Something Random

[Mercutio]

Handy, I ditched the 10krpm cube fans in my 2U Supermicro machine for some (much) slower Delta fans, swapped the redundant 1U PSUs for a larger and quieter 2U one and ditched the Intel stock heat sink for a low profile heat sink with a fan. Then I stuck it in a closet and closed the door. It gets warm, but it isn't terribly loud. I already had the power supply, and I spent around $75 getting the stupid thing quiet enough that I could leave it running.

Also, the Intel H61 board I just bought a crapload of has an actual Pro/1000 NIC in it instead of a Realtek POS, so I can load ESXi on my $500 classroom machines without having to add any extra hardware. Which is nice.

dd, why does your work computer need a GTX690?

 

[Chewy509]

dd, why does your work computer need a GTX690?

IIRC, MS Flight Simulator (or other flight sim).

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, the only way to completely turn off all facebook emails is to have a facebook account and use its account settings. There's no specific control for non-users that says "Do fucking not fucking ever fucking email fucking me fucking again fucking about fucking anything fucking spamming fucking fucking asshole fucking bastards." Which, as with LinkedIn, there absolutely needs to be.

I kind of want to just blacklist @facebook.com but unfortunately I actually have contacts who actually use Facebook as their email service.

 

[LunarMist]

Can't you set up a fictitious facEd book account or will that cause other problems?

 

[Handruin]

Handy, I ditched the 10krpm cube fans in my 2U Supermicro machine for some (much) slower Delta fans, swapped the redundant 1U PSUs for a larger and quieter 2U one and ditched the Intel stock heat sink for a low profile heat sink with a fan. Then I stuck it in a closet and closed the door. It gets warm, but it isn't terribly loud. I already had the power supply, and I spent around $75 getting the stupid thing quiet enough that I could leave it running.

Also, the Intel H61 board I just bought a crapload of has an actual Pro/1000 NIC in it instead of a Realtek POS, so I can load ESXi on my $500 classroom machines without having to add any extra hardware. Which is nice.

dd, why does your work computer need a GTX690?

Thanks for the suggestions. I did see in the BIOS that there is an option to quiet the machine and set priority to throttling the CPU & Memory in order to keep the fans slower. I still don't think that will cut it though. I'll look into replacing the fans and do like you did. The heatsinks on this thing are fairly large, but that makes sense considering all the cooling comes from the front. The motherboard on this thing is a S5000PAL and it says it has Two 10/100/1000 Intel® 82563EB PHYs supporting Intel® I/O Acceleration Technology. Even for being a bit dated, this seems like a pretty solid machine. I'm surprised they were tossing it. Assuming I can get it to a tolerable level of sound, it should work quite nice. The one thing this machine is missing is the Intel Remote Management Module. I looked one up on eBay and they're quite expensive (~$180). I thought that would be nice to have to manage it from a KVM perspective. For $180, I can walk to the basement.

 

[ddrueding]

You don't game at work Merc?

 

[Mercutio]

You don't game at work Merc?

For some reason, I don't think it's a big deal to screw around on internet forums all day if actual work is done, but I don't actually fire up any games.

Can't you set up a fictitious facEd book account or will that cause other problems?

I went back and looked, and I know that I've opted out of communication from Facebook and Facebook users before. But the issue is that Facebook is now offering a new KIND of communication which is coming from business members and apparently that's different enough from all the other times I've told them I don't want to talk to Facebook that they think it's OK to message me some more. The fact that I've had to do this for several email addresses for a third time does point to a larger issue that Facebook and a great many date rapists need to learn about the meaning of the word No. I certainly should not have to provide any additional information at all to Facebook to tell it as an entity to cease communication with me.

 

[ddrueding]

You can't do that with snail mail spammers, why would they make it easier in the digital age? If they aren't going to get anything from you, they clearly don't care if they piss you off.

IIRC, FB's policies and pages were so complex that there were some third-party tools for managing privacy and notification settings?

