TR Forums

Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:24 pm

Congrats on the new job! What sector are you moving to now?

Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:28 pm

Both the (now) front runner and the runner up offers (and one of the places I didn't get an offer from as well) are in the transportation (or related) sector. It seems that this may be the new "thing" in the Chicago area to replace our dearly departed telecom industry...

Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:37 pm

Ugh. Glum day at the office today. Though we all knew it had been coming for months, the political appointee heading our division announced to us his retirement today. For the 18 years I've been there he has stood as the bulwark between us and the sheer idiocy of State employment/management. Amongst our small group we have maintained a private-sector attitude knowing that he has always had our back and has told the Powers That Be to go piss up a rope when necessary (and had the respect to make it stick). The mere fact he lasted 20 years when he had to hand in his resignation after every Governor's election (every 2 years here in VT) led many of us to think that some older Governor left a sticky note in the middle drawer of the ceremonial desk saying "don't fire X". He was frosty at first but once he realized that while we were loud, boisterous, usually irreverent, but always dedicated to the job (thanks mainly to his just letting us do the job), he opened up and even sometimes joined the goings-on in The Swamp (the highly-unofficial name for our little cube farm. He'd never let us hang a sign). I'd been there close to 15 years before I learned he was a stone cold Deadhead. Made sure to put some live Dead on the Zune every time I got to drive to late-night meetings after that.

Given who will be recommending his replacement and who will make the decision (barring an electoral upset that would make Harry Truman look like a sure thing in 1948) we're bound to get some craven political hack who is also a lawyer.

To paraphrase Delenn, I would have followed him into fire. Depending on the venality of his replacement, I may have some costly decisions to make.

Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:45 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
To paraphrase Delenn, I would have followed him into fire. Depending on the venality of his replacement, I may have some costly decisions to make.

Sorry to hear that. At least my (potentially) costly decision appears to have turned out well (so far); may your luck be as good if you should find it necessary to abandon ship!

Tue Oct 21, 2014 8:00 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Sorry to hear that. At least my (potentially) costly decision appears to have turned out well (so far); may your luck be as good if you should find it necessary to abandon ship!

In my case it's 12 years of my soul & liver (potentially; the next Deputy could, by sheer accident, turn out to be a decent person) vs. the full pension (50% of avg. final 3 years with COLA @ CPI). Now that I've hit 50 I can be fairly well assured that when the needed rationalization hits the plan I'll be in the grandfathered group, so I'm loathe to give that up.

We'll see. One thing's for sure, I see 2 field staff buying the last 5 years on their pension (you can fund it with pre-tax money from the 457 plan) and 2 office staff bailing within 12 months. That leaves me as Chief of the Boat with 2 recently-hired kids on staff so I do feel a tug of duty there.

EDIT: We're already planning on reserving a block of rooms at the downtown hotel where his retirement party will be held. I think this one might even get our resident dry to wet his whistle. It's guaranteed that none of us should be anywhere close to a car after this party. Given the way Montpelier works, I'm sure the desk staff has no issues with holding keys until the AM.

superjawes · Tue Oct 21, 2014 8:53 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Both the (now) front runner and the runner up offers (and one of the places I didn't get an offer from as well) are in the transportation (or related) sector. It seems that this may be the new "thing" in the Chicago area to replace our dearly departed telecom industry...

Transportation, eh? I am in that industry. My company moved its HQ (basically everything but manufacturing) here a few years ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was part of the hiring wave meant to replace some of the people who weren't willing to make the move.

Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:58 am

superjawes wrote:
Transportation, eh? I am in that industry. My company moved its HQ (basically everything but manufacturing) here a few years ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was part of the hiring wave meant to replace some of the people who weren't willing to make the move.

Boeing (or maybe one of their subcontractors)?

Usacomp2k3 · Wed Oct 22, 2014 9:55 am

ludi wrote:
Was your old panel a Federal-Pacific, by any chance?

No it wasn't. We checked that on the inspection before we bought the place. It's a Siemens branded.

derFunkenstein · Wed Oct 22, 2014 10:08 am

Ugh. Knocked over a USB hard drive while I was making a backup. Not a fall off the desk or anything, just went from standing in the vertical stand to lying on its side. The backup seemingly completed successfully but I can't read anything. Tried the freezer trick. No go.

Good news is that everything worth backing up is either also backed up elsewhere or still on my functioning PC. The only thing I actually lost is a collection of downloaded installers for things like my DAW (a 20GB download from Cakewalk) or various virtual instruments and the like.

