The Comms Room

ewwhite

00:00

@MarkHenderson yeah, I started with that equipment...

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite Good. Puppies deserve to be sad.

I am a cat and thus the dog is my sworn mortal enemy

vCole

@WesleyDavid pissy recruiters?

ewwhite

0

Q: Severing the relationship with a recruiter

On the heels of the double-presentation question, I'm curious about the best way to sever ties with a recruiter who has represented me in the past. Let's say I was presented by this recruiter to a firm in January, but in the interim, have decided that I no longer wish for that recruiter to repre...

vCole

ah

ewwhite

Actually, I just posted that.

Mark Henderson

00:03

I fucking hate recruiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiters

We have a shitlist extension just for recruiters that won't take NO for an answer

ewwhite

I think people were talking about bad cold-calling headhunters.

Mark Henderson

"Please hold while I transfer you"
"... do do do dooooooooo "

vCole

yeah I've only met like two "ok" recruiters.

Scott Pack

@WesleyDavid?

Mark Henderson

Automated message: "You have been transferred to this extension to re-confirm our company position that we do not deal with recruiters for external hiring. This is our firm company policy. This call will now be terminated. FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"

disconnects

ewwhite

00:04

In finance, the recruiters I deal with are a higher-class... they do command 30%-40% fees (of 1st year salary)

vCole

wow

holy fuck

ewwhite

but it goes back to the fact that they're placing $180k/year sysadmins and $400k/year developers.

vCole

I got a few recruiter phone calls today.

Weird since I don't have my resume posted anywhere.

ewwhite

their databases go deep...

and often times, the recruiters calling are dealing with an old resume...

most who call me are using my circa 2009 resume...

vCole

Yeah that could be why I'm getting "junior sys admin" roles

Mark Henderson

00:08

vCole

for $35k-$40k/year

Mark Henderson

^^ Looks like all the time I spent on my careers profile is paying off

ewwhite

I'm getting good hits...

I link to it from my LinkedIn.

vCole

WesleyDavid

@vCole Mark dealt with a cranky recruiter today. =|

@ScottPack !

ewwhite

00:10

@vCole and where are you?

vCole

Boston

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite Have you tested that XFS mount option at all? (the one that doesn't preallocate space)

vCole

or do you mean career level?

ewwhite

@JoelESalas from the question I posted?

3

A: Why are my XFS filesystems suddenly consuming more space and full of sparse files?

I traced this issue back to a discussion about a commit to the XFS source tree from December 2010. The patch was introduced in Kernel 2.6.38 (and obviously, later backported into some popular Linux distribution kernels). The fluctuations in disk usage I saw were a result of a new feature called...

WesleyDavid

vCole

00:11

@WesleyDavid snap!

WesleyDavid

Looks like my SEO brainz has helped in the search hits area. =)

ewwhite

@vCole and career level..

vCole

mid-level

Not a senior by any means. About ~4.5 years in the field.

ewwhite

@JoelESalas No, I haven't... I understand what it's doing, but reading the source and the patch explain that setting the default value in the mount option takes care of it.

Use 16k

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite I'll try it on a new VM, I'm just wondering how to get my disk space back at this point short of reinstalling

ewwhite

00:12

@vCole Everyone in Chicago is looking for Junior Linux admins...

@JoelESalas drop_cache.

MDMarra

@vCole Aren't you in the Boston area?

That's insulting even for a jr admin in a major metro area

vCole

@MDMarra yus.

ewwhite

@JoelESalas Oh, fill the array with zeros, then svmotion

vCole

Right?

Burlington area.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite So mount option, inflate, svmotion

vCole

00:13

@ewwhite interesting. Did get an inquiry about a Sr Linux admin today. 70% Linux 30% Windows - but $65k. I'm happy where I am, though.

ewwhite

When i say everyone in Chicago is looking, I'm seeing $70-$105k. People don't necessarily want people like me.

MDMarra

That's still trash, especially with sr in the title

vCole

@MDMarra sure is, I make more than that without a Sr title.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite You're pretty much a one-man boutique at this point

ewwhite

@JoelESalas Or use vConverter.

