"Hey, why buy the cow when the milk is free?"

(Yea I heard that from her relatives fairly often)

[John]

Ah, so just keep on doing what I'm doing now. Perfect, thanks.

[John]

It's not the same guys. Don't attribute the bad behavior of a few sociopaths with the majority of guys who still enjoy the company of women. What's that hashtag? #notallmen

[John]

Maybe that's the difference. I ignore trolls and will even leave a thread on a forum once it starts getting too weird. Are women escalating by responding, being too defensive? It's not hard to spin up some folks. Just mention any MRA type of comment and some women will step up and respond. Depending on how far you want to troll women, you can really get them going. It can work for me too. Posting inaccurate information will likely get a response from my trying to correct it. That's the thread weirdness I mentioned above. At a certain point, sometimes quickly, it'll get too trollish/weird and I'll ignore it and back off/out.

[John]

How do you propose to fight back?

[John]

I didn't know Aspergers was a synonym for "I just don't care". There's a difference between "meh" and "difficulty interacting socially".

[John]

The problem is we have a mixed environment of Solaris, HP-UX, and even Tru64. Red Hat is newer. So we needed to use a Linux that worked with the existing infrastructure. Our software already worked with the main two we were using and even had a client for Tru64. When investigating possible Linux platforms we wanted OpenBSD first (I know, not linux but the Unix team is a fan) but no support. But of course we had to check the compatibilities of each of the agents we were using at the time. All worked with RHEL. That limits our choices quite a bit. :) Now it's momentum. We have 1,100 systems of which about half are RHEL and some CentOS. Even if the agents started being compatible across the board, we don't have the manpower to start support an even more diverse environment.

[John]

Relax, you have 5 more clones.

[John5]

It's the constant conversation actually. "Did you see that [some sports thing] Sunday?! Go [sports team]!" or "Looks like it might snow, good for skiing, snowboarding, etc" or even "Happy Holidays!".

There needs to be a "no talking" aisle.

Oh wait, there is one. It's called 'Self Checkout'.

[John]

Yea that too. Nothing like finding the canned goods packed in with the hotdog buns. The Wal*Mart folks actually do a much better job at bagging than the grocer weirdly enough.

[John]

I think it's more of a bulkiness limit for me. More than 4 or 5 bags will have me looking at the checkouts. And yea, if there's a line at the self checkout that's 2 or 3 people per register deep, I'll go through a checkout even if it's longer.

I don't go to Lowes. It's targeted to women shoppers with the store layout, more visual displays, and big box department store feel vs the warehouse DIY feel of Home Depot. Plus I'm not a fan of the "man playground" at the front of the Lowes. Makes me feel like I'm being dropped off by the wife while she shops.

[John]

Meh. I don't mind the self-checkout lines. The fewer people I have to talk to, the better. Walk in, get what I want, scan and pay, walk out.

[John]

Because infrastructure tools including some backup and monitoring agents only work with RHEL. I don't mind using different distros for my desktops (my right one is Ubuntu, left is Slackware, home is RHEL for cert study, coworker uses Mint) but when it's a server, I have to go with what's supported by various vendors and at the minimum, all support RHEL.

With that said, some third party application vendors use different distros for their application. A recent one had their product working only on SUSE. When we said we couldn't support it from an infrastructure management point of view, the vendor said their next version will work with RHEL. I guess they are seeing what we do. If I can't manage the environment (1,100+ servers), I don't want your product.

And to the developers, I personally don't care what your favorite distro is. When it comes into production, it must fit into the environment. We provide a standard supported distro. If you can't be arsed to check with us first, don't be surprised when we kick back your product pointing you to the standards document, and force you to ensure it works on RHEL.

[John]

The odd part is when I use squshy keyboards, I seem to make more spelling errors. I like my Model Ms and get folks commenting on them when I have a snazzy computer setup and a keyboard from 1989 :)

[John]

Interesting. Mine have been working for over 20 years without apparently degrading.

[John]