 

[Handruin]

I'm really surprised at the amount of unsolicited email you get from FB. I get notifications of events, but that's because I opted in and even those are minimal these days. I don't recall ever seeing an external communication from a facebook email address or businesses. Are these contacts that you sought out at one point or is it facebook emailing you? If they are spamming you though FB and won't cease, can't it be reported as a violation?

 

[Mercutio]

As far as I can tell, there are at least three classes of communication: Emails from Facebook.com about Facebook things that only matter to people who use Facebook, invites and other from end-users who are on Facebook and want to tell me about amazing Facebook shit, and now business communications that appear to come from a business-related account that has somehow shared an address book with Facebook. It's this most recent thing that is a new problem.

As an outsider, there's no difference to me from one of these things to any of the others, but now I've had to opt out of facebook messages three different times, and on multiple accounts in some cases. Experience suggests that if I don't do it immediately, I'll continue to get that sort of message on a fairly regular basis until I do.

You can't do that with snail mail spammers, why would they make it easier in the digital age?

Actually, you can come pretty close.

 

[Bozo]

I like the snail mail spam that has a prepaid envelope inside. The company that sends these is billed by the weight of the returned mail. So I slip in an appropriately sized sheet of 0.125" steel and mail it back.

 

[ddrueding]

I like the snail mail spam that has a prepaid envelope inside. The company that sends these is billed by the weight of the returned mail. So I slip in an appropriately sized sheet of 0.125" steel and mail it back.

That is excellent. Too bad you don't have any depleted uranium kicking around...

 

[Stereodude]

Okay this is pretty cool:

[video=youtube;640v8yBcXg8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=640v8yBcXg8[/video]

 

[CougTek]

Woohoo! We've just had an earthquake! A small one though. Nothing to do with what the West-Coast guys live.

 

[ddrueding]

Heh, one of the guys on the game I'm playing just said they had one. Must be somewhere near you.

 

[timwhit]

Woohoo! We've just had an earthquake! A small one though. Nothing to do with what the West-Coast guys live.

Is this it?

 

[timwhit]

Okay this is pretty cool:

[video=youtube;640v8yBcXg8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=640v8yBcXg8[/video]

My Dad bought that car a few weeks ago. He seems to like it a lot.

 

[CougTek]

Is this it?

I think it is. Apparently, it had a magnitude of 4.5 and occured at ~0:19am. I live more than 50Km from the epicentre and I felt it enough to know it wasn't a truck passing in of the house.

 

[LunarMist]

Meh. Anything under 5 is just a little vibration. By 6 you stagger a bit, but it's not too dangerous unless you are especially unlucky. When it reaches around 7 and the walls are shaking, objects and broken glass are flying, your spine and balls are getting hammered, etc., it is not a good day.

 

[ddrueding]

Still good fun until 8.

 

[time]

You two are full of sh*t.

Christchurch is a New Zealand city of 368,000 people. In February 2011, it experienced a magnitude 6.3 (ML) earthquake.

• 185 people died
• Third-costliest earthquake in the world
• Most houses (more than 100,000) were damaged
• 10,000 houses had to be demolished, many never to be rebuilt due to liquefaction
• One thousand of the 4000 buildings within the CBD had to be demolished
• Of 220 buildings more than five storeys tall, 110 had to be demolished

 

[Mercutio]

I suspect that the infrequency of magnitude 6.3 quakes in NZ compared to 6.3 quakes in California might have something to do with the difference.

 

[ddrueding]

Merc got it in one. This is California; our building codes mostly prevent that kind of damage. And quakes happen often enough that things that aren't stable don't accumulate. Of course, I suspect a hurricane would mess us up pretty bad.

 

[timwhit]

Yeah, a 6 or 7 is nothing.

 

[timwhit]

Also, it appears that NZ has a shit-ton of earthquakes.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

You two are full of sh*t.

