I need a good boffin.

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Flex
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Flex »

Not exactly a boffin-specific question, but I want to get a poster printed from some online artwork (the slapshot middle east concert - cool artwork, but cambridge has ordinances against flyers so nothing was printed up to yank at the show) - anyone have any recommendations for online print shops? I recollect that we may have had this conversation before when someone wanted to do something similar, so any insight is appreciated!
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
20 Mar 2023, 3:23pm
Not exactly a boffin-specific question, but I want to get a poster printed from some online artwork (the slapshot middle east concert - cool artwork, but cambridge has ordinances against flyers so nothing was printed up to yank at the show) - anyone have any recommendations for online print shops? I recollect that we may have had this conversation before when someone wanted to do something similar, so any insight is appreciated!
I've used a local print shop for a number of posters. I'd look in your community for any place that does up banners and the like. I don't think they really give a fuck about copyright when it's just one copy being ordered.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
20 Mar 2023, 3:58pm
I've used a local print shop for a number of posters. I'd look in your community for any place that does up banners and the like. I don't think they really give a fuck about copyright when it's just one copy being ordered.
Hmmmm, this advice sounds good but it's also hard for me not to wonder if Proud Larry's offers some locally sourced, organic print services.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
20 Mar 2023, 4:01pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
20 Mar 2023, 3:58pm
I've used a local print shop for a number of posters. I'd look in your community for any place that does up banners and the like. I don't think they really give a fuck about copyright when it's just one copy being ordered.
Hmmmm, this advice sounds good but it's also hard for me not to wonder if Proud Larry's offers some locally sourced, organic print services.
Do you really have time to hitchhike to pick up your poster?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Flex »

Hey folks,

I got a software bundle that included a year subscription to eset nod32 antivirus. I use a different antivirus program so if anyone wants the serial # so they can get a free year of a premium anti-virus service, DM me and I'll give it to you.

(Years back I remember nod32 was pretty highly regarded, not sure what folks think of it now)
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

revbob
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by revbob »

Doing remote family tech support is a thankless job. My sis asked me for some help/advice. She then talked to an "Apple Genius" who told her something different. I dont pretend to be a genius of any sort but I can look at the available port types you have for what you're trying to connect and know that essentially a square peg wont fit in a triangle hole.

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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

revbob wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:24pm
Doing remote family tech support is a thankless job. My sis asked me for some help/advice. She then talked to an "Apple Genius" who told her something different. I dont pretend to be a genius of any sort but I can look at the available port types you have for what you're trying to connect and know that essentially a square peg wont fit in a triangle hole.
Well, yeah, if you have a suit-and-tie defeatist attitude you can’t. Me, I think that if we want it enough, we can land a woman on the sun.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by revbob »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:40pm
revbob wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:24pm
Doing remote family tech support is a thankless job. My sis asked me for some help/advice. She then talked to an "Apple Genius" who told her something different. I dont pretend to be a genius of any sort but I can look at the available port types you have for what you're trying to connect and know that essentially a square peg wont fit in a triangle hole.
Well, yeah, if you have a suit-and-tie defeatist attitude you can’t. Me, I think that if we want it enough, we can land a woman on the sun.
I bow before your smooth jazz genius

Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

revbob wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:48pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:40pm
revbob wrote:
30 Mar 2023, 9:24pm
Doing remote family tech support is a thankless job. My sis asked me for some help/advice. She then talked to an "Apple Genius" who told her something different. I dont pretend to be a genius of any sort but I can look at the available port types you have for what you're trying to connect and know that essentially a square peg wont fit in a triangle hole.
Well, yeah, if you have a suit-and-tie defeatist attitude you can’t. Me, I think that if we want it enough, we can land a woman on the sun.
I bow before your smooth jazz genius
Smooth jazz-rock (with a dash of cock rock), you philistine!
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

So my school's just switched over to Workday, a big ol' set of HR apps and it's … not gone smoothly. Stories of admin assts threatening to quit because the system has so many holes in (e.g., categories that are literal blanks), poor documentation, and support is overwhelmed, so everything is grinding to a halt. This morning, The Boss tried to enter a simple amendment to an expense report, something that the old way would be bing-bang-boom. Nope. It generated three errors. She addressed the errors and that generated five new errors.

