Somehow, game companies manage to figure out which CPUs/GPU are required and preferred for each of their games. Of course it's almost impossible to tell if my current hardware meets those specs because the numbering is completely out of order. i3, i5, i7, sure the i7 is somehow better, but how much better? Will my top end i5 beat the medium tear i7 that they ask for? It's maddening. At this point I only buy Nvidia GPU systems because I've sweated blood learning their numbering system and I don't want to figure out ATI's system and get them confused. This crap makes Windows version counting look simple.

There are some basic rules for running for the Senate, but criminal offenses are covered by state laws. In this case Maryland has chosen to allow felons to represent them. I have no idea how we have gotten to this point but I sure wish we could do take backs...

I tried Hangouts and it was too slow and too big for my uses. I mostly use Whatsapp now, it small and fast. I wouldn't even have looked for a different messaging app is Verizon SMS didn't suck so bad in my area. Messages don't arrive for hours even when the delivery receipt says they've arrived.

So, you're smart enough to have a firewall with port detection and know how to block a subnet, but you're not smart enough to write a filter that takes that port scan notification from that subnet and throw it in the trash? I've got buddies that work for banks, they do this crap all day long. They can't turn off port scan, because company policy, but they need to filter out stuff that doesn't matter. They do it at the monitoring software but most home users get email notifications. Use a mail client that has decent filtering. It's not like this is going to be the only time somebody scans you, you'll get better at writing your filters.

Living just northeast of Yellowstone means never having to worry about saying goodbye. It'll be over so fast you'll miss it.

Your bank is going to lock down your account after a certain amount of retries. Sure, a password can be insecure, but you aren't going to brute force a bank account. Most banks also do some form of two factor authentication, in my case, three things I know, pin, password, and picture.

So, I've been an IT professional in the past and transitioned to industrial control systems. In IT I was a contractor that only got payed for my billable hours. I spent long days but got payed very fairly for the hours I billed.

When I moved into control systems my pay was negotiated as salary, I got insurance and retirement. But when I actually started working it was all figured hourly. The problem was it didn't matter how many hours I worked, I got payed for 40. I was always told to 'take time off', but there was never time. Always another project, always another emergency. 50 hours a week and on call every night became the norm. Eventually I got sick of it and switched jobs.

Now I'm actually an exempt employee. Most weeks are 40 hours, some are more like 50 and I get an occasional call at night. My boss is rabid about me taking a day off when I get a crappy week and never quibbles when the day is slack and I leave early. My team is expected to work 40 and OT is authorized as long as the employee isn't getting burned out. The only problem with this setup is it's easy to get slack. Without the constant pressure it's easier to let things slide. I find that if I drive my team hard on a project every couple of months, they stay more productive when the workload is normal.

It's been interesting to see how the individuals react to working conditions, what motivates them (and myself), and how to make sure they don't drive themselves too hard while still getting the job done.

It's a waste of time. My current work schedule has me going to work in the dark summer and winter. Which is awesome because I'm usually home from work at the same time as the kids get home from school. The only thing that DST does for me is screws up my sleep schedule twice a year.

Remember back when there was an iron grip on how menus were laid out? Remember when it frustrated us all that we had to use the same keyboard shortcuts to reach simliar functions? I miss those days. From the current nightmare that is Microsoft Office, where it took me twenty minutes to find the print command for the first time. To drilling down through three menus to find my bookmarks!

While you're at it, knock off that rapid release cycle! Version 12 looks just like Version 3, except that I had to completely wipe my copy of firefox, delete every single firefox folder on the machine, then had scrub the registry just so I could reinstall and not have weird errors and random things not work. Boy that was a fun way to spend my evening.

Ten years ago when I was hiking in Glacier National Park, we heard a whistle. Now back then a whistle was something you used to summon help. My friend and I hurried down the trail looking for whoever was in trouble. It turned out it was a stupid lady with her two small children making sure that the bears were scared away. Nothing has really changed with people, their whistle can just be heard at even greater distances. Park rangers have the ability to issue tickets for this sort of behavior, no reason they shouldn't.

I'm tired of worrying about it. I'm switching back to cash.