Christchurch is a New Zealand city of 368,000 people. In February 2011, it experienced a magnitude 6.3 (ML) earthquake.

• 185 people died
• Third-costliest earthquake in the world
• Most houses (more than 100,000) were damaged
• 10,000 houses had to be demolished, many never to be rebuilt due to liquefaction
• One thousand of the 4000 buildings within the CBD had to be demolished
• Of 220 buildings more than five storeys tall, 110 had to be demolished

I consider many of those deaths to be the responsibility of the dirty fraudulent bastard that was the structural engineer (despite no degree in engineering) that supervised the construction of the high rise building that collapsed and caused the majority of the deaths. He's currently living in Australia under another assumed name.

 

[ddrueding]

Currently writing the new cell phone policy for the company. I can't think of too many more boring yet mentally tasking projects.

 

[LunarMist]

Currently writing the new cell phone policy for the company. I can't think of too many more boring yet mentally tasking projects.

...and there will be 12 revisions after everyone from HR and Legal review it.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm on revision three already, and I haven't even presented it to the boss, much less HR. Fortunately legal won't have a chance to see it. I want to keep it to two pages of plain English, and that means no lawyers.

 

[MaxBurn]

Policy as what's appropriate in cell phone use? I think we have a phone policy but nothing specific for cell, I think if it were necessary we would have it. Our HR and safety departments are very through and have tons of stuff out there.

 

[Chewy509]

I wrote quite a few years ago when I was the ICT manager. It was just under two pages and cleared both HR and legal in less than a day.
Basically, company supplied phones were for work purposes only however a small allowance was made for personal calls. Excessive personal calls would be invoiced to the employee if they exceed $x amount. Any activity that is considered criminal, unethical or unbecoming to a member of the company** related to use of the phone would be covered under standard disciplinary procedures. **What these actually included were covered in a separate behavior policy manual. Lost/damaged handsets were to be reported immediately, and any repair/replacement costs would be paid for by the user if actions of negligence resulted in the loss/damage. (All phones were replaced automatically when warranty ran out). All calls/text/data activity is monitored for billing purposes and is periodically reviewed.

The rest was just referencing other policies that covered the use of the handset (we treated a handset the same as any other company supplied property, be it a laptop, hammer, grinder, HPLC, etc). But all in all, it was all common sense.

The last company I worked for, theirs was just over 25 pages, and most of it could be scrapped as it just mirrored other company policies. (Hint, if something is already covered, link to it, don't copy it. In case in the future, their changes and yours doesn't, you could have a loop hole injected into the policy, on conversely it could void the entire policy due to conflicts).

 

[mubs]

Geeky License Plates

 

[Mercutio]

Locally, I've seen Indiana plates GLADOS and NOZOMBIS.

 

[mubs]

Not geeky, but I thought 2THDOC was clever.

 

[timwhit]

I saw a Bort license plate when driving up to Door county last year.

 

[Mercutio]

Amy's plate while she was in med school was "MD2B"

 

[Mercutio]

Found a Brooks Brothers herringbone suit that fits me really well at the Naperville Goodwill today. $20 for a $1000 suit? Yes please.

 

[Handruin]

Do you wear fancy suites often? Sounds like a sweet deal.

 

[Mercutio]

I never wear suits, but I just purged my closet of XL/2XL clothes and now I'm trying to have a wardrobe, so I've been hitting thrift stores for things that I could get away with wearing someplace-or-other. I'm kind of keen on vests and sport coats, because one of the problems I have is that even though I'm a regular-size guy now, I have a bunch of loose skin that bunches up around my middle and I recognize that just wearing button down shirts and khakis looks a little sloppy.

 

[CougTek]

So Felix Baumgartner now has the record for the highest freefall and he broke the sound speed barrier, but Joe Kittinger still holds the longest freefall record because Baumgartner opened his parachute after about 4m19s while Kittinger's record was 4m36s.