MDMarra

00:14

Jeeze man, when I was job hunting pay wasn't really the problem. It was finding a place where I didn't feel like I'd want to murder everyone in my sleep

ewwhite

@JoelESalas Why do you say?

Journeyman Geek

@WesleyDavid Looking at it eventually. I really want to get my marshal badge before the next election tho

MDMarra

(I don't get along with dumb/under-performing people)

Joel E Salas

@MDMarra That's not an issue in the start up world so much

vCole

@MDMarra I love my job, and the pay. I have a super awesome opportunity.

ewwhite

00:15

Right, all of the places I'm talking to now are from careers.SO...

vCole

Three of the guys I work with have 25+ years of experience.

Journeyman Geek

AHH

so tempted!

ewwhite

and they've avoided the craziness I've seen elsewhere.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite You have this huge amount of specialized large-scale knowledge, it's hard to imagine you'll be doing an honest day's work in 5 years

If you don't get snapped up for a C-level position, that is

MDMarra

@vCole Thats pretty cool. Though, I've found that I dislike people I've worked with that are 40+

ewwhite

00:16

@JoelESalas No, it's very narrow knowledge that's not useful anymore...

MDMarra

They've all been stagnant old heads

But that's just where I've been

vCole

@MDMarra luckily the ones I work with are super laid back and still wanting to learn.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite By large-scale I mean your skill set pertains to large deployments

MDMarra

It's been a product of those environments

ewwhite

I spent an hour last night writing a script for a coding test as part of a job application.

and it was rough...

vCole

00:17

I'm the youngest at 25, and the junior level guy is 26.

MDMarra

I was actually the Sr Sys Admin where I left

Now I'm just a regular old sysadmin

ewwhite

@JoelESalas actually, I mostly work with small sites... any of the financial systems I managed were really just 60, 180, or 600 of the same thing.

MDMarra

But it's a better place, better long-term opportunity

vCole

I'm a Systems Administrator II

Joel E Salas

@vCole Shoot for Systems Engineer or Systems Administrator, Sr

systems engineer is 90-110K

ewwhite

00:18

I urge all of you to get some consulting skills and built outside contacts.

vCole

@JoelESalas I'm already in that pay range :)

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite Would you take a C-level position?

@vCole I think Systems administrator, Sr goes up to 150K or so in Los Angeles

ewwhite

@JoelESalas Not at this point. My consulting business is quite healthy, and I'm looking to get in at the ground floor of the right type of organization.

Again, many came through careers.SO...

vCole

@ewwhite are you just doing purely consulting at this point?

ewwhite

Chicago is $60-$105... then up-to $300k, depending on the type of org...

but the demand for the $180k+ people is low because if they were good, they automated... and automated to the point where the $90k guy can do the grunt work.

Joel E Salas

00:20

@ewwhite I plan on automating myself out of a job here

2

ewwhite

@vCole Interviewing and managing a full load of summer projects.

vCole

@ewwhite jeez, sounds a bit overwhelming.

ewwhite

@vCole This weekend sucked. I need some help on the East and West Coasts.

So I'm planning a week-long to LA next week to try to fix three sites...

One has 4 APC 3000XL UPS units... all of the batteries are dead...

vCole

@ewwhite where on the East?

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite I'll do it

ewwhite

00:23

@vCole Always Philadelphia, NYC and North Jersey.

I have another near Southampton...

@JoelESalas Well, I'm just going to camp in downtown LA and hammer through the issues.

vCole

@ewwhite wow that's crazy. What are you going to do if/when you get a FT job?

ewwhite

downtime be-damned...

