alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81
Matthew Crosby
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Version: 0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
URL: http://bofh.fis.unico.it/asr.shtml
alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
This is the frequently asked questions for alt.sysadmin.recovery, a newsgroup
for practicing and recovering system administrators.
1) ABOUT THE GROUP
1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery?
1.2) Notes on reading ASR
1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery?
1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker?
1.6) Where can I find the BOFH?
1.7) The BOFH hierarchy
1.8) Official ASR mottos
1.9) Official anagrams of ASR.
1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion
1.11) Songs to drink to
1.12) Man pages
1.13) ASR Mailing lists
1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff?
1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain?
1.16) ASR Luser of the decade
1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that?
1.18) The coat of arms
1.19) What is TTTSNBN? A PFY?
1.20) How do I post to this group?
2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION
2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do?
2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do?
2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession?
2.4) How are new sysadmins made?
2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin?
2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin?
2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to???
2.8) What does MCSE stand for?
3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER
3.1) Are there any OS's that don't suck?
3.2) How about any hardware?
3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck?
3.4) Where can I find cluefull tech support?
3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave?
3.6) What's with the AOL disks?
4) OUR BIG HEADACHE, THE LUSERS
4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards?
4.2) I'm work for tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers?
4.3) General luser interaction
4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers?
4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of
various luser education strategies.
4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across
a monitor?
4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser?
4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands?
5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN
5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals
5.2) The excuse server
5.3) The insults server
5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards?
5.5) Sysadmin Tools
5.6) Psychiatric Assistance
6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!!
6.1) I need some serious info! Help me!
6.2) You guys are all meanies/elitist/a bad example/corrupting/fattening
6.3) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ???????????
7) OTHER RESOURCES
7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love...
-----
1) OVERVIEW
1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery?
Alt.sysadmin.recovery is for discussion by recovered and recovering sysadmins.
It is a forum for mutual support and griping over idiot lusers, stupid
tech support, brain dead hardware and generally how stupid this idiotic job
is. Think of it as a virtual pub, where we can all go after hours and
gripe about our job. Since the concept of "after hours" (or, for that
matter, "pubs") is an anathema for your average sysadmin, we have this
instead.
1.2) Notes on reading ASR
Some have warned that reading ASR while drinking beverages is to be avoided.
[due to the effects of beverage on keyboards on computers]
ASR, is by its nature a fairly free-wheeling group. Nevertheless, it
is also a very busy one. We would like to ask, therefore, that you
respect this. Please try and keep subject lines relatively up to date,
so people can kill threads. Please avoid 1 line "me toos", yes, we
know you are smart, young, old, had trouble in school, enjoyed school,
never went to college, use vi, use emacs, hate vi or emacs, read Robert
Heinlein, have a cool home page and practice martial and marital arts.
Please don't tell us about it. Also, please keep threads out of here
that might explode-- hot topics like gun control or welfare. (Anyone
else start one of THOSE flamewars, I WILL personally ensure that David
Rhodes, Robert McElwaine, Canter and Siegel and Serdar Argic _all_ get
accounts on your system. I'm serious.)
Oh, the "When I was a kid I had to bang two rocks together to get
zeros" has got especially old. Give it a rest. So has scotch, rental
cars, floor numbering, host numbering...
Also: DO NOT mention how to post here. Anyone who belongs here should be
able to work it out from the official instructions, contained in section 1.20
of this FAQ.
1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Please don't resend things to alt.humor.best-of-usenet. We have nothing
against that group itself, but in the past we have averaged a few messages
a day there. This has drawn the lusers here like moths to a candle.
We also suggest you put "X-No-Ahbou: yes" in your headers.
1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery?
Not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery are: holy wars, advocacy, user
questions, users (unless you are a sysadmin in another life), David Rhodes
or general cluelessness. Particularly not welcome is ANY real sysadmin
related stuff. We are here to escape!
Warning: If you are a user, you may well see your sysadmin posting messages
about how stupid YOU are. You have been warned.
1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker?
BOFH: Bastard Operator From Hell. Our role model.
(The Bastard Operator from Hell was originally a series of stories
written by Simon Travaglia, s.tra...@waikato.ac.nz. See 1.6.)
LART: Luser Attitude Re-Adjustment Tool. Something large, heavy and
painful-- See the sysadmin tool section.
Cow-Orker: Those people who live at the same office as you do. (WARNING:
Orking Cows is dangerous, and illegal in the state of Utah)
Copro-grammer: literally, "writer of feces"
C|N>K: This, along with variants, is similar to ROFL in other less cultured
groups. (hint: C is coffee, N is nose, K is keyboard.)
1.6) Where can I read about the BOFH?
http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard.html
Newer adventures may be found on the register, www.theregister.co.uk
1.7) The BOFH hierarchy
ASR is such a cool newsgroup, we even have our own hierarchy! Try that,
soc.singles. This is the bofh.* hierarchy. (I'm actually not sure who
people should contact. Anyone?)
1.8) Official ASR mottos
The official ASR motto, our catch phrase, is the immortal:
"Down, not Across"
It is our mantra. We recite it to ourselves as we deal with the day
to day realities of a life that is far more nasty, brutish and short
than even Hobbes could have ever imagined.
Some other mottos include:
"What was your username?" *clickety click*
"I need a drink."
AAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Bring out yer dead! *DONK!* Bring out yer dead! *DONK!*
"Oh Lovely!"
The official asr position:
Hiding in a corner, under a desk, in fetal position, arms covering head
and quietly whimpering.
The official asr luser position:
6 foot under.
1.9) Official ASR anagrams
Every now again, some luser will come in and ask for an explanation of
ASR anagrams. I haven't the faintest idea why. Here's some good ones:
alt sysadmin recovery
rancid mystery loaves
steady micron slavery
comedy striven salary
trendy mosaic slavery
convert already missy
scary devil monastery
misty adversary clone
mail covers dysentary
discover anal mystery
1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion
By popular acclaim, Eris has been declared patron goddess of ASR, with
Murphy as patron saint. The Illuminatus Trilogy (Robert Anton Wilson
and Robert Shea) will tell you more of her secrets.
Of course, don't let this put you off. ASR is a very tolerant group, and
we will accept anything you worship, provided your beliefs fit the requirements
for a good sysadmin god, the most important one being that sacrifice of lusers
be an integral part of worship. (The Aztec gods are very nice in this respect).
1.11) Songs to drink to
ASR has many talented budding creative artists who have come up with a
collection of deep, heart wrenching statements on the nihilism of this
sysadmin existence. Including such gems as the cynical "I'm a sysadmin
and I'm OK", and the reflective "My favorite things", _The Best of ASR_
will be coming out real soon now on Sony, 14.99 CD, 7.99 Cassette.
Until this happens, you can find these songs at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/songs.html
1.12) Man pages
The ASR man page collection is a comprehensive reference to many of the
things we have to deal with in our profession.
See http://www.winternet.com/~eric/sysadmin/manpages.html
1.13) ASR Mailing lists
There are a number of local ASR mailing lists, dealing with organizing
local ASR gatherings. They include:
ASR New York:
To subscribe: Mail da...@3skel.com
ASR Boston:
To subscribe: li...@mathworks.com (it's a majordomo list, name is asr-boston)
ASR Melbourne: (Oz, not Florida)
To subscribe: asrmel-...@netizen.com.au
Also see //www.netizen.com.au/lists/asrmel/
ASR London:
To subscribe: asrlon-...@bofh.org.uk
ASR Israel:
To subscribe: asr-il-...@cs.huji.ac.il
The Twin Cities:
List address: asr...@winternet.com
ASR DC:
To subscribe: majo...@lists.netset.com
Listname is "asr-dc"
ASR Bay Area:
To subscribe: ba-asr-...@lists.cap.gov
1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff?
These are Myers-Briggs scores.
See http://www.keirsey.com/cgi-bin/keirsey/newkts.cgi
1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain?
Probably you want the guys who run the net. Address mail to:
Usenet Central Administration
1060 W. Addison St
Chicago, IL 60613-4305
They should be willing to help you out.
1.16) ASR Luser of the Decade
Yes, the awards are just in. Luser of the decade goes to Judith
Kraines, county controller in Reading, PA. From News of the Weird:
* Reading, Pa., county controller Judith Kraines complained at a
commissioners' meeting in January about having to type letters
and do other business on a typewriter because her computer was
old and no one had been able to get it to work for two years. "If
we had a computer," she said, "letters would go out faster."
Three days later, she announced that the computer she was
complaining about in fact had not been plugged in to any
electrical outlet and that when the plug was inserted and the
computer was turned on, it worked fine.
(This was luser of the year, but no potential replacement has come in
for this year.)
1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that?
Nope. I suggest you post to the group pointing that out, so we all end
up admiring your powers of observation.
1.18) The coat of Arms
While the college of heralds are still sitting on our application (bastards...
I think a disk crash is in order), you can see the potential ASR coat of
arms at http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~djc/asr/
1.19) What is TTTSNBN?
Well, it shall not be named. So I'm afraid I can't tell you...
As to PFY, If you have to ask...
-----
2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION
2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do?
Seek professional help.
2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do?
See 5.4
2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession
Somewhere below janitors.
2.4) How are new sysadmins made
The devil probably has something to do with it.
2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin
For an excellent, if somewhat optimistic, picture of a sysadmins life,
see http://katsube1.eng.ohio-state.edu/wang/computer/sysadmin.html
Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarised the life of a sysadmin the best,
when she described us as:
"disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of,
foul tempered, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, overworked, with no real
social life to speak of."
2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin?
Would you want to be found?
2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to?
This gets asked a lot. Probably all I can say is "loud", and even that isn't
a given. A survey of the readership of ASR was taken, which may be found at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/music
2.8) What does MCSE stand for?
Lots of things. Must Consult Someone Experienced is a good one. See
http://www.onramp.ca/~adb/asr/mcse.txt for more.
2.9) What are the laws of the BOFH?
The laws of the BOFH are the ancient laws we live under day and night.
0. A BOFH may not, through inaction or otherwise, cause a luser to
avoid trouble, unless in doing so causes the luser more harm or causes
equivalent or worse trouble to several lusers, provided the BOFH is
safe, along with any Useful Technology(tm).
1. A BOFH must not destroy useful[1] technology, or through inaction
allow useful technology to come to harm.
2. A BOFH must find ways of avoiding work, unless this
violates the first law.
3. A BOFH must protect his own existence, to hell with Laws 0-2.
-----
3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER
3.1) Are there any OSs that don't suck?
No.
3.2) How about any hardware?
The PDP-10 was pretty nice. Pity they aren't made any more.
3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck?
The ASR standard unit of suckiness is the Lovelace (Ll).
This is defined as: One Lovelace is the amount of force (measured in
dynes) it takes to draw a round ball weighing e Troy Ounces down a tube it
fits exactly (in air) at a speed of pi attoparsecs/microfortnight.
Like Farads, this is a rather large measurement. Thus, Plan 9 sucks a few
mLl, for instance, while your average Microsoft product achieves many Ll.
3.4) Where can I find clueful tech support?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Basically, I think there is some device the telco puts on the phone that
ensures that whoever is on the other end of a service call is always
a drooling moron with the IQ of a potted plant. Note that this applies
both ways (see 4.2)
3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave?
Some go for the carrot approach, others the stick, others both. If you
favour the carrot, try offering memory upgrades or faster processors.
For sticks, try bullwhips. Many computers are easily fooled, so placing
a picture of yourself in front of a computer will often cause it to think
you are watching and it will be too scared to misbehave.
Remember that if computers are networked, they can talk to each other.
That is useful in that you can make an example of one and the others will
watch (and hopefully learn).
3.6) What's with all the AOL disks/cdroms?
There is a large amount of speculation on this subject. Some have suggested
that AOL is a secret alien plot to use up all the resources and overwhelm
the earth with disks, to make mankind easier to conquer. Whatever the reason,
they are useful as coasters and as scratch floppies, if nothing else.
-----
4) OUR LITTLE ENEMIES, THE LUSERS
4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards?
[The stories are currently offline, as a result of the sysadmin who had them
on his web site recovering]
4.2) I'm on tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers?
See 3.4
A cluefull luser is an oxymoron.
4.3) General User Interaction
Some tips for general luser interaction:
-lusers, bless their little hearts, have simple minds. Even if you think
that a lobotomized flatworm could understand your instructions, your
luser probably won't.
-since lusers will neither read nor understand any docs you write for them,
just don't even bother.
-NEVER anthropomorphise lusers.
-lusers are much easier to deal with if they aren't breathing.
4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers?
240v across the heart, a revolver round through the head, or even a simple
little broadsword thrust into their abdomen will improve your interactions
wonderfully. See 4.5
4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of
various luser education strategies.
There has been a great deal of debate on a.s.r about the best way of
dealing with lusers, and at this time no consensus has been reached.
