"If you don't like your situation, then do something about it."
These are words I live by. A long time ago I became empowered the first time I left a job that I didn't like. In hindsight, the feeling was quite liberating. No longer was I stuck going somewhere and doing something i grew to hate. Taking control of my destiny for the first time like that had a lasting impact on me and my approach to life in general today.
How should someone like myself then deal with a person who is in denial over how much they hate their job and has no ambition to advance or even leave? They say they don't hate their job but then all they ever do is bitch about people there. They refuse to even explore other options because they "don't want to compete with those that need it worse".
We all have complaints about work. We all complain to others about some aspect of work. There's nothing wrong with this and it's perfectly healthy.
I understand that insurance is a strong motivating factor for staying somewhere. There's also the fear of the unknown. It's clearly difficult to leave a job for another and expect a similar salary. Is not a pay cut worth the mental health? Does it make sense to stay somewhere that you have no hope for advancement and you voice how much you hate it? I'm not saying you have to have lofty goals and your entire career mapped out. How hard is it to want something just a little better in life?
In my eyes, i equate this as a personality that is destined for abusive relationships. Too and timid to take a stand. Denying their own words and justifying actions as "not all that bad" or "just venting". It's funny. When i hear the complaints about work and the subsequent denials of them, i keep thinking to myself "honestly officer, i just fell!"
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
He's an "intelligent" guy...
Intelligent.
in·tel·li·gent
–adjective
1. having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student.
2. displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment: an intelligent reply.
3. having the faculty of reasoning and understanding; possessing intelligence: intelligent beings in outer space.
4. Computers. pertaining to the ability to do data processing locally; smart: An intelligent terminal can edit input before transmission to a host computer. Compare dumb (def. 8).
5. Archaic. having understanding or knowledge (usually fol. by of).
I hear that word thrown around as an adjective a lot these days. Not really sure if this is a new trend or if it's more coincidental.
What is it then that makes a person earn this description? Is it formal education? Reading habits? Job experience? Comprehension of vague abstract concepts? Or is it others perceptions of you that earn you this branding?
"He's an intelligent guy..."
A formal education doesn't necessarily equate intelligence. I think we all know someone that has an advanced education (degree, certifications, etc) that can be classified as "an educated idiot". Having witnessed this first hand, going to college doesn't necessarily mean that an individual is capable of retaining what they were exposed to. How many times have you taken a class (even in high school) and forgotten the bulk of the information after the final exam? With how common this is for people, is it that far of a stretch of the imagination to assume that this happens on all levels of education? We need only look at pop cultures TV show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" to see first hand how much we feel that we knew at one time but then promptly forgot because it was never reinforced. All you need to do is have a flash back to grammar structure in grade school and you'll know exactly what i'm referring to!
Does the fact that you've read the works Plato and Shakespeare equate as intelligence? Do you earn the brand of "intelligent" based on the fact that you've read a number of books about etymology? If not, then why is it that people continue to refer to a person like that as "intelligent"?
A person who can read a document and comprehend it immediately is considered intelligent. A person who can listen listen to something explained, interact with the presenter, and comprehend the topic is not considered as intelligent because they had to have outside help. Never mind that these are different styles of learning.
I guess i'm not "intelligent" and it's time for me to swallow that bitter pill. I don't read all that much these days and never cared for the deep thinking philosophy or literature genres (history was my passion). I need someone to explain to me abstract concepts rather than reading documentation. I graduated from college but then didn't retain much in most of my subjects (much like my peers). I'm comfortable with this so don't patronize me by calling me something that i'm clearly not.
No one has ever called me "intelligent" and, based on the above criteria, i'm comfortable knowing that they never will.
in·tel·li·gent
–adjective
1. having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student.
2. displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment: an intelligent reply.
3. having the faculty of reasoning and understanding; possessing intelligence: intelligent beings in outer space.
