*poke*
16/17 most educated states reliably vote one way, 15/17 least educated reliably vote the other.

Guess which is which?

The worst DevOps mistake I ever made:

Assignment: On ~1,000 -physical- RHEL systems, change the default run level from command line to GUI (don't ask).

Solution: Hey, all our config files are controlled by Puppet, so this'll be easy!

(If you don't know what Puppet does, it enforces file configurations, so if you change a single file on the Puppetmaster, that change is pushed out to all servers running Puppet)

Ok, all I need to do it edit a single file, change a single number in said file and issue a single command: reboot. Easy-fuckin'-peasy.

The file I need to change is /etc/inittab -- this file tells a Linux system which "run level" it should initiate upon booting up. runlevel 3 is command line and runlevel 5 is a GUI like Gnome or some other tragic perversion of the whole reason you run Linux in the first place. All I had to do was change from runlevel 3 to runlevel 5. And reboot.

So simple; so stupidly simple.

So stupidly simple at 3:00am. When I hadn't slept all night. On a production network. When I'm working from home away from the office. On a Saturday when no one is in said office.

I make my change and save it, then push it to the version control system. Puppet picks it up and pushes the change to ~1,000 physical computers.

Done and done!

Remember I mentioned that I had to change a single file AND execute a single command: reboot?

Here's where things go tragically wrong.

My changes worked PERFECTLY. Everything did exactly what I told it to: Puppet changed the file, and rebooted the servers.

Only they keep rebooting. They keep rebooting over and over and over and over. I can't access any server on the network. Worse, while I'm trying to figure out WTF I did wrong, the 30 minute time-out I'd set on our alerting system, Nagios, expires.

Did I mention that I pushed this change to ~1,000 servers? ~1,000 servers that won't stop rebooting and aren't reporting into Nagios, thus being marked as down?

At 3:31am, on Saturday morning, the pages to ALL the on-call engineers began. One page per engineer per machine. About one every two seconds. And I'm getting paged, too -- except some of the pages are Nagios and some are utterly irate engineers who want to know exactly WTF is going on and I can't tell which is which because I'm getting text-spammed like crazy.

And those servers? They just keep right on rebooting.

At that point, I felt the kind of existential dread that only people who work in IT know -- the kind of dread that arises a picosecond after you've hit ENTER and realized you've type 'rm -rf /' or some-such -- because I knew at that very second exactly what I'd done wrong.

I'd typo'd "5" and made it "6" in the runlevel. And pushed it to ~1,000 -physical- servers. And then rebooted them ALL.

"So," you're asking, "Whyfor is runlevel 6 a big deal?"

Because of this:

runlevel 3: command line.
runlevel 5: GUI
runlevel 6: REBOOT THE FUCKING COMPUTER.

What I'd done was told every production server on our network to reboot as soon as it rebooted, which leads to another reboot, which leads to another reboot, lather rinse repeat.

At 3:45am on Saturday morning, I knew that every person in IT would have to drive into the office, visit every production server with a bootable USB key, change the BIOS to boot off the key, boot the server into Single User Mode, change the damned file by hand, then reboot the server. This takes about 10 minutes per server -- times ~1,000.

I learned a number of valuable lessons that day:

1. DOUBLE CHECK YOUR FUCKING WORK.
2. See lesson #1
addendum: filing for unemployment insurance in Washington state is amazingly easy.

And that was the very last time I ever worked on physical hardware. To this day, if it's not in the cloud, I ain't fucking touching it.

Here endth the lesson.

Which is which and who is who?

Wait...your post didn't contain your argument? ;-)

If you read that as a mere partisan argument, you fail to grok my position.
As I wrote, I do not choose terrible vs less terrible, but for those who do, I suggest it's clear which is which.

As I often reiterate, finance reform is the number one issue that must be tackled in order to make any other political reform. That's why I backed Sanders, and still do but less so. I just wish he would leave the democratic party.

1) The resurrection is absolutely not historical. Jesus the man MIGHT be.

There is a lot of scholarly research that says it is historical, especially in the last 80 years or so. There are volumes upon volumes of work, and there are a lot of things that deserve an honest and indepth discussion.

Almost all skeptical scholars affirm that Jesus was a historical person and that His disciples had an experience which convinced them that He was raised from the dead. Many agree that a group of women discovered the empty tomb. The origin of Christianity is something which must be accounted for, historically. You can't just wave your hand over it and say its all nonsense.

2) I know Christianity is a joke religion invented for political control by Constantine. That is a verifiable, historical fact.

On what do you base that conclusion?

3) mythos cannot verify mythos. You say Satan created other religions (many before Chritianity existed) to trick them out of worshiping Yahweh....why isn't that likely true of Christianity?