What we can suggest, however, is to be sure it is painful, clean, and doesn't
harm the computer. That unfortunately leaves a lot of options out;
you can't just throw a grenade at them; it will hurt the machine.
4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across
a monitor?
Be careful. While cluelessness is not contagious, there are some nasty
things that can be picked up from lusers. Blood transmitted diseases,
you name it. (watch out for Creutzfeldt-Jacob syndrome, aka mad cow
disease. Of course, we are all mad anyway.). Be sure to wear gloves.
Otherwise, luser guts will usually clean up with warm water and soap.
I've found a little bleach sometimes helps. Be careful with the
keyboards; I've found that blood causes the keys to get very very
sticky; Again, you can try gently washing it with soap and water.
To get rid of the body, people have suggested using several garbage
bags and a large quantity of duct tape. If you have to keep it for a
while, try and remove the guts; that will keep the smell down..
Alcohol and formalin works just fine as a preservative.
4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser?
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law, lusers are treated like humans. I
therefore recommend you be discreet in your luser era^H^Hducation campaigns.
4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands?
See the official ASR price list, at
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~moose/sysadmin/pricelist.html
-----
5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN
5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals
Caffeine: Much information about this can be found on alt.drugs.caffeine
See http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/Coffee/caffaq.html
Booze: See rec.food.drink.*. Myself, I prefer coding after a six-pack
of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, but you are welcome to your beverage
of choice. Booze, particularily in large quantities, often makes dealing
with lusers much more interesting. Ciders have been spoken of highly;
myself I stick with Woodchuck (at $3 for a 1.5 Litre bottle, it can't be
beaten), but there are various other choices. Unfortunately, really good
cider is hard to find in many places.
We had an informal survey into the ASR booze of choice, and the only thing
was resolved in terms of ASR beer preference is that yes, there is indeed
a lot of choice. (Oh, and that ASR readers have excellent taste and drink
like crazy) There are lots of net resources for this. I recommend
alt.drunken.bastards. Try http://www.mindspring.com/~jlock/ for beer info.
For more interesting things, rec.drugs.* can help you. See
http://www.hyperreal.com/drugs/ for more info (for educational use only, etc)
5.2) The excuse server
This is an important net resource, that lets you give the exact reason
why you can't do something yesterday. http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh/
Or telnet bofh.jive.org 666
5.3) The insults server
Once you have got rid of your lusers, you will probably want to tell them
what they really are. For this, the insults server is useful.
telnet insulthost.colorado.edu 1695
5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards?
Downward. See http://ash.xanthia.com/
5.5) Sysadmin Tools
There are a number of tools that make being a sysadmin important. Most
important are chemical by nature; see 5.1. A particularly useful tool,
revered by many of ASR, is the noble chocolate covered coffee bean. A
partial list of places where these fine things may be found is at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/cceb.html
You can also make your own. Melt some chocolate, place some coffee beans
in it, and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle!
For a stronger caffeine hit, try
D&E Pharmaceuticals & Nutritionals
206 Macopin Road
Bloomingdale, NJ 07403 USA
1-800-221-1833
Next in line is a good LART. A 2x4 works fine, but a real professional
needs something a little more effective. Unfortunately, this is a very
personal thing, and no consensus has yet been reached on the group.
Everything from a simple, 7.65mm Walther (for the Bond fans only, it's not a
very good gun) to a 155mm with depleted Uranium rounds has been suggested,
some even going for exotic things like Thermite, nukes or flamethrowers.
For further info, look at the rec.guns home page (http://recguns.com)
You can find a lot of cool stuff at Military Surplus stores. (Sadly, they
don't sell the _really_ interesting surplus stuff like tanks or F16s)
Try US Cavalry, 1-800-777-7732. (or www.uscav.com)
When you can't use the LART (eg, you don't want to damage a computer),
water pistols and Nerfs are excellent substitutes. Nerfs, for those of
you outside the US, are a range of foam weapons. Don't leave ~ without
it. The leatherman is another useful tool. The Perl of swiss army knifes,
this shouldn't be too hard to find.
Finally, there are some tools a sysadmin is forbidden from having. Adequate
computing power is first on this list, but the most important is called a
"life".
[ FAQ maintainers note: could someone send me some info on this? I've
heard of it, but never had one. I have been told it is a simulation
environment of cellular automata.]
5.6) Psychiatric Assistance
If you are reading this, you need it. Contact your health insurance, and
look at the Mental health net. http://www.cmhcsys.com/welcome.htm
-----
6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!!
6.1) I need some serious info! Help me!
Go away.
6.2) You guys are all meanies/elitist/a bad example/corrupting/fattening
Yep!
6.3) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ???????????
Sounds like you want the Warez-net. Here are a list of some participating
sites:
warez.satanic.org
pcwarez.compumedia.com
warez.phantom.com
ftp.warez.org
warez.internetmci.com
warez.compulog.org
These places also have a good collection of gifs.
(You need to log in with _your own_ name and password)
For more information, look at the Warez-Net home pages at
http://www.cetis.hvu.nl/~koos/warez.html
http://www.afn.org/~riffer/warez.html
http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~mcawolf/warez.html
-----
7) OTHER RESOURCES
7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love...
...alt.folklore.computers
Once a wonderful place, where great hackers strove to discuss mighty deeds
done on real computers, this newsgroup has sadly decayed somewhat in recent
years. With the advent of the minions of the Dark Lord and the even Darker
Lord fighting over their respective toy OSs, the flames have overcome
the real discussion. Though the fight is still going on, many of the eldar
hackers have despaired of the net, fleeing the shores of AFC for good.
(some have come here). Sic transit gloria mundi.
Still worth a read, just be sure to have a kill file.
...the jargon file
Not _particularly_ sysadmin related, this is rather a document on the
general computer lore. May be found at http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html
...alt.fan.pratchett
For some reason, there seems to be a large amount of synergy between the
followers of the eternal Mr. Pratchett and ourselves. You be the judge.
...alt.fan.mailer-daemon
"a hillariously poorly propogated newsgroup that hardly anybody is ever
likely to read."
...Various cartoons
Popular web cartoons in the group include: Pokey the Penguin, User Friendly,
Sluggy Freelance and Goats. All on the web, you can presumebly find them
yourself.
...alt.suicide.holiday
Name says it all, really.
--
Matthew Crosby cro...@cs.colorado.edu
Disclaimer: It was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.
Will England
<cro...@cs.colorado.edu> wrote:
>Archive-name: sysadmin-recovery
Say, did anyone . . . Nah.. Noone would've.
Nevermind.
ObChangingRequirements: Just spent like 5 days installing $software
that does $things. Now, boss wants it to do $other_things which
it can't do. Only $other_more_screwed_up package can do $other_things.
And, it was due yesterday. [1]
Down, not across
Will
1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
Peter N. M. Hansteen
> 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
"labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
level is apparently not what it should be yet.
--
SPECIAL OFFER! I proofread unsolicited commercial email sent to this
address at a rate of US $500.00 per incident! Include billing address
in your message and save US $500.00 per hour off ordinary address
resolution and tracking charge!
Peter Dalgaard BSA
> wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
>
> > 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> > Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
>
> Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
> "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
> level is apparently not what it should be yet.
Over here it's the "Workers International Battle Day", celebrated by
people going to a park and drinking beer in the sun (if available).
--
O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3
c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N
(*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dal...@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907
Christer Mort Boräng
> Over here it's the "Workers International Battle Day", celebrated by
> people going to a park and drinking beer in the sun (if available).
Here, the day before (Walpurgisnight) is celebrated more vigorously,
at least by people I know. Also, it's sort of tradition to party until
the demonstration march passes by our university, and then toast them
in champagne as they pass by. Wearing, preferrably, a tux. Somehow,
they don't appreciate that...
//Christer
--
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"An NT server can be run by an idiot, and usually is." -- Tom Holub, a.h.b-o-i
Peter da Silva
Peter N. M. Hansteen <pe...@datadok.no> wrote:
>wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
>> 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
>> Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
>Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
>"labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
>level is apparently not what it should be yet.
Yah. I was talking to some EuroMonks on Labor Day and mentioned that it
was a holiday over here. What holiday, they ask? Why, May Day, I answered.
Much amusing confusion ensued.
--
Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC. WWFD?
"Be conservative in what you generate, and liberal in what you accept"
-- Matthew 10:16 (l.trans)
Jan Ingvoldstad
Crosby") said:
> 1. A BOFH must not destroy useful[1] technology, or through inaction
> allow useful technology to come to harm.
This reminds me, there should be a point in the FAQ about how all
those unreferenced footnote errors are old and tired jokes, too.
*hint* :)
--
ASR: We took both pills.
peter.v...@yucom.be
> 1.7) The BOFH hierarchy
>
> ASR is such a cool newsgroup, we even have our own hierarchy! Try that,
> soc.singles. This is the bofh.* hierarchy. (I'm actually not sure who
> people should contact. Anyone?)
(with-request (:type :UI)
Qrne Nalbar,
Jbhyq fbzr xvaq zbax gryy zr jurer n (abj rk-)obsu pna svaq n sevraqyl
arjfreire pybfr gb .or? Znvayl sbe crefbany yhexvat hfr...
Gunaxf va nqinapr)
Groetjes, Peter
--
pvaneynd (at) debian dot org
AndrewV
>
>Jbhyq fbzr xvaq zbax gryy zr jurer n (abj rk-)obsu pna svaq n sevraqyl
>arjfreire pybfr gb .or? Znvayl sbe crefbany yhexvat hfr...
>
Hmmm...Anything further on this is probably better done by email.
--
AndrewV -- Disce aut discede.
Peter Dalgaard BSA
> On Wed, 06 Sep 2000 11:53:01 GMT, peter.v...@yucom.be wrote:
> >
> >Jbhyq fbzr xvaq zbax gryy zr jurer n (abj rk-)obsu pna svaq n sevraqyl
> >arjfreire pybfr gb .or? Znvayl sbe crefbany yhexvat hfr...
> >
>
> Hmmm...Anything further on this is probably better done by email.
Right. The whole *point* of writing it in the FAQ is that this is the
one place noone would look for it....
David P. Murphy
> This reminds me, there should be a point in the FAQ about how all
> those unreferenced footnote errors are old and tired jokes, too.
> *hint* :)
Well, since the FAQ does not specifically describe smileys as "lame",
there's no point in singling footnote errors out either.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:dmu...@ac-tech.com (work)
David Scheidt
:> 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
:> Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
: Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
: "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
: level is apparently not what it should be yet.
Yup. Same thing. Except of course if you ask a commie conspiracy freak.
Then you get some rant about the american labour day being a farce, a
mocking of labour, and that those that celebrate it will be the first
against the wall when the revolution comes.
--
[I]f you're hungry enough to eat a feral cat, you're hungry enough to
eat somebody else's pet cat. -- Cindy Kandolf
AndrewV
<p.dal...@biostat.ku.dk> wrote:
>Right. The whole *point* of writing it in the FAQ is that this is the
>one place noone would look for it....
>
Exactly. Those who *most* need it never do. QED.
j...@dowcarter.com
> ObChangingRequirements: Just spent like 5 days installing $software
> that does $things. Now, boss wants it to do $other_things which
> it can't do. Only $other_more_screwed_up package can do $other_things.
and presumably $software conflicts with $other_more_screwed_up_package
in an utterly hideous way. And they *need* to do both.
Bah!
--
John M Dow
Director, Systems - dowcarter, Edinburgh, Scotland
"Mixing Kittens and Asps is most definitely a recipe for larger Asps."
Aquarion, in C.S.S.
Will England
>Will England <wi...@mylanders.com> wrote:
>
>> ObChangingRequirements: Just spent like 5 days installing $software
>> that does $things. Now, boss wants it to do $other_things which
>> it can't do. Only $other_more_screwed_up package can do $other_things.
>
>and presumably $software conflicts with $other_more_screwed_up_package
>in an utterly hideous way. And they *need* to do both.
Well, we haven't seen just that yet. $software is the latest and
best supported [1] version of the product. $omsup[9] is the original
version with nice bits that sure would make oure lives easier. But,
being that it is the old version and may not be around too long, it
is just going to *suuucckkk* having to base a *production platform*
on it.
Will
1] For very small values of "Well Supported". As in "read the source,
Luke" values of Well Supported. [2][3]
2] Thank $deity_of_choice that it is OSS.
3] And I seem to have been drafted to be the full time admin / support
engineer for this charlie-foxtrot, in addition to porting about 5KLOC
from Perl to J*va. [4][8]
4] New CEO. New directions in company. Formerly waycool !PHB coder
geek who hired me is growing points and becoming quite adversarial.[5]
5] Why in the F**K can't I find a cool job that lasts more than 6 months?[6]
6] Don't give me that. I am easy to get along with. I genuinely like the
old version of our product that is being replaced by J*va S**vlets [7]
7} Down, not across, I know.