4. Computers. pertaining to the ability to do data processing locally; smart: An intelligent terminal can edit input before transmission to a host computer. Compare dumb (def. 8).
5. Archaic. having understanding or knowledge (usually fol. by of).
I hear that word thrown around as an adjective a lot these days. Not really sure if this is a new trend or if it's more coincidental.
What is it then that makes a person earn this description? Is it formal education? Reading habits? Job experience? Comprehension of vague abstract concepts? Or is it others perceptions of you that earn you this branding?
"He's an intelligent guy..."
A formal education doesn't necessarily equate intelligence. I think we all know someone that has an advanced education (degree, certifications, etc) that can be classified as "an educated idiot". Having witnessed this first hand, going to college doesn't necessarily mean that an individual is capable of retaining what they were exposed to. How many times have you taken a class (even in high school) and forgotten the bulk of the information after the final exam? With how common this is for people, is it that far of a stretch of the imagination to assume that this happens on all levels of education? We need only look at pop cultures TV show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" to see first hand how much we feel that we knew at one time but then promptly forgot because it was never reinforced. All you need to do is have a flash back to grammar structure in grade school and you'll know exactly what i'm referring to!
Does the fact that you've read the works Plato and Shakespeare equate as intelligence? Do you earn the brand of "intelligent" based on the fact that you've read a number of books about etymology? If not, then why is it that people continue to refer to a person like that as "intelligent"?
A person who can read a document and comprehend it immediately is considered intelligent. A person who can listen listen to something explained, interact with the presenter, and comprehend the topic is not considered as intelligent because they had to have outside help. Never mind that these are different styles of learning.
I guess i'm not "intelligent" and it's time for me to swallow that bitter pill. I don't read all that much these days and never cared for the deep thinking philosophy or literature genres (history was my passion). I need someone to explain to me abstract concepts rather than reading documentation. I graduated from college but then didn't retain much in most of my subjects (much like my peers). I'm comfortable with this so don't patronize me by calling me something that i'm clearly not.
No one has ever called me "intelligent" and, based on the above criteria, i'm comfortable knowing that they never will.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A-Rod and Baseball
Knowing that professional sports have become more business oriented than actual sporting, it's harder and harder for even casual fans to stomach what is happening. In case you've been living under a rock MLB is dealing with skyrocketing salaries, a team that spent 250,000,000 this off season just to sign 3 players, prices continually going up, $6 for a beer served by someone making just over minimum wage, a commissioner that has reportedly earned 18,000,000 last year, and a drug testing policy that is arguably more lax than even the NBA. To sum up the situation, people (not just fans) are getting fed up.
To address the drug/steroid problems, one can't help but come back to the money issues. That being said, I'm trying to avoid that topic but it will come up.
I enjoyed this editorial:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwyre-a-rod10-2009feb10,0,3614747.column
To address the drug/steroid problems, one can't help but come back to the money issues. That being said, I'm trying to avoid that topic but it will come up.
I enjoyed this editorial:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwyre-a-rod10-2009feb10,0,3614747.column
Monday, February 9, 2009
Facebook - Jobs
Mental note: Check Facebook profile before applying for a job.
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchblogs/a/jobsearchblog.htm
No i haven't learned this lesson the hard way. This is my way of reminding myself (and others) to not shoot themselves in the foot. I've changed my profile image from a Smithwicks logo to an image of a Rib Eye steak. It's far more politically correct than a beer logo and shouldn't hurt my chances with future employers. I'm still debating on whether i want to change it to no image vs the steak but I feel that this should suffice. I find myself questioning how the image could be interpreted and in the end i don't see anything negative about the steak image.
Now it's time to cross my fingers and hope that this step of caution is worth it.
