What is interesting to me is that my people in emergency comms are going to fail at some point. And they wouldn't fail if they were using either Linux or MacOS.

But there is another comm mode in use that is made only for Windows. I'm going to suggest that it be abandoned. Another Cassandra moment for me - the agencys heads will asplode when I do that.

Of course not. but it is the reality. Even for highly placed people. My SO, who was the VP and highest paid person in her company, noted how she was bored at times, and didn't get to do the "exciting" things I did.

My replies have always been "All jobs have good and bad in them - you are doing better than 90 percent of everyone working"

The part I didn't say was "You would freak at some of the things I've had to do. I was on extra hazardous insurance most of the time. Worked with hazardous materials, and in extremely dangerous places. Imagine being on a tiny ship in sea state 7, or crawling out on a board over a 100 foot drop to get a documentation photo where you had to put your head and face through an opening. That one was kind of funny. Because when you can't see where your body is you need something to ground you. I told my assistant to grab my ankles and squeeze any time I shifted to remind me I was on the board. "And please don't goose me." She really enjoyed sneaking up on me and grabbing my backside. I've had to deal with chemical fires. I've had to travel on short notice with an unknown return date. That part could be stressful, the wife got kind of anxious and a bit testy with me.

Then, back in a suit and tie, and presenting the results. Even that is stressful for many folk. On new engineer once hyperventilated and fainted. I managed to catch him and spent a couple minutes calming him.

Point is my work was intensely interesting. Not too many dull moments. Even my present work, which isn't dangerous, but most find it stressful, is seriously interesting. I'm too dumb to get stressed, I suppose.

The other point is that if you are going to do really interesting work, it might just not be what you actually wanted after getting it.

We should add an obligatory Jetson's comparison in addition to the automotive comparisons! 8^)

It is much more complex than that. Temperament and drive are important, and the ability to interact with others is as well. In my present work, I'm there because I not only have the technical chops, but I am really good at interacting with people, including stressed and difficult people. I have the ability to tell people to go to hell in a way they look forward to the trip. Previous people have either had the technical chops and lacked people skills, or were very sociable and hopeless technically.

And a little while back, I received an unasked for 50 percent raise.

You have to be flexible, and never stop learning. Also helps to assess the climate in your field. The opposite end of the spectrum from my gestalt is the guy I graduated with who had a really good career going in television repair. in 72, TV sets were still almost all tube, and needed repair pretty often. Then his work just disappeared. He had no plan, and by the time his market went away, his abilities were stuck in the vacuum tube era. Never did find out what happened to him. A decent guy, but he liked his stasis.

Do you have an example we can look at? Anyhow, if no one is needed, all done by robots how does that jibe with your statement of all the sad people working in the huge Datacenters, when everything is done by robots. Did you mean to say Sad Robots?

Medical Doctors have one big issue - they are nowhere near as smart as they think they are. 8^)

Your example reminds me of Video work. Before non-linear editing, A lot of places used the Amiga with a video Toaster board. I used one. So Lightwave had a demonstration at my university. Everyone was wowed. Then someone spoke up. This is great - we need it for the PC. The Lightwave guy said, "We don't make it for the PC, because the Amiga has many custom chips inside, The PC can't do it." Our guy said "You don't understand. We are a PC university that uses Windows. We want your device, but it has to be on PC, not Amiga or whatever you call it. PC, do you understand?"

I'm sitting there laughing.

Yes, I agree. It is like so many things, if one group doesn't do it, another one will, and the competition really tends toward better. Stasis loses.

Who designs and implements the robot. Your humongous datacenter will need a lot of them. Do you design datacenters that you know the implementations?

Lot's of people are sad anyhow.

Jobs, careers. Working for a living, professionalism. There is a difference.

If you want to be a professional, there are certain aspects of your workalike you have to adapt to - or have the temperament to do The big datacenter example is not uncommon even today in different jobs. Automotive factories are humongous. They use a lot of robots, but the humans inside are just a cog in the machine. Even the engineering jobs are not all that exciting. I have a friend who interviewed for a work at Ford once. The engineer he was talking to was all excited because they had chosen the paint color for the engines that morning. I dunno - how exciting is to decide on Ford Blue - again.

