On 10/24/2011 1:55, Stephen wrote:
> cost about GBP 50 per day.

WTF? My drive is 75 miles, and it costs about $25 round trip counting tolls. 
And public transit is 3x as much in England?


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:08:54 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> To be fair, I don't think they try to exclude me on purpose. It's just
>>> that they all work in the same room, and I don't.
>>
>> Right - when you have one remote member of a team, it does require a
>> conscious effort to include them.
> 
> And they make a half-hearted attempt to do that. It's just that, like so
> much in this department, it's not very thorough.

It takes effort and time, and if they're really busy, it's something that 
probably doesn't get a lot of attention.  Sadly, that's pretty normal.

>> Except that you don't seem particularly happy, either.  Maybe that's
>> just what comes across here, but you often sound quite miserable and
>> depressed.  You worry about people in your own town beating you up, you
>> hate your job, your mom drives you crazy....About the only thing you've
>> said you like is the way Milton Keynes is organised.  That seems like a
>> very minor reason (to me, but hey, it may be very significant to you)
>> to stay someplace you hate around people you can't stand to be with who
>> don't respect you.
> 
> In order to answer this properly, it becomes necessary to understand
> that my life has changed over the last few years.
> 
> I used to live in a box, paranoid that if I set foot outside, I would be
> beaten to death. After all, almost every social interaction that I had
> ever experienced consisted either of being ignored or attacked.
> 
> My life isn't like that any more. For the very first time in my life, I
> have *friends*. Actual, physical people that I can reach out and touch.
> [But only if dance class is on this week, sadly...] I'm happier than
> I've ever been at any prior point in my life.

It's good that things have improved for you - really, and I'm very happy 
to hear that.  :)

Now that you've seen that life can be different, you're better prepared 
to make a bigger change.  I understand not wanting to risk the current 
level of happiness, I do.  At the same time, now that you know life can 
be better, you know that even the current situation can be improved.

That's a very positive change for you (indeed, it would be for anyone). :)

> But yes, I still really dislike my job. I just feel that I'm wasting my
> life there. And my mum still drives me crazy! (In fact, just tonight
> I've had to put up with 3 hours of her bawling her eyes out like an
> overtired 2 year old...)

The more you write about your mum, the more I wonder if she needs to be 
evaluated.  I don't have enough data (and that's probably a good thing), 
but it does sound like she should at least talk to a professional.

>> Leaving home, though, isn't "abandonment of everything you've ever
>> cared about", though - I left my parents to go to college and to pursue
>> a career.  I still am a major part of my mom's life (my dad having
>> passed away a few years ago).
> 
> I'd love to not have to live with my mum any more. It's just that I
> actually like MK. I have actual friends here, I love my dance school,
> and to be honest, every other city I've seen is just old and run-down.

Indeed that's a "problem" with living in a country that has a long 
history.

There are other places in the world, though, where things are "newer".  
Though arguably in the current economic climate, an overseas relocation 
is likely to be more difficult (I know, I've been talking to friends over 
there about relocation to the UK, but it doesn't look like that's going 
to happen anytime soon, partly because work visas are in very short 
supply at the moment).

>> It also tends to be a lot more expensive, and to most businesses,
>> saving money is a key part of survival.  And there's no guarantee that
>> the new car you buy won't have the same problem, or a different - and
>> more difficult - problem.
> 
> I hear you. Like I said, *I* don't think it's the right answer. But hey,
> that's just me. Apparently.

Well, that's two of us.  And I know others. :)

>> So with gentoo, an emerge actually downloads the code needed to build,
>> and it builds all the dependencies.  So you weren't just building
>> Firefox, you were building the entire system.
>>
>> That's just slightly different.
> 
> Well, no, I had already built several large things at this point.
> (Including X11 and KDE.) So those were already done. However, yeah, it's
> possible it pulled in some other dependencies as well as Firefox itself.
> Given that the ebuild system spews out commands longer than one terminal
> screenful (WTF?), it's hard to say.

My point is that Gentoo is not a good representative sample of how long 
it takes to build software because that's how Gentoo does package 
management.

>>> OK, well let me put it this way: I would be /surprised/ if HP are
>>> interested in helping anybody not paying for the priviledge.
>>
>> If you bought the product, you've already paid for the privilege of
>> getting at least fundamental setup help for the product.  If you can't
>> get it to work, you're likely to return it, and returns cost them
>> money. It's in their financial interest to support any product in at
>> least a minimal fashion.
> 
> Sure. But if it's just a glitch in their driver that make it not work
> with a certain product, they aren't going to bother fixing that. Not
> unless there's money in it.

Customer satisfaction has a value to companies as well.  HP is big enough 
to know that to be the case.

Jim

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On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:58:01 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/23/2011 20:47, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But maybe I'm an abberation.
> 
> You do all that if one web page times out, before you try just
> refreshing the page? Yes, you're an abberation. :)

Well, OK, I'll try a refresh first, but if it's reproducible, then I go 
further with it.  Reproducing a problem is a valid troubleshooting step.

> I bet you disassemble the door of your car every time you hit the remote
> and it doesn't lock on the first try, too. ;-)

Damn, have you got a camera in my garage or something? ;)

>> Well, I can tell you that when I run into trouble, I actually do take
>> the time to try to figure out what's going wrong rather than just
>> refreshing or rebooting.
> 
> Well, sure. But it takes knowledge of what's happening inside the
> machine and what might likely be wrong. If you don't really know the
> difference between RAM and disk, you're not likely to try
> trouble-shooting a fragmented page file or something.