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchblogs/a/jobsearchblog.htm
No i haven't learned this lesson the hard way. This is my way of reminding myself (and others) to not shoot themselves in the foot. I've changed my profile image from a Smithwicks logo to an image of a Rib Eye steak. It's far more politically correct than a beer logo and shouldn't hurt my chances with future employers. I'm still debating on whether i want to change it to no image vs the steak but I feel that this should suffice. I find myself questioning how the image could be interpreted and in the end i don't see anything negative about the steak image.
Now it's time to cross my fingers and hope that this step of caution is worth it.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Lesson Learned - Ubuntu
I've clearly been using windows too much. Despite warnings from my friend/mentor, my issues this weekend were my own fault. I accepted full responsibility for my ignorance surrounding the actions taken.
Saturday, my Ubuntu 8.04 machine notified me that i had "critical security updates." No new kernel. Some of the updates were for VIM which made me "wtf" and look closely at what was being offered. It was mostly libs and so i grabbed them blindly. After system restart, sound was no longer working and Pidgin would freeze as it loaded. Much like winXP and SP2, unexpected things broke.
I tried looking through forums about updates, sound, and Pidgin breaking for others but no luck. This being a new build, i opted for the fix that was the most drastic but would get me up and running quickest. Upgrade to 8.10 time!
No luck. My machine felt laggy and hesitated a lot more AND sound was still broken. So much for that idea. All that's left was to reinstall. After consulting with a friend, i had a better game plan as to how i would configure my setup.
Previously i had left the install as vanilla as possible and so everything was on one partition which means everything would be lost. I was advised to create a separate partition for /home which would mean i wouldn't lose my files again. What a novel idea! As i was in the partition manager during install, it dawned on me that i can have /home be a separate drive and so i plugged in a spare 40g sata drive. When all was said and done, the mount point for / would become the 40g drive and 1.5tb would be allocated to /home. Let the install begin!
Install was no problem. Everything was working fine. Success. Wait a minute. I can't leave a sleeping beast alone, can i?
Yesterday I reinstalled again blowing away all system files while keeping /home on the seperate drive. During install it found /home no problem and asked if i wanted to import the data and settings from there. Sure. Why not?
After install was completed and i logged in, my background and files were intact. Woohoo! It makes sense that all of these files and settings exist in /home and since that was untouched then everything should look the same again (excluding lack of programs). Just because it makes sense doesn't mean that I'll truly grasp it until the first time i do it though.
If not for me blindly trusting the "updates", i feel i wouldn't have learned this tidbit for a long time. It's refreshing to have a sense of safety now knowing that whatever i wind up having in /home will remain intact after cleaning up yet another mess. I was genuinely pissed when that sound issue arose. Rather than whine and complain and get bitter about it, i used it as an excuse to try something new and different. Today i sit here knowing that i have absorbed another piece of the puzzle that i'm trying to conquer in my spare time.
Now... I need a beer BADLY!!! :)
Saturday, my Ubuntu 8.04 machine notified me that i had "critical security updates." No new kernel. Some of the updates were for VIM which made me "wtf" and look closely at what was being offered. It was mostly libs and so i grabbed them blindly. After system restart, sound was no longer working and Pidgin would freeze as it loaded. Much like winXP and SP2, unexpected things broke.
I tried looking through forums about updates, sound, and Pidgin breaking for others but no luck. This being a new build, i opted for the fix that was the most drastic but would get me up and running quickest. Upgrade to 8.10 time!
No luck. My machine felt laggy and hesitated a lot more AND sound was still broken. So much for that idea. All that's left was to reinstall. After consulting with a friend, i had a better game plan as to how i would configure my setup.
Previously i had left the install as vanilla as possible and so everything was on one partition which means everything would be lost. I was advised to create a separate partition for /home which would mean i wouldn't lose my files again. What a novel idea! As i was in the partition manager during install, it dawned on me that i can have /home be a separate drive and so i plugged in a spare 40g sata drive. When all was said and done, the mount point for / would become the 40g drive and 1.5tb would be allocated to /home. Let the install begin!
