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Category: Commentary

Remember: Socialized Health Care will KILL YOUR GRANDMA!

Published by NiteMayr on December 30, 2009
1 Macau
84.36
2009 est.
2 Andorra
82.51
2009 est.
3 Japan
82.12
2009 est.
4 Singapore
81.98
2009 est.
5 San Marino
81.97
2009 est.
6 Hong Kong
81.86
2009 est.
7 Australia
81.63
2009 est.
8 Canada
81.23
2009 est.
9 France
80.98
2009 est.
10 Sweden
80.86
2009 est.
11 Switzerland
80.85
2009 est.
12 Guernsey
80.77
2009 est.
13 Israel
80.73
2009 est.
14 Iceland
80.67
2009 est.
15 Anguilla
80.65
2009 est.
16 Cayman Islands
80.44
2009 est.
17 Bermuda
80.43
2009 est.
18 New Zealand
80.36
2009 est.
19 Italy
80.20
2009 est.
20 Gibraltar
80.19
2009 est.
21 Monaco
80.09
2009 est.
22 Liechtenstein
80.06
2009 est.
23 Spain
80.05
2009 est.
24 Norway
79.95
2009 est.
25 Jersey
79.75
2009 est.
26 Greece
79.66
2009 est.
27 Austria
79.50
2009 est.
28 Faroe Islands
79.44
2009 est.
29 Malta
79.44
2009 est.
30 Netherlands
79.40
2009 est.
31 Luxembourg
79.33
2009 est.
32 Germany
79.26
2009 est.
33 Belgium
79.22
2009 est.
34 Saint Pierre and Miquelon
79.07
2009 est.
35 Virgin Islands
79.05
2009 est.
36 United Kingdom
79.01
2009 est.
37 Finland
78.97
2009 est.
38 Jordan
78.87
2009 est.
39 Isle of Man
78.82
2009 est.
40 Korea, South
78.72
2009 est.
41 European Union
78.67
2009 est.
42 Puerto Rico
78.53
2009 est.
43 Bosnia and Herzegovina
78.50
2009 est.
44 Saint Helena
78.44
2009 est.
45 Cyprus
78.33
2009 est.
46 Denmark
78.30
2009 est.
47 Ireland
78.24
2009 est.
48 Portugal
78.21
2009 est.
49 Wallis and Futuna
78.20
2009 est.
50 United States
78.11
2009 est.

No more flying for me

Published by NiteMayr on December 26, 2009

“These new measures will affect all flights from Canada to the United States and include not only screening at the security checkpoint but also searches at the boarding gate,” spokeswoman Suzanne Perseo told Canwest News Service. “This includes 100 per cent physical search of person and 100 per cent physical search of carry-on baggage and personal items.”

Air Canada also said in a release that new rules will also limit activities by passengers and crew while in U.S. airspace. “The final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps,” the country’s largest air carrier said, citing new U.S. Transportation Security Administration policies.

Are you kidding me?  No personal belongings?  100 Percent Searches?   Why bother flying anymore?  They’ve given up all semblence of courage or sanity in the face of 3 successful hijackings.  3.
Why not just close everyone up in their own homes, announce a 100-percent curfew?

Jesus is the Answer

Published by NiteMayr on December 21, 2009

So, it’s almost Christmas around here; so things are getting busy and things are getting wrapped up in paper and hidden in closets until Friday.  We weren’t going to be exchanging gifts (between Jen and I) ut she busted that notion yesterday by buying me some gifts, so I have reciprocated.

It’s been a quiet stretch over here at the blog; mostly due to ongoing stress relating to a rather large purchase (a house) and an unwillingness to put pen to paper, so to speak.

Continue readingJesus is the Answer

When you inflate your experience, you may deflate your chances

Published by NiteMayr on November 11, 2009

I’ve given something in the neighborhood of 100 interviews (probably more, but why overestimate) in the past dozen years.  When our teams were expanding and when people left I was given the opportunity to lead, craft and perform the technical interviews for my teams at Symantec and was given the opportunity to see the process of finding a new job from the other side on a large number of occasions.

