Blog

geeking: good day

January 12, 2004 23:25 +0000  |  Employment Geek Stuff 0

every once in a while you have one of those days where you fight and fight and fight with a stupid machine and in the end..... you actually win. today was such a day. but for the record: getting cvs to work from windows over ssh using key-based authentication is a rediculous bitch of a thing. ...you just have to remember to to think like a windows user, and not an intelligent person ;-).

and here's the howto that did it for me. there's a lot of them out there, but as crackt-out as this one may look, it really is the best.

if you do it right, you should be exhausted afterword...

January 10, 2004 17:14 +0000  |  Employment Personal Life 0

angela came out last night and we went out with some local friends of hers. i got to meet the infamous "jen" and have unfortunately yet to recieve the "jen test"... apparently it's something like the usual set of questions any concerned friend uses to grill a new significant other, but souped up like tim taylor's lawn mower. i met darren, a movie maker / geek for hire that maintains servers to help corporations launder their own money (he's still cool though) and a few other nice young men that didn't talk much.

i've also finished my first week at the new job. it's kinda frustrating right now, 'cause i've not yet nailed down the "command structure" i need to function properly. i've got one guy in vancouver giving me orders from his office, and another guy in my office issuing (often very different) orders. i'm not sure who takes precident yet, so things are confusing. i have a pretty smokin' machine though, and i actually get to do development work too (as oppsoed to my last job that just had me fixing crackt-out buggy code). i got cvs and my sound card working now, so i'm pretty happy where i am. sure, it's advertising, and sure i'm helping rich people get richer... but we all have to pick our battles, and my passion isn't for that fight. i wish the best of luck to those who do -- maybe one day, when i'm finished with my own fight, i'll join you.

no more porn

December 19, 2003 00:47 +0000  |  Employment 5

i no longer work for the porn company that was cool enough to take a chance on me when i moved to this city. oddly enough though, my reasons for leaving had to do with just how much they were willing to risk... see, they offered me this job, with miserable pay, an hourly wage from which someone else was forever taking a cut, and absolutely no job security. the official position being "temporary full time" so they could can me whenever they pleased without notice or severance. i need more than that -- and i don't think that's unreasonable.

which brings me to my first rant (yay!) geeks are selling themselves way to short lately. sure the .com bubble burst, and sure you can't walk into an interview expecting them to buy you a new car just for signing on anymore (personally, i think that's insane anyway). but people have got to show some respect for themselves or they wind up with lousy pay, no security and zero respect. we have skills people. wake up and realise that this is an equal partnership -- your skills and time for their money and respect. they're not doing you a favour, you're co-benefitting.

alright, i'm done ranting. i'll miss the people there, but i know i'll be happier where i'm going. they're offering better pay, reasonable security and a good amount of stuff to learn and play with. 'course it's advertising, but hey -- everyone has to pick their battles and i'm gonna lay off the ads... for now.