Hey, I'm Bertie, Scout, Ancient History student, Warhammer fan, beginner martial artist, RPG player, occasional LARPer, Nerdfighter and unsure of how to end this little ramble.
Reasons why computer problems seem to mysteriously vanish as soon as a technician shows up:
You were spacing out and skipping a step somewhere without realising it, and you can’t reproduce it when you try to demonstrate it because now you’re paying attention to what you’re doing
It’s an intermittent electrical connection fault that’s being aggravated by movement/vibrations in your desk; you need to check your cables
The act of explaining the problem to someone caused you to figure out what you were doing wrong
The real cause of the problem was somewhere upstream of your terminal device – for example, at the network service provider – and it got fixed at the source while you were waiting
Your computer is in a location with poor airflow and is overheating; waiting for the technician to arrive gave it a chance to cool off
Despite all appearances to the contrary, modern computers actually have very good fault recovery, and most minor problems will sort themselves out on their own if you give it a minute
Magic
the computer doesn’t respect you. next time, try firm eye contact to establish dominance.
I am a glorified office administrator who understands server hardware why am I the only person in this company who gets what social engineering is?
Total stranger on the phone who we’ve never spoken to before: I have power of attorney over the CEO of this corporation and we are a customer of yours. Please change the administrator password on the server to XXXXX
My boss, putting on white grease paint and a red wig: Oh, of course! Let’s do it quickly so that you’ll want to keep working with us since you’re going to be making business decisions!
Me: I would sell you to satan for one corn chip and I’m allergic to corn but before you do this maybe you should call someone who is actually on our contact list for our customer and see if they’ve ever heard of this stranger.
My boss, looking through a selection of shoes that honk when you walk: Oh, but she said that it was very important that none of the employees know what was happening because they’re making staffing changes.
Me: As your lawyer I recommend that you just call a single one of our contacts and see if they’ve ever heard of her name.
My boss, shoving all of our technicians into a VW beetle: You’re not my lawyer.
Me: HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW? I COULD BE! YOU SHOULD MAYBE CHECK ON THAT.
TIL everyone’s employee ID at my company is the last five of their SSN.
Boss: On the bright side, it’s only the last five
Me: YOU CAN COMMIT FRAUD WITH FOUR
Security firms that are hired to check the security of banks will often use the following tactic: They will walk up to the teller in a suit with their ID badge and a clipboard and go:
“Hello I am [name] from [security firm] we’ve been hired to verify the security of the facility I need to see your computers.”
“Erm…I’ll have to verify that with my managers.”
“Congratulations, you have just passed the security verification.” [Scribbles on clipboard] “But in all seriousness I do need to verify your security so I need to see your computers.”
“Oh okay.” AND LETS THEM IN.
“Social engineering” is a way too fancy word for what it is. I know a guy (not personally) who broke several people out of prison by essentially writing “Greetings, please release this person, signed, whoever the judge is” on a piece of paper and faxing it there. Because no one would have a fax machine in their own house I guess.
not to derail, but holy shit that praxis
I’ve had clerks just give out a whole ass SSN when I asked.
One thing I really appreciate about the City Watch books is the recurring theme that even total bastards deserve to be treated by the book, because it showcases just how easily any of us could be tempted to go full vigilante under the right circumstances. Carcer is probably the best example of this. He’s an absolutely horrible, despicable, awful person, and we just want to see him go down. Many other stories would have the hero killing him at the end, brutally, and we as the audience would be cheering. Because sure, you’re not supposed to kill people, but he was awful enough to deserve it, wasn’t he?
But that’s not where the story goes. Carcer is awful, but he’s still a person, and Vimes is still acting in his duty as a policeman, and that means certain rules have to be followed. And so he doesn’t execute him on the spot, but arrests him and hands him over to the authorities. And Carcer will probably end up dead anyway—executed—but we as the audience never see it. It doesn’t matter. He can’t do harm anymore. The happy ending isn’t the catharsis of seeing his miserable end, but the knowledge that Vimes stood in the face of becoming judge, jury and executioner and resisted it. And we, the audience, felt the temptation too and know we can and must resist it as well.
Something something “if you do it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one.”
When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on"
When the Good Place said “Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.”
When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also ‘Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“
Love that we’ve elevated the conversation to such a degree that, if you’re going to be grimdark nihilistic in fiction, you need to argue philosophically against 4 seasons of The Good Place.
From the comments and other reblogs:
When Kurt Vonnegut said, “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
These shirts will be printed in early November. If you’d like to guarantee that you get one, place your order before the end of the presale. After the presale, there’ll be a little stock, and we’ll probably reprint it again in future.
generally speaking when it comes to mental and physical health, if you’re asked “do you struggle with this” and your answer is “no, Because I Have A System,” then your answer is actually yes
Also, for ADHD symptoms specifically, if they ask something like, “Do you have trouble waiting your turn in conversations?” and your answer is, “No I’m a grown up I don’t interrupt people,” but you are constantly finishing sentences for people in your head and have formulated three replies before they finish talking…. the answer is yes, yes you do.
And if you can stay in your seat but are constantly bouncing a leg, clicking a pen, tapping out a rhythm on your thigh, or otherwise fidgeting, the answer is, yes, you do have trouble staying in your seat.
Neurotypicals do not require iron clad self control and three coping techniques to sit still during a meeting.
What if your answer is “No, I don’t have trouble waiting my turn because I can’t tell when it’s my turn so I never take my turn.”?
I’m generally of the opinion that trying to resurrect prematurely cancelled shows is like necromancy—odds are they’ll come back wrong.
Except for Galavant. Any Galavant revivial will be funnier the longer it stayed cancelled.
Tags pass peer review, etc, because they SO perfectly capture the spirit of the show.
smash cut to naked madalena standing before a profane altar wearing an antler headress and covered in wode and the blood of innocents going WELL isn’t anyone going to THANK ME.
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
