SPARTA News
May 2015
SPARTA President’s Corner
contributed by Ron Pimblett
I want to thank Randy Springs of BB&T for running our April
session with Ed Webb presenting Share updates from his recent
Seattle trip.
May 11th to May 18th is the IBM EDGE technical infrastructure
training symposium at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Edge2015, is a
multifaceted event culminating in a best-in-class Executive
Summit and three Technical Universities: Storage Systems, z
Systems and Power Systems. Business luminaries will share best
practices on how they have used new technologies, like mobile,
to target new customers to create new revenue streams or how
they created more secure environments for themselves and their
customers.
There is an interesting article in Forbes by Peter Cohen about “
IBM being a Merger prospect for Apple". Highly unlikely but here
are his comments:
"Could a growing company that makes most of its money selling to
individuals in China breath life into a shrinking giant
that sells to enterprises?
If the acquirer is Apple and
the target is IBM,
the answer is maybe. And there are three reasons that such an
improbable merger might make sense.
Before getting into these reasons, it is worth pointing out that
such a deal would make Warren
Buffett smile. According to AP, he “believes that IBM will
be making more money ten years from now than it does today, and
IBM is repurchasing its stock aggressively so Berkshire’s share
of the company’s profits — [it owns 9% of IBM stock now]
will grow over time — [due to revenues from IBM's cloud
computing and corporate services].”
Whether that happens or not, Apple is becoming increasingly
dependent on demand in China for its eight year old iPhone line
— China is Apple’s biggest region and its sales soared 70%
there to $16.8
billion in the first three months of 2015 –
while IBM keeps getting smaller while promoting the hope that
the cloud — it invested $4 billion there, according to the Wall
Street Journal – will be its salvation.
During the same period, IBM’s revenue dropped 12% to $19.59
billion “as a surging U.S. dollar compounded the impact of
shrinking hardware sales. It was the company’s 12th straight
quarter of year-on-year declines,” according to the Journal.
Tim Cook knows IBM. Cook worked at IBM from 1982 to 1994. Cook
rose up the ranks at IBM and in his last job there he was “North
American Fulfillment director, managing manufacturing and
distribution functions for IBM’s Personal Computer Company in
both North and Latin America,”
In July 2014, IBM and Apple partnered “to deliver Apple
technology to big business,” according to the Wall
Street Journal. IBM has since developed software for
Apple’s iOS operating system, but it has been unclear how
important the relationship is to either company’s bottom line.
Last month, IBM and Apple announced a deal to get iPads
into the hands of elderly Japanese through Japan Post.
But so far, the IBM partnership has not boosted iPad sales which
tumbled 23% to 12.6 million in the first three months of 2015,
according to the Journal.
On April 30, Cook expressed optimism for the partnership,
noting “We want to change the way people work. There
are too many enterprises that are stuck in a different era.”
Apple can afford to make the buy.
I wonder what the new Apple/IBM Mainframe would look like ?
Our June 2 meeting speaker will be Thomas Meehan of Innovation
Software.
May’s meeting will highlight the IBM Omegamon ’s
new Systems Management Suite dashboards which will help IT
professionals to monitor complex workloads with one operations
console.
See you there, Ron
Future Speakers
(subject to change)
May 5, 2015 - Omegamon Performance Management Suite by IBM
speaker
June 2, 2015 - Innovation Software by Thomas Meehan
We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact Ron Pimblett by phone as noted below.
2013-2014 SPARTA
Board of Directors
Brad Carson - President
(1959-2013)
Ron Pimblett - Vice President
MDI Data Systems 919-426-6518
866-634-3282
Raleigh, NC 27609
Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-641-6235
201 N. Eugene St.
Greensboro, NC 27401
Tommy Thomas - Treasurer
LabCorp 336-436-4178
3060 S. Church St.
Burlington, NC 27215
Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute Inc. 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC 27513
Meetings
Meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in January), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.
These monthly meetings usually are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto 1912 T.W. Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.
Call for Articles
If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.
