Work, don't talk. Deliver quality code.
Cooperate. Share.
Don't act like a know-it-all or "try to impress" just be yourself, track your deliverables and always over-deliver without making a big scene about it. If you have time, help others if they need it.

"LCD screens are thinner - not much thinner, and most people spend their time looking at the front, not the side. "

I don't know about that.... some of the new ones I'm seeing seem pretty damn thin....

I find that for watching sports on TV, that motion prediction stuff on those 120hz Sony models does seem to make things look better.

In any other situation, for me it just makes things look weird and creepy - I don't see artifacts as you describe, but things look too hyper-real and it throws me off. It makes Hellboy look like an actor in a costume working on a sounstage under artifical light rather than, you know, reality....

Actually most of the world was behind the US when it came to going into Afghanistan and going after the Taliban & Osama after 9/11. People had no objections there, going after the people that attacked you and helped the attackers.

Iraq was a completely different, unrelated matter that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Just to head off one answer - which I'm sure is something along the lines of "if joe average can't take advantage of the same opportunity, then the market isn't fair".
The thing is, joe average can - he can put up the money and build the systems he needs to take advantage of the market more efficiently if he wants to. He's not prevented from doing so.

What's the point though? Who cares?

The market is computerized.... so let people using that market use those APIs and protocol to their full advantage. That's their business.

Just like people during gasoline price-wars who line up for hours, or get up at ridiculous hours of the day to be first in line to buy gas a few cents cheaper.

What damage are we trying to prevent by forcing people to hold onto publicly traded stock for a given amount of time?

If you don't want your company to be exposed to such influences, stay out of the public stock exchanges - nothing forces you to go there.....

IN both cases, if it's sucking the life out of you, then you aren't using the right tools..... and perhaps not identifying what the real problems are.

Sure, someone can fuck up infrastructure..... and you can put things in place to enforce infrastructure and prevent fuckups.... that's your job, right?

That's overly drastic - but you could always find the tools that you need and/or the policies you need to enact in order to make your and everyone elses job easier, write a proper proposal, and give that to your boss..... that might get you some traction.

Part of the problem, especially with homegrown sysadmins, even the most talented ones on technical merits, is that they don't know how to operate within a company. They overreact..... they get hammer syndrome. They want everyone to switch OS's just because nobody has taken the time to find a decent AV vendor and an Active Directory book or two, and learn how to manage their windows network somewhat properly. Note: That doesn't mean I wouldn't LOVE to switch lots of networks to all-linux, but in the business world, good-enough is often the solution you can sell, not the ideal.

At one point I would have been in the same camp as you guys - then I gained enlightenment and learned that the job of being a sysadmin was more than just playing around with computers. It's also about managing corporate expectations, resources, budgets, and all kinds of stuff.... and if you do it right, it's still just as fun as it used to be.

If you've been doing sysadmin for 10 years and you are still fixing people's workstations then of course you hate it - you aren't moving up in the world - you're doing a job that someone fresh out of school should be doing.

Exactly the right thing to do - and not only does it cover your ass, it also demonstrates a level of professionalism to those letting you go that they may not have ever considered before.

And you know what? If I forgot to hand over a password, because I just couldn't think of it at the time - even if I'm pissed at the situation and the company, I'll give it up as long as I'm sure the person calling is allowed to have it - and if I'm not sure, I'll call up my old boss and give it to him. Even if he's the one who's being a dick.
Even when my former co-admin calls me up a month later to ask if I remember the password to X because we all forgot about it - I'll try to help him out.

The very last thing you want on you reputation is that you can't be trusted.

Perhaps... but you know what? This shit happens in the sysadmin world. All those corporate policies about passwords and stuff? Relatively new in the grand scheme of things. A good sysadmin doesn't go batshit nuts and do anything to even make it LOOK like you are holding a resource hostage. A good sysadmin goes out of his way to ensure that he's not seen as a threat, even though he could be - remember, most people have absolutely no idea the unprecedented level of access their sysadmins really have.

Sysadmins can be quirky and weird - but the one thing you don't want your references saying is that you were ever dishonest, thieving, or held a resource hostage. If you're going to defy a higher up's request for something, you document very clearly what and why you are doing it, and you include that higher-up in those communications. That tends to earn you respect from all sides.

He acted wrongly in several ways, it seems to me, even if technically correct on paper.

That said - his *manager* should have had the skills to assess and diffuse the situation and set things back in order. They could have retained a possibly valuable asset rather than ended up in this expensive godawful mess. They let the guy get that deep into the "it's mine" hole..... that's a natural direction to head. you have to help him dig out, too.

You handle it gracefully and politely, while covering your ass. You point out that the current policy says you'll get fired for just giving out the passwords - so you ask your boss for some guidance on how to resolve the situation properly - their need for access and your concern about policy (or whatever). You work together... not against each other with policy as a hammer.

"When either a direct-line supervisor or someone as high up the food chain as you are supposing here asks for something you pretty much give it to them. Or get fired on the spot with good cause"

I've been at jobs where I have several master passwords which I am not allowed to give to *anyone* - the only other person who has them is the owner of the company. There is a manager or two in between us in the organization, but those particular passwords and policies were very clear.

Line-managers of various sorts in between me and said owner did ask for access to things on occasion, as well as directors and whatnot from completely other departments - and in such situations, rather than be combative, I would explain the situation delicately and respectfully, and then we would handle the situation however we saw fit - whether that meant we both went to see the decision maker, whether that mean they would raise it on their own, or whether they wanted me to raise it for them....

I'm a sysadmin. I am a facilitator, and a protector of someone else's assets - not a power-hungry dictator.

Even if the owner of the company walks in and asks for access to "everything", to which of course he is entirely entitled, I will try to find out what's up and what he really needs. I might explain why, while of course it's his stuff and I will give it to him on his insistence without question, there are some risks he's exposing his organization to by doing this. This has, so far, universally led to a "Huh, those are great points, I hadn't thought of that, nevermind.... all I really need is X.

Not commenting on the case - but I can attest to having been in situations where I had passwords that neither my boss nor his boss were permitted access to - the only other person with access was the owner.... and that policy came from the owner.

It's not common, it's not normal - but it happens, and has to do with domain expertise and risk mitigation.