4 ms·

Regardless of what their impact on RedHat has been, this is old hat to IBM. They've had tiger teams like this on the mainframe and as/400 side at least for dec

by kjs3 3y ago

Regardless of what their impact on RedHat has been, this is old hat to IBM. They've had tiger teams like this on the mainframe and as/400 side at least for decades.

neilv 3y ago
True, and I wonder how the care & feeding of blue-necktied elite paratroopers is similar and different from red-fedora'd ones.
rikthevik 3y ago
Yup. My girlfriend's dad was an IBM mainframe troubleshooter in the 80s. IBM would tell him to be on a plane in 45 minutes, go fix a mainframe, and then go do it again. I think he burned out after a few years, or maybe he quit when they told him to cut his hair. I know I don't have the constitution to be in permanent fire-fighting mode and short notice on-call like that. He's been a high school teacher ever since.
- kjs3 3y ago
  I did quite a bit of "be on the customer site tomorrow morning when the doors open and stay till it's fixed" over the years. Not as bad as 45 minutes, but still rough. I can't imagine how you do it logistically now, since in the age of 'if you aren't scared shitless the terrorists have won', doing a "single male booked a one-way ticket at last minute with no checked bags and a backpack full of weird electronics" is apparently a 100% guarantee of spending quality time with a TSA 'enhanced screening' these days on top of all the other miseries that travel now brings.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Back in the 70's I worked at Aph that developed handheld LED games for Mattel. Glen, the owner, would put the wire-wrapped prototypes in a Samsonite briefcase, and off the the airport. Security would wonder what the heck it was, so he'd open it up, fire it up, and play the game. It would draw a big crowd! (Back then nobody had seen anything like it.) Another friend, Eric Engstrom, was developing a phone. The prototypes were made of modelling clay with wires and chips and LEDs. That really set the security guys off.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Booked by corporate on business/first class should help through TSA, I'd guess. Or if it's a real problem, they'd go private and bill the client. Might be able to get the fixers TSA IDs, which could help get through security too.

by kjs3 3y ago

Regardless of what their impact on RedHat has been, this is old hat to IBM. They've had tiger teams like this on the mainframe and as/400 side at least for decades.

neilv 3y ago

True, and I wonder how the care & feeding of blue-necktied elite paratroopers is similar and different from red-fedora'd ones.

rikthevik 3y ago

Yup. My girlfriend's dad was an IBM mainframe troubleshooter in the 80s. IBM would tell him to be on a plane in 45 minutes, go fix a mainframe, and then go do it again. I think he burned out after a few years, or maybe he quit when they told him to cut his hair. I know I don't have the constitution to be in permanent fire-fighting mode and short notice on-call like that. He's been a high school teacher ever since.

kjs3 3y ago
I did quite a bit of "be on the customer site tomorrow morning when the doors open and stay till it's fixed" over the years. Not as bad as 45 minutes, but still rough. I can't imagine how you do it logistically now, since in the age of 'if you aren't scared shitless the terrorists have won', doing a "single male booked a one-way ticket at last minute with no checked bags and a backpack full of weird electronics" is apparently a 100% guarantee of spending quality time with a TSA 'enhanced screening' these days on top of all the other miseries that travel now brings.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Back in the 70's I worked at Aph that developed handheld LED games for Mattel. Glen, the owner, would put the wire-wrapped prototypes in a Samsonite briefcase, and off the the airport. Security would wonder what the heck it was, so he'd open it up, fire it up, and play the game. It would draw a big crowd! (Back then nobody had seen anything like it.) Another friend, Eric Engstrom, was developing a phone. The prototypes were made of modelling clay with wires and chips and LEDs. That really set the security guys off.
- toast0 3y ago
  Booked by corporate on business/first class should help through TSA, I'd guess. Or if it's a real problem, they'd go private and bill the client. Might be able to get the fixers TSA IDs, which could help get through security too.