Because of the person of Jesus Christ, who is verified to be the Messiah from many lines of evidence. Some of these would include the fulfillment of dozens of prophecies, His life and ministry, and His resurrection from the dead.

4) not true. Verified truth can be proven and defended against being twisted with fact and evidence, at least to those willing to examine actual evidence and not rely on only propaganda and myth. God (if he existed) should have more backbone, and a clear, unambiguous word/voice. ( Your position seems to be he's not willing to stand behind his word and prefers most people burn in hell for their God given inability to distinguish which is which.)
How is it different from politicians? They aren't empowered by all powerful, vengeful gods....clearly neither are clergy.

I'm not sure why you think you are holding the keys of facts and evidence in your hand, first of all. Can your worldview account for these things? You would need to establish that before we can talk about what "verified truth" is. What is your worldview, by the way? I am assuming it is scientific materialism. Have you ever looked into whether it is correct or not?

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-scientific-materialism-almost-certainly-false/

5) ...you shall stone them to death.....thou shalt not kill. Not so clear.

I think that is easily explained. The laws you are looking at were civil laws which governed the nation of Israel. Consider that our society has a law against murder, yet we execute criminals. Same concept.

6) only those who believe are saved...so clearly the sin of disbelief is not erased and is worse than all others. If it's not automatic, he didn't die for MY sins or yours, he's trading being saved (from something he told you exists with zero evidence) for belief and obedience.

None of your sins would be erased if you reject Christ. You would be paying not only for unbelief, but for all of the other ones too. Unbelief is like any other sin execept that the consequence of the sin prevents you from receiving forgiveness. It is exactly like expecting your cancer to be cured without taking the cure.

Jesus died for the sins of the world, including mine and yours, but you cannot partake of the atonement unless you receive Him as Lord and Savior.

My evidence is not just what we are discussing. Jesus Christ is alive and He is with me every single day of my life. He comforts me in my distress. He encourages me when I feel stuck. He gives me strength to overcome things I otherwise couldn't. He gives me wisdom for every problem and situation. He gives me love for those I find difficult to love. He fills my heart with generosity when I want to be stringy. He helps me do the right thing when I am going to fall short. This is not abstract, but a living reality in my life that grows more and more. He has utterly changed me and made me into a completely different person just like He said He would.

7) things that only work if you believe are hokum or placebo, things that only exist if you believe enough are pure fantasy.

Without buying your system, I have no sin to repent so I should go straight to heaven and collect my $200.

That's kind of like saying you don't believe in the law so you think you won't be punished when you break it. You have to account for your sin whatever you believe you have any or not. Your conscience, however, tells you that you have done wrong things.

9) You have cancer and some guy tells you God sent a car (he just needs $50 for telling you about it), it's invisible, and will take you to the cure, but you must believe the car exists, and when you die sitting in the freezing street he says it's your fault for not believing enough in God's magic cars. Duh. I'll buy my own plane ticket and get myself there, not wait for ethereal magic cars.

Let's say that you got a sign that the car was legitimate, but you still stubbornly chose not to go. For instance, you had a dream that a green car with a florida license plate drove up to your house, and a middle age woman got out and came up to your door and told you she was sent by God to take you to the cancer cure, and then it really happened. Does that change anything for you?

Mostly the questions are for you, in hope you might see the contradiction and self reinforcing mythos, but your answers do offer insight to your (and other people's) intractable mindsets. Thanks

God had revealed Himself to me, personally, and verified the scripture in my as true. I know that He loves me, personally, and I know that He loves you too. My hearts desire is that you would know that love. That is my mindset, primarily.

1) The resurrection is absolutely not historical. Jesus the man MIGHT be.

2) I know Christianity is a joke religion invented for political control by Constantine. That is a verifiable, historical fact.

3) mythos cannot verify mythos. You say Satan created other religions (many before Chritianity existed) to trick them out of worshiping Yahweh....why isn't that likely true of Christianity?

4) not true. Verified truth can be proven and defended against being twisted with fact and evidence, at least to those willing to examine actual evidence and not rely on only propaganda and myth. God (if he existed) should have more backbone, and a clear, unambiguous word/voice. ( Your position seems to be he's not willing to stand behind his word and prefers most people burn in hell for their God given inability to distinguish which is which.)
How is it different from politicians? They aren't empowered by all powerful, vengeful gods....clearly neither are clergy.

5) ...you shall stone them to death.....thou shalt not kill. Not so clear.

6) only those who believe are saved...so clearly the sin of disbelief is not erased and is worse than all others. If it's not automatic, he didn't die for MY sins or yours, he's trading being saved (from something he told you exists with zero evidence) for belief and obedience.

7) things that only work if you believe are hokum or placebo, things that only exist if you believe enough are pure fantasy.

