vxbush 10/26/2026 7:11:33 AM

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vxbush 10/26/2026 7:16:18 AM

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JCM 10/26/2026 7:28:57 AM

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JCM 10/26/2026 7:40:30 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

OH MY! That is an epic prank.... give the location they registered at.

It also proves the holes in the registration system.

Kosh's Shadow 10/26/2026 9:08:00 AM

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Reply to JCM in 3:

I've had on-site jobs where my computer didn't show up for days.

Unrelated, one of those companies used power strips that would shut off when there was a power failure to prevent a power surge when it came back on. I had figured this out already.

So one morning, after a power failure, IT made sure to tell everyone to turn the power strips back on. Via email. (This was when most computers were desktops)

JCM 10/26/2026 9:16:36 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 5:

Back at Amazon we used workstations for our CAD work and remoted into them. Power failure the all shut down. IT policy did not allow start on LAN. At that time we had no on site IT. And policy didn't provide for anyone on site to have access to turn them on. Took hours to get the IT guy on site to poke power buttons on over a hundred workstations.

vxbush 10/26/2026 9:36:17 AM

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Reply to JCM in 6: 

And people wonder why I'm suck a stickler for wanting to work on campus. 

Occasional Reader 10/26/2026 10:01:31 AM

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Rest in peace, Walter Koenig.

I still wish they had done an episode in the original series in which his phaser rifle is shown hanging in his quarters in the first act, and is used definitively in the third act. The title of the episode would of course have been “Chekov’s phaser”. 

JCM 10/26/2026 10:13:26 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 7:

The IT rules at Amazon were for AWS.... i get that. But when were were working essentially as a start up, with zero impact outside our team and we were trying to move fast... they got really cumbersome... very quickly.

vxbush 10/26/2026 11:39:42 AM

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In #9 JCM said: The IT rules at Amazon were for AWS.... i get that. But when were were working essentially as a start up, with zero impact outside our team and we were trying to move fast... they got really cumbersome... very quickly.

The moniker "startup team" has a very special connotation for anyone who has worked in such a time just after they started the team, because in phase 1, the team members all know each other and (normally) trust each other. They all know the rules. The next person who joins the team doesn't know all the rules and doesn't usually get all the rules, and it's only after a few more members join the team that folks realize they need to standardize the way things work so each person who comes on next can get up to speed faster via documentation. 

Kosh's Shadow 10/26/2026 12:37:16 PM

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In #8 Occasional Reader said: Rest in peace, Walter Koenig.

He also was very good as a bad guy, the Psy Cop Alfred Bester, in Babylon V (which is the series I got my nic from)

vxbush 10/26/2026 12:54:29 PM

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In #8 Occasional Reader said: Rest in peace, Walter Koenig.

My sister had a big crush on him back in the day. That's how I'll always think of him as a result. 

vxbush 10/26/2026 12:55:01 PM

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In #11 Kosh's Shadow said: He also was very good as a bad guy, the Psy Cop Alfred Bester, in Babylon V

I keep meaning to go back and watch that series, but I never remember to do it. 

Occasional Reader 10/26/2026 1:24:49 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 11:

I think he also had a role in a short-lived mid 70s science fiction series called “the star lost” or something like that. 

Kosh's Shadow 10/26/2026 2:17:10 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 14:
He appeared in a couple of The Starlost episodes as an alien. 

That show was a clusterfuck. Harlan Ellison pitched it, then there was a writers' strike so he did not contribute. Put his nom de plume "Cordwainer Bird" as the creator, which was his way of flipping the bird.

It was about "The Earthship Ark" in space for 800 years, where most of the inhabitants live in separate domes and do not know they are on a spaceship. I saw a few episodes when it came out, and found recently the DVD set was cheap enough. Not as bad as I remembered, but still bad.

Ben Bova was science consultant, and the only thing he said they listened to was to not have a ship's steering wheel on the bridge, rocking back and forth to show the ship was adrift.

Kosh's Shadow 10/26/2026 2:21:21 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 13:

In B5, there are ancient alien races that have gone "Beyond the Rim", whatever that means. Two stayed behind to help younger races to advance.

The two are the Shadows, who believe advancement comes by war; chaos. The  other are the Vorlons, who believe in strict control and order. We meet two Vorlons, both named Kosh ("We are all Kosh")

Put the two together.

And I really reccomend watching the series. Note that first impressions of the characters often end up quite wrong by the end.

G'Quan wrote, "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender."

Sounds like today