So I'm changing jobs. I've been at EDS and HP for 12 years now, and it's definitely going to different going to work for a small company again. Not that I've been particularly happy at HP for some time now, but it's familiar and comfortable. Of course I was labelled as "jumping ship" by one of my co-workers when it got out on Friday.
Most of my career has been in network security and I only took the position at NII because it was close to home and required no travel while I was going through my divorce. Nor do I want to be someone who simply answers tickets in sm9 (the lousy ticketing system NII put in place). EDS/HP never did a good job of managing anyone's career and I got a chance to try and put mine back on track, so I took it.
I made my decision to leave EDS/HP in December, was just waiting until after my wedding and for the right job. Cloud networking is where it's at, in my opinion, and to pass up a chance to move back into security there is a golden opportunity.
All that aside, I liked my time at NII, I like the people there and I will miss it...
Oh and I'm already regretting not asking for a mac instead of a pc. Yeah, it's a learning curve for me on the mac after all these years of running xp/vista/7 for work and linux at home, but the mac is a great laptop, after all I'm writing this on a macbook pro... Duh!
Saturday, March 31, 2012
The 4th amendment
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Recently it's been written that companies are asking applicants for their Facebook logins and email addresses during job interviews. I find behavior such as this to be reprehensible. It would be unheard of for an employer to ask to search your home or mail, yet email and personal messages are allowed?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/28/facebook_employer_passwords_amendment/
So a few representatives in Congress wanted to pass a law outlawing this. Why is a law even necessary? It's already in the Constitution, even so, I'm all for this, and yet it got shot down.
Why?
Look, I generally vote on the "Conservative" side of things, yet I'm beginning to wonder why. I don't agree with this, I don't agree on abortion, and other things. I always considered myself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but throwing the bill of rights out the window is just way more than I can stomach.
If some employer, not named NSA, FBI, DoD or CIA asked me for anything like this I would definitely not take the job. I've done work for the DoD and other gov't agencies and they never invaded my privacy like this. I've had to take drug tests and had background investigations, and although I don't think they provide much value(see Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen) that's a requirement for gov't work, but private companies asking this is absurd. And anyone who is in Congress not supporting the 4th amendment is utterly ridiculous...
Recently it's been written that companies are asking applicants for their Facebook logins and email addresses during job interviews. I find behavior such as this to be reprehensible. It would be unheard of for an employer to ask to search your home or mail, yet email and personal messages are allowed?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/28/facebook_employer_passwords_amendment/
So a few representatives in Congress wanted to pass a law outlawing this. Why is a law even necessary? It's already in the Constitution, even so, I'm all for this, and yet it got shot down.
Why?
Look, I generally vote on the "Conservative" side of things, yet I'm beginning to wonder why. I don't agree with this, I don't agree on abortion, and other things. I always considered myself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but throwing the bill of rights out the window is just way more than I can stomach.
If some employer, not named NSA, FBI, DoD or CIA asked me for anything like this I would definitely not take the job. I've done work for the DoD and other gov't agencies and they never invaded my privacy like this. I've had to take drug tests and had background investigations, and although I don't think they provide much value(see Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen) that's a requirement for gov't work, but private companies asking this is absurd. And anyone who is in Congress not supporting the 4th amendment is utterly ridiculous...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
stupid politicians...
Yeah, so in a different part of my life I was a political activist. I was a delegate to a state convention, and an invited guest to a presidential inauguration. I'm not bragging, just pointing out that I was young, motivated and involved.
Fast forward a bit. I saw what a dirty nasty business politics are, formulated opinions on what the Constitution was supposed to be, saw how it's abused by career politicians (from both parties), and gave up on the whole thing.
Anyway, I live in Virginia and saw this: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73401.html. Look, I'll be honest and say I am firmly pro-choice. That doesn't mean "pro-abortion" before anyone (if anyone else even reads this), it means I believe that people have the right to CHOOSE for themselves. Fortunately I will never have to make that choice or live with it's consequences, but I support their right to choose. Either way, to force women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound with something that looks like a giant dildo is wrong on so many levels that I can't begin to comprehend it. Yes, it involves someone inserting a "wand" into the woman.
It looks like this:
Not cool.
So a little while later I see this story on cnn: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2012/03/13/tsr-sylvester-ohio-viagra-billl.cnn and now some member of Ohio's legislature is going to stick it to men over as "payback" because some idiot Ohio State Senator is trying to pass a law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected (about 6 weeks).
Look political dimwits, we have real problems in the US, and you're going to waste valuable time and money banning viagra and abortions? Perhaps your parents should have had one...
Fast forward a bit. I saw what a dirty nasty business politics are, formulated opinions on what the Constitution was supposed to be, saw how it's abused by career politicians (from both parties), and gave up on the whole thing.