Without buying your system, I have no sin to repent so I should go straight to heaven and collect my $200.

9) You have cancer and some guy tells you God sent a car (he just needs $50 for telling you about it), it's invisible, and will take you to the cure, but you must believe the car exists, and when you die sitting in the freezing street he says it's your fault for not believing enough in God's magic cars. Duh. I'll buy my own plane ticket and get myself there, not wait for ethereal magic cars.

Mostly the questions are for you, in hope you might see the contradiction and self reinforcing mythos, but your answers do offer insight to your (and other people's) intractable mindsets. Thanks

"Offended" is different from "harmed". The SJWs need to learn that lesson fast. Harm in this context means put in physical danger of injury, which a stampede or riot would fall under and why you can't incite either.

If one is truly "harmed" by offensive words, that's an extremely odd personal mental problem that should not be inflicted on the rest of us, please just avoid the public and stick with your similarly afflicted group.

Your TV point is good, change the channel or turn it off.
Your college point is terrible, IMO. College is, in large part, intended to expose you to new and differing ideas and mindsets and teach you how to interact with those holding them. Interpersonal communication was a requirement where I went. If that's something people are uncomfortable with, they don't belong in colleges. Period. If someone wants to start a school where those ideals (safe space, regulated speech, trigger warnings, etc) are reinforced, fine, but it shouldn't be accredited because, no matter how good the classes and students are, it's missing a key component.
The boss being offensive, there's a clearly defined legal line, if they cross that line you can sue, if not, grow a pair and realize two of the most important lessons my parents taught me...."life's not fair", and "what you want and what you need are two different things, and knowing which is which can be the road to contentment, while not knowing is always a road to ruin". I feel like a lot of kids today have never heard either.

Depending on how you use batteries, this can be an extremely useful test that doesn't require any additional tools.

I'm generally not in the habit of using a battery a little bit, then removing it from whatever device and putting it back into storage. I put batteries in things and use them until they don't have enough charge to power those things. Sometimes "dead" in a high drain device (digital camera, shaver) can still provide enough juice to power a low-drain device (clock), but the majority of the time I use them until they are ready to be thrown away.

When you've got 8 batteries in a pile, 4 that you know are brand new and 4 that you just took out of some device that has exhausted their charge, the bounce technique works extremely well for figuring out which is which if you weren't paying attention and got them mixed up.

http://techdrake.com/2016/06/overwatchs-anti-cheat-proves-too-much-for-cheaters/

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20744844365

https://scrap.tf/raffles/N4F7RG

Overwatch does monitor for cheating. Blizzard also issues permanent bans. Battle.net in and of itself is fairly resistant, read the last link on how much harder it was to even create an aimbot hack for Overwatch than for any game using VAC.

Bethesda and Id, on the other hand, don't seem nearly as concerned or proactive. Which is bad, because you can have the most fun game in the universe and lose playerbase because of the cheating. They could take steps, very simple ones, such as enabling a spectator mode so that you could take video from the view of the cheating player. They could enable dedicated servers so that there could be admins in place to ban cheaters from those servers. They could even act on the multiple reports sent to them of obvious cheaters and ban them.

They chose to do none of that. Instead they chose to release a 15 dollar DLC that many say (including me) is hardly worth that amount. You get 3 new maps that you have to play in rotation mode, one new armor skin, some goofy rainbow spectrum colors, a few new post match taunts, and an extremely underwhelming new weapon/demon.

So, tldr mode, Blizzard does bust their ass to prevent hacking via software and bans, while Bethesda/Id does neither and releases new cash grab DLC. One of those methods is successful with an estimated 15m players and one has about 2k players on average. I'll let you figure out which is which and which will still be around in a month or two.

This is precisely why a large part of me actually wants Trump to win.

We're way too complacent. There has been a slow, steady, gradual decline that has lulled us into apathy -- even though the state of politics and "democracy" in the US (and arguably globally as a result) is absolutely pathetic and appalling at this point.

It is looking more and more likely that the general election will be Trump vs Clinton.

First of all, that alone demonstrates just how fucked we are. Our final two choices are likely to be the two people with the highest negative opinion numbers out of all the candidates. The cream didn't rise to the top, and instead the two biggest turds managed to avoid being flushed. South Park seems oddly prophetic; we have really ended up with turd sandwich vs. giant douche. I just can't tell which is which.

Second, I notice that a LOT of people (including "establishment" Republicans) are scared shitless by the prospect of a Trump presidency. In a Trump vs Clinton election, they say that they would easily prefer to vote for Clinton -- perhaps couched with the "lesser of two evils" descriptor, but still vote for Clinton.