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite For the record, I see about 4-5x disk usage on the XFS systems I manage (PHP servers)

ewwhite

@vCole I've kept my consulting throughout... so I've had 4 years of managing 30 clients and working full-time.. except for periods of financial industry non-compete restrictions.

vCole

@ewwhite holy.crap.

ewwhite

00:25

@JoelESalas That's really bad. I'm ashamed of RedHat and the other distros for not warning people

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite This is Debian, domain of the neckbeards

ewwhite

@vCole I got fired for moonlighting once... and have since written it into my employment contracts.

vCole

@ewwhite seriously? That sucks. Do you enjoy working in the financial sector?

ewwhite

@JoelESalas Well, any distro that backported 2.6.38's XFS into their current kernel...

@vCole I'm 90% of the way out of finance. One big interview at a trading firm tomorrow... but they're more like a devops startup...

vCole

@ewwhite not sure I'd be a fit for that industry. 90% of my background in manufacturing IT.

ewwhite

00:28

but honestly, it makes a good story... "beaten-down and bruised by the high-frequency trading world... looking to do something with a purpose."

but I was in warehousing/logistics before finance... and that's what my clients are.

so I never left that world.

vCole

Manufacturing....is interesting.

Journeyman Geek

@WesleyDavid: looking at the field, no, not this year. I think at least 4 of the 5 guys there would be excellent mods.

ewwhite

@vCole Slow-paced in some parts, high paced in others... older technology. Still see serial devices.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite If only there was some kind of bus that was universal

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite And Windows 3.11 machines connected to industrial lathes that people want to run timesheet software on

vCole

00:31

@ewwhite lots of serial. I worked for Uvex for a bit - interesting and were pretty into newer tech. Honeywell purchased them - so not sure what happened after that. All I know I was the sole "linux guy" for their IBM BCU.

@MarkHenderson so sad, but so true.

ewwhite

I used to fly to Honolulu to deal with one of my produce clients...

I'd see things like...

And troubleshooting issues from Chicago...

vCole

@ewwhite you would not want to see what the offices in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil looked like from my previous employer.

Shane Madden

@ewwhite At least they used a patch panel ;)

vCole

Troubleshooting things over a T1.

Joel E Salas

@vCole I know what those guys do

vCole

00:35

My previous employer is just a mess.

If you wanted to VPN in, you could only VPN to Germany then into our network.

WesleyDavid

@JourneymanGeek Eh, more time for you to get your degree and some certs. =)

vCole

SAP over the T1? Timeouts like crazy. Sales guys trying to pull drawings for customers over the VPN? Forget about it.

ewwhite

But alas... I need to go to the apple store.

Journeyman Geek

@WesleyDavid: considering me and SU now? Being a mod would save me time, with awesome mod powers ;p.

ewwhite

must see this new MacBook Retina in person

vCole

00:38

@ewwhite curious myself.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite The screen's not heart-stopping, but the form-factor is amazing

ewwhite

I'm on the 17" MacBook now.. from 2010...

so I need to understand what I'd be giving up.

Joel E Salas

They're not making those anymore

Allegedly it's because no one makes a hi-res 17 inch screen

MDMarra

17"?

mwahahaha

ewwhite

besides an ethernet port, replaceable RAM, replaceable disk...

MDMarra

00:39

Do you travel with that thing?

ewwhite

Yes.

MDMarra

damn

vCole

I have a 15" Early 2011 MBP

ewwhite

I used to burn through one every 1-1.5 years.

MDMarra

So, Katie (my fiancee) was just appointed as a mod on the new libraries beta

my nerd heart grew ten sizes today

vCole

00:41

@MDMarra dawwwww.

ewwhite

oh my...

vCole

Congrats to her. :)

Joel E Salas

This calls for a drink

MDMarra

I was like, aw man. I didn't get elected on the last SF election, but you got appointed! wtf mate

haha

vCole

I just derp in here more than answering questions.

Mark Henderson

00:46

@MDMarra You just admitted that your fiancee is on the SE network. Opening up a wooorld of trouble right there :p

MDMarra

Hahaha, this is true

Mark Henderson

KatieR ♦, Pennsylvania

1.4k 2 16

youth-services public-libraries patron-management circulation classification cataloging storytime

MDMarra

I warned her to stay away from you freaks, though.

So no worries

Mark Henderson

Everyone, go and make sexual innuendo now

MDMarra

Though she might run into you in teacher's lounge.

