grousing

[da]

The system administration framework here at the University is old and clunky. While it simplifies some things, accounts management is enough to make (many of us) tear our hair out. I will spare you the details.

There has been a cool front-end loader digging up dirt around the building all week. It looks like fun to drive. Not for the first time, I wonder maybe I should go into construction.

Comments

[pnijjar.livejournal.com]

You are in construction. You just dig up bits instead of anything useful.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

No, I'm in archeology. Last few days I've been digging with a toothbrush.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going off to use something electrical and loud.

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

So why does Butterwings still have a fairly luxuriant head of hair?

The thing that made the difference between St. Agatha's strawberry festival being total suck and almost worthwhile was the opportunity, for a mere two dollars, to compete in age and gender groups for who could perform a precision operation with a backhoe the fastest. Boy managed one minute even.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Dammity damn. That sounds like fun. I would've paid $2 to play with a backhoe. What did Boy win?

On hair, I suppose that's between R... and his barber.

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

A woman (not boring old me) got a time around three minutes and had a great deal of fun. One of the local kids in the "boys under 12" group had a time of 56 seconds. I need to put the pictures on line; right now they're spinning on a disk at home.

If you haven't heard Steven Levine sing his Backhoe Song, you've missed a real treat.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That's just too special for words. I've never heard anything by him. I'll have to look it up, thanks.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Construction people built a huge parking garage in the space next to where I work. We would wander over and watch them do things, wonder about why they did things...

It was awesome. Aside from the back-breaking lifting of rebar when it was >90°F outside, of course. Silly workmen, they should have worked at night! I kept comparing what I was doing with source code with what they were accomplishing and thinking "hey, with a union, they probably make as much as I do".

I want to be the one controlling the concrete pouring gizmo that goes up several stories. It looked like the remote control had six different control levers (one per joint). That sounds like fun...

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those concrete pourers are amazing. I saw one working on a bridge, and it looked just like something out of Doctor Seuss. You could just imagine the operator saying, "and a shift over there, and a tweak to that, and..."

[kraig.livejournal.com]

That's funny, one of the things I like best about it is the accounts management.

Of course, I just go xh-install accounts_client, wave my hands a bit, and it seems to Just Work. And if it's not on that platform already, I tell the users somebody gets to type adduser every time. I don't have to make it go.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

There's one word I have for you.

That word is "messageb".

[kraig.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, it whines. That's Not My Problem.

I take on many things that are Not My Problem, but that one I refuse. :-)

But point taken, fair enough. (That one strikes me as being as much a political / religious issue as it does a technical one though. Of course, that's at least half the problem with The Packaging System That Shall Not Be Named.)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's my problem. ;)

[kraig.livejournal.com]

For my sins, I have been sentenced to try building apcupsd under The Packaging System That Shall Not Be Named.

sigh.