My limited experience—checking to see whether my courses have been posted so I can apply for them (note: they haven't, largely because departments either can't access the system to post them or it's not working)—has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump thru. So, I can log into Workday and see my profile and all that just fine. Nothing unusual there. However, I'm not allowed to even *see* whether courses have been posted unless I (a) log out; (b) log in with the university VPN, with MFA; (c) re-log in to Workday, with a separate MFA. Just to see the courses. Ooooh, the terrorists will win if we don't use VPN to see job availability. I can also only submit my final exam schedule via the VPN route because … security. However, I don't need to go the VPN route for actually submitting final grades. No consistency at all, while the explanation is always "security." And even if there's truth there, it's coming off as a kneejerk, don't-fucking-question-us response from IT.

When a system makes the human experience frustrating and miserable, there's something wrong with the system, not the humans. That applies to all systems, big and small, global and local.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 9:45am
So my school's just switched over to Workday, a big ol' set of HR apps and it's … not gone smoothly. Stories of admin assts threatening to quit because the system has so many holes in (e.g., categories that are literal blanks), poor documentation, and support is overwhelmed, so everything is grinding to a halt. This morning, The Boss tried to enter a simple amendment to an expense report, something that the old way would be bing-bang-boom. Nope. It generated three errors. She addressed the errors and that generated five new errors.

My limited experience—checking to see whether my courses have been posted so I can apply for them (note: they haven't, largely because departments either can't access the system to post them or it's not working)—has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump thru. So, I can log into Workday and see my profile and all that just fine. Nothing unusual there. However, I'm not allowed to even *see* whether courses have been posted unless I (a) log out; (b) log in with the university VPN, with MFA; (c) re-log in to Workday, with a separate MFA. Just to see the courses. Ooooh, the terrorists will win if we don't use VPN to see job availability. I can also only submit my final exam schedule via the VPN route because … security. However, I don't need to go the VPN route for actually submitting final grades. No consistency at all, while the explanation is always "security." And even if there's truth there, it's coming off as a kneejerk, don't-fucking-question-us response from IT.

When a system makes the human experience frustrating and miserable, there's something wrong with the system, not the humans. That applies to all systems, big and small, global and local.
I wrote about this recently:
Systems and processes are in place which make their users’ - their lifeblood, their only reason to be extant - lives harder and less pleasant. Those systems and processes came into being because they made life easy for the organisation, or because nobody could think of a better way of doing things, or simply because they were never considered at all. And, by simply being in place, they grow an entirely undeserved status of being sacrosanct. “We do this because we do this” is a powerful tautology with a rare hold on the human mind. It’s one that must be fought.
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Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 10:12am
I wrote about this recently:
Systems and processes are in place which make their users’ - their lifeblood, their only reason to be extant - lives harder and less pleasant. Those systems and processes came into being because they made life easy for the organisation, or because nobody could think of a better way of doing things, or simply because they were never considered at all. And, by simply being in place, they grow an entirely undeserved status of being sacrosanct. “We do this because we do this” is a powerful tautology with a rare hold on the human mind. It’s one that must be fought.
Complexity demands some kind of means of organization, whether society or economy or a large institution, but the method of organization quickly becomes the thing that we have to adapt to, to respond to, to serve. Whenever a new system, or an evolved system, comes in, it's always portrayed as serving us, making things easier and richer for us, the users. In fact, it's all about us learning how to serve it. We have to give up our inclinations and interests so that the system "works." People sometimes ask for whom the rules benefit, usually concluding it's the already powerful or dominant, and that is true, to a degree, but the real beneficiary is the system itself. It's about creating an environment that allows it to thrive.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

revbob
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by revbob »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 9:45am
So my school's just switched over to Workday, a big ol' set of HR apps and it's … not gone smoothly. Stories of admin assts threatening to quit because the system has so many holes in (e.g., categories that are literal blanks), poor documentation, and support is overwhelmed, so everything is grinding to a halt. This morning, The Boss tried to enter a simple amendment to an expense report, something that the old way would be bing-bang-boom. Nope. It generated three errors. She addressed the errors and that generated five new errors.