I agree with the idea that Clinton is the lesser of those two evils. But that, in combination with our current level of apathy, makes me MORE afraid of a Clinton presidency than a Trump one. Clinton is a slick, dirty politician. People think they are going to dodge the Trump bullet by voting for her, but she is the archetype of what got us into this situation. She tells people only what she thinks they want to hear, while doing exactly what her donors (megacorporations) want her to do whenever the camera isn't on. A Clinton presidency will keep the masses just placated enough to NOT boil over.

Meanwhile, Trump seems like enough of a perfect storm that he could actually screw things up bad enough to make the masses stand up and take notice. Maybe that kind of slap in the face is what we need.

Clinton presidency: "Fuck it."
Trump presidency: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"


In a hypothetical scenario where the general election was Trump vs Sanders, it would be much harder for me to be "pro" Trump. Because Sanders seems like maybe he's got the right mindset to change things for the better the *right* way. On the other hand, I kinda felt the same way about Obama. So, even in a Trump vs Sanders scenario, a big part of me would be "hoping" for Trump to win. Because *something* has got to snap us out of our apathy.

I also chose the four of clubs. What the fuck? Need to get Penn and Teller in on this shit.

That there are two american talk show hosts called Jimmy causes a real problem for me, given that like everybody else I bet, I can't be bothered to remember which is which. Is Jimmy Kimmel the good one? Oh yeah, then Jimmy Fallon must be the worthless sack of shit.

One of them has blue and one has red tags on their collar. You can see the red one easily and you can see the blue right at the end as it shines in the light. Still hard to tell which is which though. Usually it looks like it's the blue one slipping.

And can you prove which is which? The cop is sticking to his story and as long as you don't have proof and that ticket, he's good.
Allowing that kind of baviour opens a door into a world where you give head to a balding, slightly overweight dude. Because he's in a position now to make you do it.
Don't. Just don't do it. Don't be a Shia.

It's been tested and the "best" audiophiles can't hear differences between 14bit and 16bit, nor can they hear differences between 44.khz and ANYTHING higher. In some tests they could use12bit sound with 36khz sampling frequency... The differences they hear are inside their head. Thus the description of improved sound is always "air", "brilliance", "organic" etc.. Don't be fooled by their fancy gear, most of it is for nothing. Cables: i am always willing to bet my months salary on doubleblind tests, 10 000€/m against a coat hanger, no audible differences.. It's all about confirmation bias, you think there's a change and suddenly you hear it.

About MP3s vs PCM:
Here we have audible differences. But. Put on high enough energy, ie turn your amp high enough, suddenly double blind studies can't find which is which. But it can be audible, mp3 is lossy format and even 320kbps can be heard. Not with all material, it's about in the limits of human hearing. Some might hear high end loss, if you're in your twenties. Once you hit 40, everything above 17khz is gone, forever. You will never hear 20k again. And to really notice the difference, you need good gear. Your laptop earphone output most likely won't even output anything past 18khz well and it's dynamic range can be represented with 8bit depth.. It can be just horrible. Fix that with usb box, around 80€: you can take that box anywhere on planet to the most "hifiest" guy out there and he can't hear the difference between his 10000€ A/D converter.. In fact, 5€ A/D converter can produce the same output as 3000€ one... That's not why i said buy a external.. It's more to do with RF and other shielding, protection against the noises a computer makes than A/D conversion quality. Note, i'm talking about audible differences, you can find faults with measuring equipment and 95% of the gear price is about "just to be sure".

If you want a good sound, first, treat your room. Dampen it, shape it.. If you spent 10k on stereo and 0 on acoustics, you will not have a good sound no matter what you do. Spend the same amount on acoustics than what you do on you equipment, room makes a lot more differences than gear. Next comes speakers, they are the worst link in the chain by a large margin. Quality costs, still wouldn't go to extremes here either, the changes are again "just to be sure", not always audible.. Then amps, beefy, low noise, A/B. You don't need to spend a huge lot of money but some. Then cables.. Take the 50€ version instead of 300€ or 3000€. Build quality and connectors, durability. Those are the reason to buy more expensive than 5€. Not because of sound quality.. There will always be group of people that will swear they can hear the differences, that's bullcrap. Human ear CAN NOT detect any chances, even meters are having a REALLY hard time getting any changes. You need to either amp up the signal to saturation point, or use frequencies in the Mhz ranges, thousands of times higher than what media needs to get any changes between cheapest crap and high end scams.

Audiophiles can't be convinced they are wrong, they are suffering from the same thing antivax people do: give them facts, they will be even more convinced they are right.

As with any year musically a lot of crap and some gold. Fortunately each of us gets to decide which is which for ourselves. Personally I have been and always shall be a fan of the Moody Blues. I have fond memories of Saturday nights in 1973 running a floor polisher across the cafeteria at Sears while singing "Question" at the top of my lungs. Yes ... I am that old.