I built two IIS servers and a SQL 2014 server for Christmas, as well as made a VM template to deploy server 2012 R2 in a more automated way.

So, that’s what I did for fun on Christmas.

I want to like Marissa Mayer. I really do. But alas she is just as much a loser engineeritis-infectee techno-putz as the rest of the men in Silicon Valley. The only real difference is that she has better hair.

Even though the actress Gwyneth Paltrow had created a best-selling cookbook and popular lifestyle blog, Mayer, who habitually asked deputies where they attended college, balked at hiring her as a contributing editor for Yahoo Food. According to one executive, Mayer disapproved of the fact that Paltrow did not graduate college.

I didn’t graduate college either, but I guarantee I am just as intelligent as Marissa Mayer. Probably significantly more in some areas (and likely vice versa as everyone has their strengths).

Anyway, what a putz. What else is there to say?

I’ve seen this before, but it’s great that all but one of the images of the SysAdmins is giving someone the finger.

That’s by design, and necessary.

Many times absurd requests come into the infrastructure department, such as needing 30 servers for testing “tomorrow,” or to turn off all security on the production firewall so “we can test something.”

Etc.

Due to such requests (and I’ve actually gotten much, much worse), many times what a sysadmin does and is charged with doing by legality, company policy and common sense is to say “no.”

Things are going to get better and already are getting better for users who want to do more themselves. With tools like VCloud Automation center and wider use of other similar tools (local and not), more users can provision what they think they need in a safe test environment.

Still, resources are not unlimited. Power, CPU time, and bandwidth cost money and always will. And no matter what any time you come to a sysadmin with some ridiculous request that will violate the law and all sanity, they will probably still say no.

So, for as long as there are still system administrators, a large and necessary part of their jobs will be telling people “no.”

This is pretty ridiculous.

The GED is now fifty-five percent algebra? Why?

Yes, some people use algebra in their jobs. Great for them, that 0.1 percent.

But I’ve been doing cognitively demanding jobs for 15+ years. Know how many times I’ve used algebra in my daily work?

Zero.

I have never once used algebra or anything related to it – ever – in any job.

My partner is a programmer and has a computer science degree.

Guess how many times she’s used algebra or anything higher than basic math in her daily work?

Zero, again. She has a minor in math and has not once used any of those (poorly-taught, according to her) skills in the course of any job, and probably never will.

When I told my teachers that all the math I was learning in school would be completely irrelevant to my life, they scoffed.

Turns out I was right.

So why is the GED fifty-five percent algebra again?

Fuck yes!

“People north of 40 are schizophrenic about voice mail,” says Michael Schrage. “People under 35 scarcely ever use it.” Companies are increasingly combining telephone, e-mail, text and video systems into unified Internet-based systems that eliminate overlap. “Many people in many corporations simply don’t have the time or desire to spend 25 minutes plowing through a stack of 15 to 25 voice mails at the end or beginning of the day,” says Schrage.

Please don’t leave me a voicemail. Email me. Hell, even text me. But if I even remember to check the voicemail, chances are I will accidentally (uh, yeah, accidentally – that’s it) delete it, or just forget about it.

Voicemail is dead and should stay buried. It’s inconvenient, time-consuming, unreliable and can’t easily be filed in any useful information silo.

Stay in the grave, voicemail. Just stay.

I enjoyed Mockingjay, Part 1.

It wasn’t nearly as good as Catching Fire – which was truly a great movie – but it was entertaining and like the rest of the Hunger Games films nearly singular in its commitment to seriously examine and deal with iconography and propaganda, political power and political choices in a constrained environment, and other issues that are just glossed over even in so-called “serious” films.

I am surprised so many people in their eagerness to express derision completely miss this and rob themselves of some ideas they probably won’t see in any other films.

However, I have to say that I’d watch any and every episode of a TV show where Natalie Dormer as Cressida and Jena Malone as Johanna and of course Katniss Everdeen team up to fight for justice.

It would be like The A Team except, you know, actually good.

I’ve taken eleven technical certification exams in the past 4 months without failing one.

The last one I passed — the RHCE — has a first-time failure rate in the 50% range. Here’s a list of the progressive and the cumulative certifications I’ve earned.

Microsoft Certified Professional–>Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate–>Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (Server Infrastructure 2012). (four exams total)

Cisco Certified Networking Associate(R&S)–>Cisco Certified Networking Professional (R&S). (four exams total)

VMWare Certified Professional. (one exam)

Red Hat Certified System Administrator–>Red Hat Certified Engineer. (two exams total, all practical on live system)

I think I’ll stop now. I might go for the PMP next, in a few months. Or maybe one of the security certifications after I recover for a bit.

When I think about torrenting, The Pirate Bay, and all of that I am amazed that movie studios find it easier to spend billions destroying competition rather than a few dozen million making something better for their customers.

That’s not just stupid, that’s powerful stupid.

All you people who use Facebook, how do you put up with this? And why?

Think of a world in which your phone constantly checked in with the central phone company to decide which of your relatives it should allow you to call, and to jumble their sentences around in any order it deemed “better” (to keep you “engaged” and on the phone longer) — and served you ads in the middle? That’s many of your platforms today. We no longer truly own our intermediaries; instead they are guided by an invisible, algorithmic layer that neither answers to nor is accountable to us.

Humans puzzle me, and I allegedly am one.

Oh god, yes, please.

Ellen Page will be taking on the part of Han Solo in director Jason Reitman’s live stage-reading of The Empire Strikes Back Thursday night, and Jessica Alba has been cast as Princess Leia.

Ellen Page as Han Solo would really, really work. The Empire Strikes Back is the only Star Wars movie with any real heft. Ellen Page as Han and Brit Marling as Luke, please, though.