Yes, and that's the point.  People trained in the management and 
operation of server operating systems should damned well know the 
difference between RAM and disk.  It's kinda their job to know that. ;)

>> Because I would far rather not run into a preventable issue over and
>> over again.  I get bored with the same problems cropping up, so I try
>> to resolve them.
> 
> Sure. But we're talking about a one-off, for the most part. If it keeps
> happening, people go back and complain it didn't get fixed with a
> reboot.

It's been my experience that in far more cases with Windows admins than 
with those of other systems, "reboot the system" becomes the "fix" rather 
than trying to troubleshoot it.

Once upon a time, I worked for a Fortune 50 company with several thousand 
Windows servers.  Informix was running on them, and there was a memory 
leak.  "Reboot the system" was the "fix", to the extent that the reboot 
was scripted and scheduled to run nightly.

Now, part of the reason for that was that Informix was taking their time 
fixing the problem - but the fact that the 'troubleshooting' got pushed 
up the chain to the developer doesn't eliminate the fact that Informix's 
developers also felt that rebooting thousands of servers nightly (or 
weekly, perhaps, it's been almost 10 years since this situation happened) 
was better than actually fixing the problem.  A problem that was fully 
reproducible.

Jim

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On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:54:19 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> 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?)
>>
>> Generally, businesses want their IT support staff to be contactable
>> 24x7 if the organisation operates during those hours.
> 
> Yeah. Fortunately, I don't have that problem. A few of our staff *are*
> contactable at every hour, but I don't need to be one of them.

I remember having one job in IT that was like that.  It was nice (of 
course, I tended to work really late into the evenings anyways, but 
that's another matter).

Jim

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On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:01:25 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/24/2011 1:55, Stephen wrote:
>> cost about GBP 50 per day.
> 
> WTF? My drive is 75 miles, and it costs about $25 round trip counting
> tolls. And public transit is 3x as much in England?

Yep.

But compared to the price of owning a car in the UK - with petrol prices, 
congestion charges (in London), etc - it can be a more convenient form of 
transportation, unless there's a strike...

Jim

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On 25/10/2011 5:18 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I'd love to not have to live with my mum any more. It's just that I
>> >  actually like MK. I have actual friends here, I love my dance school,
>> >  and to be honest, every other city I've seen is just old and run-down.
> Indeed that's a "problem" with living in a country that has a long
> history.


Or an advantage if you are that way inclined. I lived in a new town for 
four years. To me it was soulless and boring beyond belief, I was even 
glad to move to Aberdeen. It is just a point of view.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 25/10/2011 5:01 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/24/2011 1:55, Stephen wrote:
>> cost about GBP 50 per day.
>
> WTF? My drive is 75 miles, and it costs about $25 round trip counting 
> tolls. And public transit is 3x as much in England?
>
>
That was costed for public transport. I reckon that to drive would take 
about 2.5 ~ 3 hours be charges £8 for the congestion charge and about 
£30 for parking. The average price of petrol in my area is £1.358 which 
is about $8.21 per US Gallon. Two months ago in NM I was paying $3.60 
per US Gallon

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>>>> and to be honest, every other city I've seen is just old and run-down.
>> Indeed that's a "problem" with living in a country that has a long
>> history.
>
> Or an advantage if you are that way inclined. I lived in a new town for
> four years. To me it was soulless and boring beyond belief, I was even
> glad to move to Aberdeen. It is just a point of view.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that MK is a "box city" with no 
soul. But every other city I've ever seen just look old and run-down. 
I'm used to things being shiny and new...

Interestingly, I've never met anybody who doesn't live in MK who has a 
single good word to say about it. Everybody has either never heard of 
it, or they hate it. I have no idea why.

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

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On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:53:45 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 25/10/2011 5:18 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I'd love to not have to live with my mum any more. It's just that I
>>> >  actually like MK. I have actual friends here, I love my dance
>>> >  school, and to be honest, every other city I've seen is just old
>>> >  and run-down.
>> Indeed that's a "problem" with living in a country that has a long
>> history.
> 
> 
> Or an advantage if you are that way inclined. I lived in a new town for
> four years. To me it was soulless and boring beyond belief, I was even
> glad to move to Aberdeen. It is just a point of view.

Well, that's why I said "problem" instead of *problem*. ;)

I tend to agree, I like having older buildings around.  However, having 
lived in a somewhat older house (by US standards), I think the decision 
to go for something more modern in the next place (a flat, no less) is 
right for us. :)

Jim

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On 25/10/2011 6:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

>>> Indeed that's a "problem" with living in a country that has a long
>>> history.
>>
>> Or an advantage if you are that way inclined. I lived in a new town for
>> four years. To me it was soulless and boring beyond belief, I was even
>> glad to move to Aberdeen. It is just a point of view.
> Well, that's why I said "problem" instead of *problem*. ;)

Tell an old man what the difference is between

"problem" instead of *problem* ?



>
> I tend to agree, I like having older buildings around.  However, having
> lived in a somewhat older house (by US standards), I think the decision
> to go for something more modern in the next place (a flat, no less) is
> right for us. :)
>

I like living in flats, I've never lived in a house with a garden.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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