8] Yes, y'all did tell me so. See [7].
9] $other_more_screwed_up_package. See original post.
--
"If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented spellcheck!"
Dan Quayle, quoted at the National Press Club, 8/3/1999
pgpkey at http://will.mylanders.com/pub_pgp.asc
Recovery page: http://will.mylanders.com/ wi...@mylanders.com
Jonathan Fosburgh
> Surely we are all too familliar with due dates of yesterday? Of course
> such requests get the same attention as the ones carrying the keywords
> ASAP and URGENT. Indeed the following is en extract from a mail I got
> today (stuff elided for obvious reasons)
I particularly like the STAT requests (this is a hospital) that come
in say, while the entire staff is at lunch, or even better:
Please add the following $BIGNUM accounts STAT, they will be expecting
to start using the system first thing tomorrow morning. This is, of
course, sent at 8:00 PM. And not sent to the person who is actually
creating the accounts. And he doesn't forward it to me for a few
hours. And ...
--
Jonathan Fosburgh
Paul Tomko
Paul Mc Auley <pmca...@iol.ie> wrote:
>Subject: Mission critical IT Request
>Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 22:14:04 +0100
>
>Need either:
>
><stuff>
>
>This must be resolved before 10:00am Sept 6th 2000, or planes will fall out
>of the sky.
>--->8-----
>
>Bear in mind the only text I've _added_ is '<stuff>'
I'm still steaming over getting an "URGENT" call at 3:00 A.M. because
some data was missing in our database. I looked into it and found that
General Ledger had not posted the data yet, and so it had therefore
not been sent to us yet. So, I call the whiner back and explain the problem,
and even offer to call someone from the General Ledger group. "Oh, that's
all right. It can wait until they come in tomorrow."
Either I'm not being enough of a bastard, or these people are masochists.
Paul
--
Paul Tomko pa...@tomkoinc.com http://www.tomkoinc.com
10000+ Humorous Quotes http://www.tomkoinc.com/quotes.html
"Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine
print taketh away." - fortune file
Justin Moe
[snip]
->3] And I seem to have been drafted to be the full time admin / support
-> engineer for this charlie-foxtrot, in addition to porting about 5KLOC
-> from Perl to J*va. [4][8]
[snip]
ObPetPeeve: What the fuck are these people thinking??????!?!?!?!
I know J*va is the 'sexy' language to code in, but WTF?!?!?!?!
I've seen DNS done in J*va
I've seen mail swervers done in J*va
I've seen just about anything and everything done in J*va.
WHY?????
Dear God, Tektronix for the Phaser $model had the remote admin app for
Snore-vell written by Tek India in freaking J*va[1], using M$ own J*va VM[2].
If it's going to be for M$ only, VB would have been a better choice than a
J*va that is full of M$-only bits.
*poundpoundfoamatmouth*
ObGloatandhappyness: My clickity-click keyboards came in, key caps in all!
I've now got four of them, with one already put into use[3]. Ahh, heaven.
[1] And it never did work as advertised for us in the lab.
[2] As if what it was written in was not bad enough...
[3] These were *dirty* keyboards. Had to clean them up of course.
--
Every time I hear the name of that certain town in Maine, I can't help but
think of _It_. But what I want to know, is why the cafe'-type-thing
downstairs at work has a sign with a picture of Pennywise on it?
* Justin The Cynical - cyn...@penguinness.org*
Jasper Janssen
>ObGloatandhappyness: My clickity-click keyboards came in, key caps in all!
>I've now got four of them, with one already put into use[3]. Ahh, heaven.
What's so gloatworthy about that, anyway? I can get 'em by the
caseloads at something like $10 each used..
(and have, on occasion..)
Jasper
Rik Steenwinkel
persuaded newsservers all over the world to carry the following:
} ab...@127.0.0.1 (Justin Moe) wrote:
}
} >ObGloatandhappyness: My clickity-click keyboards came in, key caps in all!
} >I've now got four of them, with one already put into use[3]. Ahh, heaven.
}
} What's so gloatworthy about that, anyway? I can get 'em by the
} caseloads at something like $10 each used..
Try dfl.5, used, with PS/2 connector.
--
// Rik Steenwinkel # VMS mercenary # Enschede, Netherlands
T. M. Pederson
Justin Moe <cyn...@penguinness.org> wrote:
[...]
>ObPetPeeve: What the fuck are these people thinking??????!?!?!?!
>
>I know J*va is the 'sexy' language to code in, but WTF?!?!?!?!
>
>I've seen DNS done in J*va
>I've seen mail swervers done in J*va
>I've seen just about anything and everything done in J*va.
>
>WHY?????
Dunno.
This week I ran into snmpget reimplemented in tcl.
--
T. M. Pederson <sal...@plethora.net>
PGP key can be found at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/
"...and so the moral of the story is: Always make backups."
"But that was the moral last night, and the night before that too!"
Justin Moe
->On Fri, 8 Sep 2000 02:29:16, Jasper Janssen <jas...@insaneoc.com>
->persuaded newsservers all over the world to carry the following:
->
->} ab...@127.0.0.1 (Justin Moe) wrote:
->}
->} >ObGloatandhappyness: My clickity-click keyboards came in, key caps in all!
->} >I've now got four of them, with one already put into use[3]. Ahh, heaven.
->}
->} What's so gloatworthy about that, anyway? I can get 'em by the
->} caseloads at something like $10 each used..
->
->Try dfl.5, used, with PS/2 connector.
Hrm. Either I'm not looking in the right places or they are easier to come
by where you are. Those keyboards are hard to come by around my area, and
usually are sold for around ~$50 each, if one can find them. I've seen them
go for said price on $WEB_PAGE as well.
Oh well. Anyone else want a little bit of pie?
Peter da Silva
>Whilst Java can be quite useful it is definately starting to turn into a
>form of snake oil - "If we write this in Java then all of our problems will
>be magically solved and we become platform independant" (this comment is
>especially silly if they're using the M$ specific extensions or are doing
>something horribly machine specific like management software for RAID
>controllers).
Well, Java is slightly less sucky than C++, so that's a bonus.
Though much to my surprise it looks like Livescript (AKA javascript) is
looking like a decent language. Possibly the best since Smalltalk (the
only other language I've run into that uses prototypes for inheritence
is Ruby, and that's full of horrid perlisms).
Now I just need a good command line Livescript package...
Ewen McNeill
Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>In article <8pilnd$di1$1...@triad.bpfh.net>, Simon Burr <si...@bpfh.net> wrote:
>>Whilst Java can be quite useful it is definately starting to turn into a
>
>Well, Java is slightly less sucky than C++, so that's a bonus.
It is? You could have fooled me. I can really live without having to
manually wrap and unwarp primitive types to be able to put them into
containers, having to manually cast back and forth between void *^W^WObject
and so on. And the hacks to deal with single inheritence can be
somewhat painful at times as well.
And that's without getting into implementation difficulties (run speed,
memory usage, etc).
C++ before the standard library I could take or leave; C++ with the
standard library is something I won't give up easily. C++ might suck in
a multitude of ways, but not "slightly more" than Java.
Java is a reasonable, fairly small, semi-OO language, reasonably useful
for cross platform GUI work, but I've long been dubious about the hype
that goes with it. And I'm even a "Sun Certified Java 1.1 Programmer".[0]
Ewen
[0] One of my clients wanted it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
--
Ewen McNeill, ew...@naos.co.nz
Peter da Silva
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>So can anyone here explain to me why Java is the language of choice
>for the next generation of SCPs? Using Java to do realtime call control
>seems like something of an own goal from where I sit, but apparently
>it's the Way of the Future(TM).
And you're surprised by this?
Ewen McNeill
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>So can anyone here explain to me why Java is the language of choice
>for the next generation of SCPs? Using Java to do realtime call control
>seems like something of an own goal from where I sit, but apparently
>it's the Way of the Future(TM).
Oh but it is the Way of the Future (tm).
Java is clearly suited to real time control systems, having as it does
such wonderfully predictable run patterns, with such efficient threading
behaviour. Of course for best results you should implement your own
interpreted language in Java.[0] And it should be entirely graphical,
because graphical languages are much easier to understand, especially
when all of the statements are represented by little circles of exactly
the same size and colour. And the application should be split into at
least two bits which communicate using RMI.[1] And doing anything
useful in the application (such as communicating with the real world)
should require a round trip through all the components using RMI before
anything happens.
Oh and for bonus points the GUI should be implemented in client server
fashion with the server (which is also a GUI program), and should use
RMI to communicate with the server, and these GUIs should be designed by
one of those fancy GUI design tool kits which positions everything with
pixel perfect accuracy on some random platform.
Did I mention this is a purely hypothetical situation?[2]
Such a system should give at least within-a-second-or-so response time
to real world events given some careful tuning. Of course it would also
need some fairly grunty hardware to run on. Which might be something
of a bonus if you happen to be a hardware vendor.
Ewen
[0] This is a totally fictional situation. Any resemblances to real life
are purely coincidental.[2]
[1] Remote Method Invocation; think RPC for Java.
[2] Michael I can hear you laughing from here.
--
Ewen McNeill, ew...@naos.co.nz
Peter da Silva
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>Not really. I think I may once have had this strange idea that
>people make technical decisions for technical reasons,
Not in Bill Gates America!
Peter da Silva
>[4] Case in point, the project to develop a SNMP suite in tcl.
Develop one? What's wrong with using the one that already exists?
T. M. Pederson
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>In <8pl1mh$317t$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>, Peter da Silva wrote:
>>In article <slrn8rrtc2.90...@equilibrium.org>,
>>Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>>>So can anyone here explain to me why Java is the language of choice
>>>for the next generation of SCPs? Using Java to do realtime call control
>>>seems like something of an own goal from where I sit, but apparently
>>>it's the Way of the Future(TM).
>>
>>And you're surprised by this?
>
>was still operating under that particular delusion when I started
>working at the present place, it was soon shattered.
At ork, the department has decided for "future maintenance"
to only use a set of four[1] languages for development. This
seems[2] vaguely sensible[3], but is still subject to utterly
broken application.[4]
At least I have no PHBs at the moment.
[...]
>[0] NMF
[1] Or five, I've never stopped to get a precise list. Most
of them are vaguely useable, but when performance actually
makes it on the list of requirements, Java is the only
candidate.
[2] This is likely a bad sign.
[3] Or not apparently not sensible. It at least prevents the
"I've never heard of that language" issues which were
apparently a problem previously.
[4] Case in point, the project to develop a SNMP suite in tcl.
After running into performance issues, I was asked to slap
together a few test cases to see if something in Perl or
Java could get better performance.
T. M. Pederson
>
What? A tcl version already exists?
While discussing various projects, goals and such with the project
leads, that portion of the conversation went something like...
Lead: "Well, $PROGRAMMER did a prototype in tcl for utilities to
monitor $BIGNUM switches, but there are performance issues."
Me: [Not surprised. Mention off-hand possibilities, including
slapping together snmpget with $FEATURE.]
Lead: "Oh, that's too ambitious for an initial prototype. Just
do-" [describes snmpget].
Me: [Stunned.] "But that's already installed on most of our
boxen."
Peter da Silva
>In article <8ponc1$1ugt$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>,
>Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>>In article <968840038.589320@m1>, T. M. Pederson <sal...@plethora.net> wrote:
>>>[4] Case in point, the project to develop a SNMP suite in tcl.
>>Develop one? What's wrong with using the one that already exists?
>What? A tcl version already exists?
You haven't looked at http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~schoenw/scotty/ ?
T. M. Pederson
Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>In article <968897505.543000@m1>, T. M. Pederson <sal...@plethora.net> wrote:
>>In article <8ponc1$1ugt$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>,
>>Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>>>In article <968840038.589320@m1>, T. M. Pederson <sal...@plethora.net> wrote:
>>>>[4] Case in point, the project to develop a SNMP suite in tcl.
>
>>>Develop one? What's wrong with using the one that already exists?
>
>>What? A tcl version already exists?
>
>You haven't looked at http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~schoenw/scotty/ ?
Oh that. That was the starting point, but $COMPANY was trying to go
from there to something comparable to the ucd-snmp suite + @FEATURE.
Now it's running with the ucd-snmp suite and having me add a bit of
glue[1] to get the last $FEATURE or two for $PROJECT.
The scotty based... utilities were consistently too slow for use in
$PROJECT by several orders of magnitude.
[1] Likely in Perl, or possibly Java.
Shalon Wood
> Lead: "Oh, that's too ambitious for an initial prototype. Just
> do-" [describes snmpget].
>
> Me: [Stunned.] "But that's already installed on most of our
> boxen."
No, no, no! "Ok. It'll take me a couple of weeks, maybe a month."
<spend time recovering>
"Ok, it's done."
