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Ask Dashdot: Readers ask, readers answer, readers argue. Ask Dashdot: How Do I Explain My Job to My Grandmother? Posted by Rotundo on Sunday October 17, @05:40PM EDT from the it's-like-a-typewriter-but dept. sysadmin_steve writes "I'm a Unix system administrator. Every Thanksgiving my grandmother asks what I do, and every year I say 'I keep the computers running' and she asks if I can fix her VCR clock. This year I want to do better. How do you explain sysadmin work, network engineering, or (heaven help you) database administration to someone who still writes checks at the supermarket?" My personal approach: 'I'm a plumber, but the pipes are invisible and the water is made of numbers.' ( Read More... | 18 of 22 comments ) Ask Dashdot: Should I Buy a Generator for Y2K? Posted by Hemlock on Tuesday October 12, @10:00PM EDT from the the-power-of-positive-thinking dept. Nervous Ned writes "My brother-in-law has filled his basement with canned beans, a generator, 400 gallons of water and a copy of every Linix distribution on CD. He says I'm a fool for not doing the same. I'm a programmer and I think the power grid will be fine. But I'm only about 95% sure. What are Dashdot readers doing to prepare?" I'm preparing by having a backup of my backups. And beans. Okay, some beans. ( Read More... | 12 of 17 comments ) Ask Dashdot: Why Do People Post 'First Post'? Posted by Hemlock on Monday October 11, @10:00AM EDT from the a-sociological-inquiry dept. Anthropologeek writes "I'm writing a paper on online communities and I keep seeing comments that consist entirely of the words 'first post.' They are usually not first, and they are always moderated into oblivion. What drives this behavior? Is it an art form? A cry for help? Please explain." We expect this to be the most self-referential thread in Dashdot history. ( Read More... | 16 of 21 comments )

Features The Dashdot source code is out under the GPL. Look upon our Perl, ye mighty, and despair. More... Our interview with Walt Ferraday, the man who wrote the payroll code in 1974, in all capital letters. More... Is XML the answer to everything? Readers weigh in with well-formed opinions. More... Past Features Dashdot Login Dashdot Poll Where will you be when the clock strikes 2000? At a party, like a normal person In the server room, watching logs In a bunker with 400 cans of beans Asleep. It's just a number. Rebooting something Wherever CmdrGrits is [ Results | Polls ] Comments:482 | Votes:29377 Older Stuff Monday October 18 Y2K Bug Found in Smart Refrigerator Firmware (24) Intellon Ships 600MHz Pentode III (18) Orinoco.com Granted Patent on Clicking (22) Sunday October 17 Linix Kernel 2.3.22 Released; 2.4 'Real Soon Now' (48) Sego Daydream Sells 500,000 Units in Two Weeks (11) Secretive Startup Transmuta Updates Web Page (15) College Student's MP3 Swapping Program Takes Off (36) Online Retailers Brace for First 'E-Christmas' (24) Saturday October 16 GNUME 1.0.55 and KDX 1.1.2 Desktop Wars Continue (23) Mars Weather Probe Lost Over Feet-vs-Furlongs Mixup (35) DVD Encryption Cracked by Norwegian Teens (28) Petz.com IPO Soars Despite Losing Money on Every Sale (45) Leaked: Portals 2000 Requires 64MB and a 300MHz CPU (30) Solar Microsystems Releases Jolt 2 Platform (33) Older Articles Yesterday's Edition Book Reviews Can a book teach regular expressions to humans? We read Regular Expressions for Irregular People to find out. Coming soon: a review of Debugging the Year 2000, which is either a technical manual or a horror novel. Visit our Book Reviews Section for more. Quick Links Cool Sites: Orinoco.com (Buy a book. With one click.) Snapster (The labels will love this) CNM Interactive (Real news. Well, news.) Yowza! (Find stuff) AltaVisor (Find more stuff) Hamster Shuffle (Don't ask) Support Dashdot: Dashdot T-shirts (Clothe yourself in Dashdot) Advertise here (We have eyeballs) Freshbeat October grepmail 3.4 xsnow 1.40 gkrellm-ish 0.7.2 fetchpopmail 5.1.1 ToastTerm 0.3 libdashdot 0.0.1 y2kcheck 1.0 mp3blaster-lite 2.0 sockpuppetd 0.9 beanctl 1.2 More Beat... Ask Dashdot How Do I Explain My Job to My Grandmother? Should I Buy a Generator for Y2K? Why Do People Post 'First Post'? If you have a question for Ask Dashdot, submit it.

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