companies will realise that working multiple 12 hour days in succession will lead to lower performance as you need breaks from work to recover.
Occasionally I have done such and at the end of the week tasks that should take 10 minutes end up taking a lot longer as you are so tired.
You can do this for a week or two but after you need downtime to recover.
As400 admin demonstrated the command format to a junior but with a 30 minute delay then hit enter instead of cancel.
However the machine would not let then cancel the shutdown request and so frantic calls went out informing of an impending loss of service.
The worst was the restart time was up to an hour in those days….