Mark Henderson

00:47

Meh never go in there

They're all too serious and well behaved

MDMarra

Luckily, she'll be able to spot you in the crowd, since you'll be the upside down australian one

hahaha

Mark Henderson

har har har

Not-very-interesting fact: I almost became a librarian

MDMarra

She actually works in the same town that @PeterGrace currently resides in

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson That's amazing, you were right about it not being interesting

Rebecca Chernoff

@MarkHenderson ha. that's funny.

Mark Henderson

00:49

@JoelESalas Honesty in advertising

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson Hahaha :D

I love bash one-liners. They're tantamount to necromancy

Mark Henderson

@RebeccaChernoff Oh right, now you come in just as I admit I don't go to the moderator room

Making me look bad

Rebecca Chernoff

lol

THAT'S WHAT I'M GOOD FOR

Mark Henderson

Do you have a sticker wall somewhere for all of the network-wide mods? And each time you do something good like turn it up in the mod room or attend a chatcast you get a sticker?

Because if you did, I would totally start doing more network-wide stuff

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson If you go in the room 100 days in a row, you get a pizza party!

Rebecca Chernoff

00:52

@MarkHenderson yes, yes indeed.

Mark Henderson

A few weeks ago we discovered how much of an incentive stickers are to get childeren to do things:

"Levi, if you drink that juice, you won't get a sticker!"
Thought process: Hmm, I could drink this juice and enjoy its sweet sugary liquid and get high like its 1975... or I could put it away and get a sticker that will be stuck to a chart so high off the ground that I can't even reach or play with the sticker. Well, if you put it like that... sticker sounds pretty good!"

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson Have you read about that cookie experiment?

Mark Henderson

@JoelESalas Nope?

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson Let me find

@MarkHenderson newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer it was marshmallows

MDMarra

YOU WEAVE A WEB OF LIES

Joel E Salas

00:56

@MDMarra Don't forget disappointment

jscott

@JoelESalas You should learn Perl, it'll make you look like a necromantic illiterate.

@MDMarra Oh, btw, "scrapple" is about to be featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, right now.

Mark Henderson

“At a certain point, it must have occurred to me that I was all by myself,” he recalls. “And so I just started taking all the candy.”

... that would be me

MDMarra

@jscott That shit legitimately scares me

I'm pretty open to new foods but I have absolutely no desire to put that shit in my mouth

jscott

"Scrapple, it's a loaf..."

"From that bite, I feel I had hoof, ear and tongue..."

He's tasting it blindfolded.

MDMarra

hahaha

You can get it basically anywhere that serves breakfast around here

except chains like dunkin donuts or whatever

it's fucking unusual

I'm glad i spent 20+ years in New England and never got suckered into thinking that it was OK to eat that shit when I was a little kid.

WesleyDavid

01:01

Scrapple is everything but the oink. I.e. everything that is foreign and unnatural to be putting into your body's digestive tract. Oh, and gravy. Lots of steamy, lardy gravy.

<-- did five years in Cincinnati.

Notice that one does not live in Cincinnati. One survives Cincinnati.

MDMarra

hahaha

WesleyDavid

But not without emotional scarring and psychological distress.

jscott

@MDMarra Yeah been to Harrisburg a number of times on road trips. Also Downingtown and Hershey. Scrapple isn't terrible, taste-wise, just don't think about how its made -- like sausage.

MDMarra

Honestly, between scrapple and soft pretzels for breakfast, I'm surprised that anyone's alive to eat lunch around here.

jscott

Scrapple-pretzel sandwiches for breakfast?! ARE YOU A WIZARD?

WesleyDavid

01:02

@jscott No, he's ANGIOPLASTY-MAN!!

trumpets

MDMarra

It's unnerving watching people eat anything that's topped with brown mustard as a breakfast meal

jscott

@WesleyDavid You're in AZ. Ever make a trip to Heart Attack Grill?

vCole

Never heard of scrapple

MDMarra

Lucky you

WesleyDavid

Marginally faster than a decaying corpse. More powerful than a dried rubber band. Unable to leap small sidewalk cracks in a single bound. Who disguised as Joe America, morbidly obese citizen who complains about society's unattainable beauty standards, fights the unending battle for subsidized corn products, fast food, cheap health care, and the American way.

