Warp wrote:

>   Well, if you don't want to listen to friendly advise, suit yourself.
> Whatever floats your boat.

As I say, I was having a rather bad day. I didn't mean to be quite that 
snappy at you...

I realise that you're actually trying to help, but when you're having a 
really bad day and somebody points out something *else* you just did 
wrong... it doesn't feel terribly helpful. If that makes sense.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Tim Cook wrote:

> You know, you two make a cute couple, what with these lovers spats and all.

I've been wondering to myself... if me and Warp ever met IRL, would we 
end up having a long intelligent conversation, or would one of us be 
hospitalised? ;-)



[Actually, I gather that Warp's spoken English isn't as good as his 
written English, so maybe nothing much at all would happen. But who knows?]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> I really hope I manage to sort out this giant mess sometime soon - 
>> because I do *not* enjoy being this worked up.
> 
> What /did/ they do, or are you still trying to trace their steps? Hate 
> that when someone comes in, changes a ton of things, and neglects to 
> inform you of those changes. I've had that happen numerous times, with 
> varying degrees of failure because I was not made aware of the changes.

It's just a case of these two guys brought a bunch of equipment along 
with them and went into the new server room and started *doing* things, 
and they're just in there little room *doing* stuff and *doing* other 
stuff, and *somebody* is supposed to be documenting every step of this 
process. Not to mention, half of this stuff was supposed to be formally 
authorised by management *before* anything was done!

Now, our manager knows nothing about computers. He'll sign any bit of 
paper you push in front of him. But that's not the point. The point is 
that auditors will expect to see a bit of paper with a specific set of 
signatures on it, dated before the time of the change. And that doesn't 
exist. The fact that it's an entirely redundant paper excercise is 
irrelevant. We didn't do what we should have done. This makes 
auditors... unhappy.

So I basically just spent my afternoon following these guys around with 
a set of logbooks frantically trying to write down everything they did.

A number of people seem to think that these guys are doing this to me 
"on purpose". They aren't. They're far too stupid to be devious. It 
simply doesn't enter their tiny little minds that we might even need to 
record or authorise this stuff.

Over at HQ, they have systems marked as "validated". These have an 
angelic halo around them, and you can't so much as *touch* them without 
getting authorisation and doing regression testing and so on and so 
forth. And then there's... EVERYTHING ELSE. And equipment beloning to 
the "everything else" set... you can do what the hell you like with. You 
don't have to record a bean.

So these guys seem to think that anything that doesn't have this magical 
"validated" halo, it's OK to just pull it apart and screw around with it 
with impunity. Over here, that's not how it works. Over here, *all* 
computer systems must be controlled. Even the ones that have nothing to 
do with our actual regulated work. EVERYTHING MUST BE RECORDED.

Repeatedly this seems to geniunely shock them. Like just this afternoon, 
one guy shut down one of the servers ready to remove it. So I recorded 
the time he shut it down. And he was like "wow, gee, you *record* server 
reboots? Damn, we only bother recording it if we actually add or remove 
validated software..." [The UK, however, records absolutely every time 
the server is touched. Every minor configuration change. Major config 
changes require formal authorisation...]

Aaaaaaanyway, it's the weekend! Bitches! So I DON'T HAVE TO CARE ANY 
MORE!!! :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> Why does that all of the sudden make me feel as if I'm one of the 
> mole-people.
> 
> "Thriving community down here, in the deep recesses of the underground."
> 
> :)

I always liked to thing of POV-Ray, and especially off-topic, as an 
elite underground sect of engineers, mathematicians, physicists and 
programmers...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I've been wondering to myself... if me and Warp ever met IRL, would we 
> end up having a long intelligent conversation, or would one of us be 
> hospitalised? ;-)

  Given that we are rather antisocial I bet our "conversation" would just
be full of awkward periods of silence.

> [Actually, I gather that Warp's spoken English isn't as good as his 
> written English, so maybe nothing much at all would happen. But who knows?]

  It could be a good way to pratice, though.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I always liked to thing of POV-Ray, and especially off-topic, as an
> elite underground sect of engineers, mathematicians, physicists and
> programmers...

How about linguists, artists, and theologians?  Do you have room for those down
here?  :)

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48121baf@news.povray.org...
>  Given that we are rather antisocial I bet our "conversation" would just
> be full of awkward periods of silence.
>  It could be a good way to pratice, though.

Have silence a special accent in Finnish and English? ;-)

Marc

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Kirk Andrews wrote:

> 
> How about linguists, artists, and theologians?  Do you have room for those down
> here?  :)
> 

Artists? POV-Ray and actual artists? Ha HA!

erm.... I suppose those can be accepted, too. (Seeing as we have a few 
of them, some quite good, too) :)

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Kirk Andrews wrote:
> 
> How about linguists, artists, and theologians?  Do you have room for those down
> here?  :)
> 
> 
As long as you don't mind having to sit on the floor cushions :-)

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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Invisible wrote:
> In short, these guys come, change a whole bunch of stuff, don't tell me 
> what they're doing or anything, leave, the government auditors arive, 
> and fry me for lunch.

With great responsibility comes great power, or words to that effect. 
You should be the only person who knows the passwords needed to change 
things you're responsible for.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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