Install was no problem. Everything was working fine. Success. Wait a minute. I can't leave a sleeping beast alone, can i?
Yesterday I reinstalled again blowing away all system files while keeping /home on the seperate drive. During install it found /home no problem and asked if i wanted to import the data and settings from there. Sure. Why not?
After install was completed and i logged in, my background and files were intact. Woohoo! It makes sense that all of these files and settings exist in /home and since that was untouched then everything should look the same again (excluding lack of programs). Just because it makes sense doesn't mean that I'll truly grasp it until the first time i do it though.
If not for me blindly trusting the "updates", i feel i wouldn't have learned this tidbit for a long time. It's refreshing to have a sense of safety now knowing that whatever i wind up having in /home will remain intact after cleaning up yet another mess. I was genuinely pissed when that sound issue arose. Rather than whine and complain and get bitter about it, i used it as an excuse to try something new and different. Today i sit here knowing that i have absorbed another piece of the puzzle that i'm trying to conquer in my spare time.
Now... I need a beer BADLY!!! :)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
New and Improved!
I've been running Ubuntu 8.04 for a couple weeks now. Got sick of the constant M$ updates, adware, and patches and decided i was ready for a new challenge. This coincided with building a new machine and what better way to break it in than with a new OS, right?
The stats:
Why Ubuntu? Why not just install my copy of XP again and streamline it? Why not jump onto Vista or xp-64? I've been using windows for 10 years now and things have gotten boring in my life. Everyone is eager to jump on the M$ bashing boat but most refuse to put their money (or OS) where their mouth is. Out of the box Ubuntu mostly works with minimal swearing and headaches which is ideal for my home machine. I need an OS that won't cause me headaches and allow me to web bowse, IRC, IM, torrent, and listen to music. I don't have the patience anymore dealing with trying to remove some malware like Vundo that somehow got past my AV and decides to pop up 10 minutes before i leave for work. I don't have the patience to go looking for yet another burning program because i have an NRG file and i don't have Nero installed anymore. I don't have the patience to go out there and find a program that will make an iso image that i can later mount for VM's. I don't have the patience to go out and find yet a different app that will let me mount an iso file. This leaves me with Linux.
The reality is, i personally identify with linux more than i do with windows. I like how straight forward linux is. Once you find a decent text editor, linux is a bunch of conf files that need to be uncommented and edited. I can't play games on it easily yet but then i never played many games to begin with. Burning an iso was idiot proof with the default burning software (brasero) which was a huge relief. Gone are the days of fighting wth Nero and Power ISO and every other burner app i had to download just to get something unique to burn.
I'm still learning the structure gradually and so i have only a vague idea as to what these gremlins are doing. I don't care. Gone are the days of wondering what malware got hooked in startup in the registry. I've only begun to learn concepts of how to shell script. I don't care. I don't exactly know how to make a proper .bat or .vbs either so what's the point? I like the fact that most things log to an intelligible log file and so you can actually decipher what is going on from reading that file as opposed to looking at the cryptic event viewer in windows. There are days that i used to wonder if you needed an MCSE to understand the event viewer and what it was trying to tell you. I now have a machine in my life that i'm interested in and will help keep me in the work mindset more consistently. My machine is logical. It spews info into /var/log/messages where i can see problems arise in real time rather than waiting for a BSOD.
I'm home.
The stats:
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
- SAMSUNG 2232BW+ Black 22" 2ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 DC 8000:1(1000:1)
- EVGA 512-P3-N807-RX GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
- EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
- Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
- Samsung dvd burner
Why Ubuntu? Why not just install my copy of XP again and streamline it? Why not jump onto Vista or xp-64? I've been using windows for 10 years now and things have gotten boring in my life. Everyone is eager to jump on the M$ bashing boat but most refuse to put their money (or OS) where their mouth is. Out of the box Ubuntu mostly works with minimal swearing and headaches which is ideal for my home machine. I need an OS that won't cause me headaches and allow me to web bowse, IRC, IM, torrent, and listen to music. I don't have the patience anymore dealing with trying to remove some malware like Vundo that somehow got past my AV and decides to pop up 10 minutes before i leave for work. I don't have the patience to go looking for yet another burning program because i have an NRG file and i don't have Nero installed anymore. I don't have the patience to go out there and find a program that will make an iso image that i can later mount for VM's. I don't have the patience to go out and find yet a different app that will let me mount an iso file. This leaves me with Linux.