Newsletter e-Mailings
The SPARTA policy is to e-mail a monthly notice to our SPARTA-RTP Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA-RTP Group is maintained by Chris Blackshire; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Chris at chrisbl@nc.rr.com.
November 2014 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online
The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V489 (dated November 12, 2014) are available from www.cbttape.org.
If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).
Minutes of the April 7, 2015 Meeting
•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Randy Springs on behalf of Ron Pimblett (Chapter Vice President).
•The meeting was held at LabCorp in RTP, N.C.
•Twelve (12) people were present of which all Twelve (12) are 2015 members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told
where they worked, and briefly described their job functions or
their job hunting challenges.
•The minutes of the March 2015 meeting were
not approved as the April newsletter was not published by the
meeting date.
•The reading of the Treasurer's Report was not done by Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, as the April Newsletter was not published by the meeting date.
•The March and April minutes and Treasurer's reports will be approved in the May meeting.
OLD BUSINESS
•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don't really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.
•The SPARTA Web site is available at http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web site every once in a while to see any new or changed information.
•Tommy reminded everyone to leave the LabCorp
conference room clean.
•Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):
|
Date |
Company |
Speaker |
Topic |
|
May 5, 2015 |
IBM |
Paul Smith |
Omegamon |
|
June 2, 2015 |
Innovation Software |
Thomas Meehan |
Latest FDR update |
|
July 7, 2015 |
Triangle Systems |
Jim Ott |
IOF Update |
|
Aug 4, 2015 |
TBD |
|
|
|
Sept 1, 2015 |
Baseball Night |
Tommy Thomas |
Bulls vs Gwinnett Braves |
|
Oct 6, 2015 |
SPARTA
members |
Ed Webb and others? |
Aug
9-14 SHARE Topics |
|
Nov 3, 2015 |
Watson and Walker |
Cheryl Watson or Frank Kyne |
z Series Performance |
|
Dec 1, 2015 |
TBD |
|
|
If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Ron Pimblett
(919-833-8426).
•The next SPARTA monthly meeting will be May 5,
2015 at LabCorp in the RTP.
•Food for the May 5 meeting will be BarBQ.
NEW BUSINESS
•The 2015 dues are due ($30) starting in March
2015. Please pay Tommy Thomas.
•Thanks to LabCorp (Tommy Thomas) for hosting the April 7, 2015
meeting.
•There are currently 56 people on the SPARTA-RTP emailing list.
•Send any e-mail address changes to Chris Blackshire so he can update the SPARTA-RTP Listserv. You will be added by the moderator (Chris) sending you an invitation to Join the list. (ChrisBl@nc.rr.com)
•President’s Corner submissions are wanted.
Please assist Ron Pimblett and Ed Webb with ideas or try
actually writing a President’s Corner article. If your shop is
installing software or an OS process like Brad wrote about,
please write about it.
•The business portion of the meeting ended about 8:12 p.m.
PRESENTATION
SHARE 124 Key Points Of Interest by Ed Webb of SAS.
• SHARE 124, March 2015 (March 1-6, 2015), Seattle, Washington
• Agenda
- Why Go to SHARE?
- Quotes of Interest and Odds and Ends
- Best Sessions
- Closed Sessions
- Sessions of Interest
- Migrating to z/OS 2.1
- From the Bit Bucket
- SHARE Status
• Why Go To SHARE?
- 2015 is the 60th Anniversary of SHARE – the Party Continues in Orlando
- IBM preview of z/OS 2.2 functions
- IBM’s commitment to satisfy 20% of SHARE Core Technology Top 75 Requirements in z/OS 2.2
- - Will deliver 25% per Jeff Magdall, IBM z/OS Product Leader
- - Networking with peers and IBM developers and executives can re-energize your z work back home
- I won a leather computer bag!