Life goes on. I just feel stupid.

ludi · Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:09 am

Captain Ned wrote:
ludi wrote:
you might have to move the new panel outside in order to get the code inspector to sign off on the work.

Your inspectors want the main breaker panel outdoors? Round here they're happy with an external main disconnect.

I suppose that's possible. A lot of older construction had those four-breaker disconnect setups (i.e., one of the 240 breakers feeds the bus bars, the other three feed major appliances, all four have to be off to remove all AC power into the structure) which pretty much required the panel to be outdoors unless a separate main disconnect was installed.

In any case I may have to look into a panel replacement on my townhome at some point, and then I'll probably find out. It's on the outdoor-rear side of the structure, which faces northwest. Yuck. Still functional for now but did have to replace all 120V breakers a few years back, several were gritty and one would not actually shut off. Luckily it's GE.

Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:13 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
Ugh. Knocked over a USB hard drive while I was making a backup. Not a fall off the desk or anything, just went from standing in the vertical stand to lying on its side. The backup seemingly completed successfully but I can't read anything. Tried the freezer trick. No go.

Good news is that everything worth backing up is either also backed up elsewhere or still on my functioning PC. The only thing I actually lost is a collection of downloaded installers for things like my DAW (a 20GB download from Cakewalk) or various virtual instruments and the like.

Life goes on. I just feel stupid.

3.5" HDDs are *very* sensitive to mechanical shock when they are spinning. Even smaller disturbances (e.g. slamming a drawer on a desk that has a spinning HDD on it) are potentially harmful; it won't kill the drive outright but if it happens a lot I'd bet money you will start to see corrupted/bad sectors. This is one of the reasons I prefer to put PCs on the floor, even if it means they need to be dusted out more frequently.

Even putting the PC on the floor is no guarantee. A few years ago my office mate got his foot tangled in his keyboard cord, and managed to tip his PC over. It went from standing up to laying down, on a carpeted floor. Killed the HDD, even though the carpet would've substantially reduced the peak G forces the drive was subjected to. I'd be willing to bet the instantaneous shock was a lot lower than what your drive experienced... unless your desk is carpeted! :lol:

The Egg · Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:31 pm

just brew it! wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
Ugh. Knocked over a USB hard drive while I was making a backup. Not a fall off the desk or anything, just went from standing in the vertical stand to lying on its side. The backup seemingly completed successfully but I can't read anything. Tried the freezer trick. No go.
Life goes on. I just feel stupid.

Even putting the PC on the floor is no guarantee. A few years ago my office mate got his foot tangled in his keyboard cord, and managed to tip his PC over. It went from standing up to laying down, on a carpeted floor. Killed the HDD, even though the carpet would've substantially reduced the peak G forces the drive was subjected to. I'd be willing to bet the instantaneous shock was a lot lower than what your drive experienced... unless your desk is carpeted!

I did something similar about 5 years ago. Foot got tangled in an external HDD cord and it fell about 16" from the top of the mid-tower onto a carpeted floor. The drive belly-flopped on it's flat side, but it was still toast.

Another 20 cents for some rubber washers to work as isolators/shock absorbers would certainly help reduce G-forces, but as accidental damage isn't covered under any warranty, drive makers have no interest reducing that sort of damage.

derFunkenstein · Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:44 pm

Yeah, no, my desk is not carpeted. :lol:

The enclosure is still fine. The drive is a 4-year-old Samsung, got a 2TB just as they came out. No warranty, time to go drive shopping. Boooooooo

Usacomp2k3 · Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:42 am

Just for giggles, checking work. 23.93 down 10.05 up.

Thu Oct 23, 2014 5:44 pm

OK, just how many choral groups does one high school need? Daughter's in jazz band only (always on last at these combined concerts) and I've got to sit through five off-key choral groups?!?!

Ugh.

Philldoe · Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:16 pm

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1iP9m ... sp=sharing

I'm just going to leave this here.

Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:57 am

Was having some problems with some shoelaces when Google pointed me at this http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacingmethods.htm
My mind is blown, part of me thinks some people have way too much time on their hands and part of me has a nerdgasm.

derFunkenstein · Fri Oct 24, 2014 8:03 am

holy cats, that looks like fun.

Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:40 pm

So... the new job officially starts 11/3. I am diving back into the wonderful world of contract work, at least temporarily. Kinda figured that might be in the cards for me as the economy has started to turn -- a salaried position at a stable company is a good port to be in during an economic storm, but you can do better as a mercenary when times improve!

Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:21 pm

Dear web designers,

If your site automatically starts playing anything with audio when opened, without an immediately obvious (i.e. IN MY FACE when the page loads) button to shut it off, or at least mute the audio, I will be highly disinclined to visit your site in the future. TBH, I'd prefer that media not auto-play AT ALL, even if there IS an obvious way to turn it off.

Automatic streaming of media content without the user opting in is also extremely rude to any users who are surfing through a mobile device with a data cap.

As an added incentive, you'll use less bandwidth on your servers as well. Hmm... not pissing off your users, AND reducing your hosting costs... sounds like a win-win to me!

That is all.

Sat Oct 25, 2014 11:07 pm

Whenever I read the latest XKCD, I also hit "Random" to re-read an old one. Today's "blast from the past": http://xkcd.com/341/ (1st of a 5 part series, keep clicking the "Next" button!)

And here's the "prequel": http://xkcd.com/327/

Bad puns, CS jokes, pop culture references, it has it all!

Redocbew · Sun Oct 26, 2014 2:23 am

just brew it! wrote:

As an added incentive, you'll use less bandwidth on your servers as well. Hmm... not pissing off your users, AND reducing your hosting costs... sounds like a win-win to me!

That is all.

Heh... Usually I don't consider myself to be that great at UI\UX, but auto play of audio or video is one thing that I will usually chime in against when someone brings it up. It's just a bad idea that needs to be sent to the same graveyard as all the other failed web widgets that are now just getting in the way.

idchafee · Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:10 pm

So we went apple picking last weekend and came back with ~60lbs of apples. Gonna try making a few pies again. Reason I say "try" is last year, the bottom of the crust fell completely to pieces when sliced and put on a plate, so I'm not sure what to do different. Gonna go spend some time with Google and see if it has any answers for me.

Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:47 pm

The cover of this week's "The Economist" is really rather funny.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/c ... a-me-na-uk

Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:13 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
The cover of this week's "The Economist" is really rather funny.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/c ... a-me-na-uk

Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:47 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Captain Ned wrote:
The cover of this week's "The Economist" is really rather funny.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/c ... a-me-na-uk

What makes it doubly super odd/amazing is that while the Anglosphere knows but 3 original seasons of the Circus, they did a 4th season in German for German TV (that's where Philosopher's Football comes from) so having Merkel in the picture just wraps it up in one tidy ball of nonsense.

Somewhere Graham Chapman is having a bloody good laugh at this, assuming he's not playing The Major. The rest of them are still barracking each other.

Tue Oct 28, 2014 5:22 am

idchafee wrote:
So we went apple picking last weekend and came back with ~60lbs of apples. Gonna try making a few pies again. Reason I say "try" is last year, the bottom of the crust fell completely to pieces when sliced and put on a plate, so I'm not sure what to do different. Gonna go spend some time with Google and see if it has any answers for me.

Blind-bake the bottom crust before assembling the pie. Put the raw crust in the pie tin, gently cover it with foil, and put a bunch of loose dry beans (or other suitable heat-tolerant non-reactive objects) on top of the foil to hold everything down. Bake until brown, then assemble and bake the whole pie. The liquid from the filling will do less damage to the bottom crust while at the same time protect the cooked bottom crust from burning.

Oh, and a visually-perfect slice of apple pie only exists on magazine pages and in recipe books. The perfect accompaniment is a slice or three of the sharpest cheddar you can find, and it better not be that fake yellow stuff.

tanker27 · Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:06 am

Captain Ned wrote:
The cover of this week's "The Economist" is really rather funny.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/c ... a-me-na-uk

I LMAO, that is the best.

Waiting for the first millennial to say, "I don't get it" in 3.....2....1.....

Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:39 am

Captain Ned wrote:
Oh, and a visually-perfect slice of apple pie only exists on magazine pages and in recipe books.

The slice of pie in those pictures may not even be real. Look-alikes are sometimes used when photographing food, especially if the food item in question does not retain its shape or texture well. I read somewhere that when you see a scoop of ice cream in a magazine or ad, it is often a "stunt double" made from Crisco with other stuff blended into it to make it look like the type of ice cream they want a picture of. I imagine they may do something similar for gooey pies, to keep them from falling apart on-camera.

Glorious · Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:40 am

tanker27 wrote:
Waiting for the first millennial to say, "I don't get it" in 3.....2....1.....

I'm a millennial, I get it.

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