But here is the important thing. All of these not terribly interesting jobs are perfect for people who aren't that interested in the work. They are great for people who work for a living, not career oriented or professional.

And that is okay.

I nuked my nice fast Windows 10 laptop that was no longer eligible for W11 update. Now it works flawlessly and fast. My new W11 laptop is fast, but W11 is buggy. This operating system feels and acts like early beta.

Maybe Microsoft could think about getting W11 to function first instead of providing users with roulette wheel malware.

Even in my lifetime, it was almost impossible to have one job that would last your entire career. Especially in technology and technology adjacent careers.

Life long learning we called it. Prepare for the next thing. Think of say, electronics from tube to transistor to IC to early to modern computing. A woman photographer who worked where I was refused to do digital photography. Or at least the impeded it at every chance. After I designed a new process of digital, she then turned her stasis seeking onto me, saying I was too secretive for her to learn. The supervisor said "I have an almost 3 inch thick stack of memos and process outline, and your name is on the distribution list." She ended up losing her job because she refused to adapt.

Point is people have a desire for stasis, somewhat understandable. But if you were a miner, the days of hundreds of men laboring underground are almost over, at least greatly diminished. In my area, the coal mining is now handled by just a few. people and at an incredible pace. If you want employment, you need to look elsewhere. AI now. It is difficult to know firmly where this is going. One thing almost certain is that the present form of AI is a huge bubble, which complicates things. But this is another shift in technology adjacent employment. So I'd be paying close attention to what develops. Best to get in on the ground floor rather than wait too long.

There are values and there are values. I told my wife no tattoos, and she knows it is a deal breaker. She has her own deal breakers, and I comply. In your family, I take it you have no deal breakers? Your wife can do anything at all and you would just say " Okay dear - have fun"! Tell Bob , Jim and Sally I picked up the hotel bill for you guys.

Rather than go down the standard road where you end up calling me the M word (admit it, you want to) I have standards. I have boundaries. My wife has standards and boundaries. We respect them because- and I emphasize this we respect each other

And yes - another of my boundaries is respect. It isn't a deal breaker though, just gets a rebuke - after she cools down. Her's? She demands support and respect as well. Extramarital sex is also a deal breaker on her part.

Now back to tattoos. At their very best, they are gilding a lily. Almost all women have an element of beauty in them. Feminine beauty is real. Evolution has insured that.

At their average they are garish, and end up looking like a skin disease, fuzzy and unidentifiable after 20 years.

At their worst, they are a symbol of your love for youe ex, that you would expose yourself to a tattoo artist, and wonder why your new boyfriends don't stick with you. Or then I've been seeing women with teardrop tattoos. They think it is cute - look up wht a teardrop tattoo symbolizes. She better not show up in the wrong place.

You can think all of that is okay if you like - it is your opinion. But acting like I'm some sort of jackass because I don't like it. Is kind of rude

I also like women with freckles, I like tall slender women with long dark hair and blue eyes. But they have to have standards, and boundaries, and they have to respect my standards and boundaries. If tattoos are okay in your book, then that what you like - or maybe accept. Here's one for you - if your spouse looked like this, would you say "You slay queen" if she decided to look like that nightmare fuel on the left?https://www.tyla.com/life/true-life/worlds-most-tattooed-woman-shares-throwback-picture-943343-20240216

Finally, is there a level of tattoos your wife could get that caused you to say "no more!. ? If there is, you have a standard. So don't high road me.

Which is why I said they would have to get them on their genitals or a tramp stamp, below the bikini line. I noted that I have seen them sleeveless, in shorts, in backless gowns. in bathing suits, It ends up being a additive process. I'd I've seen the uncovered arms, legs, backs, necks, Not all at once, but over time, most of them.

And the other thing is that most of these ladies are not the mentality of a woman who gets tattoos.

Funny, I've lived in the boardroom for around 20 years, and you know how many C-suite women have tramp stamps? Explain how you know this fact.