The reality is, i personally identify with linux more than i do with windows. I like how straight forward linux is. Once you find a decent text editor, linux is a bunch of conf files that need to be uncommented and edited. I can't play games on it easily yet but then i never played many games to begin with. Burning an iso was idiot proof with the default burning software (brasero) which was a huge relief. Gone are the days of fighting wth Nero and Power ISO and every other burner app i had to download just to get something unique to burn.
I'm still learning the structure gradually and so i have only a vague idea as to what these gremlins are doing. I don't care. Gone are the days of wondering what malware got hooked in startup in the registry. I've only begun to learn concepts of how to shell script. I don't care. I don't exactly know how to make a proper .bat or .vbs either so what's the point? I like the fact that most things log to an intelligible log file and so you can actually decipher what is going on from reading that file as opposed to looking at the cryptic event viewer in windows. There are days that i used to wonder if you needed an MCSE to understand the event viewer and what it was trying to tell you. I now have a machine in my life that i'm interested in and will help keep me in the work mindset more consistently. My machine is logical. It spews info into /var/log/messages where i can see problems arise in real time rather than waiting for a BSOD.
I'm home.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Blast from the Past
I graduated from High School in 1997. Early on in my HS days, my older brother and his girlfriend got robbed right before Christmas. The crooks got caught a couple days later and all items were retrieved. They had apparently pulled a couple robberies that night and so there were excellent descriptions of the perpetrators and their vehicle which made catching them easier.
The other day a letter came in the mail addressed to my brother. It turns out that one of the perpetrators had been up for parole in fall and this letter was to notify my brother that parole had been denied.
This got me thinking about what has all happened between that night and today. My brother is now married, was in the army and is now in the reserves, and is a completely different person than who he was way back when. A life time has passed since then.
More often than not you hear people argue that we need to have stiffer penalties on criminals. Even though i don't remember much of anything about the backgrounds of the defendants, I do remember that they weren't murderers, rapists, or hard core thugs. Just some punks that were out trying to pull a fast one because they were stupid. This person has lost a significant portion of their life because of their actions. The fact that parole was denied for this individual implies that he hasn't exactly been behaving himself while in prison. I find myself wondering how this person will ever transition to the outside world if/when he finally gets released.
The reality is that when someone like this is finally released, the world is drastically different and so mere suggestion of a smooth transition from 1996 to 2009 is a laughable. I'm not advocating for the release of an individual who was recently denied parole. My intention is to put weight behind the numerical value of a sentence. The threat of a 10 year sentence sounds rather light by our "truth in sentencing" standards but we need to take a step back and put things in perspective. Where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing back then? Did you know you'd be in the place you're in right now? Removal of an individual from society for 10 years is close to being a life time in terms of mentality. This is not an auction where the highest bid wins. These are individual lives we're talking about. People who could do much more important things in our society like consuming and producing goods and thus part of the greater organism that we all live in.
I sit here thinking back to that long ago incident and how heart broken i was when my brother was robbed of what would eventually be christmas presents. I was so young back then. So naive. So much has changed in both his life and mine and yet the individuals who did this sat and idled their lives away. I'm sure they learned their lesson a long time ago, but i wonder when it was that they forgot what they were supposed to learn?
The other day a letter came in the mail addressed to my brother. It turns out that one of the perpetrators had been up for parole in fall and this letter was to notify my brother that parole had been denied.