However, I want to lead this off with a discussion about my own resume. Even now, looking at it, I think there are things on there that would get me into trouble in interviews.  Things that I’m not 100% certain of that I would have to remove when applying for a real job if only to give the most honest accounting of my skill set.  Raid Arrays being one of them,  I have worked with them, but they are not my specialty and I don’t “work” with them all day or even frequently.  I don’t do hardware work at all in my current job save placing Units in racks on occasion.  I put this out there to dovetail into a discussion about veracity on ones CV and how it caught me and catches interviewees that I’ve met in the past.

When I was interviewing for a fairly awesome job in San Francisco for a firm that my friend worked at I was asked a question about TCP/IP that a TCP  “expert” like I claimed on my resume should have known the answer two off the top of my head.  I answered evasively  on the whole matter and eventually had to embarrassingly admit that while I had an idea how this particular concept worked, I could not answer any detailed questions about the subject (TCP Headers and routing questions if you are interested)  I still don’t have a strong grasp of the concepts I was asked about.  I understand TCP/IP and can dissect packet captures easily, but I am no expert, simple and plain.

This event led me to attempt to make my resume more honest, more complete.  A statistical view of my work instead of a florid description of me.  Discussing it with HR I noted that for the most part when your Resume is screen they look for “the points” and discount the rest.   So while you may have designed and integrated a home brew Directory Service and implemented across 1400 workstations, if you don’t write LDAP or Active Directory on your resume, your accomplishment may go for naught.  So too with Hard Facts.

If you say “I have an MCSE” you’re going to meet someone with an MCSE who will ask you questions about the test or concepts therein.

If you say “I have experience with Linux” it better be more than putting a LiveCD in a machine and running it for an hour or so.  If you want to claim experience with something, have a realistic view of it in your head.  If you can’t answer questions about it that are technical, you don’t know anything about it.

For example, I cannot honestly debate the merits of EXT3 vs NTFS.  I am not an expert in either file system and am not aware of their relative strengths or weaknesses, I know they exist and have installed machines that use them, but beyond large disc handling, I can’t on a professional level, tell you why NTFS is better or worse than EXT3.  I have no well-formed or well-informed opinions on the matter.  Thus I don’t claim file system knowledge on my resume and if the question came up I would answer in much the same way I have discussed it here, I’m not a subject matter expert on this and cannot answer questions on it.  That said, in free form discussion, I might, but professionally, no way.

All of this leads me back to another anecdote about interviews.  For the most part, when hiring for gateways support in Symantec, we hired from within.  This sometimes led to disaster on small teams, as poor chemistry led to unresolvable conflict.  As the team grew larger and it became clear that the skills we needed were not internally available, we started looking externally.  This led to a series of what I would describe as “monster” resumes, resumes that looked very very impressive.  At first we sent some back saying “this person is overqualified” we were assured that these individuals were aware of what they were interviewing for so we accepted all comers.

Which was illuminating.  Of the 27 or so resumes I looked at, only a handful people were able to meet the minimum standards we were trying to meet and in one hilarious episode an esteemed teacher failed to grasp the very basic concepts of what he claimed was his area of expertise.  We had a set series of questions, so it wasn’t an opportunity to pick apart someone’s resume until we completed the set questions.  If people didn’t do well on the set questions, the interview was over and the resume didn’t even enter into things.

However, when given the chance, I like to just wander through the candidates resume, asking questions about the concepts discussed there.  Sometimes I meet a networking expert and I finally get to ask them how TCP Headers and routing work and eventually I’ll meet someone who can tell me.

Call of Duty 4 was Great so Modern Warfare 2 should be awesome?

Published by NiteMayr on November 5, 2009

CODvsMW2

In this interview we get this gem:
Q – Ignoring IW.net, is the PC version a direct port of the console version?
A – Mackey-IW: No, PC has custom stuff like mouse control, text chat in game, and graphics settings.

No Mods, no console, no “lean” no self-hosting, no nothing.  You may as well buy the console, because it is piracy proof!  Wait, did you say piracy proof?  Why is it all over the net being played on hacked Xbox 360s?  Shoot!  Doesn’t that mean that this crappy negative-featured version is hobbled for no god-damned reason at all?  Yup!