• Quotes of Interest
• From Ross Mauri of IBM, General Manager of z Systems, at SHARE Opening:
- “Mainframe accounts for 68% of production workloads, only 6% of IT spend”
- “12% MIPS growth in traditional workloads over past decade”
- “20% MIPS growth in top 500 [customers]”
- “35% Linux on z growth”
• Ed Jaffe of Phoenix Software:
- “9672 Rx1 in 1994 was “z1” first generation CMOS”
• Frank DeGilio of IBM:
- “Java is a legacy language”
• Jeff Magdall of IBM
- “70% of mobile transactions touch Mainframe”
• Odds and Ends
• Oct. 2013, IBM postponed requiring Secured FTP connections for z/OS software and service delivery
- See February 2013 SPARTA Newsletter for FTPS setup
- Added HTTPS support to SMP/E (available now)
- New Target is 1st Qtr 2016
• August 2014 Hot Topics magazine is a Great Reference for z/OS V2R1 Topics
- http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/library/hot-topics/hot-topics.html
• Request for Enhancements (RFE) for new suggestions or requirements to IBM
- http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/
- ISPF is now under Systems and Servers, not under WebSphere “brand”
- SHARE is still working with IBM to connect its Requirements system to RFE
- IBM z13 HMC is last one to support classic interface
• Best Sessions Attended
• Session 16736: OpenSSH for z/OS: New Features by Stephen Goetz of Dovetailed Tech, LLC
- JZOS (Java in Batch) originally from Dovetailed, bought by IBM, now in IBM’s Java SDK
- Co:ZCo-Processing Toolkit for z/OS
- - z/OS Enabled SFTP, Hybrid Batch, Unix Batch integration
- 14 releases of OpenSSH since IBM updated theirs
- Independent Ported Tools feature (HSO1130)
- Updated OpenSSH Requires ICSF
- Update /etc/ssh/ssh_config and sshd_config and zos_ssh_config and zos_sshd_config based on new files in Ported Tools 1.3 /samples
- See Dovetailed’s OpenSSH Quick Install
- - http://dovetail.com/docs/pt-quick-inst/index.html
- ssh -V to see version
- ENU5215-009 IBM Announcement
• Session 16669: The Security Gap by Phillip Young of Wells Fargo
- Second Day Keynote Speaker
- 332 3270 sessions are internet-facing
- About 50% use TLS/SSL with 1/2 of those having self-signed or expired certificates
- See Session 16982 How Hackers Breached a Gov't (and a Bank)
• Session 17088: Sysprog Audit Thyself! by Tom Conley of Pinnacle Consulting
- RACF Power Tools on SHARE site
- IRRICE in SAMPLIB
- - See OPER report (based on SMF data)
- APF dsn have fully-qualified generic profiles
- - AUDIT(SUCCESSES(UPDATE),FAILURES(READ))
- RACFHC Class can be set up to cause Health Check to flag data sets
- pinncons@rochester.rr.com for copy of presentation
• Session 16807: SETROPTS Options by Robert Hansel, RSH Consulting
- OPERAUDIT - turn ON
- AUDIT(PROCESS) logs default GID, also USER and GROUP
- LOGOPTIONS(ALWAYS(FSSEC)), maybe SURROGAT
- LOGOPTIONS(FAILURES(most classes))
- JESBATCHALL - turn ON
- JESXBMALLRACF - turn ON
• Session 16631: ISPF Hidden Treasures Part 2 by Sam Reynolds (IBM RTP)
- Preliminary z/OS 2.2 stuff
- - ISPTCM updated to remove obsolete commands
- - Copy, form, format, list, merge, pascalvs
- Global PACK DISABLE in ISPF Config
- Enhanced Mount Point and File Names in 3.17
- - See SAMPLIB for ISPF GUI Apache setup
• Closed Sessions
• z/OS Migration Workflow in z/OSMF by Marna Walle of IBM
- Current z/OS Migration workflow is a “documentation port” of the Migration Book
- Goal is z/OS Migration Book and Workflow at same time (e.g. Sept. 2014)
- Get the Migration Workflow from z/OS website, not via PTFs
- #1 z/OSMF requirement is save and merge (that is, "drag") to new workflow