It's... ANGIOPLASTY MAN!!!

jscott

01:07

@vCole racecar13.blogspot.com/2008/09/almighty-scrapple.html Enjoy

WesleyDavid

@jscott Never made it there, no. Oddly, a man died of a heart attack there last year.

vCole

@jscott got to the second picture...ABORT MISSION.

WesleyDavid

Oh, and while you're at it:

vCole

ew

<- is eating dinner

Mark Henderson

Man you said Ew while I was still waiting for that picture to load

I hate the internet here

MDMarra

01:08

It's mostly because everything needs to be turned upside down to appear upright to you.

jscott

@WesleyDavid Just take two Zocor, you'll be fine.

Mark Henderson

Hah, almost 2 weeks worth of cholesterol in one can!

vCole

who the hell would eat that?

Mark Henderson

@MDMarra Yeah dontcha know our ISPs installed upsidedownternet in their core routers

jscott

@vCole For a fiver?

vCole

01:10

Man, that makes my stomach turn.

MDMarra

How the fuck was that +14?

Joel E Salas

You gon get meta-starred

MDMarra

What the hell is wrong with you people?

and how did I not notice that before?

Joel E Salas

vCole

This makes me so happy: speedtest.net/result/2054612179.png

jscott

01:15

@vCole at home?

vCole

@jscott yus.

jscott

FIOS?

vCole

Indeed.

jscott

You son of a....

vCole

:)

Joel E Salas

01:15

Awesome. I had 100/15 on Charter, which was amazing

MDMarra

So

Your physical connection is >100Mbps?

That's pretty nice

vCole

whoa, ate way too much pasta.

I make bad decisions.

jscott

Still dreaming the s-hole city I live in will ever become a market for Verizon wired services.

vCole

It was a factor in where I was moving to, tbh.

Joel E Salas

@vCole I was honestly considering building an overlay on google maps of internet speeds

like what padmapper does

jscott

01:19

Frontier Communications owns the glass all around here, so I can't expect them to ever peer with anyone to provide actually decent connections. Time Warner has their stuff, which I use, but damn they tax for cable TV.

@JoelESalas Why haven't you done this!? +1 Great Idea

vCole

whomp whomp.

@JoelESalas that'd be nifty.

Scott Pack

So who's the hot librarian? I'll bet she can really catalog. Meow.

3

MDMarra

CHILL BRO

Journeyman Geek

DOWN BOY DOWN.

MDMarra

hahaha

Journeyman Geek

01:22

(Seriously, no Dewey jokes? I are Dissapoint)

vCole

AW SNAP SHITS GONNA GO DOWN.

MDMarra

@JourneymanGeek Dewey is outdated and almost no one uses it any more.

GET A CLUE MAN

jscott

The real question is he an ISBN-10 guy or ISBN-13 guy.

Journeyman Geek

I'm not a librarian, even if i sometimes play a barbarian.

MDMarra

I'll ISBN any way I can get it.

6

Catch my drift?

Journeyman Geek

01:25

hasn't been to a library in years >_>

jscott

@MDMarra That should be worth 15 stars.

Joel E Salas

WTF Trac uses SQLite by default?

This is made of nightmares

MDMarra

@jscott If me saying "BRB" was worth 14 stars, that should be worth 165 by my calculations

vCole

@MDMarra I'd like to see those calculations.

MDMarra

@vCole Sure, here is it - The ratio of BRB stars to ISBN stars is 14:165

Satisfactory?

vCole

01:28

@MDMarra Indeed.

9:30 and I'm ready for bed, what has my life become?

Mark Henderson

So, I'm a bit late to the party, but...

....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...

vCole

haha

Mark Henderson

Forgive the iPhone-ness of it, that's all I have handy

WesleyDavid

01:44

@MarkHenderson Sucks to be Australian.