LET THE RIGHTEOUS DO SOMETHING WRONG

Published by NiteMayr on November 3, 2009
THIS COUNTRY JUST PLAIN SUCKS FOR JUSTICE!
–4God
This comment was posted on an article about the bodies being dug up from the ground around a serial killer’s house:
Posted by 4God
November 03, 2009, 4:43PM

THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND THESE STUPID CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYERS WILL KEEP THIS SICK PERSON ALIVE LONGER THAN HE NEEDS TO BREATHE!

THIS COUNTRY JUST PLAIN SUCKS FOR JUSTICE! IT’S A SYSTEM AND IT DOES NOT WORK TOO GOOD WHEN IT COMES TO PENALIZING THE WRONG, BUT LET THE RIGHTEOUS DO SOMETHING WRONG AND YOU WILL SEE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN TIMING!

I HATE TO SAY THAT ‘MY’ COUNTRY IS GOING DOWNHILL, BUT IT IS AND CAN’T BLAME ANYONE BUT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN IT AND NOT THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THE CONSTITUTION SAYS WHAT …

WE THE PEOPLE AND WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT DOING WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING…PERIOD…SO I SUPPOSE WE WILL SUFFER FOR OUR WRONG DOINGS!

These comments seem to show up all the time when there is something that offends the Churchie peoples.   “If we were in control we’d do something about this abomination”  given what happened to George Tiller, I think I can imagine.  Talk about incontrovertible truth that a flawed secular system is leaps and bounds beyond a theocratic one.   Look at how the “Very Christian” Michelle Malkin talks about Sharia Law:

“Nope. No stampede to get in front of the cameras and condemn the bloody ravages of sharia law.”

It’s not a ringing endorsement of said Theocratic Law, is it?  This same person said of Doctors like George Tiller, however:

“Oh, what a drag it is on abortionists to detect movement and signs of life in a baby who survived attempted murder.”

That’s not at all like calling him a criminal deserving of a death sentence, is it?  Not at all, right?

And There’s  Bill O’reilly:

“In the unresolved problem segment tonight, the investigation continues into the activities of abortionist George Tiller, known as Tiller the Baby Killer”

It’s all about blooding up the water for the conservative and the religious.  Blood begats blood and in the blood you will be saved and all that.  Bullshit.

This is a serial killer, who is sick.  Simple and easy.  Murder is difficult if you are sane and death is forever.  However much the religiously deranged want to say otherwise, death is forever and killing for killing isn’t going to resolve the crime it only provides catharsis.  How did this person get away with so many killings?  How did he hid so many bodies in his yard?  These are questions that need answers.

I don’t imagine ubiquitous monitoring is the answer, it certainly didn’t solve street crime in the UK, nor murder.  So I can’t offer a constructive response here.  I can say this, screaming for state-sponsored murder makes this person no better than those screaming for public beheadings in the “medieval” middle east, and I can’t help but think that as a person in the “Enlightened West” we should be “better” than that.

October Chillin’

Published by NiteMayr on October 16, 2009

After a Summer that barely was, what could we expect of an Autumn that has just fell upon us?

October_Sucks

Look at that, a ten degree miss on the “normal” target.  I’ve borne the “Global Warming, what?” guffaws but at this point one has to wonder why it has been so cool this year?  Is this a “La Nena” year or something?  Is there a very cold breeze just hanging out over London?  I was up in Kincardine a few weeks back and found it comfortable sweaty, now there is snow on the ground?

The weather this year (and really since last october 26th), has sucked, and there is nothing we can do about it.

At least try and say what the ruling actually says

Published by NiteMayr on October 12, 2009

When a large media owner tells you that a government regulation is bad, you had better be willing to at least say “you know what, you feel the need to give me a substandard service while maintaining a monopoly handed to you by the very agency you are asking me to speak against.  I think I might not trust your word on this”

I received the following from Bell Canada:

Dear Customer,

Help stop your TV fees from increasing. CTV, Global and the CBC have recently asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to significantly increase TV taxes.

The CRTC has been asked to do this by having Bell and the other operators pay more, which would result in higher fees for you.

We don’t think that’s right, you shouldn’t either. So please speak and have your say.

This is what’s happening.

The CRTC has told satellite and cable companies to hand over $100 million a year as of September 1, 2009. These fees are being passed on to you.