Shalon Wood
--
"The PROPER way to handle HTML postings is to cancel the article, then hire a
hitman to kill the poster, his wife and kids, and fuck his dog and smash his
computer into little bits. Anything more is just extremism." - Paul Tomblin
D. Joseph Creighton
}sal...@plethora.net (T. M. Pederson) writes:
}> do-" [describes snmpget].
}>
}> Me: [Stunned.] "But that's already installed on most of our
}> boxen."
}
}<spend time recovering>
}"Ok, it's done."
Are you an engineer?
--
"When in doubt, use brute force." - Ken Thompson
D. Joseph Creighton [ESTP] | Programmer Analyst, Database Technologies, IST
Joe_Cr...@UManitoba.CA | University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, Canada, eh?
Shalon Wood
> In the last exciting episode, Shalon Wood <ds...@nospam.dummy.pele.cx> wrote:
> }sal...@plethora.net (T. M. Pederson) writes:
> }> Lead: "Oh, that's too ambitious for an initial prototype. Just
> }> do-" [describes snmpget].
> }>
> }> Me: [Stunned.] "But that's already installed on most of our
> }> boxen."
> }
> }No, no, no! "Ok. It'll take me a couple of weeks, maybe a month."
> }<spend time recovering>
> }"Ok, it's done."
>
> Are you an engineer?
Of course not. I would have said months, maybe a year if so.
Jan Ingvoldstad
<ds...@nospam.dummy.pele.cx> said:
> Of course not. I would have said months, maybe a year if so.
"But maybe with additional funding, we can get it done in half that
time."
--
ASR: We took both pills.
T. M. Pederson
>> do-" [describes snmpget].
>>
>> Me: [Stunned.] "But that's already installed on most of our
>> boxen."
>
><spend time recovering>
>"Ok, it's done."
There is that, but there are enough cluons around here that I
couldn't have gotten away with it for more than a few days.
On the other hand, the bogon flux is rising rapidly outside
the department. Due to recent changes, $COMPANY has found
itself overstaffed, except in the department I'm in, which is
woefully understaffed. Now, the factor to consider here is
that the local department is one of the cornerstones of
$COMPANY, and is heavily staffed by contractors[1]. Naturally,
manglement appears to be considering a blanket "contract
renegotiation" downward, far downward.
There are other signs... On Tuesday I got a message from
elsewhere saying "fill out this equipment inventory and return
it by Friday[2]." Said equipment form was some variation of
a MS Word file.
Now, of all the equipment on my desk, only box two had to be
inventoried; everything else was department issue and didn't
exist as far as manglement was concered.
Box two[3] has an ancient[4] copy of Dead Rat installed, and
is supposed to have fixes and updates pushed out to it
occasionaly from somewhere in $OTHER_DEPARTMENT, but there's
been no sign of that the whole time[5] I've been at $COMPANY.
It also happens to be configured to connect to a Winframe
swerver.
Now, when I got to $COMPANY, and box two was installed, I
briefly checked the Winframe connection, verified that it
aborted immedately, reported it and thereafter ignored it.
So, of course, upon finally "needing" the connection, it
still hadn't been fixed.
A day of digging through the scrambled setup revealed the
biggest problem, in a file with $PRIMARY_ADMIN's name listed
as author. Now $PRIMARY_ADMIN has spare cluons, so this
seemed rather strange. Further research revealed that
$OTHER_DEPARTMENT made some undocumented "fixes" way back,
and had pushed the results out into production.
$PRIMARY_ADMIN, is now "talking" to people. Meanwhile, I
figure out a workaround, and get Winframe launched.
After much painful mucking with the interface[6][7], and
dealing with an update finally getting pushed out[8] to the
box on my desk, I got the file over to the swerver, edited it,
and got a copy back to the one mail enabled box in the
area.[9] I replied to the original post, attached the file,
and typed 'send'.
Mail swerver down the chain reported a virus in the file, and
zapped the message.[10] $MANGLER sends another version of
the file the next day, this time one without a virus.[11]
[1] Both the project lead and I happen to have our contracts
through the same contracting firm. And he's generally
better at tracking manglement based stuff than I am, so
I've been taking advantage of that.
[2] I'll be out of town on Friday.
[3] Box one is a Sparc, was set up by $PRIMARY_ADMIN, and has
been perfectly adequate all along. Box two was provided
by $OTHER_DEPARTMENT, does not follow the specs
$PRIMARY_ADMIN advised, and I ignore it as much as
possible.
[4] There are files on it with a timestamp (year part) of
"1910".
[5] ~275 days or so.
[6] I know almost nothing of Windows or the NT cli, and
$COMPANY has no documentation on either.
[7] The constant crashes didn't help either.
[8] Which managed to break setting/saving preferences, and
had no other visible effect.
[9] The internal mail routes are incredibly arcane, and only
mail sent from ONE[9a] particular box can get to any
destination.
[9a] Not entirely accurate. There is a second box that can
route anywhere, but it's too kludged to be viable.
[10] Which is better than what it's done with most mail, which
is route to /dev/null.
[11] Like that helps after the virus has already gotten into
everything on the swerver.
T. M. Pederson
Anthony DeBoer <a...@news.onramp.ca> wrote:
>T. M. Pederson staggered into the Black Sun and said:
>>There are other signs... On Tuesday I got a message from
>>elsewhere saying "fill out this equipment inventory and return
>>it by Friday[2]." Said equipment form was some variation of
>>a MS Word file.
>
>reply in a vi(1) or such that didn't barf on all the binary glue, using
>of course reasonable quoting rules, how much of a party the original
>party would have trying to open the resultant half-binary-half-plaintext
>turdlet in Word.
I'm sure if I did that, the mangler would respond with:
"the inventory sheet you sent me was damaged, so here's a new
master copy to fill out."[1]
>[2] When it just has to get there, use the best and prettiest courier.
But that would involve printing! And when I deal with printers,
I get the sort of effect that most Monks see when dealing with
a bloodthirsty SCSI chain.
[1] The original attachment had a virus, which promptly
infected the framed swerver. When the mangler realized
this, he sent out duplicate clean copies of the file
to his previous victims...
Kai Henningsen
> wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
>
> > 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> > Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
>
> Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
> "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
> level is apparently not what it should be yet.
"Tag der Arbeit", Labour's day, over here. May 1. The unions always so a
big demonstration about something.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Kai Henningsen
> In <7lyFg...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >pe...@datadok.no (Peter N . M . Hansteen) wrote on 06.09.00 in
> ><wkya169...@datadok.no>:
> >> wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
> >>
> >> > 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> >> > Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
> >>
> >> Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
> >> "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
> >> level is apparently not what it should be yet.
> >
> >"Tag der Arbeit", Labour's day, over here. May 1. The unions always so a
> >big demonstration about something.
>
> Protesting for the right to reintroduce virgin sacrifice?
I don't remember that one.
Emily Gladstone
> In <7lyFg...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >pe...@datadok.no (Peter N . M . Hansteen) wrote on 06.09.00 in <wkya169...@datadok.no>:
> >
> >> wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
> >>
> >> > 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> >> > Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
> >>
> >> Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
> >> "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
> >> level is apparently not what it should be yet.
> >
> >"Tag der Arbeit", Labour's day, over here. May 1. The unions always so a
> >big demonstration about something.
>
> Protesting for the right to reintroduce virgin sacrifice?
I've already sacrificed my virginity once, and the sacrifice was
not appreciated. You expect me to go through that again?
Like hell I will. :)
Emily
--
Emily Gladstone | glad+...@equilibrium.org | Sysadmin/Dancer/Actress
Emily isn't evil, she's just up to no good...
Lurking Girl
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>In <slrn8slp5t.2l...@vanye.equilibrium.org>, Emily Gladstone wrote:
>>
>>I've already sacrificed my virginity once, and the sacrifice was
>>not appreciated. You expect me to go through that again?
>
>
>(or are those assigned by your HMO, like doctors are?)
Managed care, baby.
Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
Well, except for the _other_ CCC, who objected vigorously and demanded
that our funding get revoked. They're just jealous cos none of THEIR
deities actually show up to events.
--
Victoria Swann to...@cugc.org
A friend in need is a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better;
A friend with breasts and all the rest, a friend who's dressed in leather.
--Placebo, "Pure Morning"
Paul R. Joslin
> Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
> April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
> of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
--
Paul R. Joslin paul . joslin at sdrc . com
"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work
and to play and to look at the stars." -- Henry Van Dyke
Eric The Read
> Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
> Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
Nah, that would get you arrested if you did it in public. Sacrificing a
virgin, OTOH, is protected by the establishment clause, and is thus much
safer.
-=Eric
--
"Not long enough ago. Or far enough away. Although it was rather
far out, and they were living in some other century."
"And besides, the network's dead."
-- Zebee <ze...@zip.com.au> and Joe <sp...@orion-com.com> in ASR.
Lurking Girl
Paul R. Joslin <paul....@weirdness.com> wrote:
>
>Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
>Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
Women can go topless in NYC now, but sex in the middle of what is
nominally W. 116th St. will still get you shipped to a place where
one could lose a whole different kind of virginity.
Clearly more protests are in order.
Zebee Johnstone
>> Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
>> April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
>> of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
>
>Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
Rare? Don't be silly. Go to any computer terminal lab after 9pm,
you'll find all the virgins you need.
If you want *female* ones, then that's harder, but you didn't specify
that.
SilverOz
Mike Sphar
once write the following? Read the book:
>I've already sacrificed my virginity once, and the sacrifice was
>not appreciated. You expect me to go through that again?
Heh, reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
In the news today, a woman was awarded $6500 for the loss of her virginity.
All I ever got was a bottle of tequila and a stiff neck.
-- Lori Thompson on SF radio station Live 105
--
Mike Sphar http://www.dogfacedboy.org/
This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.
-- Vyvyan, "The Young Ones"
Kai Henningsen
> In <7mI1v...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 17.09.00 in
> ><slrn8s8cq4.90...@equilibrium.org>:
> >> In <7lyFg...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >> >pe...@datadok.no (Peter N . M . Hansteen) wrote on 06.09.00 in
> >> ><wkya169...@datadok.no>:
> >> >> wi...@mylanders.com (Will England) writes:
> >> >>
> >> >> > 1] For non-murricans, Yesterday was a national holiday called "Labor
> >> >> > Day". Which we celebrate by . . . Not Working.
> >> >>
> >> >> Ah, just like we do here every May 1st, then. IIRC it's even called
> >> >> "labour day" or maybe it was "international workers' day". My caffeine
> >> >> level is apparently not what it should be yet.
> >> >
> >> >"Tag der Arbeit", Labour's day, over here. May 1. The unions always so a
> >> >big demonstration about something.
> >>
> >> Protesting for the right to reintroduce virgin sacrifice?
> >
> >I don't remember that one.
>
> Some Mayday celebrations used to involve virgin sacrifice, but
> that _probably_ predates the union movement, at least in it's
> current form...
Well, it probably predates mass conversion to Christianity.
Kai Henningsen
> In article <slrn8sm6sp.90...@equilibrium.org>,
> Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
> >In <slrn8slp5t.2l...@vanye.equilibrium.org>, Emily Gladstone
> >>wrote:
> >>I've already sacrificed my virginity once, and the sacrifice was
> >>not appreciated. You expect me to go through that again?
> >
> >You should've picked a better High Priest...
> >
> >(or are those assigned by your HMO, like doctors are?)
>
> Managed care, baby.
>
> Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
> April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
> of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
>
> Well, except for the _other_ CCC, who objected vigorously and demanded
> that our funding get revoked. They're just jealous cos none of THEIR
> deities actually show up to events.
Well, I know the CCC has an ICANN candidate with lots of votes, but if
they needed virgin sacrifices to get all those votes, why go to Columbia
of all places?!
Rob Adams
>Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
>April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
>of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
Did anyone else parse that as Clue Clux Clan ???
Rob.
--
Email header munged figure this out..
robadams (at) ozemail {dit} com (dit) au
Warning: Some of my best mistakes are yet to be made.
Kai Henningsen
> But the idea of unionization probably predates Christianity,
> too. Just not at the bottom of the heap.
No? I'd say Spartacus was about as bottom of the heap as they get.
Of course, his goals were a bit different from modern unions.
> Guilds, for example,
> are pretty union-like.
Significant difference here: the unions I know take just about everyone
they can get, whereas a typical guild will spend serious energy to avoid
taking new people. Guilds are about suppressing competition (and some
other stuff, too, of course).
Kai Henningsen
> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 22 Sep 2000 13:31:35 -0400
> Paul R. Joslin <paul....@weirdness.com> wrote:
> >to...@cugc.org (Lurking Girl) writes:
> >> Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just last
> >> April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the middle
> >> of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
> >
> >Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
> >Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
>
> Rare? Don't be silly. Go to any computer terminal lab after 9pm,
> you'll find all the virgins you need.
>
> If you want *female* ones, then that's harder, but you didn't specify
> that.
I expect these days, you'll find female ones as well.