Mark Henderson

@WesleyDavid No being an Australian is fucking awesome. I believe you told me it's basically a leg opener. Being on the internet in Australia sucks :p

MDMarra

Ya, but you're married, right?

So I mean, that would be like me bragging that I can run 15 MPH but I have both of my legs in a cast.

Mark Henderson

Indeed I am

Which is the only reason why i'm not hitting on your fiance right now

MDMarra

haaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha

Mark Henderson

@MDMarra If you could run 15mph whilst both of your legs were in casts I'd be fucking impressed

WesleyDavid

01:48

@MarkHenderson What does being American in Australia do for me?

Scott Pack

@MarkHenderson Am I reading this right? @vCole has the same bandwidth to his house that your entire country shares with New Zealand and most of southeast Asia?

Mark Henderson

@WesleyDavid Not much I'm afraid. Americans don't exactly have a great reputation here. But you're not severely obese (in fact you're a skinny little shit) so that works in your favour

As Australians are just as fat (% wise) as Americans

@ScottPack I think we have something like 4tbps to Guam

WesleyDavid

@MarkHenderson I thought all your women were pocket sized and looked like Kylie Minogue.

Scott Pack

@MarkHenderson tbps? Is that tinybits per second?

Mark Henderson

@WesleyDavid Har. No. Some of them are moles.

Scott Pack

01:50

@MarkHenderson How is that a bad thing? Have you ever seen the mouth on a mole?

MDMarra

@MarkHenderson Well that's real fucking useful

Do you trunk your telephones to it for asian phonesex lines?

Scott Pack

So, @WesleyDavid. What were you calling me about earlier?

WesleyDavid

Mark Henderson

@MDMarra What? I don't know. Don't ask me complex questions like that :p I'm trying to find the site to tell me definitavely how much international bandwidth we have

WesleyDavid

@ScottPack Oh, @JoelESalas said he's never successfully exploited anything using Metasploit so I told him that it was only because he wasn't @ScottPack.

Joel E Salas

01:52

@WesleyDavid Both of those things are true

Scott Pack

@WesleyDavid Ah, ok. To be fair, I focus more on the vulnerability management rather than gettin' my game on with vulnerabilities.

WesleyDavid

@ScottPack So in other words your life is meaningless.

Scott Pack

It did have meaning, then you self-edited. :(

jscott

@WesleyDavid Is there still a bootable image of MetaSploit? Or is just the you-must-register-to-use-this pile?

WesleyDavid

@ScottPack THE ENGLISH IS HARRRRRRDDD!!!

Scott Pack

01:54

Metasploit is for losers. All the cool kids use cat, dd, and nc.

@WesleyDavid Mario?

Joel E Salas

@ScottPack cat shellcode.txt > yourserver.com

Scott Pack

@JoelESalas You're getting there.

Joel E Salas

@ScottPack One of my friends is a pentester. I've been using the term "hack" for anything computer-related to make him unhappy

"I hacked into my own facebook this morning, and hacked out a status update. Later I'm gonna hack on my macbook at starbucks"

Scott Pack

Good man!

Mark Henderson

@ScottPack I was wrong. Australia has 482Gbps of international connectivity

So... 10x less than my estimate :p

Scott Pack

01:58

"I hacked into my own facebook this morning and used the cloud to hack a status update. Later I'm going to hack the starbucks cloud on my macbook"

There we go.

vCole

haha

Scott Pack

@MarkHenderson We're getting ready to install a 100Gbps connection to the university I work at.

WesleyDavid

@MarkHenderson Well, half of that was being used by Kim Dotcom, so you should notice some better speeds now.

Mark Henderson

@WesleyDavid Haha wrong country, but yes

@ScottPack Screw you too

jscott

Mark Henderson

01:59

Not my fault we're seperated from the rest of the world by a massive body of water :p

WesleyDavid

@MarkHenderson You're entire country has 500Gbps to the whole land? WTF?

jscott

@ScottPack To your provider?! Or intra-site?

Transcript for