The CCNA in its current iteration is ridiculous. It is the hardest now of all the tests and requires 5 months and buying your own switches and routers as the training material and simulators do not cover everything. It is says associate but it is like requiring a WAn engineer to take the MCSE so he can troubleshoot login issues. Yes I know the tests progress supposedly but the CCNA you need to know not just subnetting, but span trees, tons and tons of theory, CIDS, and a dozen other topologies and requires like 1500 page books to master the material.

I would think more entry level certifications would be better for a non network engineer to take. If you can pass the CCNA you can setup a network of any size with ease. Not just tell me what a subnet mask is which is the intention of taking it.

Which is why IT departments are now requiring CCNA in addition to the MCSE. Wan engineers are tired of sys admins opening tickets.

The CCNA is way overkill just like requiring network admins to be mcse certified in case they use a shared drive. But to run viritual machines you need to setup viritual networks and subnet and and diagnose connection problems

I am researching taking it as I see job postings requiring them for non network admins.

It is rediculous and overkill and nearly impossible to pass without prepping for 6 months and buying your own switches and routers as the simulators won't cover what you need to pass all for a silly assocites level.

I know employers who want talk to you if you do not have both the ccna and mcsa as much as we bash paper mcses here.

HR uses them as a filtering mechanism and colleagues respect you more. I had perspective employer make the MS certification requirement being current a condition of employment. Goes outdated? You're fired.

This is relevant to nerds and technology how?

Some of us are eco-nerds.

Seriously. Planets and space habitats will need ecological engineering - the real stuff, not the eco-wacko knee-jerks.

Examinations of how this horrendously complex system works when tweaked are definitely "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters".

There are lots of different sorts of nerds, and lots of nerds geek out on many different technologies each. If you sometimes see nerd-fodder that isn't on one of YOUR subjects on Slashdot, suck it up and shut up, while the nerds of THAT topic finally get to have THEIR conversation.

We get enough of that disruptive raining-on-our-parade from the jocks.

I read maximum pc and Google a few others. Samsung and sansdisk are proprietary controllers. Toshiba uses Ocz which supposedly fixed their modded crappy sandforce.

Intel back in 2010 had a few buggy firmwares. New are fine. I do not trust ocz, anything sandforce, or crucial. The newer ones use maxwell too which is ok. But OCZ truly does suck. I still have a mechanical drive for backup files and one drive too.

I have 4 ssds for almost 2 years in 2 raids. Survived probably 10 reimages and full disk writes :-) One volume Sansdisk ultra plus. Other sansdisk pro 840. Have tons of vm s on them with lots of reinstalls. Both proprietary controllers.

Check on the failed ones in your shop? I bet most are ocz or sandforce. Ocz is sandforce with redundancy removed. XP causes them to fail quicker too due to lack of Trim

Oh AND TRIM is essential. This is because when you delete it doesn't erase. Sectors are virtual and the controller keeps looking for data to save. It is strange. I use parted magic to do an internal erase whenever I reinstall an os. Go Google it?

Try a good oNE for 1 week. You won't want to go back. Especially if you have a mechanical disk and cloud backup

Hairy difference is you can pick the controller. Sandforce and OCX RUN.

Crucial buggy and will die without update.

I run sansdisk and Samsung pros in raid 0 for years. Their controllers are good and asked microcenter which gave lowest RMA? You should switch Hairy it's not 2010 anymore and they improved. Yes I owned 2 2011 Seagates that died :-)

No way will I go back. Swtor and battlefield 4 are unusable on a mechanical.

Also Intel has trim in raid 0 that AMD doesn't which blows for AMD fans but with that combo you can do raid

That the list contains people without convictions means that you can be added, and your sentence affected, by things you haven't been proven guilty of: Due Process Fail.

That stuck out like a big sore thumb to me. It's police and prosecutorial misconduct, pure and simple. (I'm appalled that this wasn't brought up until this far down in the discussion.)