Tai
>On 14 Sep 2000 14:57:09 -0500, Shalon Wood
><ds...@nospam.dummy.pele.cx> said:
>
>> Of course not. I would have said months, maybe a year if so.
>
>"But maybe with additional funding, we can get it done in half that
>time."
I will also need a couple of test boxes[1] and one of those
color Clies and a wireless modem to test wap compatibility.
-Tai
[1] Forever impressed by friend who kindly donated his CDROM
drive for some $project, and then ordered some random cdrom kit.
"Golly gee, look, it came with a sound card".
--
www.dotcomfailures.com
www.fuckedcompany.com
Dave Howe
+0930]), Rob Adams <nob...@ozemail.com.au> said :
>Did anyone else parse that as Clue Clux Clan ???
down and burn them on crosses? :+)
--
--== DaveHowe ( is at) Bigfoot dot com ==--
Disclaimer: No insecure Mail Servers were Defiled
in the making of this post
Rob Hagman
>
>Yeah, but they probably won't be virgins. Not for long, anyway.
>
getting screwed by some $VBC doesn't count.
Rob
--
Yup still no .sig
Paul R. Joslin
> In article <u4s38m...@weirdness.com>,
> Paul R. Joslin <paul....@weirdness.com> wrote:
> >
> >Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
> >Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
>
> Women can go topless in NYC now, but sex in the middle of what is
> nominally W. 116th St. will still get you shipped to a place where
> one could lose a whole different kind of virginity.
>
> Clearly more protests are in order.
>
One could certainly profit by selling MPEGs of the acts of civil
disobedience...
--
Paul R. Joslin paul . joslin at sdrc . com
"No one grows old by living--only by losing interest in living."
-- Marie Beynon Ray
Mike Sphar
Rankin Jr) once write the following? Read the book:
>Most professional organizations (and yes, I include USENIX and SAGE)
>are little better than clubs with neat publications and agreeable
>spending habits. They don't come close to being either a guild or a
>union.
Thank $DEITY, otherwise I wouldn't be a member of USENIX/SAGE. I did my
time at a union job. Never again.
--
Mike Sphar http://www.dogfacedboy.org/
Everyone gives lip service to that 7 layer model but that fact is that
the only thing that has ever been truly OSI 7 layer compliant is the
Taco Bell 7 Layer Burrito. -- Kent "Dogman" Dahlgren
Kai Henningsen
> In <7mQxe...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 23.09.00 in
> ><slrn8so519.90...@equilibrium.org>:
> >> But the idea of unionization probably predates Christianity,
> >> too. Just not at the bottom of the heap.
> >
> >No? I'd say Spartacus was about as bottom of the heap as they get.
> >
> >Of course, his goals were a bit different from modern unions.
>
> Not my area, so I'll take your word for it (for now).
Roman slave uprising leader. Got a number of military victories before
they finally managed to mow him under. Didn't quite improve land value in
Italy.
> >> Guilds, for example,
> >> are pretty union-like.
> >
> >Significant difference here: the unions I know take just about everyone
> >they can get, whereas a typical guild will spend serious energy to avoid
> >taking new people. Guilds are about suppressing competition (and some
> >other stuff, too, of course).
>
> Not all unions take anyone who wants to join. The MUA (dock workers
> union here in Australia) protects their members quite vigorously, and
> you practically have to be *born* into the industry to get in.
Well, I put that qualification in for a reason.
Kai Henningsen
> In <7mQxf...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >ze...@zip.com.au (Zebee Johnstone) wrote on 23.09.00 in
> ><slrn8snrbh...@zipperii.zip.com.au>:
> >> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 22 Sep 2000 13:31:35 -0400
> >> Paul R. Joslin <paul....@weirdness.com> wrote:
> >> >to...@cugc.org (Lurking Girl) writes:
> >> >> Seriously though, there's always an alternative choice. Why, just
> >> >> last April, the Columbia CCC sacrificed a virgin to Cthulhu (in the
> >> >> middle of campus); everyone involved seemed most appreciative.
> >> >
> >> >Sacrificing a virgin? You know how rare those are on campus!
> >> >Wouldn't it be much more sensible to just sacrifice their virginity?
> >>
> >> Rare? Don't be silly. Go to any computer terminal lab after 9pm,
> >> you'll find all the virgins you need.
> >>
> >> If you want *female* ones, then that's harder, but you didn't specify
> >> that.
> >
> >I expect these days, you'll find female ones as well.
>
> Yeah, but they probably won't be virgins. Not for long, anyway.
For about as long as their male counterparts, for the exact same reasons.
It's an equal-opportunity social affliction. And it's not really necessary
in either case.
Mike Andrews
=>>Most professional organizations (and yes, I include USENIX and SAGE)
=>>are little better than clubs with neat publications and agreeable
=>>spending habits. They don't come close to being either a guild or a
=>>union.
=>
=> Depends on the organisation. In IT, yes, that's perfectly true. Some
=> of the more established professions like medicine or law, though...
If you define "profession" as "group which is regulated by its
professional association" (e.g., lawyers and the State Bar
Association; doctors and the State Medical Association; architects
and the State Architectural Association and so on), then there
are damned few professions. And, FWIW, that's one generally-
accepted definition of "profession" here in .us. You'll note that
it's a definition which doesn't fit programmers, sysadmins, etc.;
even though our (oftimes PH) management keep _calling_ us (and
themselves) "professionals".
OTOH, notice that it's damned rare that the Bar Association tells
a lawyer he's not good enough, or the State Medical Association
tells a doctor he shouldn't practice any more. As for architects,
I suspect that their association just tells them to plant more
vines -- unless the building falls down with great loss of lkife.
--
The Internet is totally out of control, impossible to map accurately, and
being used far beyond its original intentions. So far, so good.
-- Dr. Dobb's Journal May 1993
Lurking Girl
Par Leijonhufvud <par...@algonet.se> wrote:
>Mike Andrews <mi...@mikea.ath.cx>:
>> vines -- unless the building falls down with great loss of lkife.
>
I parsed it as "great loss of knife". And couldn't I just use one
this morning. It's clearly Obnoxious User Day in the state of New York.
Mike Andrews
=> In article <8qqbgf$ag1$1...@gruk.algonet.se>,
=> Par Leijonhufvud <par...@algonet.se> wrote:
=>>Mike Andrews <mi...@mikea.ath.cx>:
=>>> vines -- unless the building falls down with great loss of lkife.
=>>
=>>Who else parsed this as "great loss of kif"?
=> I parsed it as "great loss of knife". And couldn't I just use one
=> this morning. It's clearly Obnoxious User Day in the state of New York.
AOL, here in Darkest Oklahoma.
And Yet Again, despite my earnest pleas, warnings, cautions,
admonitions, and just plain threats, one of our lusers sends
the "Wobbler" warning to about bunchteen of our users _and_
_not_ _to_ _me_.
Her LART was a nastygram about what she should have done, Cc:ed
to all the folks she sent the hoax to. I hope it PO's her. I
do. I hope she complains to my boss. He has less patience with
this sort of thing than I do, and _much_ more stroke.
--
Buy 'em books and they'll eat the covers.
void
>
>I parsed it as "great loss of knife". And couldn't I just use one
I discovered Use for a Leatherman Number 4,562 today: using the awl to
widen the air hole in a coffee cup lid so I could drink the coffee
faster.
So are you just going to leave us hanging like that or are you going to
tell us a story?
--
Ben
220 go.ahead.make.my.day ESMTP Postfix
Lurking Girl
void <fl...@dayspring.firedrake.org> wrote:
>On 26 Sep 2000 10:54:45 -0400, Lurking Girl <to...@cugc.org> wrote:
>
>>I parsed it as "great loss of knife". And couldn't I just use one
>>this morning. It's clearly Obnoxious User Day in the state of New York.
>
>tell us a story?
If it was funny or entertaining, I would. But it's just the same old
crap. Moron users who are proudly crow "I don't know ANYTHING about
computers." Belligerent fucks who insist that they _know_ the problem
and it's not _them_, no matter what the relevant logs say. Whiners
who seem to think we have strange and mystical powers to make Bell
Atlantic do absolutely anything to help their DSL issues, and that we
only choose not to exercise them out of a sense of whimsical and
random evil. (Hmmm...) And let me not forget Northpoint, or "sit on
hold for an hour to talk to someone who can't help you, can't talk to
anyone who _can_ help you, and has a 50% chance of not even passing
the problem on to someone who can talk to someone who can help who
will have to pass it on to someone else who can staple it to a gerbil
that will find its way to Provisioning sometime before DSL becomes
obsolete". Oh, and I'm trying to learn Python in an environment where
people keep interrupting me every two minutes.
It's not all bleak. Our demotivational posters came in, and my
boyfriend brought me chocolate covered espresso beans...
Actually, it is. Mom descends on us Thursday night. I haven't told
her we have two housemates. Crud.
Kai Henningsen
> In <8qnom0$ppi$1...@hilda.bohemians.lexington.ky.us>, David W. Rankin Jr wrote:
> >In article <slrn8so519.90...@equilibrium.org>,
> >Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
> >
> >}.... I still find it amusing that organisations
> >}like the Liberal Party are so opposed to the unionization of labour,
> >}yet are quite OK with "professional associations" which are
> >}effectively the same thing -- the only real difference being that
> >}the latter tend to involve people they consider to be ttheir
> >}natural constituency.
> >
> >Are you kidding? "professional associations" don't[1] strike. Striking
> >rocks the boat, and politicians (above all else) hate to have the
> >boat rocked.
>
> Some do, or at least threaten to -- which is generally enough as it's
> much easier to set dogs and guards on striking dock workers than on
> doctors.
Somehow I think over here, both would be a serious mistake.
OTOH, non-unions trying a strike generally get a lot of bad press about
it, as the dr. meds here recently found out ("What? Strike? With *that*
income? I sure wish I made half as much!").
Bus drivers sometimes have trouble, especially when they forget to pre-
announce their strike at least a day in advance.
Stephen Harris
: It's an equal-opportunity social affliction. And it's not really necessary
: in either case.
It's not? Since when? Damn, must have been after I left Uni....
--
Stephen Harris
sw...@spuddy.mew.co.uk http://www.spuddy.org/
The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
My employer pays to ignore my opinions; you get to do it for free.
* Meeeeow ! Call Spud the Cat on > 01708 442043 < for free Usenet access *
Jasper Janssen
>In <7maR8...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
>
>>OTOH, non-unions trying a strike generally get a lot of bad press about
>>it, as the dr. meds here recently found out ("What? Strike? With *that*
>>income? I sure wish I made half as much!").
>
>huge amounts of money -- my GP, for example, can't be making much of
>a profit on the $33/visit I pay. And though I know my opthalmic
>surgeon is making a lot more than that, he's worth every cent I pay.
Reality does n ot enter into the equasion, as you well know.
Doctors all make $500k-plus. Of course they do. Even if they don't,
they still do.
Err.. those would be the thoughtprocesses of the people claiming what
Kai said.
>
>Generally when doctors start making threats around here it's because
>of problems with facilities. Though a fair few GPs are not entirely
>happy about the scheduled rates[1], but those at least can be avoided
>by not offering bulk-billing[2].
Around here, when medical staff go on strike it's because they are
often expected to have 0% salary growth, no correction for inflation,
and to get paid for 36 hours when a real workweek is 60-80.
Jasper
mlo...@area51.bcgsystems.com
>a lawyer he's not good enough,
Your are the State of Arkansas Bar Association and I claim, err, never mind.
--
Silliness is the last refuge of the doomed. P. Opus
GAT d-- s:- a40 UL+++$ P++$ L+++$ E- W+++$ N++ K++ w---(++)$ O- M- V-- PS+
PE++ Y PGP t++ 5 X R+++$ tv+ b++++ DI+++ D G+ e+ h--- r+++ y+++(**)$
Bob Code:KHCPkpdh- lWdHo ECs-++ m4 CPEIVWc B-18 Ol LS SsC++ Tx A7T H9o b8 D1
Eric Daniel
mlo...@area51.bcgsystems.com wrote:
> >OTOH, notice that it's damned rare that the Bar Association tells a
> >lawyer he's not good enough,
>
>
> Your are the State of Arkansas Bar Association and I claim, err, never
> mind.
mlo...@area51.bcgsystems.com
I said "never mind"....
Mark Milhollan
>
>It's not all bleak. Our demotivational posters came in,
Ah, Despair.com? Lovely items there.
/mark
Lurking Girl
Yep. We got "Apathy" and "Idiocy". Also the caffeine mega-pack from
ThinkGeek. I don't remember much about it, but apparently the cow orkers
outside our group were somewhat...disturbed by the ensuing spectacle.
Kai Henningsen
> Kai Henningsen wrote on 26 Sep 2000 20:56:00 +0200:
>
> | OTOH, non-unions trying a strike generally get a lot of bad press about
> | it, as the dr. meds here recently found out ("What? Strike? With *that*
> | income? I sure wish I made half as much!").
