Unless you REALLY need color, just buy a Brother BW laser printer. Toner doesn’t dry up. It is all but guaranteed to be the cheapest option. I bought the scanner BW laser printer combo like 8 years ago for $130.

So you want to advance to a higher level and have a broad interests?

You failed some MS cert exam?

You have a review coming up?

Broad interests. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Learn core concepts and things that are useful in many contexts rather than specifics. This is where a lot of newbies go wrong. E.g. don’t learn about AD, learn LDAP and AD, OpenLDAP, DS389, will all come much easier. In most roles some basic programming with Python will come in handy. Once you learn to write code in one language, learning others comes a lot faster. Some worthwhile things to have a foundational grasp of: PKI and how it is used by SSH and TLS, a high level understanding of common network protocols. Peruse IETF RFCs for that. E.g. if you know how say DNS works, you can manage it using any DNS server software. Ditto http and web servers. You will need to learn configuration management SW and monitoring SW. I prefer salt stack and zabbix. There are many good choices.

Seriously learn PKI and TLS. I can recommend some good sources. TLS is used by pretty much everything to secure connections. Backup server to agent, browser to web server, AV to server, you name it.

Open Source is your friend, learn a bit about big projects. E.g. say you get good with backups and want to work for your favorite product vendor. That fancy backup appliance or cloud service is probably running Linux or FreeBSD on the metal and using something like Tomcat for the WebUI.

Learn a bit about licensing models. You will have to deal with it no matter what path you choose.

I wouldn’t try to impress your supervisor. Chances are, they’ll see through it. They may or may not care about their employees. Assume they don’t. Don’t assume the worst either. You can almost always trust interests. Their job in an MSP environment is to make sure contractual requirements are met and clients are happy. Focus on where your interests are aligned. Happy clients mean less headaches for you and your boss. I would let them lead the conversation, but focus on that aspect. If a lot of clients use X thing, mention that to your boss that you want to learn more about X thing as it will help you close tickets faster.

The US intelligence apparatus doesn’t do this. The OPM does.

As per your second paragraph and many other comments. I agree. It is hard to avoid it being politicized at any step of the process. Everything interview would have to be recorded. Copies of all reviewed records would need to be kept. Adjudicators would need heavily redacted transcripts of the records and interviews.

20 year IT veteran here. What are your areas of interest?

Some potential areas:

• Networking
• AV
• End Points (PCs, phones, etc)
• Security
• Virtualization
• Programming
• Servers
• Applications
• Databases
• Storage
• Project Management
• Systems Analysis

They get paid 274k…DC is expensive, but anyone that can’t live very comfortably on that is awful with money. Being awful with money will lose you a TS clearance because it makes you susceptible to bribery by spies. I would think it would also be a disqualifier for a SCOTUS judge for the same reason.

I think maintaining a TS clearance should be a requirement for all positions above a certain level in the federal government. Not because they need access to TS information, but to ensure they are at a lower risk of bribery, adversarial interests, and criminal activity. Getting a TS clearance isn’t terribly hard. Just generally have your act together. As long as you aren’t a train wreck, a drug addict, a criminal, an untrustworthy asshat, or have connections to adversaries, you will pass adjudication. TLDR: A TS clearance would ensure high level government employees are minimumly functional humans.

Believe it or not, the woke backlash thing seems to be false:

https://www.truthorfiction.com/pink-floyds-woke-50th-anniversary-rainbow-controversy/

Anybody that is a fan or even old enough to know who Pink Floyd has seen that 50 year old album cover.

Anyone following them where they would see that post is going to be aware of this.

As much as I hate the anti-woke stuff from the right, it appears this is pure sensationalism.

This means two things. One, they (the right in the US) go on about it so much, people don’t bother fact checking. Two, the left isn’t immune to BS.

This all comes back to school board elections. How much information is typically available about school board candidates?

