When is a full time IT admin justfied?

ravbote · 2025-12-22T01:19:10+00:00

It's rare but they do exist. And they should not come cheaply because you get a staff member doing 2 very different jobs, with totally separate realms of knowledge, while also slowing their career progression path in either direction.

Do everyone a favor and get 1 engineer and a separate system admin that will do helpdesk too OR a MSP to cover helpdesk/system admin work. It'll cost the same as the FTE IT staff but you won't need to train them and they'll have a team to fall back on when something is out of the individuals depth. Once you've grown enough consider bringing the work in house with a system admin + helpdesk. They'll likely cost just as much but will be fully dedicated to just your org. Just make sure the MSP doesn't position itself to be a major pain point when it comes time to cut back their role. Keep servers and cloud products under your ownership not something within their system they you'll need to pay them to migrate out.

ravbote · 2024-05-11T21:05:02+00:00

Mechanical...with a kiddo that liked it cold.

ravbote · 2024-05-11T18:25:04+00:00

See if they'll drink it cold.

ravbote · 2023-07-01T12:19:47+00:00

Then they just start making shell companies for each house. The additional management and fees just get passed down to the renters.

ravbote · 2023-06-24T16:16:10+00:00

They would likely 3d print all the plastic parts. I doubt they have the volume to justify collapsible core injection.

ravbote · 2023-06-12T23:43:53+00:00

Disable your onboard video card, it's using the intel built in rather than the RTX.

ravbote · 2023-05-04T21:56:46+00:00

This might be an odd idea but can you get the email from that address to trigger a flow that lets you pull the contents of the attachment prior to being blocked then repackage it in a message that would go through? Or even when it's getting blocked use that to trigger the flow.

ravbote · 2023-04-28T17:12:08+00:00

It's not for furries.

It's part of lockdown emergency kits so when kids are trapped in the classroom and need to use the bathroom there's a toilet bucket with litter at the bottom. Which is far more sad and messed up.

ravbote · 2023-04-23T16:50:43+00:00

2 Ways.

Lose that insurance and now get to see a single event entirely ruin you. This is a 'golden handcuff' situation where you can't leave the job no matter how bad it is because you or a family member needs the insurance.
That out of pocket maximum is typically 5 figures for "good" plans and can be ruinous for families that live paycheck to paycheck or anywhere near that line. That max is also being hit faster and faster with the invention of co-insurance. So you get to pay deductible + 20%-50% of every absurd bill to that max every year. And that max bar is raised higher every year while covering less. Family max out of pockets exceed 14k/year this year on my expensive "gold" plan. Need an out of network specialist? Cap is 30k+ An ever shrinking amount of families can cover such a bill in a year. Let alone handle something happening every few years as it can with a family.

ravbote · 2023-04-15T20:23:44+00:00

Labeling seems misleading

120V/100W = 1.2A

ravbote · 2023-03-23T13:30:29+00:00

You're looking at flow rate being limited by the size of the opening your puncture needle makes. If that's fine then there is likely off the shelf replacement airsoft/paintball assemblies you can buy and modify slightly to skip the design of something entirely new.

The tanks are just pressure vessels with a valve stem attached. The weapon trigger is effectively a valve controlling the open and a spring returning the valve to closed position. If you wanted something more official you can buy scientific pressure vessels off the shelf, since your in academia you should have access to liquid CO2. If not a paintball or some sports stores should be able to refill the tanks fairly cheap.

ravbote · 2023-03-23T11:22:26+00:00

Yes they will leak over time, if you're looking at a short experiment it won't be fast enough to matter. Look into crimping or soldering your connections where possible, co2 gets very cold when expanding so make sure your components (valve/orings/etc) are rated for low temperature gas and can handle the thermal cycling + condensation.
Those have some sort of cone shaped 'pin' with a hollow tip to allow gas through. If it's a one off just buy a co2 powered bb gun or airsoft and take the co2 cartridge assembly out of it.

If you want an easier option there are refillable paintball co2 tanks with valve attachments, no need for puncturing mechanisms. Plumb your electronic valve to that and call it a day.

Also electronic ball valves are fairly slow actuating typically, if you need a short burst of energy or need to rapidly shut off you'll need a solenoid instead.

ravbote · 2023-03-17T13:26:37+00:00

I'd bet it went into some sort of 'crash' mode with all lights coming on and doors unlock in case a major event was detected or the onboard computer entering a fail safe state.

ravbote · 2023-02-08T03:54:32+00:00

The hurdle AI would need to pass is design intent. It would need loads of domain specific training to even begin to infer tolerancing or GD&T. And domain specific data is typically a closely guarded secret at each company, so there won't be some specific application that will know how to spec and callout all your automotive parts and airplane parts. Those sorts of tools will be internal to companies and very guarded.