I've worked with enough highly placed ladies to get close to them as friends, and they are simply not the type. They tend conservative, they tend understated, they tend to have husbands who pretty obviously wouldn't put up with that.

I certainly would not. If my wife came home with a tattoo, we'd be divorced ASAP.

You might not like it, you might believe that a woman covered with tattoos on her whole body is empowering and putting to the patriarchy - but you can't shake the opinion of many men that tattoos on a woman is a sign of making bad choices, and the more tattoos the more bad choices.

The fun part is after the empowerment and showing men that their bodies are their choices, after a while, the tats fuzz out and if you have enough, they look like you have a skin disease.

In the end, it is a great way for men to winnow out who is worth it or not. Many of us look at tattoos on a woman as similar to the rattles on a snake or the colors on a poisonous frog - stay well away. And it is a great way for tatted women to avoid having men who don't like tattoos to stay away from them.

Would you marry a woman with immediately above her vulva a tat that has "Bobby forever" or a tramp stamp that Say's "Only for you Bobby" ? What if she wanted to reconnect with Bobby for a week or so to get "closure" ? A lot of moderns like to do that. Closure is very important.

Being hurt or not is irrelevant to the facts of the situation. And your vapid comment just shows the womanist influence. Someone can lay out a lot of facts, and somehow, some way, the replay is using the M word, or the I word, or your dumb reply.

You folks have overused the pejorative words too many times, they now have the same effect as the rudder on a motionless ship. I only reply so that others might take note.

Yeah, my students are having a hellava time with their shiny new Windows 11 computers shitting the bed. I even switched over to the MacOS build of the software in order to know it works.

I've never been all that worried about market share or installed user base. More the opposite. I call it the VHS effect. VHS ruled the early camcorder and home recording market. It was also the worst technology among it's peers.

I guess the main difference is that Linux and MacOS aren't going away.

By the way I don't know if you've seen the post I made about my Emergency Digital RF communications or not, and how W11 is making a trainwreck out of the sound drivers. of which the whole thing falls apart. During Windows 7 days you set it, and it worked. No more.

Windows 10 had enough issues with Sound drivers already, then W11 came along and said "Hold my beer!"

Windows 1 sucked too. I haven't had one driver problem with Linux for over a decade and a half. In fact, I've had many many more with Windows. They will kill drivers, while Linux allows the old drivers to work. My group has had so many problems with W11 drivers bin wrecked with updates.

Never install Linux without an internet connection. It runs out to the net and downloads and installs them.

And do not try to impose Windows mores on Linux. I've seen so many people try to do that.

You will have to learn a little for some things, but there are repos that make the install process for programs a lot easier than Windows.

Anyhow, I just moved my windows 10 laptop to Mint, works great, and is stable.

Cassandra moment follows. I've done a bit of research on the issues, because of personal interest. I'd spent several years in the attempts to increase the number of women in STEM careers, and wondered why they fail.So I do personal research - and no, not just the internet.

A whole lot has to do with the increased divorce rate or even increasing it. As we went into the middle of the first decade of the 2000's, some very strange things happened. Womanism gained a lot of traction, and taught women that they have no boundaries, that whatever they decided was correct. The whole open marriage concept became an anthem. Note - just for her though. Or covert affairs were also her birthright. Her body, her choices.

Back to the sub topic here, While it does happen that men will make impulsive decisions under the effects of drugs, women are. now encouraged to do this sort of thing by their peers. I've even seen attempts at normalizing facial tats.

As I have always tried to tell women, you don't see tattooed women in the board room. And yes, at social events, I've seen enough at various times. Backless, off the shoulder, sleeveless, in shorts - the claim holds (unless of course they get the naughty bits tatted)

There has been a trend of most divorces being initiated by women - usually because they get bored, and want new men to sample - with a sudden recent spike at perimenopause, when women almost universally hate their husbands in addition of being bored with them. So a lot of single women apparently looking for a last hurrah in the sexual marketplace.

A new phenomenon is emerging however, men are starting to catch up and divorce for personal peace.

An interesting and non-sustainable trend.