This money is passing through something called the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) – straight to media giants like CTVglobemedia and Canwest Global, straight to the CBC.

No new local programming, no improvement to anything other than the bottom line of broadcasters.

You are now likely paying for this on your TV bill.

You should also know that hot on the heels of that campaign, CTV, Global and the CBC are now lobbying for even more.

Each year, satellite and cable companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcasters. We contribute to the CRTC’s operating budget. Although to date these fees have not been broken out on monthly bills, you need to know they exist – especially because the TV networks still want more.

If the CRTC gives in to the broadcasters’ latest demand and lets local TV stations charge for their currently free over-the-air local signals, it would more than double the portion of your Bell TV bill going to government fees – and into the bank accounts of the broadcasters, like CTV, Global and the CBC.

In fact, if the CRTC lets broadcasters have their way, then government-imposed fees will be just shy of one billion dollars.

I’ve also seen the ads Rogers has been placing in the stream on various channels; here’s what the CRTC is proposing:

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/news/releases/2009/r090706.htm

OTTAWA-GATINEAU —The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that the Local Programming Improvement Fund will have over $100 million to distribute during the 2009–2010 broadcast year. The fund was created in October 2008 to support local television programming in markets with a population of less than 1 million.

“Canadians have made it abundantly clear that they value local programming,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C., Chairman of the CRTC. “We have taken steps to ensure that broadcasters, and particularly those in smaller markets, continue to provide Canadians with programming that reflects their needs and interests.”

As a temporary measure for the upcoming broadcast year, cable and satellite companies will contribute 1.5 per cent of their gross broadcasting revenues to the fund, an increase of 0.5 per cent. As a result, the total funds available will rise from $68 million to over $100 million. Television stations in smaller markets will be able to draw on these funds to maintain their spending on local news and other types of local programming. The Commission will consider the appropriate long-term provisions for the Local Programming Improvement Fund at a public hearing to be held this fall.

In addition, the Commission has harmonized its requirements for the broadcast of local programming in English- and French-language markets. Each week, local television stations will have to air a minimum number of hours of programming that is produced locally and that speaks to, and about, the community.

On May 15, the Commission renewed the licences of the major English-language networks for one year. At the same time, the licences of the TVA Group’s conventional television stations were renewed for two years. The specific licence terms and conditions for these stations were made public today.

Developing a new regulatory framework

The Commission today also launched a public proceeding to develop a new regulatory framework for conventional television broadcasters. The proceeding will include a public hearing starting on September 29, 2009, in Gatineau, Que.

“The rapid evolution of the communications industry is forcing everyone to rethink the model for conventional television broadcasters,” said Mr. von Finckenstein. “This fall, we will develop a new framework that will give broadcasting ownership groups the flexibility to adapt to this changing environment.”

“However, in exchange for greater flexibility, we expect broadcasters to make meaningful commitments regarding the production, acquisition and broadcast of high-quality Canadian programming,” added Mr. von Finckenstein.

Through this public proceeding, Canadians are invited to share their views on a number of specific questions related to:

* a proposed model to conduct future licence renewals on the basis of ownership groups rather than categories of television services
* the provision of revenue support for conventional broadcasters, including:
o the terms and conditions of the Local Programming Improvement Fund
o further safeguards to protect the integrity of Canadian broadcasters’ signals, and
o mechanisms for establishing, though negotiation, the fair market value of these signals
* possible models for the transition to digital television, and
* Canadian programming commitments by English-language television broadcasters.

Interested parties may submit their comments by August 10, 2009, by filling out the online form by writing to the Secretary General, CRTC, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N2, or by fax at 819-994-0218.

Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-406
Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-411
Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2009-409 (Canwest)
Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2009-407 (CTV)
Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2009-408 (Rogers)
Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2009-410 (TVA)

Funnier still is the tagline from Rogers about “More American Programming” (this is the Rogers that brought us HBO Canada after all and gutted the local and charming City TV)

So yeah, the CRTC wants to pay for more locally produced TV (as locally produced TV is dying out in Ontario for sure) and the Cable and Satellite firms are going to charge you more because of it, so they can bring you what, less local TV?  Is that what they are agitating for?  It certainly seems like it.