My limited experience—checking to see whether my courses have been posted so I can apply for them (note: they haven't, largely because departments either can't access the system to post them or it's not working)—has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump thru. So, I can log into Workday and see my profile and all that just fine. Nothing unusual there. However, I'm not allowed to even *see* whether courses have been posted unless I (a) log out; (b) log in with the university VPN, with MFA; (c) re-log in to Workday, with a separate MFA. Just to see the courses. Ooooh, the terrorists will win if we don't use VPN to see job availability. I can also only submit my final exam schedule via the VPN route because … security. However, I don't need to go the VPN route for actually submitting final grades. No consistency at all, while the explanation is always "security." And even if there's truth there, it's coming off as a kneejerk, don't-fucking-question-us response from IT.

When a system makes the human experience frustrating and miserable, there's something wrong with the system, not the humans. That applies to all systems, big and small, global and local.
Truth is IT delight in end user misery.

gkbill
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by gkbill »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 10:31am
Silent Majority wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 10:12am
I wrote about this recently:
Systems and processes are in place which make their users’ - their lifeblood, their only reason to be extant - lives harder and less pleasant. Those systems and processes came into being because they made life easy for the organisation, or because nobody could think of a better way of doing things, or simply because they were never considered at all. And, by simply being in place, they grow an entirely undeserved status of being sacrosanct. “We do this because we do this” is a powerful tautology with a rare hold on the human mind. It’s one that must be fought.
Complexity demands some kind of means of organization, whether society or economy or a large institution, but the method of organization quickly becomes the thing that we have to adapt to, to respond to, to serve. Whenever a new system, or an evolved system, comes in, it's always portrayed as serving us, making things easier and richer for us, the users. In fact, it's all about us learning how to serve it. We have to give up our inclinations and interests so that the system "works." People sometimes ask for whom the rules benefit, usually concluding it's the already powerful or dominant, and that is true, to a degree, but the real beneficiary is the system itself. It's about creating an environment that allows it to thrive.
Hello,

Higher Education has a lot of experience with this regarding administrators. Well, my significant other needs a better job so let's make them Dean of Red-headed Students. Who do they report to - no one? Well we'd better create a Dean of Students with Hair to oversee these new deans (we'll be advertising for a Dean of Brunette Students and we definitely need a Dean of African (ethnic?) -haired students - oh, and bald students need representation, too!). When money runs tight, we can always cut faculty and combine sections - the more the merrier in the classroom, right?

Dr. Medulla
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Re: I need a good boffin.

Post by Dr. Medulla »

revbob wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 10:58am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
01 Jun 2023, 9:45am
So my school's just switched over to Workday, a big ol' set of HR apps and it's … not gone smoothly. Stories of admin assts threatening to quit because the system has so many holes in (e.g., categories that are literal blanks), poor documentation, and support is overwhelmed, so everything is grinding to a halt. This morning, The Boss tried to enter a simple amendment to an expense report, something that the old way would be bing-bang-boom. Nope. It generated three errors. She addressed the errors and that generated five new errors.

My limited experience—checking to see whether my courses have been posted so I can apply for them (note: they haven't, largely because departments either can't access the system to post them or it's not working)—has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump thru. So, I can log into Workday and see my profile and all that just fine. Nothing unusual there. However, I'm not allowed to even *see* whether courses have been posted unless I (a) log out; (b) log in with the university VPN, with MFA; (c) re-log in to Workday, with a separate MFA. Just to see the courses. Ooooh, the terrorists will win if we don't use VPN to see job availability. I can also only submit my final exam schedule via the VPN route because … security. However, I don't need to go the VPN route for actually submitting final grades. No consistency at all, while the explanation is always "security." And even if there's truth there, it's coming off as a kneejerk, don't-fucking-question-us response from IT.

When a system makes the human experience frustrating and miserable, there's something wrong with the system, not the humans. That applies to all systems, big and small, global and local.
Truth is IT delight in end user misery.
It's often stated that admin assistants really run the university, and there's a lot of truth to that, but behind them is IT. Those are the ones really in charge and there doesn't seem like there's any accountability or concern for anyone else. Learn the fucking system or get the fuck out.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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