>
> | Bus drivers sometimes have trouble, especially when they forget to pre-
> | announce their strike at least a day in advance.
>
> Surely you don't mean train drivers who earn more than I do calling a
> strike in the middle of the day when the only way I have home is via the
> same train?
Probably not. From what I hear, spectacular train driver incomes must be
somewhere else.
Also note the preannouncement thing.
> And that's quite apart from the later strike that ran for ten weeks,
I don't remember a driver strike lasting for more than a day. Most are
only a few hours. Over here, that is; some of our neighbour countries
(such as Belgium or Italy) seem to have strikingly different customs.
Kai Henningsen
> In <7maR8...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 26.09.00 in
> >> <slrn8t1198.90...@equilibrium.org>: Some do, or at least
> >> threaten to -- which is generally enough as it's much easier to set dogs
> >> and guards on striking dock workers than on doctors.
> >
> >Somehow I think over here, both would be a serious mistake.
>
> The former has happened here, and only a few years ago at that.
> The latter, well... Doctors get a lot more sympathy than dock
> workers, and anyway they're more likely[0] to vote Liberal.
Given that most of the population doesn't vote Liberal (but does need a
doctor every now and then, and does not usually have close contact with a
dock worker), why should that matter?
> >OTOH, non-unions trying a strike generally get a lot of bad press about
> >it, as the dr. meds here recently found out ("What? Strike? With *that*
> >income? I sure wish I made half as much!").
>
> Depends on the doctors, I'd have thought. Not all of them are making
Mostly on the public opinion of same, I'd think. Which is "high" or
"higher". It's related to the nickname "Halbgott in weiss" (demigod in
white). Anyway, the ones people were upset about were not poor assistant
doctors in hospitals (of the "assistant does the work, cash goes to the
chief doctor" variant).
> Generally when doctors start making threats around here it's because
> of problems with facilities. Though a fair few GPs are not entirely
Here, it's when the national health care system changes the rules about
what to pay how much for, and who is responsible about how much goes on
recipes, and stuff like that.
> [2] usually you're supposed to submit paperwork to Medicare to get a
> refund (or a cheque to send to your doctor). With bulk-billing the
> doctor only gets the refund portion, and the patient does no extra
> paperwork. This is very popular with pensioners and others on low
> incomes, not so popular with some doctors. I don't like it much
> either.
It's the norm for people using obligatory health insurance (as opposed to
private voluntary health insurance, usually only available to those of
higher income, and going back is hard) and as long as they're not visiting
a dentist (very little dentistry tends to be insured).
Private is said to be cheaper and pay more stuff, but from what I've seen
happen with my parents, this is mostly a result of making people look away
from the more important parts of the contract (that is, marketing rather
than substance). I'll be staying with the obligatory one as long as I can,
possibly taking a private add-on if I ever see an interesting offer.
Matthew Crosby
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Version: 0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
URL: http://bofh.fis.unico.it/asr.shtml
alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
This is the frequently asked questions for alt.sysadmin.recovery, a newsgroup
for practicing and recovering system administrators.
1) ABOUT THE GROUP
1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery?
1.2) Notes on reading ASR
1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery?
1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker?
1.6) Where can I find the BOFH?
1.7) The BOFH hierarchy
1.8) Official ASR mottos
1.9) Official anagrams of ASR.
1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion
1.11) Songs to drink to
1.12) Man pages
1.13) ASR Mailing lists
1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff?
1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain?
1.16) ASR Luser of the decade
1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that?
1.18) The coat of arms
1.19) What is TTTSNBN? A PFY?
1.20) How do I post to this group?
2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION
2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do?
2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do?
2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession?
2.4) How are new sysadmins made?
2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin?
2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin?
2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to???
2.8) What does MCSE stand for?
3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER
3.1) Are there any OS's that don't suck?
3.2) How about any hardware?
3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck?
3.4) Where can I find cluefull tech support?
3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave?
3.6) What's with the AOL disks?
4) OUR BIG HEADACHE, THE LUSERS
4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards?
4.2) I'm work for tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers?
4.3) General luser interaction
4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers?
4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of
various luser education strategies.
4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across
a monitor?
4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser?
4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands?
5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN
5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals
5.2) The excuse server
5.3) The insults server
5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards?
5.5) Sysadmin Tools
5.6) Psychiatric Assistance
6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!!
6.1) I need some serious info! Help me!
6.2) You guys are all meanies/elitist/a bad example/corrupting/fattening
6.3) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ???????????
7) OTHER RESOURCES
7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love...
-----
1) OVERVIEW
1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery?
Alt.sysadmin.recovery is for discussion by recovered and recovering sysadmins.
It is a forum for mutual support and griping over idiot lusers, stupid
tech support, brain dead hardware and generally how stupid this idiotic job
is. Think of it as a virtual pub, where we can all go after hours and
gripe about our job. Since the concept of "after hours" (or, for that
matter, "pubs") is an anathema for your average sysadmin, we have this
instead.
1.2) Notes on reading ASR
Some have warned that reading ASR while drinking beverages is to be avoided.
[due to the effects of beverage on keyboards on computers]
ASR, is by its nature a fairly free-wheeling group. Nevertheless, it
is also a very busy one. We would like to ask, therefore, that you
respect this. Please try and keep subject lines relatively up to date,
so people can kill threads. Please avoid 1 line "me toos", yes, we
know you are smart, young, old, had trouble in school, enjoyed school,
never went to college, use vi, use emacs, hate vi or emacs, read Robert
Heinlein, have a cool home page and practice martial and marital arts.
Please don't tell us about it. Also, please keep threads out of here
that might explode-- hot topics like gun control or welfare. (Anyone
else start one of THOSE flamewars, I WILL personally ensure that David
Rhodes, Robert McElwaine, Canter and Siegel and Serdar Argic _all_ get
accounts on your system. I'm serious.)
Oh, the "When I was a kid I had to bang two rocks together to get
zeros" has got especially old. Give it a rest. So has scotch, rental
cars, floor numbering, host numbering...
Also: DO NOT mention how to post here. Anyone who belongs here should be
able to work it out from the official instructions, contained in section 1.20
of this FAQ.
1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Please don't resend things to alt.humor.best-of-usenet. We have nothing
against that group itself, but in the past we have averaged a few messages
a day there. This has drawn the lusers here like moths to a candle.
We also suggest you put "X-No-Ahbou: yes" in your headers.
1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery?
Not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery are: holy wars, advocacy, user
questions, users (unless you are a sysadmin in another life), David Rhodes
or general cluelessness. Particularly not welcome is ANY real sysadmin
related stuff. We are here to escape!
Warning: If you are a user, you may well see your sysadmin posting messages
about how stupid YOU are. You have been warned.
1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker?
BOFH: Bastard Operator From Hell. Our role model.
(The Bastard Operator from Hell was originally a series of stories
written by Simon Travaglia, s.tra...@waikato.ac.nz. See 1.6.)
LART: Luser Attitude Re-Adjustment Tool. Something large, heavy and
painful-- See the sysadmin tool section.
Cow-Orker: Those people who live at the same office as you do. (WARNING:
Orking Cows is dangerous, and illegal in the state of Utah)
Copro-grammer: literally, "writer of feces"
C|N>K: This, along with variants, is similar to ROFL in other less cultured
groups. (hint: C is coffee, N is nose, K is keyboard.)
1.6) Where can I read about the BOFH?
http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard.html
Newer adventures may be found on the register, www.theregister.co.uk
1.7) The BOFH hierarchy
ASR is such a cool newsgroup, we even have our own hierarchy! Try that,
soc.singles. This is the bofh.* hierarchy. (I'm actually not sure who
people should contact. Anyone?)
1.8) Official ASR mottos
The official ASR motto, our catch phrase, is the immortal:
"Down, not Across"
It is our mantra. We recite it to ourselves as we deal with the day
to day realities of a life that is far more nasty, brutish and short
than even Hobbes could have ever imagined.
Some other mottos include:
"What was your username?" *clickety click*
"I need a drink."
AAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Bring out yer dead! *DONK!* Bring out yer dead! *DONK!*
"Oh Lovely!"
The official asr position:
Hiding in a corner, under a desk, in fetal position, arms covering head
and quietly whimpering.
The official asr luser position:
6 foot under.
1.9) Official ASR anagrams
Every now again, some luser will come in and ask for an explanation of
ASR anagrams. I haven't the faintest idea why. Here's some good ones:
alt sysadmin recovery
rancid mystery loaves
steady micron slavery
comedy striven salary
trendy mosaic slavery
convert already missy
scary devil monastery
misty adversary clone
mail covers dysentary
discover anal mystery
1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion
By popular acclaim, Eris has been declared patron goddess of ASR, with
Murphy as patron saint. The Illuminatus Trilogy (Robert Anton Wilson
and Robert Shea) will tell you more of her secrets.
Of course, don't let this put you off. ASR is a very tolerant group, and
we will accept anything you worship, provided your beliefs fit the requirements
for a good sysadmin god, the most important one being that sacrifice of lusers
be an integral part of worship. (The Aztec gods are very nice in this respect).
1.11) Songs to drink to
ASR has many talented budding creative artists who have come up with a
collection of deep, heart wrenching statements on the nihilism of this
sysadmin existence. Including such gems as the cynical "I'm a sysadmin
and I'm OK", and the reflective "My favorite things", _The Best of ASR_
will be coming out real soon now on Sony, 14.99 CD, 7.99 Cassette.
Until this happens, you can find these songs at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/songs.html
1.12) Man pages
The ASR man page collection is a comprehensive reference to many of the
things we have to deal with in our profession.
See http://www.winternet.com/~eric/sysadmin/manpages.html
1.13) ASR Mailing lists
There are a number of local ASR mailing lists, dealing with organizing
local ASR gatherings. They include:
ASR New York:
To subscribe: Mail da...@3skel.com
ASR Boston:
To subscribe: li...@mathworks.com (it's a majordomo list, name is asr-boston)
ASR Melbourne: (Oz, not Florida)
To subscribe: asrmel-...@netizen.com.au
Also see //www.netizen.com.au/lists/asrmel/
ASR London:
To subscribe: asrlon-...@bofh.org.uk
ASR Israel:
To subscribe: asr-il-...@cs.huji.ac.il
The Twin Cities:
List address: asr...@winternet.com
ASR DC:
To subscribe: majo...@lists.netset.com
Listname is "asr-dc"
ASR Bay Area:
To subscribe: ba-asr-...@lists.cap.gov
1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff?
These are Myers-Briggs scores.
See http://www.keirsey.com/cgi-bin/keirsey/newkts.cgi
1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain?
Probably you want the guys who run the net. Address mail to:
Usenet Central Administration
1060 W. Addison St
Chicago, IL 60613-4305
They should be willing to help you out.
1.16) ASR Luser of the Decade
Yes, the awards are just in. Luser of the decade goes to Judith
Kraines, county controller in Reading, PA. From News of the Weird:
* Reading, Pa., county controller Judith Kraines complained at a
commissioners' meeting in January about having to type letters
and do other business on a typewriter because her computer was
old and no one had been able to get it to work for two years. "If
we had a computer," she said, "letters would go out faster."
Three days later, she announced that the computer she was
complaining about in fact had not been plugged in to any
electrical outlet and that when the plug was inserted and the
computer was turned on, it worked fine.
(This was luser of the year, but no potential replacement has come in
for this year.)
1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that?
Nope. I suggest you post to the group pointing that out, so we all end
up admiring your powers of observation.
1.18) The coat of Arms
While the college of heralds are still sitting on our application (bastards...
I think a disk crash is in order), you can see the potential ASR coat of
arms at http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~djc/asr/
1.19) What is TTTSNBN?
Well, it shall not be named. So I'm afraid I can't tell you...
As to PFY, If you have to ask...
-----
2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION
2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do?
Seek professional help.
2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do?
See 5.4
2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession
Somewhere below janitors.
2.4) How are new sysadmins made
The devil probably has something to do with it.
2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin
For an excellent, if somewhat optimistic, picture of a sysadmins life,
see http://katsube1.eng.ohio-state.edu/wang/computer/sysadmin.html
Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarised the life of a sysadmin the best,
when she described us as:
"disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of,
foul tempered, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, overworked, with no real
social life to speak of."
2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin?
Would you want to be found?
2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to?
This gets asked a lot. Probably all I can say is "loud", and even that isn't
a given. A survey of the readership of ASR was taken, which may be found at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/music
2.8) What does MCSE stand for?
Lots of things. Must Consult Someone Experienced is a good one. See
http://www.onramp.ca/~adb/asr/mcse.txt for more.
2.9) What are the laws of the BOFH?
The laws of the BOFH are the ancient laws we live under day and night.
0. A BOFH may not, through inaction or otherwise, cause a luser to
avoid trouble, unless in doing so causes the luser more harm or causes
equivalent or worse trouble to several lusers, provided the BOFH is
safe, along with any Useful Technology(tm).
