pickle-wizard

You know, maybe it was Netware. My memory has some bitrot in it after all these years.

I am interested in this too.

The past 12 years I've been doing automation of various types, so I've forgotten much of the Data Structures and Algorithms I learn in college.

After 10 years of living in an apartments and hearing all of my neighbors I got tired of it. So I bought a single family house. I have a small yard, only 1/8th acre, but it is enough of an air gap that I don't hear my neighbors.

Add some 50GB Ethernet and that would make one hell of a storage server. With all the cores in a Threadripper you could do on the fly compression too.

folklore.org is another good source. It is a collection of stories written by the team that created the original Mac (Most stuff written by Andy Hertzfeld)

The Raspberry pi is a killer deal.

When I was in college in the mid 2000s my senior project needed a single board computer. We spent $500 on a small PC104 board with a 100MHz National Instruments Geode (x86 compatible) process. That didn't include any RAM or storage. I really wish the Raspberry PI would have been available back then. Especially the Raspberry PI ecosystem, makes interfacing with stuff so much easier. We interfaced a small LCD I found at a surplus shop and it took us weeks to get it working. No you can buy a touch screen LCD for $30 and there are libraries to get it working in about 20 minutes.

That reminds me about the story of a University that an old DEC VAX that got walled up during a remodel. Machine kept running and no one notice. A decade later another remodel came along and they tore down the wall to find the machine just happily running.

EvanAnderson: Hello Officer what the problem?

Cop: I clocked you at 532 Mbps, this is a 400Mbps zone.

EvanAnderson: Oh I didn't see the sign.

Cop: License and registration.

I too took a technical writing class in college and it was very helpful.

I used to be a pretty good technical writer early in my career. Everything I did was documented throughly. Anyone could read my documentation and pick up the project.

Then we had a management change. I would literally get yelled at by my director because I was wasting time creating documentation. So I stopped. Didn't document shit, and the yelling stopped.

I'm at a new job now, and I'm trying to get back in the habit of documenting everything. Though those skills are very rusty.

I would like to reiterate point 6 as I made this mistake with a past business. I was filing the quartly sales tax reports with 0 dollar sales. THen I just stopped.

4 years later me and my partner get a letter from the state comptroller wanting to know why we hadn't been filing. We were looking at several grand in penalties. When we went to the audit thankfully we got an understanding auditor who was able to close the account retroactively and remove the penalties.

Just because you have depression doesn't mean you have to go on anti-depressants. They are many other therapies available. As mentioned in another comment thread Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very successful.

Yeah I found the root linux password online. There was more than once I had to SSH in and fix the SLIP connection between the controllers when they went into a brain split.

If I recall correctly they were running SuSE Linux with Websphere App for management and DB2 storing all of the configuration information.

I hadn't heard they traced their linage back to the shark. That surprises me a bit because we had several of those and they were very reliable. Though thinking about it that makes sense.

Hopefully the later software fixed the reliability problems. I got rid of all of ours in about 2010 or so. Replaced them DS5000 on the Open Systems side (which had their own set of problems), and DS8000s on the Mainframe side. The DS8000 was pretty rock solid.

If you want to dabble with mainframe. Another option is the IBM zPDT. It is an emulator that runs on AIX or Linux. It does require a physical USB hardware key. It is kind of pricy about $5K from IBM, but there might be discounts. I believe that also get the z/OS and z/VM software and licenses also.

Back when I was at IBM one of the hats I wore was AS/400 administrator and programmer.

I miss working with it and would like to buy one for my home lab, but the licensing is a killer. I find used ones on the market, but they usually don't include the license keys or media, and without a support contract can't get them.

I really wish IBM had a hobbyist program. I wouldn't expect it be free, but I wouldn't mind paying a small yearly fee.

I cringed when he said he bought a DS6800. When I worked at IBM we had about 20 of them and they were shit. Always broke and getting into weird states. No way I'd run one with a support contract.

I really only have one problem with these tariffs. That Trump didn't get our allies to also raise their tariffs against China.

Does it have a catalytic converter?