I would think they would keep at least 1 of each model/trim of vehicle for testing these things. This leads me to believe one of the following:

• Too tight of deadlines
• Cheap management won’t pay for testing time or units
• Culture of pencil whipping
• A bad apple didn’t do their job, which should be caught by procedures

Diabolical. Dick Tracy called and said he wants his watch back!

Hmm. One of the four from The Good Place or The Doctor.

Yes, Ubuntu 20 isn’t EOL yet. A lot of those downloads are probably IT staff or developers that are running Ubuntu servers or developing on those versions.

ETA: We still have some RHEL 7 and clones at my day job

Maybe if you provide a few examples, it would help provide some insight?

Registering to vote takes less time than filling out the forms at a dental visit.

What does being white have to do with anything?

ID is just to identify you, it has nothing to do with voter eligibility.

I wouldn’t listen to the everything is exaggerated and it is really just fine. We are boiling frogs.

Our economy hasn’t collapsed, so there isn’t going to be any dramatics like a movie or show

Rioting won’t do anything. The GOP voters and media outlets will frame at as anything that isn’t far right is bad.

In many ways, things are bad. We have large parts of the country completely dependent on cars. One of our chief judiciaries should be impeached. A former state governor actually faced criminal charges for far less than Clarence Thomas has been doing. The GOP is trying to dismantle public schools via privatization/vouchers, textbook manipulation, and gagging teachers. The GOP just might nominate Trump even though he is facing so many lawsuits his nickname should be The Defendant.

Right now, the Democrats far outnumber the GOP, buy the GOP has way better turn out. Saying vote constantly is to use our best defense, overwhelmingly defeats of these people in the elections. If all eligible voters voted, things would be quite different

The entire situation is a dumpster fire. Hamas resorting to random acts of violence instead of a targeted attack dooms their cause. Giving in to terrorism sends the message that it is an effective strategy, encouraging more of it. Israel’s reaction is almost as bad. Everyone is being punished for the actions of a few. The antisemitism from people like this hurts the Palestinian cause too.

Cass, you idjit! You have been on earth from how long and still don’t know how humans work! They are just going to think the OP is delusional!

they will simultaneously say that they are all moderates or conservatives.

That is the infuriating part. The people the are voting for are anything but that when you think about what they say the value and what those they vote for do. Case in point, I just got a mailer from a local politician with some anti trans nonsense about some trans woman athlete that did well and it wasn’t fair because she used to male. Wouldn’t the small government approach be to leave it up to the sports organization?

Same with schools. Why are all these alleged conservatives that claim small government out of their business trying to micromanage school libraries?

Why do these government out of my business types want the only way to get around be a car you have to have government permission to operate that you must register with the government that must meet government safety and emissions regulations, that you can only effectively use on government roads that are monitored constantly by government police and you have to have government mandated insurance that meets government requirements.

Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.

I hope they make high schoolers learn about this song in a hundred years.

“Now students, in the late 20th century, musicians often blended styles. Rage Against the Machine has elements of metal and rap. This song is about the abuse of power and and bigotry by government enforcers, particularly police brutality towards non whites in the United States. This songs melody, lyrics, and singing style brilliantly expressed the rage many people felt about the state of the US legal system at the time, as evidenced by the civil rights movement, LA riots, and Black Lives Matter movement. Ironically, there are videos of people the song is critical of praising it or listening to it.”

I don’t think people are all that left. I think conservative has been misused so much it is almost a drop in for fascist or laissez fair capitalist.

E.g. abortion. The conservative mindset is to keep regulations to a minimal and defer to the medical community. Overruling Roe was pretty radical and goes against the recommendations of the medical community. It is also government getting into people’s business.

E.g. climate. Wouldn’t it be more conservative to err on the side of caution and do things that are a good idea anyway and reduce GHG, like renewables and reducing car dependent design? Replacing street cars, trams, and rails with cars everywhere was a pretty radical move.

I can keep going with examples, but I think that is clear enough.

I just had another thought. I wonder if it will eliminate a lot of escalation and fleeing due to people being afraid of going to jail?