"Solarwinds123" sounds an awful lot like a password used during installation before the software is fully integrated into a client's systems. In every installation manual I've ever read it has something to the effect of "(installation) passwords MUST be changed to reflect (client) network security standards." A simple, "easy to guess" password is there just for making setup and installation easier and not forcing professional services to adhere to company security protocols. I've done it hundreds of times myself.

At cutover, I always sit down with the admin and we switch the passwords and/or switch on AD, LDAP, or whatever. As soon as they enter the password in, it's out of my hands. I always make a point of going over ALL the maintenance logins and passwords, what they do, and how to activate/deactivate them. Once at a massive client, I was trying to get something out of a data warehouse with SQL dashboard and was waiting on the admin to come and help me. On impulse, I tried the default database password and got in. I immediately got out and notified the admin and his manager, this was a MASSIVE security breach and anyone on the network could have had root access to some really sensitive data. Got an attaboy from the project manager.

In short, changing the default passwords are the responsibility of both the person doing the installation and the client, period. Any admin worth their salt should KNOW there are defaults and they should change them. Blaming an intern is just bad management.

They were based near me and I recall the divorce of the owner, Dennis Hayes, led to the breakup of the company.

They appear to also license architects. So, if my company sends me, a solutions architect (my job title), to Oregon I get fined for using it without a license?

Yeah, let them try that. We've got BIG lawyers.

Several of my clients are in the data discovery business, recovering data from old drives for use in trials, lawsuits, insurance claims, etc. There is *nothing* they can't get off a drive, even one erased with the current DoD spec'd tools. I know, I saw them do it as a demo for us. They took a drive filled with data and ran an eraser over it that over wrote with 0's, 1's, and random data 20 times (not in front of us, that takes forever). The tech then took the drive apart and realigned the heads a bit and recovered about 40-50% of what was there.

You *can not* totally erase a drive with software. The only way is to erase it first, degauss it, and then drill holes in it. Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

I never throw away an old or damaged hard drive. They're small, so I can keep all of them in a little copy paper box and they make excellent emergency backups of old data.

I doubt that it's just a sensor reading acceleration, especially modern autos use "fly by wire" accelerators and not physical linkages anymore.
If I were the obsessive compulsive engineer that Elon Musk is (and seems to hire engineers that way), I would not only have a sensor recording the acceleration I would have a pressure sensor on the pedal itself. That way, not only does it read the call suddenly accelerating to 50 mph, it records the 50+ pounds of pressure on the pedal.

There was a study recently about going on "autopilot" while walking or driving (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-mishaps/201404/the-dangers-going-autopilot) and how people avoided obstacles, but didn't truly notice them. Part of the experiment was to bend a branch to head height and then place dollar bills on it. People avoided the branch, but didn't notice the money even when it was waving right in front of them. They even a large sign announcing that a psychological experiment that explained what was going on place in the middle of a path. When asked shortly afterwards about the obstacles, people didn't remember them. They just avoided them.
People get into a car and automatically behave as if they've been driving that car or road regularly, even a new one. They zone out, react to a normal occurrence and because of their unfamiliarity with the vehicle/road do the wrong thing.

First, the principal is breaking the school's own rules that state anything created BY a student is OWNED by the student. This has been pretty much true since the first student to take shop class showed off the hammer he made on a metal lathe.

Second, it's the person using the camera, not the owner of the camera that has ownership.

Third, all the subjects are in plain view in public, on public land, and have no expectation of privacy. That's how you can take pictures on the street and not be sued.

Does anyone thing that the petition being at *exactly* 26,000 signatures seem odd?

Did anyone else think "Urban Assault Vehicle" at first?

The best way to write anything is still pencil and paper. It doesn't run out of batteries, crash if you drop them (though the lead might break), and you don't have to put them away during taxi and takeoff.

I've always understood that taking notes forced your brain to take something short term memory and push it into longer term memory by processing what you're hearing into the written word.

I have a stack of composition notebooks (the black and white bound ones from college) that date back over 20 years filled with my business notes. It's cheap, but it's thorough and nothing says "paying attention" like physically writing it down. I also tape business cards onto the page where I made the notes on that meeting.

Didn't see anything about it, anyone else see something?

I'm looking at a digital multimeter from Radio Shack that I bought about 5 years ago when they closed a store near me. It sure looks like the same shade of yellow...

man pages are like Joe Friday, "Just the facts". Dry, boring, and with little to no anecdotes to explain the how and why. I can't count how many times I've run man xyz and ended up Googling the command or emailing a friend to get a better explanation of how to use it.

I was in Marietta (west side) at a dental appointment when it started to hit at about 11:00. Just flurries at first, but by 11:30 when I left it was starting to come down so I headed for home in Tucker on the east side. By 12, I made the decision to jettison my other errands and make a quick stop at the post office at Northlake then go across the street to pick up my contacts at my eye doctors. Just after I left there at 12:30 I got an email from my son's teacher letting us know that school was closing early.

By then, it was really coming down, but the major danger at that time were the people slowing down "just because". Traffic started to snarl as I picked my son up at his school and headed straight home. I began reading the horror stories of people stranded in cars on the freeway, kids trapped at schools because the parents didn't get the message until too late, school buses diverting from their normal routes and heading to the nearest school to pick up kids and get them home ASAP. Home Depot stores all over Atlanta opened their doors to people stranded and gave them a warm place to sleep.

Yes, the city and state government should have cancelled school and closed everything down to emergency services. They didn't and the Atlanta mayor and Governor Deal will pay politically for that. They had warning enough from the local meteorologists that have decades of experience in forecasting winter weather in Atlanta and they chose to ignore it (and later lie about knowing). Parents could have made the decision to keep kids at home.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

And now I see "experts" from all over pontificating about how "we should buy more plows and salt trucks", "how stupid Southerners are because we don't know how to drive in the snow", or other inflammatory rhetoric. Here are a few thoughts for those people to chew on.

"Why weren't you prepared?" - Preparing for a once every 5 year event is not possible. If the mayor of Atlanta (who isn't blameless in this) prepared for Boston levels of snow, he/she would be out of a job *quick*. It's like New York City preparing for a hurricane. (*BURN*)

"It's only 2-4 inches! I drive in that all the time!" - No you don't. You drive on roads that are prepared CONSTANTLY with salt and gravel, using 4 wheel drive, snow tires or chains. Snow in Atlanta almost immediately melts when it hits the pavement and then turns to ice from the air temperature. ICE people. It's not snow it's ICE.

"Southerners can't drive on snow!" - Actually, we don't have experience driving on snow and that would hold true if it were only southerners driving here. According to the US Census, Atlanta is the 8th most popular city for to migrate to. In 2010 to 2011, 82 people a day moved to Atlanta, foreign and domestic. I meet far more people from the northern states than I meet other southerners that moved here. I'd guestimate about a third of the people driving yesterday were born somewhere that uses snowplows on a regular basis.

"You stupid f*ing rednecks!" - Excuse me? Are you talking about the city where anesthesia first came into use (Dr. Crawford Long)? Where the largest beverage company in the world is located (Coke)? Where some of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world are designed and built (Lockheed)? Where the Center for Disease Control is located? Georgia Tech? Emory University? Morris Brown College? The Carter Center? If that's stupid, I'd love to see what you have to offer.