This got me thinking about what has all happened between that night and today. My brother is now married, was in the army and is now in the reserves, and is a completely different person than who he was way back when. A life time has passed since then.
More often than not you hear people argue that we need to have stiffer penalties on criminals. Even though i don't remember much of anything about the backgrounds of the defendants, I do remember that they weren't murderers, rapists, or hard core thugs. Just some punks that were out trying to pull a fast one because they were stupid. This person has lost a significant portion of their life because of their actions. The fact that parole was denied for this individual implies that he hasn't exactly been behaving himself while in prison. I find myself wondering how this person will ever transition to the outside world if/when he finally gets released.
The reality is that when someone like this is finally released, the world is drastically different and so mere suggestion of a smooth transition from 1996 to 2009 is a laughable. I'm not advocating for the release of an individual who was recently denied parole. My intention is to put weight behind the numerical value of a sentence. The threat of a 10 year sentence sounds rather light by our "truth in sentencing" standards but we need to take a step back and put things in perspective. Where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing back then? Did you know you'd be in the place you're in right now? Removal of an individual from society for 10 years is close to being a life time in terms of mentality. This is not an auction where the highest bid wins. These are individual lives we're talking about. People who could do much more important things in our society like consuming and producing goods and thus part of the greater organism that we all live in.
I sit here thinking back to that long ago incident and how heart broken i was when my brother was robbed of what would eventually be christmas presents. I was so young back then. So naive. So much has changed in both his life and mine and yet the individuals who did this sat and idled their lives away. I'm sure they learned their lesson a long time ago, but i wonder when it was that they forgot what they were supposed to learn?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Ironies in life
I work in the same building that had the shrink i got sent to eons ago. Maybe that's why i'm ready to have a god damned break down.
My brother called asking if i knew anyone i could suggest for virus/malware removal. This further demonstrates how little he knows me.
Give me enough time and i can fix something. Put me on the spot in a production environment and i'm apparently useless.
I can't have anything that resembles a stable relationship. Then again, people turn to me for advice on how to handle friends/family/work.
I enjoy reading. I've not read more than 20 pages at a time in a book since spring.
Writing my random thoughts is one of my favorite past times. This blog is rather sparse.
My brother called asking if i knew anyone i could suggest for virus/malware removal. This further demonstrates how little he knows me.
Give me enough time and i can fix something. Put me on the spot in a production environment and i'm apparently useless.
I can't have anything that resembles a stable relationship. Then again, people turn to me for advice on how to handle friends/family/work.
I enjoy reading. I've not read more than 20 pages at a time in a book since spring.
Writing my random thoughts is one of my favorite past times. This blog is rather sparse.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Joyeux Noel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/
This was a film I had been meaning to watch since i first heard about it. WWI and trench warfare have been a fascination of mine for a couple years. I'd heard/read about stories like this but to see a film so well done was breath taking.
You witness the French, Scottish (representing the British), and German POV as events unfold. The addition of a love story that didn't have the "forced" feel that I've experienced in the past wasn't as annoying as i thought it would be. More often than not, a love story gets thrown into films based heavily on history that wind up coming up short on quality. Overall I can best describe this film in one word: powerful.
Highly recommended if WWI and trench warfare are of interest.
This was a film I had been meaning to watch since i first heard about it. WWI and trench warfare have been a fascination of mine for a couple years. I'd heard/read about stories like this but to see a film so well done was breath taking.
You witness the French, Scottish (representing the British), and German POV as events unfold. The addition of a love story that didn't have the "forced" feel that I've experienced in the past wasn't as annoying as i thought it would be. More often than not, a love story gets thrown into films based heavily on history that wind up coming up short on quality. Overall I can best describe this film in one word: powerful.
Highly recommended if WWI and trench warfare are of interest.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Spreadsheet Turns 30
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338796,00.asp
Happy birthday spreadsheet!!!
Happy birthday spreadsheet!!!
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