I wrote a short story in high school about 15 years ago that was basically this. It's remarkable to see it in reality. Kinda creepy, too, given how my story ended.

THIS. I was going to post the same thing, but you beat me to it! APC makes exactly what you're talking about. They call it "InfraStruXure." Yeah, I know... Anywho, here's a link to their page for this stuff.

My typing speed is about what yours is, and I'm actually less likely to document my work. It's because the documentation repository I'm supposed to use is garbage. I can do the typing required in it in just a few seconds. It takes me over a minute for each form, waiting for it to load, waiting for it to load the list of values for various things, waiting for it to save... If it worked as fast as I typed, I'd use it. As it is, I do barely what's required of me to keep the PHBs from whining at me about my lack of documentation.

My first thought on reading your title was, "but there are no parachutes in VC..." Oh, that's the POINT! :) Awesome.

I used to do that with CJ in San Andreas just to see what kinds of things he'd yell on the way down. So many amusing last words!

I've never had trouble getting stereo output on a Linux box. At least, not in the last few years. 5.1 through a digital out, however... that's been a nightmare for me. I haven't tried the latest distributions, but Ubuntu just plain wouldn't do it through the digital out jack. Fedora will, but only outputs 2 channel. EVERYTHING I've tried hasn't worked, and no config file changes have changed my results. I'm going to try the latest Fedora and Ubuntu soon, so we'll see if it's gotten any better.

This, too. It's a sign of a bad management structure. Useless statistics resulting in managers getting bonuses is also a great flag for "cost saving" measures that can be taken. Eliminate the managers that fit this category with no other redeeming qualities, and you'll save a boat-load of cash.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Managers and executives can't handle anything that doesn't have a nice, neat, single number that tells them everything they need to know without having to actually know what's going on.

You can count calls, count time spent on calls, how long it takes between when a call is received and a tech is dispatched. You can count how many devices you have deployed in the field. All of these numbers tell you different things, and not one of them tells you much of anything by itself. Management needs to actually be in touch with the field and truly understand what's going on in their IT department, otherwise all those numbers are pretty meaningless.

It'll happen when a "critical" Windows Update changes every Windows box's default search provider to Bing.

Just out of curiosity, I want to see if it's possible to get "The April Fool" by posting here AFTER April 1. I posted in other threads on April 1 and didn't get the achievement.

Oh, for cryin' out loud, can't we have a simple day of gags without all this whining and bitching? Even people tagging stories are having a fit.

It's April Fool's Day. Slashdot has a long tradition of doing stupid crap on this day. Either enjoy it for what it is, or turn off the Intertubes and go do something else until tomorrow. Just stop f-ing bitching and moaning about it like it's seriously messing up your day.

In related news, Microsoft has announced that they will begin retroactively replacing Outlook Express with Pine. Expect some temporal distortion in your area.

Definitely Xenu. We're talking about volcanoes, after all.

Check out the seismograph. I can't wait until daylight and we get some pics of what's going on out there.

The key word you need to remember is "infrastructure." Fiber-optic lines, power lines, roads, sewer systems, railways; these are all infrastructure. It makes as much sense to run multiple sets of power lines owned by multiple companies supplying power from multiple power plants as it does to have multiple roads maintained by multiple companies running in parallel. Infrastructure lends itself naturally to a monopoly, and the only way to control such monopolies from getting out of control is by careful government oversight.

Cars are not infrastructure. Operating systems are not infrastructure. Electronics devices are not infrastructure.

I'm spending it drinking at home with my wife. Pretty much the same.

Also, thanks to her, I didn't get to actually see the numbers change at coolepochcountdown.com. I mean, ffs, I've had this page open for over an hour, watching the time countdown, and you wait until 10 seconds before the pivotal moment to ask me to do something, causing me to look away ever so briefly and miss it? ARGH!