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As most any Linux user, I like to thing that I know what I’m doing with the systems I have to work on … but that does not imply that I am above reading the damned documentation. If you go to any person in this community with a blatantly stupid or obvious question that could be answered by reading the F.A.Q. or the documentation, you’ll generally find the first response is “check the website” or “rtm.”

For those of your who aren’t good with acronyms, you’ll find everything you want to know about RTFM here.

I only say this because at 4:30 today, my boss decided that it would be a fun idea to install a Honeywall. Now, I’m familiar with the project and the concept behind it; however, I’ve never implemented or read anything about design the “honey net.” So anyway, my boss, downloads the CD, burns it, and tried to install it. First question I get, “What do I do now?” … What the hell do you mean what do you do now??? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve head all day! How the hell am I supposed to know what you should do? So here’s as close as I can come to the dialogue:

Boss: What do I do now?
Wyatt: What do you mean what?
Boss: Well, it’s done installing … now what?
Wyatt: Do you have a login screen?
Boss: I don’t know.
Wyatt: (looks at screen) I’d login if I were you. What’s the username and password you setup?
Boss: I didn’t set one. So what now?
Wyatt: Well, if I were you, I’d read the manual.
Boss: (chuckles) No, seriously, what should I do now?
Wyatt: Seriously, I would read the documentation.

The pain goes on in the same Abbott and Costello fashion until I decided that I was done. Fortunately, a good friend retried the “Lets go out and shoot stuff!” routine from Monday. It worked tonight. I have to say, shooting is so relaxing … not just the bang, but the concentration and skill required as well. The bang makes it all the concentration and effort worth it though :-) .

This entry was posted on 29 March 2006 at 1:12 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Comments

  1. William says:

    I hear ya – When I get questions like that I have to explain that they key to being good at your (tech) job is not necessarily posessing all of the knowledge but knowing where to find it and how to best apply it. Past experience only gets you so far.

    29 March 2006, 8:26 am

  2. Wyatt says:

    You are damn straight, Will. I would have to say that is the key to almost any job these days, especially since the amount of information out there just continues to grow at a geometric rate. But I don’t think I’d be happy if it didn’t pose some sort of challenge like that :-P .

    29 March 2006, 9:30 am

  3. Tim says:

    So, I suppose that something growing at a geometric rate is sort of like growing at leaps and bounds, only it’s growing at squares and trapezoids?

    29 March 2006, 1:26 pm

  4. Wyatt says:

    Sort of, but not quite Tim. I suppose I should let “El Capitán de la curva” explain this one … but he seems to be missing so I’ll go for a brief MathWorld explanation.

    A geometric sequence is a sequence {a_k}, k==1, 2, …, such that each term is given by a multiple r of the previous one. Another equivalent definition is that a sequence is geometric iff it has a zero series bias. If the multiplier is r, then the kth term is given by
    a_k==ra_(k-1)==r^2a_(k-2)==a_0r^k

    Taking a_0==1 gives the simple special case
    a_k==r^k.

    So you see Tim, your assumption of leaps and bounds would actually fall into the geometric series; however, I just wanted to say ‘Not quite’ so I could have more math on my site.

    29 March 2006, 3:24 pm

  5. Tim says:

    I did a little research myself on geometric growth and I now see that often times “geometric rate” is indeed used as a term for something that grows according to a geometric sequence. I probably shouldn’t have slept through that year of my life. By the way, I’m here all week if anyone else would like a perfect setup to segue into something math-related.

    29 March 2006, 3:57 pm

  6. Tim says:

    Oh, and I like cash if you plan to pay me for the setup. Keeps things, uh, simpler. Yeah… simpler…

    29 March 2006, 3:59 pm

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