quick unix review

At the moment, I'm sitting here at work waiting for an IP address for my Sun workstation.  I could set it up with DHCP, but as I recall, it affects a bunch of things, and I fear I'll waste more time tracking that stuff down later than I'm wasting right now by waiting.  Hell, why does it take hours to get a damn IP address anyway?  

I was determined to get something done today, and I did learn some stuff this morning talking to a piece of code that is the core querying thingy here.  That was worthwhile, but when I went to write some stuff against that query-proxy-widget I found that the machine on which I needed to work doesn't really have any niceties set up for users, like history and shells and paths all that fancy stuff.  As a result, everyone just mounts it to their own Unix box.  This led to the adventure mentioned above.

OK, now I've reviewed all the initd and rc file crap I'd forgotten.  Again, I'm back to being non-productive.  I'd like to write something more detailed here, but as I have zero privacy, I can't really get a good rant going.  Let it be said that I'm disgusted with the government, as usual.

As I was explaining to a friend what GiantMediaCo does do right, I realized that I should just relax and be a slacker until they really get me set up.  My desk comes tomorrow, and after that, I should be ready to actually do some work.  Maybe.  I still need a Sun Interface Changer for the keyboard because if I use a Sun keyboard, I'll be back in the wrist brace by the end of the week.  I also need a KVM switch because managing two keyboards and two mice is ludicrous (the monitor takes two cables and has a switch on the front).  These have not been ordered yet because my manager is...not very effective.  Part of the problem is that they priced Black Box KVMs which cost (are you sitting down?) $800 a pop.  With the Sun Interface thingy, I can use a KVM switch from Microcenter that costs $130, but if you order it through corporate channels, you get screwed.  It's so ironic that companies try and centralize and standardize all their ordering processes to prevent this sort of thing when it often has the opposite effect.

Hm.  I figured out how to get a rant going after all.  I could go on, but I would risk getting all pissed off about this stuff again just when I'd kind of settled for slacking.

Heh.  I can hear the sticky frog slingshots hitting the wall next door.  I can't explain these things better than that.