On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:57:29 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 23/10/2011 8:36 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> That's certainly true.  I know some who work on helpdesks who suggest
>> it to buy time to research the issue.  Not always a good idea, though,
>> because if the problem doesn't come back, then you have to wait for the
>> next incidence in order to try to address it.:)
> By then it might be someone else's problem. :-P

I've never taken the position that I *might* have moved onto something 
else, so I don't have to worry about it. :)

> Seriously though, there are sp many things that can add up to a SNAFU
> that a power off reset is the simplest solution. Like. who test software
> 100%, if it at all possible.
> 
> Yes I've fault found your problem and it is a memory leak so you can
> report it and wait for a fix or reboot when it happens. Your call! ;-)

Sure, but at least I can get to the point to report it.  If it's a 
serious enough problem, I'll push it higher until it gets addressed.  
Done that with Novell, Microsoft, SUSE, and a few other tech companies 
whose products I've worked with or bought.

Jim

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>> Why did you even apply?!" I'd feel like I wasted everybody's time.
>
> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
> London"?

That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.

>> More to the point, I absolutely hate
>> London, so unless they're going to pay me 10x what I get now, it
>> wouldn't be worth it.
>
> Can it hurt to try? Trust me, you'd not be wasting anyone's time. If
> nothing else, if you're 100% dead set against setting foot in london,
> tell the interviewer that. I have no idea where all the offices are.

AFAIK, London is their only UK presence. (Although obviously they 
themselves would have a better idea than I do.)

And it's not that I don't ever want to come to London, just that I don't 
want to do so with any great frequency. Once per month wouldn't be so 
bad. Once per day would be.

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On 23/10/2011 11:16 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/23/2011 13:44, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Who the hell has internet access from a telephone?!
>
> I bet the other sysadmins in your company do. Get your company to pay
> for it. ;-)

I know a few of the more important members of staff get a company phone. 
People like the CEO, the site managers, and so on. I'm not nearly 
important enough for that. :-P (Besides, who *wants* to be contactable 
24/7?)

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On 24/10/2011 8:58 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>
>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>> London"?
>
> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.
>

Yes people do. I know several.

>
> AFAIK, London is their only UK presence. (Although obviously they 
> themselves would have a better idea than I do.)
>
> And it's not that I don't ever want to come to London, just that I 
> don't want to do so with any great frequency. Once per month wouldn't 
> be so bad. Once per day would be.

Commuting from MK to Victoria would take at least 75 minutes each way by 
train and tube and cost about GBP 50 per day. As for driving there, no 
one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an 
office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.



-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>>> London"?
>>
>> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.
>
> Yes people do. I know several.

Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that. 
(Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that sort 
of money.

> Commuting from MK to Victoria would take at least 75 minutes each way by
> train and tube and cost about GBP 50 per day.

Yeah, not fun.

> As for driving there, no
> one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an
> office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.

The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the 
traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they 
had absolutely no alternative...

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>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>> London"?
>
> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.

Rather than just *say* that, I decided to go and check with someone who 
knows more than me. And according to the Office of National Statistics, 
I'm right. :-P

More precisely: I found income statistics which cover
- Data gathered for 2010.
- All regions of the UK.
- All sectors of employment.
- All ages, races and so forth.
- Full-time employment only.
- Total income. (Base pay + overtime, bonuses, etc.)
According to that data, the 90th percentile for income is roughly 
£50,000/year.

In other words, if you earn more than £50k, you are in the top 10% of 
the entire [full-time employed] population of this country. And that's 
*half* the income you're talking about. :-P

(I can't reliably extrapolate what percentile £100k would be. There 
isn't enough data. Any answer you could come up with would just be 
guessing at this point.)

Looking at a different report covering April 2011 to June 2011, I get 
£47k as the 90th percentile. (This report might include part-time 
employment, I'm not sure. Regardless, it's a very similar figure.)

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On 24/10/2011 10:50 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>>>> London"?
>>>
>>> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.
>>
>> Yes people do. I know several.
>
> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that. 
> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that 
> sort of money.
>
No, trust me normal people do earn that sort of money but they tend to 
be contractors, in my experience.

>> Commuting from MK to Victoria would take at least 75 minutes each way by
>> train and tube and cost about GBP 50 per day.
>
> Yeah, not fun.
>
>> As for driving there, no
>> one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an
>> office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.
>
> The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the 
> traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they 
> had absolutely no alternative...
A nightmare. When I occasionally work in London I take the bus or the tube.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that.
>> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that
>> sort of money.
>>
> No, trust me normal people do earn that sort of money but they tend to
> be contractors, in my experience.

Like I said, the ONS claims that such a figure puts you well beyond the 
90th percentile.

>> The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the
>> traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they
>> had absolutely no alternative...

> A nightmare. When I occasionally work in London I take the bus or the tube.

I usually go by train as well. (Then the fun part becomes figuring out 
where to park at MK station...)

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On 9/30/2011 10:45 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 30/09/2011 04:26 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
>
>> Some, and maybe all of that is happening, but it isn't done by filling
>> out scientific method worksheets like I had to do in school.
>
> Those scientific method worksheets we had to do at school... I work in a
> company where people perform ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS, and let me
> tell you, it looks /nothing like/ anything you saw at school!
>

Nothing in the real world ever does. :)

> (On the other hand, there /is/ an absurd amount of paperwork involved...)
>

I can imagine the amount of detail they need to go into to produce the 
type of testing feedback their clients need. But, IIRC the company you 
work for provides analysis services, so I would expect that to be thorough

>> Definitely. Rote memorization teaches nothing, except how to memorize.
>
> This.
>
> I still think they should teach String Theory in schools - to
> demonstrate how even though something is widely respected, has brilliant
> people working on it, and involves amazingly complex mathematics, that
> doesn't make it science. Being testable makes it science.

Then your average folk will start whining and crying about how hard 
science is and how it's not practical.
-- 
~Mike

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>> Those scientific method worksheets we had to do at school... I work in a
>> company where people perform ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS, and let me
>> tell you, it looks /nothing like/ anything you saw at school!
>
> Nothing in the real world ever does. :)

I swear it's just busy-work to keep the kids quiet for a few hours...

>> (On the other hand, there /is/ an absurd amount of paperwork involved...)
>
> I can imagine the amount of detail they need to go into to produce the
> type of testing feedback their clients need. But, IIRC the company you
> work for provides analysis services, so I would expect that to be thorough

Well, the work we do theoretically affects human health. Like, if one of 
our experiments goes wrong, people could potentially *die*. Law-makers 
get really twitchy when that happens...

>> I still think they should teach String Theory in schools - to
>> demonstrate how even though something is widely respected, has brilliant
>> people working on it, and involves amazingly complex mathematics, that
>> doesn't make it science. Being testable makes it science.
>
> Then your average folk will start whining and crying about how hard
> science is and how it's not practical.

By "teach string theory", I don't mean that people should actually learn 
all the exotic mathematics involved. More that they should be taught why 
string theory isn't science, and atomic theory is.

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