1. A BOFH must not destroy useful[1] technology, or through inaction
allow useful technology to come to harm.
2. A BOFH must find ways of avoiding work, unless this
violates the first law.
3. A BOFH must protect his own existence, to hell with Laws 0-2.
-----
3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER
3.1) Are there any OSs that don't suck?
No.
3.2) How about any hardware?
The PDP-10 was pretty nice. Pity they aren't made any more.
3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck?
The ASR standard unit of suckiness is the Lovelace (Ll).
This is defined as: One Lovelace is the amount of force (measured in
dynes) it takes to draw a round ball weighing e Troy Ounces down a tube it
fits exactly (in air) at a speed of pi attoparsecs/microfortnight.
Like Farads, this is a rather large measurement. Thus, Plan 9 sucks a few
mLl, for instance, while your average Microsoft product achieves many Ll.
3.4) Where can I find clueful tech support?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Basically, I think there is some device the telco puts on the phone that
ensures that whoever is on the other end of a service call is always
a drooling moron with the IQ of a potted plant. Note that this applies
both ways (see 4.2)
3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave?
Some go for the carrot approach, others the stick, others both. If you
favour the carrot, try offering memory upgrades or faster processors.
For sticks, try bullwhips. Many computers are easily fooled, so placing
a picture of yourself in front of a computer will often cause it to think
you are watching and it will be too scared to misbehave.
Remember that if computers are networked, they can talk to each other.
That is useful in that you can make an example of one and the others will
watch (and hopefully learn).
3.6) What's with all the AOL disks/cdroms?
There is a large amount of speculation on this subject. Some have suggested
that AOL is a secret alien plot to use up all the resources and overwhelm
the earth with disks, to make mankind easier to conquer. Whatever the reason,
they are useful as coasters and as scratch floppies, if nothing else.
-----
4) OUR LITTLE ENEMIES, THE LUSERS
4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards?
[The stories are currently offline, as a result of the sysadmin who had them
on his web site recovering]
4.2) I'm on tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers?
See 3.4
A cluefull luser is an oxymoron.
4.3) General User Interaction
Some tips for general luser interaction:
-lusers, bless their little hearts, have simple minds. Even if you think
that a lobotomized flatworm could understand your instructions, your
luser probably won't.
-since lusers will neither read nor understand any docs you write for them,
just don't even bother.
-NEVER anthropomorphise lusers.
-lusers are much easier to deal with if they aren't breathing.
4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers?
240v across the heart, a revolver round through the head, or even a simple
little broadsword thrust into their abdomen will improve your interactions
wonderfully. See 4.5
4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of
various luser education strategies.
There has been a great deal of debate on a.s.r about the best way of
dealing with lusers, and at this time no consensus has been reached.
What we can suggest, however, is to be sure it is painful, clean, and doesn't
harm the computer. That unfortunately leaves a lot of options out;
you can't just throw a grenade at them; it will hurt the machine.
4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across
a monitor?
Be careful. While cluelessness is not contagious, there are some nasty
things that can be picked up from lusers. Blood transmitted diseases,
you name it. (watch out for Creutzfeldt-Jacob syndrome, aka mad cow
disease. Of course, we are all mad anyway.). Be sure to wear gloves.
Otherwise, luser guts will usually clean up with warm water and soap.
I've found a little bleach sometimes helps. Be careful with the
keyboards; I've found that blood causes the keys to get very very
sticky; Again, you can try gently washing it with soap and water.
To get rid of the body, people have suggested using several garbage
bags and a large quantity of duct tape. If you have to keep it for a
while, try and remove the guts; that will keep the smell down..
Alcohol and formalin works just fine as a preservative.
4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser?
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law, lusers are treated like humans. I
therefore recommend you be discreet in your luser era^H^Hducation campaigns.
4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands?
See the official ASR price list, at
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~moose/sysadmin/pricelist.html
-----
5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN
5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals
Caffeine: Much information about this can be found on alt.drugs.caffeine
See http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/Coffee/caffaq.html
Booze: See rec.food.drink.*. Myself, I prefer coding after a six-pack
of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, but you are welcome to your beverage
of choice. Booze, particularily in large quantities, often makes dealing
with lusers much more interesting. Ciders have been spoken of highly;
myself I stick with Woodchuck (at $3 for a 1.5 Litre bottle, it can't be
beaten), but there are various other choices. Unfortunately, really good
cider is hard to find in many places.
We had an informal survey into the ASR booze of choice, and the only thing
was resolved in terms of ASR beer preference is that yes, there is indeed
a lot of choice. (Oh, and that ASR readers have excellent taste and drink
like crazy) There are lots of net resources for this. I recommend
alt.drunken.bastards. Try http://www.mindspring.com/~jlock/ for beer info.
For more interesting things, rec.drugs.* can help you. See
http://www.hyperreal.com/drugs/ for more info (for educational use only, etc)
5.2) The excuse server
This is an important net resource, that lets you give the exact reason
why you can't do something yesterday. http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh/
Or telnet bofh.jive.org 666
5.3) The insults server
Once you have got rid of your lusers, you will probably want to tell them
what they really are. For this, the insults server is useful.
telnet insulthost.colorado.edu 1695
5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards?
Downward. See http://ash.xanthia.com/
5.5) Sysadmin Tools
There are a number of tools that make being a sysadmin important. Most
important are chemical by nature; see 5.1. A particularly useful tool,
revered by many of ASR, is the noble chocolate covered coffee bean. A
partial list of places where these fine things may be found is at
http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/cceb.html
You can also make your own. Melt some chocolate, place some coffee beans
in it, and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle!
For a stronger caffeine hit, try
D&E Pharmaceuticals & Nutritionals
206 Macopin Road
Bloomingdale, NJ 07403 USA
1-800-221-1833
Next in line is a good LART. A 2x4 works fine, but a real professional
needs something a little more effective. Unfortunately, this is a very
personal thing, and no consensus has yet been reached on the group.
Everything from a simple, 7.65mm Walther (for the Bond fans only, it's not a
very good gun) to a 155mm with depleted Uranium rounds has been suggested,
some even going for exotic things like Thermite, nukes or flamethrowers.
For further info, look at the rec.guns home page (http://recguns.com)
You can find a lot of cool stuff at Military Surplus stores. (Sadly, they
don't sell the _really_ interesting surplus stuff like tanks or F16s)
Try US Cavalry, 1-800-777-7732. (or www.uscav.com)
When you can't use the LART (eg, you don't want to damage a computer),
water pistols and Nerfs are excellent substitutes. Nerfs, for those of
you outside the US, are a range of foam weapons. Don't leave ~ without
it. The leatherman is another useful tool. The Perl of swiss army knifes,
this shouldn't be too hard to find.
Finally, there are some tools a sysadmin is forbidden from having. Adequate
computing power is first on this list, but the most important is called a
"life".
[ FAQ maintainers note: could someone send me some info on this? I've
heard of it, but never had one. I have been told it is a simulation
environment of cellular automata.]
5.6) Psychiatric Assistance
If you are reading this, you need it. Contact your health insurance, and
look at the Mental health net. http://www.cmhcsys.com/welcome.htm
-----
6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!!
6.1) I need some serious info! Help me!
Go away.
6.2) You guys are all meanies/elitist/a bad example/corrupting/fattening
Yep!
6.3) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ???????????
Sounds like you want the Warez-net. Here are a list of some participating
sites:
warez.satanic.org
pcwarez.compumedia.com
warez.phantom.com
ftp.warez.org
warez.internetmci.com
warez.compulog.org
These places also have a good collection of gifs.
(You need to log in with _your own_ name and password)
For more information, look at the Warez-Net home pages at
http://www.cetis.hvu.nl/~koos/warez.html
http://www.afn.org/~riffer/warez.html
http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~mcawolf/warez.html
-----
7) OTHER RESOURCES
7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love...
...alt.folklore.computers
Once a wonderful place, where great hackers strove to discuss mighty deeds
done on real computers, this newsgroup has sadly decayed somewhat in recent
years. With the advent of the minions of the Dark Lord and the even Darker
Lord fighting over their respective toy OSs, the flames have overcome
the real discussion. Though the fight is still going on, many of the eldar
hackers have despaired of the net, fleeing the shores of AFC for good.
(some have come here). Sic transit gloria mundi.
Still worth a read, just be sure to have a kill file.
...the jargon file
Not _particularly_ sysadmin related, this is rather a document on the
general computer lore. May be found at http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html
...alt.fan.pratchett
For some reason, there seems to be a large amount of synergy between the
followers of the eternal Mr. Pratchett and ourselves. You be the judge.
...alt.fan.mailer-daemon
"a hillariously poorly propogated newsgroup that hardly anybody is ever
likely to read."
...Various cartoons
Popular web cartoons in the group include: Pokey the Penguin, User Friendly,
Sluggy Freelance and Goats. All on the web, you can presumebly find them
yourself.
...alt.suicide.holiday
Name says it all, really.
--
Matthew Crosby cro...@cs.colorado.edu
Disclaimer: It was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.
Juergen Nieveler
<8r7su4$aqg$1...@peabody.colorado.edu>:
Did anyb%§/%"(::Z"§... CARRIER LOST
Steve VanDevender
Well, I noticed that because there has been a continuing thread for the
past month on the subject "Re: alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81", gnus
just inserted the latest monthly FAQ posting into that thread.
--
Steve VanDevender "I ride the big iron" http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~stevev
ste...@efn.org PGP key fingerprint=929FB79734DF8CC0 210DA447510FF93B
Little things break, circuitry burns / Time flies while my little world turns
Every day comes, every day goes / 100 years and nobody shows -- Happy Rhodes
Alexander Schreiber
>alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
Hey, have you noticed that the FAQ is exactly 66&%$%&
Connection closed by remote host.
Ewen McNeill
Derick Siddoway <der...@xmission.xmission.com> wrote:
>It is said by some that Alexander Schreiber once wrote:
>>Hey, have you noticed that the FAQ is exactly 66&%$%&
>>Connection closed by remote host.
>
>right up there with "first post". Bleh.
You know I was thinking much the same thing myself -- it has the feel of
"first post" to it as currently immortalised by /.[0] I'm reminded of an
old Fido retort to this sort of thing going on:
Even the wittiest sayings are dead boring the fourth time around.
-- Charlie Lear
which has stuck in my mind for the last decade or so as being rather
accurate.
ObRecovery: I discovered that there's an Amstrad CPC[2] emulator available
for Linux now[3] which made for an interesting weekend reviewing old
memories. As it happens I discovered it because of a post here, in a
very indirect fashion -- so the group does work for providing recovery.
Now if I could just get over this damn cold[4] that I caught from someone
life would be much better.
Ewen
[0] But it's been around for ages longer than that, including the Nth
post varient on BBSes that counted their posts sequentially,
particularly at every X,000th post.[1]
[1] Why yes, it got pretty boring then too.
[2] Yes it was my first computer, how could you tell?
[3] There've been plenty of Amstrad CPC emulators for various platforms,
but I hadn't come across one that worked under Linux before.
[4] It's been a week so far, and it's still pretty nasty. I'm not happy.
--
Ewen McNeill, ew...@naos.co.nz
Juergen Nieveler
<slrn8tg5hs...@xmission.xmission.com>:
>This may have been funny three or four years ago. Now it's ranking
>right up there with "first post". Bleh.
Nah... it's a tradition by now.
--
Juergen Nieveler
Support the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide: http://www.dhmo.org/
"The people united can never be ignited!"- Sgt. Colon, Ankh-Morpork Watch
PGP-Key available under www.netcologne.de/~nc-nievelju/
Kai Henningsen
> In <7n2jW...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 27.09.00 in
> ><slrn8t3s7c.90...@equilibrium.org>:
> >> In <7maR8...@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> >> >matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 26.09.00 in
> >> >> <slrn8t1198.90...@equilibrium.org>: Some do, or at least
> >> >> threaten to -- which is generally enough as it's much easier to set
> >> >> dogs and guards on striking dock workers than on doctors.
> >> >
> >> >Somehow I think over here, both would be a serious mistake.
> >>
> >> The former has happened here, and only a few years ago at that.
> >> The latter, well... Doctors get a lot more sympathy than dock
> >> workers, and anyway they're more likely[0] to vote Liberal.
> >
> >Given that most of the population doesn't vote Liberal (but does need a
> >doctor every now and then, and does not usually have close contact with a
> >dock worker), why should that matter?
>
> The AMA (Australian Medical Association, i.e., the doctor's professional
> association) is largely a conservative organisation, and tends to support
> the Liberals. The dock workers, on the other hand, do *not* support the
> Liberals, and indeed the Liberal Party has made it clear several times
> that they want to break the dock workers union.
>
> You don't set the dogs and pepper-spray on your own supporters.