Anyway, I live in Virginia and saw this: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73401.html. Look, I'll be honest and say I am firmly pro-choice. That doesn't mean "pro-abortion" before anyone (if anyone else even reads this), it means I believe that people have the right to CHOOSE for themselves. Fortunately I will never have to make that choice or live with it's consequences, but I support their right to choose. Either way, to force women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound with something that looks like a giant dildo is wrong on so many levels that I can't begin to comprehend it. Yes, it involves someone inserting a "wand" into the woman.
It looks like this:
Not cool.
So a little while later I see this story on cnn: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2012/03/13/tsr-sylvester-ohio-viagra-billl.cnn and now some member of Ohio's legislature is going to stick it to men over as "payback" because some idiot Ohio State Senator is trying to pass a law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected (about 6 weeks).
Look political dimwits, we have real problems in the US, and you're going to waste valuable time and money banning viagra and abortions? Perhaps your parents should have had one...
Friday, March 9, 2012
Live Nation
So today Dave Matthews tickets went on sale. I'm not the typical "IT" guy who listens to techno music and drinks Mountain Dew all day, although I can lose a day on the Xbox or fiddling around on my laptop, I actually like real music :) and DMB puts on a great show.
Apparently Live Nation's web site doesn't work well with Firefox or with *my* installation of Firefox because it sat there for a good 10 minutes trying to load the page. After getting frustrated, and worried that the show would sell out, as it did last year, I finally switched to IE and was able to buy my tickets. This is something special for Merinda and I, and I wanted to make sure I could got the tickets.
Here's my irritation. Two lawn seats at Nissan Pavilion (I refuse to call it jiffy lube live) at $40.50 each and an additional 12.50 "convenience" charge per ticket. What convenience? Your website isn't convenient. Ticketmaster/Live Nation have a monopoly on concert tickets. It might be convenient for THEM but it isn't for ME. Why are they allowed to monopolize tickets and add on whatever fees they want. Factor in their ownership of TicketNow and they really control most of this industry.
There's more...
Then I get charged $30 for VIP parking. This doesn't bother me because it eliminates the hour+ wait to get out of the lot, and then $14.50 to have the tickets sent via UPS. What the hell happened to printing the tickets? Apparently Nissan Pavilion won't mail the tickets (the free option) and we're not allowed to print them. So, my question to Live Nation is, how was this convenient? I had to spend $40 for unnecessary shit.
Total cost: $150.50 for 2 lawn seats.
At least the show will be worth it.
Apparently Live Nation's web site doesn't work well with Firefox or with *my* installation of Firefox because it sat there for a good 10 minutes trying to load the page. After getting frustrated, and worried that the show would sell out, as it did last year, I finally switched to IE and was able to buy my tickets. This is something special for Merinda and I, and I wanted to make sure I could got the tickets.
Here's my irritation. Two lawn seats at Nissan Pavilion (I refuse to call it jiffy lube live) at $40.50 each and an additional 12.50 "convenience" charge per ticket. What convenience? Your website isn't convenient. Ticketmaster/Live Nation have a monopoly on concert tickets. It might be convenient for THEM but it isn't for ME. Why are they allowed to monopolize tickets and add on whatever fees they want. Factor in their ownership of TicketNow and they really control most of this industry.
There's more...
Then I get charged $30 for VIP parking. This doesn't bother me because it eliminates the hour+ wait to get out of the lot, and then $14.50 to have the tickets sent via UPS. What the hell happened to printing the tickets? Apparently Nissan Pavilion won't mail the tickets (the free option) and we're not allowed to print them. So, my question to Live Nation is, how was this convenient? I had to spend $40 for unnecessary shit.
Total cost: $150.50 for 2 lawn seats.
At least the show will be worth it.
on the iPad 3, iPad HD or the "New iPad"
So, am I the only person on the Internet who is totally underwhelmed by this device? I'm not an Apple fanboi, or an Apple hater. I have an iPhone, iPad and yes even a Mac, but by and large I still use my laptop and linux. Yes, I'm a creature of habit. All that aside I was expecting a lot more from Apple with this release.
Here's my point. Asus is already working to bridge the gap between the laptop and tablet with their transformer. MS is poised to enter the tablet space with Windows 8 and Google is already there. This was the perfect point for Apple to move the market again by releasing something new and unique. Instead we get an incremental hardware upgrade.
I don't know if it's the death of Steve Jobs or what, but Apple made a lot of progress with the iPhone and iPad and seem to be very content to give it all back bit by bit....
Here's my point. Asus is already working to bridge the gap between the laptop and tablet with their transformer. MS is poised to enter the tablet space with Windows 8 and Google is already there. This was the perfect point for Apple to move the market again by releasing something new and unique. Instead we get an incremental hardware upgrade.
I don't know if it's the death of Steve Jobs or what, but Apple made a lot of progress with the iPhone and iPad and seem to be very content to give it all back bit by bit....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)