When I bought my house, I bought electric lawn tools as small engines are pretty terrible polluters. I read an article several years ago, by Car and Driver I think. They took a push mower, a Fiat 500 and F150 Raptor and hooked them up to some emissions testing equipment. 30 minutes of running the mower had higher emissions, other than CO2, then driving the Raptor 3000 miles.

I've got a picture of my cat, that looks like a professional headshot. I've been thinking about making her a linked in profile. I never thought about using it to troll recruiters though. I thinking more along the lines to she how many people would accept the connection invite.

Do you run .Net Core on Windows or Linux?

I have a project in the early design phase that I was thinking of going with .Net Core on Linux. I've thought about going with Java, but with all the recent Java licensing changes don't think I want to go that route anymore.

I had a Windows Phone. I really liked it. What I didn't like is that there were no apps for it. So I ended up switching to an iPhone.

I also had a Windows RT tablet. It was pretty good, but I wish MS hadn't nerfed it. If I could have used a browser other than IE I would have likely bought another one when the SSD failed.

I think it is good that you are looking at compensating on-call. I've never worked at a place that gave any kind of compensation for on-call.

One of the things I've like to receive is not money, but extra days off. An extra few hundred bucks isn't going to make much difference in my quality of life, but a three day weekend would.

I helped my sister do her taxes this year, since it was her first year. We just used the H&R block software since that is what I used to mine.

They rejected her return because I kicked two of the numbers on the EIN of one of her employers. The rejection was quick too, as we got the email about 20 minutes after submitting the return.

I always knew that the IRS checked your return, but I always figured it was something that eventually happened. I didn't think they checked everything as you submitted it. I don't know why I though that. Guess I pictured the IRS computer as an old IBM S/360 with core memory that did everything in batches.

You bring up a good point. When it comes to investing, most people don't have a clue what they are doing.

This in my opinion is the biggest problem with the move from a defined benefit to a defined contribution retirement scheme. It took the investing out of the hands of the people that knew what they were doing.

Along those lines it really grinds my gears how the financial industry is ripping off people who are saving for retirement. Most 401k plans I've seen have incredibly high fees with a few investments that charge equally as high of fee. Especially those at small companies.

Yes long term disability is a must have. I usually get it through my employer.

When I was laid off last year I did have the option to continue the disability insurance, but it was a bit more expensive that what I was paying as an employee. IIRC it went from $50/month to $100/month.

What is nice is that my new employer picks up the tab 100%, but it is only 60%. Usually in the past I would pay a bit extra to get 75%, but that is not an option.

I've never thought about private disability insurance before, but it is something that I should look into.

I'm not quite 40, but am happier now than when I was younger. A key part of that is financial. After 20 years of working I have a nice nest egg saved up. It is not enough enough that I can retire, but it is enough that I don't have to worry.

When I was younger, I was always stressed about how I would pay the bills. When layoffs would go around I would be super stressed , worrying about what if it happens to me. I'd also be stuck dealing with some asshole boss because I needed the money again causing more stress.

Right now there is a rumor going around that my company is not doing too well financially. In the past I would have been worried about it. Now my only thought is if I do get laid off, is where I do some traveling to. If it is during the summer, think I'll go spend some time in the Canadian Rockies. If during the winter, I'll go back to Australia.

Of course it is not everyone, but it is a reoccurring theme. Especially in threads that discuss working at a start up which is a fair number of the threads around here. Likely it is just a very vocal minority, but still it is annoying.

This place gets that ways some times. I like reading the comments here, as there are a lot of insightful comments that I often learn more from than the article itself.

Though sometimes it feels that if you are not working at one of the FAANGs making $400k/year that you are a total loser.

My $dayjob gave us all Macs for workstations. Which is fine and dandy, but I spend all day in an RDP session as my job is automating Windows. Honestly Windows is fine and is getting better. I'm running the Windows 10 Insiders Preview so sometimes things get a little funky but still it pretty much just works.

As a former IBMer I really like the POWER hardware. It is just a shame that it is made by IBM. Like you said IBM stuff is just too damn expensive.

Pre-ACA group plans could deny preexisting conditions for a time period equal to the time that you were uninsured.

When I switched job I would get a letter from previous insurance company stating the dates that I was insured. Once I actually had to provide that to the new company.