This presumes the Liberal party is in any position to do something about
it. Over here, that'd be a pretty hilarious idea. Which is what I tried to
indicate with the "most of the population" thing.
Of course, they *also* are claiming to be defending civil rights, so this
would be a spectacularly bad move PR-wise even if they could pull it off.
> >> [2] usually you're supposed to submit paperwork to Medicare to get a
> >> refund (or a cheque to send to your doctor). With bulk-billing the
> >> doctor only gets the refund portion, and the patient does no extra
> >> paperwork. This is very popular with pensioners and others on low
> >> incomes, not so popular with some doctors. I don't like it much
> >> either.
> >
> >It's the norm for people using obligatory health insurance (as opposed to
> >private voluntary health insurance, usually only available to those of
> >higher income, and going back is hard) and as long as they're not visiting
> >a dentist (very little dentistry tends to be insured).
> >
> >Private is said to be cheaper and pay more stuff, but from what I've seen
> >happen with my parents, this is mostly a result of making people look away
> >from the more important parts of the contract (that is, marketing rather
> >than substance). I'll be staying with the obligatory one as long as I can,
> >possibly taking a private add-on if I ever see an interesting offer.
>
> I dislike bulk billing because it removes the perceived value from
> the service provided by the doctor. A lot of people are quite shortsighted
> about these things, and if they don't see any direct cost to them in going
> to a doctor, then they're going to go more often.
More importantly (or so some politicians over here think), *some* doctors
abuse the system by claiming all sorts of things that never really
happened. There have been moves to make the patient have to look at the
bill to avoid this thing.
The "go too often" thing is handled by pressuring the doctors, over here.
Stuff like getting a budget. I don't remember the details, they hange so
often.
> Make someone pay even a small amount, and suddenly their first reaction
> to any minor complaint isn't to go see a doctor. Cost of the health
They tried this with recipes over here, DM 5 I think? From all reports, it
didn't work all that well. For one, it tends to hurt people with chronic
illnesses far too much.
> So I like having the compulsory health insurance, just not the lack
> of direct payment involved in bulk billing. As it happens, the
> Government doesn't like either, and if things keep going as they
> have been then more doctors are going to opt out of bulk billing,
> which would be a good thing.
Over here, that would mean accepting only privately-insured patients, and
I can't see anything good in that. Besides, it might not even be legal.
Garrett Wollman
Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>The AMA (Australian Medical Association, i.e., the doctor's professional
>association) is largely a conservative organisation, and tends to support
>the Liberals.
*boggle*
Does not compute... does not compute... does not com<slap!>
Sorry. I'm just having an incredibly hard time getting my mind
around this statement. If your right-of-center party is called
``Liberal'', what, pray tell, is your left-of-center party called
(assuming you have one)?
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick
Garrett Wollman
Kai Henningsen <kaih=7n5FwV$Hw...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>They tried this with recipes over here, DM 5 I think? From all reports, it
>didn't work all that well.
ITYM ``prescriptions''. One gets recipes from a cook-book, not a
medical professional.
HTH, HAND.
D. Joseph Creighton
}alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.81 (Apr 1, 2000)
}
}While the college of heralds are still sitting on our application (bastards...
}I think a disk crash is in order), you can see the potential ASR coat of
}arms at http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~djc/asr/
Hey, did anyone else notice that the COA is about as completed as it's
going to get?
I'm blaming my wife: details in about, oh, four more months or so.
--
"Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have." - Anon.
D. Joseph Creighton [ESTP] | Programmer Analyst, Database Technologies, IST
Joe_Cr...@UManitoba.CA | University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, Canada, eh?
Rob Hagman
>
>ITYM ``prescriptions''. One gets recipes from a cook-book, not a
>medical professional.
>
Both translate into the same word in dutch (and german i think) this may
have caused the confucion.
Rob
--
Will England
>In the last exciting episode, Matthew Crosby <cro...@cs.colorado.edu> wrote:
>}
>}While the college of heralds are still sitting on our application (bastards...
>}I think a disk crash is in order), you can see the potential ASR coat of
>}arms at http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~djc/asr/
>
>going to get?
>
>I'm blaming my wife: details in about, oh, four more months or so.
I'd presume congratulations are in order, assuming wife:months:no time
means what it does.
<raise toast>
Will
--
"If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented spellcheck!"
Dan Quayle, quoted at the National Press Club, 8/3/1999
pgpkey at http://will.mylanders.com/pub_pgp.asc
Recovery page: http://will.mylanders.com/ wi...@mylanders.com
Stephen Harris
[ a rational as to why the "length of FAQ" posts exist... ]
: So now you know why we do it. It may be stupid, but at least it's
: controlled stupidity.
Oh. I did it (once) a year or so ago just to annoy people who had been
complaining about it a month earlier. Why, was that wrong?
Red Drag Diva
:matt+...@boggle.org (Matt McLeod) wrote on 02.10.00 in <slrn8tgjcj.90...@equilibrium.org>:
:> The AMA (Australian Medical Association, i.e., the doctor's professional
:> association) is largely a conservative organisation, and tends to support
:> the Liberals. The dock workers, on the other hand, do *not* support the
:> Liberals, and indeed the Liberal Party has made it clear several times
:> that they want to break the dock workers union.
:> You don't set the dogs and pepper-spray on your own supporters.
:This presumes the Liberal party is in any position to do something about
:it. Over here, that'd be a pretty hilarious idea. Which is what I tried to
:indicate with the "most of the population" thing.
:Of course, they *also* are claiming to be defending civil rights, so this
:would be a spectacularly bad move PR-wise even if they could pull it off.
Minor translation note: in Australia, the Liberal Party are conservative
(rabidly so) and not liberal in any way at all. They are directly analogous
to the Tories in Britain or the Republicans in the US.
--
http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ http://www.caube.org.au/
"The pluses in my current job include laughing in the face of Nobel laureates
who have just lost the only copy of their data. (Hey, I'm still a BOFH.)"
(Bob Dowling)
Andrew Vendryes
>
>Was the reasoning behind the blue/white ever explained? It made sufficient
Suitable for business cards. I am going to do some up. I swear.
>sense to me that I played with it a bit and got the police-tape-yellow on
>black COA, and IMHO it looks much BOFHlier. See my page ref'ed from yours
This is more suitable for a t-shirt IMHO.
I do not know where I am going to find the time to do a t-shirt
though.
Right now I need each month to have six weeks each between now and
December.
--
AndrewV -- bo...@avdotnet.net
"Ecce Eduardus Ursus scallis nunc tump-tump-tump occipite gradus
pulsante post Christophorum Robinum descendens..."
-- qu...@swcp.com (Taki Kogoma) AKA Gym Quirk in NANAE
D. Joseph Creighton
}D. Joseph Creighton staggered into the Black Sun and said:
}> Matthew Crosby <cro...@cs.colorado.edu> wrote:
}>Hey, did anyone else notice that the COA is about as completed as it's
}>going to get?
}
<handwaving>
I wish I could remember that detail, but I do seem to recall a thread of
discussion that Andreas was deeply involved in which explained his original
choice of blue/white (azure/argent) quite nicely.
</handwaving>
}It made sufficient
}sense to me that I played with it a bit and got the police-tape-yellow on
}black COA, and IMHO it looks much BOFHlier. See my page ref'ed from yours
}or off my homepage.
Right, I remember that one. I'm curious if the remnants at the edges are
intentional or just a byproduct of either Gimp or region selection and
anti-aliasing. If you want, I'd be happy to get my crayons out and colour
you a new one with this latest version.</smartass>
}>I'm blaming my wife: details in about, oh, four more months or so.
}
}I'd say "race you" but I think you've got a commanding lead there.
Ah, congrats as well, then.
Cow-orker told me I didn't have to have a kid every time I had sex.
And here I left all my heavy NERF weaponry at home.
--
"When in doubt, use brute force." - Ken Thompson
Reinier Post
>>the Liberals.
>
>*boggle*
>
>Does not compute... does not compute... does not com<slap!>
>
>Sorry. I'm just having an incredibly hard time getting my mind
>around this statement. If your right-of-center party is called
>``Liberal'', what, pray tell, is your left-of-center party called
>(assuming you have one)?
Social democratic, i suppose. Same in many European countries.
--
Reinier
D. Joseph Creighton
}Argent, white or silver - Peace and sincerity.
}Azure or blue - Loyalty and truth.
}[source: <URL:http://digiserve.com/heraldry/symbols.htm>]
Ah, right! Yet another reason I kept that URL in my bibliography.
I'd like to document a bit of this since I always want to give credit where
it is due, this will get asked again, and Deja* seems to be pathetic at
recovering things as of late.
}Congratulatons to the both of you, I'm sure your offspring will be a couple
}of real bastards.
I'm honoured by your confidence.
--
"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't
understand it." - Florence Ambrose
Doug McNaught
> One popular way of looking at it is that the Liberals are supposedly
> the party for the well-off, while Labor is supposed to be the party
> for the "common man". This, like most other ways of looking at these
> things, doesn't work either. There are plenty of working-class people
> who've voted Liberal for as long as that party has existed (like my
> grandmother), and plenty of well-off people who've always voted Labor.
>
> But in reality it doesn't really matter all that much. Both parties
> are much the same. All that really matters is which one offers the
> best deal to the media moguls.
<delurk>
Hmmm, the above two paragraphs, with appropriate name changes, apply
*exactly* to the US. I guess the only difference I can think of is
that the "centre" of our "spectrum" is farther to the "right" (as you
said, there are no direct equivalents to the Republicans anywhere
else, though some of the serious Aussie wowsers wseem to come close...)
> This is where I stop. This is one aspect of Australia which is totally
> fucked up. Fortunately, it's perfectly possible to live here and ignore
> most of it, most of the time.
Again, same here.
-Doug
--
Too lazy to write a sigmonster right now...
Doug McNaught
> > But in reality it doesn't really matter all that much. Both parties
> > are much the same. All that really matters is which one offers the
> > best deal to the media moguls.
>
> <delurk>
And, of course, I forget to close the tag. I guess that means I have
to keep posting.
-Doug
Kai Henningsen
And what's even more confusing, the similar-sounding "receipt" is
something entirely different, a "Quittung".
Kai Henningsen
> Minor translation note: in Australia, the Liberal Party are conservative
> (rabidly so)
"Everybody must be free to suppress his neighbours, without government
interference" seems to be their credo. Or maybe "Civil rights for small
business".
What they are not, over here, however, is popular. (In marked contrast to
.at, but then, the .at ones seem more brown than liberal.)
Oh, and if I want my civil rights secured, I'll ask the Greens. At least
there, civil rights are not only a part of the platform, but something
these guys seem to actually believe in. (No wonder, they mostly started
out as various kinds of civic action groups, whereas Liberal politicians
joined a party with a history of being the junior partner in a coalition,
voted for by any follower of the senior partner who wishes to express his
disappointment.)
Kai Henningsen
> Well, the whole left/right thing really doesn't work for Australian
> politics.
Has trouble everywhere. The idea was outdated almist immediately after
being conceived.
The largest problem is that it's hard to pin down, internationally, what
"left" and "right" actually *mean*.
That doesn't mean it isn't occasionally useful, such as when saying that
almost every political party.us is, say, right of just about every
political party.de (or even .eu?). But it's rather rare that it's so easy.
Nix
> Sorry. I'm just having an incredibly hard time getting my mind
> around this statement. If your right-of-center party is called
> ``Liberal'', what, pray tell, is your left-of-center party called
> (assuming you have one)?
The US uses the word `liberal' backwards, you know.
--
`Ergotism is what you get if you overuse the word "therefore". Egotism
on the other hand is a form of "I" strain.' --- Paul Martin
Zebee Johnstone
Garrett Wollman <wol...@lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <slrn8tgjcj.90...@equilibrium.org>,
>Matt McLeod <matt+...@boggle.org> wrote:
>
>>association) is largely a conservative organisation, and tends to support
>
>*boggle*
>
>Does not compute... does not compute... does not com<slap!>
>
>around this statement. If your right-of-center party is called
>``Liberal'', what, pray tell, is your left-of-center party called
>(assuming you have one)?
>
Labor. As distinct from the Democratic Labor Party which was more
right. Then there's the Australian Democrats which are the left now
that the Labor Party has gone central. Maybe.
Me, I vote for National Marijuana Party given the chance.
The Liberal party were supposed to be Benthamite/Mills type liberals -
small government, free trade, most happiness of the greatest number
stuff. Or so Menzies said, but who can believe a man with eyebrows
like that?
The US use of the word "liberal" seems to mean "socialist" which is
weird.
Zebee
Mike Sphar
the following? Read the book:
>Ah, Despair.com? Lovely items there.
I love my "This cup is now half-empty" mug.
--
Mike Sphar http://www.dogfacedboy.org/
I'm starting to think that maybe it's wrong to put someone who thinks
they're a Vietnamese prostitute on a bull. -- Stan Marsh