I had a satellite dish and only used it for one year. Two years later a gentleman came to my door and offered to buy it for exactly what I had paid for it three years prior. I accepted and 30 days later got a bill for 450 dollars in PPV and programming. Luckily the rep from the satellite company was familiar with this and cancelled the charges. The people stole mail from my box and reactivated the account. I was really lucky.

This will be my last tech job I swear...the market is seen as an expense and is no longer fun once the procurement types get involved. The small tech company I work for survives off the cast-off contracts of the big guys, (Hitachi, Dell, etc.) We are the blue collar IT force doing cluster moves, experimental installs of blades, hardware repair, and administration. There is no advancement only nepotism. But after 7 years of working here, I found out how to make it work for me. "No raise in 3 years!"....no problem I'll run my errands on the way to site. "Can't afford overtime!"......I'll take another three weeks of paid time off in the form of comptime and add that to my three weeks of paid vacation. "You get no respect from the management!"....That's okay, the customers appreciate someone who actually gives them customer service and doesn't fuck their ass like CSC or the big competitors. And to be honest, my boredom causes me the most problems but that's all in my head. Jump for another ship with shinier sails...Nope. I'll live modestly off my 45k a year and will ride the titanic until it goes down. There's always gas station management for a back-up plan.

How about a really nice salary to keep quiet and respect from the boss for having to live under a cloak of secrecy? Bonus Points each week redeemable at the canteena could also generate some interest.

Yep, it's amazing how low rent you can get to build a supercomputer...especially with web resources and an exploitable, educated labor market. Take the United States for example... sometimes you don't even need a datacenter, just a cheap prefab building on cheap tax break land. Hire one person to be software/storage/network/admin. Then contract a hardware jockey cause noone likes doing it and we're cheap. These said two guys could build cluster using supermicro setups installed into APC cabinets, hook up the I/O, and rock n roll. Biggest cost unless your nationalized: Power/Cooling.

When I quit after Clearing the table. After the five plus years I have been there, tolerating being treated in the most inhumane ways by petty tyrants who don't know shit about what I do which is right after they find out my wife has graduated and become a nurse out of state and the only reason I am there is because me and one of the guys started our own graphics studio and I am using every bit of the crooked old man's money to buy my way out of indentured servitude in this unappreciative industry of support. --Side Note-- I also am there because unlike my company, I give a fuck about one of the customers and it will be really fucking bad when noone is left to support an unsupported, outdated version of redhat with proprietary scripts which allows you to troubleshoot hardware on 1500 nodes with openbios I have solely supported for the last five years. I also can't wait to see the owner's face when he finds out the only reason he got the contract is because someone was left to support an extinct platform.

Even the Teabaggers from Glenn Beck's website get to post as AC. Pussies.

As an American, I will explain it. We are no different than anyone else who becomes corrupted by money and power. In fact, throughout existence it has been this way. Regardless of any viewpoint of morality or sense of right regardless of country, money talks to these people. Its the only thing they answer to. Sad, but true from the beginning of human nature. What can be done to fix it? lol

"So, hey, Adobe: have you started porting Photoshop yet?" --or creating a fucking viable version of 64bit flashplayer for even the most basic Linux OS? One not buggy as fuck IMHO?

Or they could stop rewarding millionaires with stock options, spend that loot on upgrading their POS network and make everyone happy.

When things ARE broken is a much more appropriate option. I fix hardware and have to examine error and debug logs frequently...BTW using the terms loosely cause Im probably wrong about the debug term. How else can I prove it is your shitty software jobs and half-ass PERL scripts causing the problem without examining the code manuals? What does the poll writer think hardware geeks deal with all day? Does he/she think I really have time to become an expert in all the languages the customer uses? Even if I would completely ignore my family I could never master all the necessary coding skills to be an expert without the manual.

Duke Nukem Forever to be released Q4 2009.

The EFF strikes fear into the Rotten Apple!!! Couldn't get any better. At least someone is looking out for the users.

I will still go onsite to fix your nodes, blades, and servers when the hardware fails. Clouds, Rainbows, and Dreams all have powersupplies.

I like that by following the link of "Go Daddy Sucks", their google keyword ad is still on the right selling domains for 6.99. I wonder how many clicks they just got?

Even more boggling is when ISP's refuse to blacklist these zombies. Kill the modem after you send out a nice letter stating their box is hosed and must be repaired before they are allowed back on the pipe.