Classless networks are in style. It’s just basic subnetting.

In Binary Net Masking each Octet contains exponential bits from right to left:

1     1   1   1   1 1 1 1
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 (128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1=255)

So..

255.255.248.0 in binary is
11111111. 11111111. 11111000. 00000000 = /21 (we’ll get to the identifier in a minute)

255-248 = 7
Therefore 255.255.248.0 – supports 7 networks per subnet
255 – 248 = 7 networks

Or

192.168.1.0/21 supports
192.168.1.0-255
through
192.168.7.0-255

The next subnet supports another 7 networks.

192.168.8.0/21
192.168.8.0-255
through
192.168.15.0-255

So where does the /21 identifier come from?

All net mask identifiers start at /32 and go down.
32-21 = 11 mask bits
Count the zeroes in the Binary Mask!

11111111. 11111111. 11111000. 00000000 = /21
11111111. 11111111. 11110000. 00000000 = /20 (32-20 = 12 mask bits)

What’s the full net mask for the /20 identifier above?

1     1   1   1   1 1 1 1
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 (8+4+2+1=15)

/20 = 255.255.240.0 because 25515 = 240

 

What has Facebook become?

When considering the deletion or deactivation of a Facebook account you will ask yourself, what do I need here? What do I expect? Well here’s what you won’t get from Facebook anymore:

  • Genuine interaction with people you actually know.  In fact many you know in your day to day life don’t follow you on Facebook.  Instead you are posting to a group of relatives or those who’ve found commonality in your political opinions, drama in personal life or shared interests.
  • Advertising that is relevant to you.  Facebook is now saturated with ads that are straight scams.  It’s more dangerous to buy from an ad on Facebook than almost any other website including eBay and others saturated with Chinese knock-offs.
  • Interaction with your children or grandchildren.  Almost anyone under 20 is not on Facebook.  They hate it.  This is good.  Don’t encourage them.

What Facebook has become is a haven for drama.  Old ladies and single moms pouring their desperation into heart felt memes and re-posted articles for attention.  At least a lot of the pout lip selfies from single women who mostly deserve to be single have subsided.  They’re learning, desperation and scorn pity is not attractive.

Now I admit on a rare occasion someone posts something on Facebook that is of interest.  It’s usually as simple as an event notice or sports highlight.  It’s certainly not worth 2 hours a day to any guy.  But women can’t put it away.  They enjoy what has become a platform for prying into the drama of each others lives.  Seeking sympathy and calls for “prayers” with vague bullshit posts like “Call for prayers, not sure how I’m going to make it through the latest” followed by a bunch of comments with little prayer hands clapped together and 40+ “Likes”.

Meanwhile a friend wins a half marathon and barely gets 10 “Likes”.  Why?  Because people genuinely don’t like to see others succeed.  Unless it’s some vague fem movement or cause or success then the “Likes” roll in.  But a genuine accomplishment, hell no.  That makes people feel pathetic about themselves because truth is, hate it or not, most people are indeed lazy, predictable and boring with a false sense of being entitled or deserving.  Don’t tread on this illusion.  Prop the lies they tell themselves for self-relevance and be “Liked”.

This, without any sugar on top is what facebook has become: A perpetuating platform of delusion and self-pity.

Billing customers for internal project management is a bad idea.

There’s a new phenomena in the service invoice category. Imagine this: Your company scores an account set for major growth. It could go from being a $10k account to $150k within a year. When scheduling your internal resources to work on this account and scheduling meetings or conference calls with the client you employ a “Project Manager”. Then you bill the customer back for this “Project Managers” time.

Sounds fantastic until the customer gets the invoice. Four hours @ $120+ per hour for “Project Management”??? Okay, where’s the Project Control document, the Gantt chart? Where is any deliverable at all? Where is there any value add to the customer what-so-ever for the hours you billed them to cover the cost of an internal resource scheduler? This is exactly what NWN Corporation tried to pass off to me over the last couple of weeks as billable work. I told them I would not pay another dime towards the salary of their internal project or resource planners. In fact there seems to be some confusion within some service providers these days as to what the title Project Manager means.

Yep, part of project management is resource scheduling. But unless you are scheduling THE CUSTOMERS RESOURCES you are providing precisely ZERO billable services to the customer. You are doing nothing but charging your Project Manager’s salary back to the customer. Put it in a scenario: I on a security component installation company. Imagine I win a contract to install 100 security cameras. Then imagine that I employ a Project Manager to come up with an INTERNAL project plan and schedule techs for the field. Now imagine I present that persons work as a line item on a bill to the client. WHAT? Why should any customer be forced to pay for someone to create our internal project control documentation and schedule when our techs will be on the job? Absurd. Next up, we will bill by the hour for the work our HR reps do in hiring the staff to do the work. Why not just go all the way to putting a line item for the Receivable Manager’s time to prepare the invoice? How about the janitor? I mean technicians have to pee right? Might as well bill back for toilet cleaning as a line item.

How about learning the difference between internal Project Management and genuine Project Management services for the customer. Nobody owes you a dime for the cost you incur for scheduling your staff or for a non technical person to listen in on conference calls.