Wait, why aren't there initiatives to determine why STEM in general is experiencing "poor performance"?

I know! Not enough women!!

But if there's a problem with the US falling behind and not doing well, could it be a problem with teaching methods? If we don't have enough people in STEM but the ones in STEM are doing well, then it's a problem with not enough people in STEM. But if the people in STEM are doing poorly, is it a problem with the teachers? Why add more people if the teaching methods are not working?

[John]

Not sure why the response. Playing Rage Against The Machine and some Biffy Clyro about 20 minutes ago and will head up into Rocky Mountain National Park around 7am tomorrow to hike around bear lake with my girlfriend.

But hey, hope your parachute works and good luck with the Hooters girls. :)

[John]

I was playing guitar but stopped to check the various feeds before shutting down and heading to bed. Snowshoeing early tomorrow.

[John]

Generally I try to save the heroine and not shoot her. Although nowadays, she doesn't want saving.

[John]

Actually with the FF37 breaking corporate access for me keeps me in a holding pattern at FF36.

[John]

Concurrent Unix? Something like that. I remember the $100 Unix in Dr. Dobbs and the discussions about the BSD projects and calls for volunteers.

[John]

Can't upgrade since it causes me to be locked out of the Windows domains at work if I go to 37.

[John]

We had to train the Indians who took our jobs managing TSA and IRS security systems before we were moved to new contracts.

I paid money out of my own pocket to get training on Veritas vxvm in order to be placed on a specific contract (one I wanted). Granted, it wasn't training for a job that was already filled.

I do self study for other things such as learning about Red Hat 7 although I suspect the company would pay for me to go to the class if I asked.

[John]

It was extremely interesting to visit Prague and visit the Jewish area to read the history. The Jews were constantly being segregated into their own towns or areas in cities and not able to have very many jobs. Since Money Handling was against the law for Christians, the Jews became money lenders, bankers, etc. And in reading the historical plaques and documents, you can see how that 'The Final Solution' was just the culmination of years of persecution and segregation.

Very enlightening.

[John]

So a bit over a mile high here in Denver :)

Actual Altitude though would be zero plus/minus a couple of feet as I work on the ground floor.

[John]

Hey! I'm a self-taught hobbyist and I could do a better job of it :)

[John]

Yea, got my CCNA and CCNP over 10 years ago and it's really been a benefit in general networking knowledge. Same with starting off 35 years ago as a programmer. Programming and networking really helps in being a sysadmin.

[John]

Yea, a1 is the one that's probably the most annoying. I get regular (daily) data from this server. I have monitoring agents in place to notify me if the system goes off line or even has a bad afternoon.

"Has this ever worked?"

Are you fucking kidding me? Here are the tcpdumps from the system showing the packet loss. Here's the output of ifconfig showing the interface as down. Here's ethtools showing no link. Here are the configuration files from yesterday showing it was on line yesterday. Here is the monthly consolidation file showing it's been configured for years. The shit I gave you when I opened the ticket in the first place!

"Did something change in the data center?"

Nothing we've done. It's a remote site and we don't manage the data center. Maybe it's a cable that went bad, someone tripped over, a switch configuration change due to a reboot, a firewall change?

Data Center Manager: "In my experience, cables don't go bad. Are you sure the system was working yesterday? I tend to believe the Networking folks over you sysadmins."

Ultimately it turns out the cable went bad. Replaced the cable and all was well again.

But damn, "was it working yesterday" really is a pisser.

[John]

I did a quick search and according to the company, yes we're in the Fortune 500. I can't seem to locate an actual list of the 500 though so I can't confirm it.

[John]

Actually we helped with the description, in part because a few years back when we were looking, he'd failed to put 'Unix' in the description. It seems to be a bog standard description. We are looking for someone with enterprise level experience so HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX are big plusses.

We do get candidates but they all seem to be junior/power user types who haven't managed systems at an enterprise level. They don't know how things work under the hood and don't appear to be interested in learning.

With 35 years of experience in computers and 20 years experience as a Unix admin, I'm making a bit over 100k. In checking the job descriptions available in Denver, I think I could get another 20k if I decided to commute for an hour but since I'm 5 minutes from my house now, I think it's just about worth the reduction in stress to stick around :)

[John]