Other items, just from the little bit quoted here:
  - 'people whom the D.A. considers "uncooperative witnesses,"'

One of the big differences between the US and English systems is that in the US you are NOT REQUIRED to risk your own life to do the police department's work by testifying about what you've seen. (You aren't allowed to lie, but you are allowed to be silent.) The police often can't, or won't, provide you with protection against criminal retaliation for your testimony, at the same time that they block you from obtaining or using the means to protect yourself. Don't want to be a martyr? Just say nothing.

But these guys are turning that principle on its head: If they decide you're an "uncooperative witness", into the database you go, to be harassed and minutely scrutinized from then on, threatened with arrest at any slip-up, treated differently, and far worse, than other citizens. That's selective enforcement at its worst, and denial of civil rights under cover of law.

Then there's "gang members". If some policeman don't happen to like you and the friends you hang out with, they he can define your group as a "gang", regardless of whether you've committed any crime, and treat you and your group as they would big-time repeat offenders. Any bets on whether this gets used against political opponents of the prosecutors' party?

Except that Apple isn't the owner nor are they acting on behalf of the owner -- they are depriving you of your property on the sole basis that they want to hurt you because you used a competitors service. I fail to see why this should be a mere class action suit and not a criminal proceeding. This should qualify as property destruction and theft.

A popular website now gone showed the readings to the exclusion zone 10 years ago.

While I got modded down for saying it is dangerous here as this is a pro nuclear site there are areas near the plant where the radiation is 100x as high as other parts of the zone. Trees to this day show genetic aberrations in areas near the plant regardless of the thriving ecosystem developing in the nearbye Ukrainian city.

Safe to visit the abandoned city of Prypiat but I would not want to live there and drink the water, get near the plant, or risk having dust on a windy day get near my face or food.

And requires IE 6/XP and no security updates or anything.

For a minute I thought we were screwed where the utilities corrupt all our agencies so they can't enforce any polices to change this that would somehow cost MBA access to real time reports and money.

Speaking as someone who did work his way and just got demoted after only 5 months I have to say management is not for everyone.

You think (l)users are annoying as helpdesk or desktop support? Wait til they make unreasonable demands, bash you, attack you and your team, and promise customers things without your knowledge that you can not possibly deliver and then hold you accountable when it fails while they take a bonus?

That folks sounds like hell but is management 101. Granted I have incompetent managers at my company (I was probably one of them due to me being demoted) but it is all bullshit, soothing hotheads, and looking like you got your shit together when you don't.

If you have aspergers or some mild social disorder like a lot do in IT then management is not for you as it requires a whole different skill sets. If you are fast talking salesmen who knows jack about IT then you can be a great IT manager as your job is not to get yourself and your team fired.

I had literally nightmares about work 5 nights a week and woke up at multiple times in the night to check email on my phone. I could not tell someone else please include me in that meeting and no this can not be done by X as you waited until the last minute and a lack of planning on yoru part should never be an emergency on my part. That line got me demoted as I had to move 4 companies and set VLANs and several hundred pcs when the wiring was not even fucking in yet in 3 days. ... end rant.

Programming managers have this too when sales promise a product features that do not exist and they get a slap on the back for a good job and a bonus and the IT manager is threatened with termination if 6 months worth of work is not done in 2 weeks etc.

I would even go on to say of all management IT management is the worst out there besides restaurant.

Well then I have to say your with the wrong girl or she is mad at you.

A woman who loves knows and expects you to be different. My exwife hates man caves. However she loved me enough to talk about needs and we planned. Punishing with sex because you are you and feel overwhelmed and need a break with 0 consideration shows no empathy or love

So where did you meet a girl into games? Not an easy task.

That's waaay overkill for a small hpc. Nice gaming box though. My raid 0 workstation and gaming box only has a 600 watt psu.

I read about people using raspberry pies for hpc. I would get a low end AMD or atom in a tiny mtx case with 2 ssds or a esata one where you can hide the drives behind. Sexy, slim, and quiet.

Integrated graphics on latest atom are 4000 which is fine for video. AMD can run games too.