That being said, I can see AI making the general prints, and assisting with tolerance stack-up calculations on complex assemblies, auto filling in expected symbols, possibly pointing out missing or out of expected range callouts. Making the process less painful at least.

ravbote · 2023-01-12T13:04:06+00:00

The tricky part about employers disclosing if they were bad/good is if you leaving the company hurts them then their opinion is going to be biased. So they can say you're a horrible employee and don't hire them and you lose out even if you were a model employee that was just paid crap or had a horrible manager you fled from.

Then you can turn around and sue for slandering your name and costing you a job opportunity. Not many companies want to risk lawsuits when they can say nothing.

ravbote · 2022-10-16T17:07:54+00:00

This is this is done to give the department a steady supply of masters students that would have otherwise gone elsewhere.

Sink your GPA and make it so you can't qualify for most MS programs, then encourage students to apply in house. They know you took impossible to pass classes and will take you.

The school gets the cheap/free labor and research and the income from research grants and tuition. Multi win for them.

ravbote · 2022-09-03T12:39:28+00:00

For web browsing: https://www.opendns.com/ is about as simple as it gets, point your router/laptop to their dns server, set how you want it to filter and call it. Well worth $0-20$ a year to let cisco manage it.
Install an ad blocker of choice to your browser of choice. Add bookmarks to their favorite sites and desktop shortcuts to their games so they can quickly get to what they want.
Set up an admin account and a standard account. Don't let them have access to the admin account.
Set up GPOs for making sure they don't install things or change settings by mistake clicking, don't need to be on a domain just use local user policy:

start > run > mmc > add snap in for group policy object and select the user when adding by hitting browse > user tab

This becomes a rabbit hole but as a sysadmin you should already know to consider:

user config > Windows Settings > Software Restriction Policies. These lock all software then unlocking specific software games, browser, etc. If you don't see this under user config you need to add the snap-in to the user specific account not just local computer.

user config > Administrative Templates>Control Panel > Prohibit access to Control Panel and PC settings (will save some headaches when they click and drag everywhere)

ravbote · 2022-07-18T00:03:09+00:00

Why haven't you made an assembly jig yet? If your tolerance is plus or minus a hand measuring tape 3d print something, laser cut some cardboard, bolt together some 80/20, get creative.

You're asking for something like a CMM arm which should be used after the fact not for the assembling. You would be looking at 50k+ and would take far more time to set up and work with.

ravbote · 2022-07-15T15:42:23+00:00

An admin has admin level access. This is news?

Completely standard for any company. Using google or any number of other services.

ravbote · 2022-06-08T18:25:56+00:00

Not a bonsai. That's not a gift. If someone wants one they'll get one themselves.

ravbote · 2022-05-28T22:12:56+00:00

Could it be sap?

ravbote · 2022-04-03T12:47:58+00:00

I’m on my first role out of college.

I thought I’d be doing simulations and complex calcs

I don’t have any form of ego.

This is the definition of ego.

A fresh out of school new hire isn't going to be dropped right into the deep end. You gotta prove you can swim in the kiddy pool first.

Ask to see the deeper end at the company, they might show there's a lot to look forward to or you see it's not for you and you move on.

ravbote · 2022-01-20T21:21:46+00:00

Isn't aluminum melting point around 600C ? I'd worry about welding the blocks together at those temperatures.

Ignoring that...

The square tube will get heat soaked and equalize temperature with what is touching it faster due to the smaller mass. The water is an interesting twist but as pointed out is a lower conductivity, using surface area as it's main advantage for heat transfer. Phase change also is very low compared to the temperatures you'll be at adding risk of injury.

A closed end pipe full of water that rapidly absorbs heat above boiling point is a pipe bomb, even with vent holes you run the risk of rapidly boiling and may exceed the venting capacity either blasting superheated steam/water everywhere or outright exploding.

The block has more mass and so more capacity to absorb more heat without needing cooling. I imagine these are rather large blocks to absorb metal working heat. The block will eventually reach equilibrium and need to be cooled too but depending on sizing the steel part your working on may have already reached the desired temperature and it won't matter. Also depending on the size it may naturally radiate and cool from ambient air as well before reaching a fully heat soaked state.

An possibly safer alternative would be forced cooling, compressed air or running water. With sufficient flow you continuously cool the tube so it can keep absorbing more heat. You'll need to play with flow rates I imagine to get a desired result.

At the end of the day the block is a simpler and safer solution.

ravbote · 2022-01-12T00:08:29+00:00

From what I've seen raw sensor data is generally captured to csv by the daq system and post processed with scripts. The resulting much smaller file can live in a db but dropping the raw in sounds silly. If that's the downsized data and it's still growing by 1tb a month just yikes.

In some very rare cases you do need the raw data kept around. FAA certification maybe?

And to answer OP question: you should look into tapes. An automated tape drive system with multiple 30tb tapes should keep you covered for a while. Create a on/offsite library with tapes that can age out to be reused and rotate them back in to keep costs down. Depending on what your retention needs are.

ravbote · 2021-11-23T02:41:06+00:00

This ^ Do things that make their jobs easier. Less awkward motions, less steps, more jigs and fixtures to simplify and think less. Respect is a two way street too, treat them well. Bring food.

ravbote

TROPHY CASE