- Feedback in new Migration Workflow
- - For each step plus final step in Workflow
- - Optional for each question and each page
- - Output in a flat file, can be edited
- - E-mail file to IBM (Marna Walle behind the curtains)
- Use notes tab for link to info or Project Manager
• Sessions Of Interest
• Session 16635: MVS Core Technologies Project by Jeff Magdall of IBM
- z/OS Directions
- - z/OS 2.2 will be z10 or higher
- - z/OS 2.3 z196 or higher
- - z/OS 2.1 is 2% faster than R13
- - z/OS V2 has 5 years of support plus 3 years of fee-based extended support
- z/OSMF "always on" in 2017
- - Services always available
- - Leverage UI's across other z/OS components
- - Leverage Workflows such as Migration
- Mobile Workload Pricing - SCRT and Mobile Workload – See pricing actions on August 10, 2014
• Session 16935: z/OSMF 2.1 Advanced Programming by "Joey" Zhu (IBM)
- z/OS data set and file services
- APAR PI32148 lists z/OSMF instances across the Enterprise
- "HTTP Requester" plug-in installed in Firefox to use z/OSMF RESTFUL interface without z/OSMF running
- See z/OSMF 2.1 Programming Guide and samples on z/OSMF Home Page
• Migrating to z/OS 2.1
- z/OS 1.9 End of Service was Sept. 30, 2010
- z/OS 1.10 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2011
- - Two more years (until Sept. 2013) for a fee
- z/OS 1.11 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2012
- - Two more years (until Sept. 2014) for a fee
- z/OS 1.12 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2014
- z/OS 1.13 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2016
- z/OS 2.1 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2018
- z/OS 2.2 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2020
• Session 16458: From the Bit Bucket x’31’
- Hardware Management Heaven
- - HMC Tree Style
- - HMC Topology
- IEFSSNxx in PARMLIB, BEGINPARALLEL - try it on test
- ISRLOGO - consider NOLOGO or another technique in presentation to turn off LOGO
• SHARE Status
- SHARE Attendance Trending Steady
- - 890 Attendees (1004 Total Onsite)
- - 524 in Anaheim, 638 in Boston, 579? In San Francisco, 527 in Anaheim, 612 in Atlanta, 600+ in Orlando, 673 in Anaheim, ….
- - 238 Member Companies (290 at SHARE Seattle)
- SHARE Execforum
- - 66 Executives, 33 Different companies
- SHARE Live! recorded many sessions in Seattle
- SHARE Monthly Webinars between Conferences
- - Registration required but free
- - Some vendor sponsored
- SHARE Affiliate Rate is $99 Per Year (no voting)
- SHARE Select Membership (Annual Corporate) includes SHARE Live! and Archived Sessions
- SHARE 125 is August 9-14, 2015 at WDW S&D
- SHARE 126 is March 2016 in San Antonio
- SHARE website redesign coming in June 2015
- SHARE Mobile App for iOS and Android
- Submit Your Proposal to Speak at SHARE in Orlando by April 10, 2015
- SHARE Proceedings Access Needs SHARE Userid (Userid is free)
• Speaker Contact Information:
Ed Webb
SAS Institute Inc.
Cary, NC
email: ed.webb@sas.com
Work: 919-531-4162
www.sas.com
• The presentation and meeting ended about 9:02 P.M.
Treasurer’s Report for April 2015
contributed by Tommy Thomas
The balance in the account is $814.15 as of April 25, 2015.
SPARTA Financial Report
3/01/2015 through 04/25/2015
|
INCOME |
|
|
|
|
|
Opening Balance |
289.87 |
|
Total Deposits |
|
|
Dues |
620.00 |
|
TOTAL INCOME |
$909.87 |
|
|
|
|
EXPENSES |
|
|
Food |
0.00 |
|
Web Site |
0.00 |
|
Petty Cash |
175.00 |
|
xfer to Petty Cash |
0.00 |
|
Bank Service Charge |
0.00 |
|
TOTAL EXPENSE |
$175.00 |
|
|
|
|
BANK BALANCE Fidelity |
734.87 |
|
PETTY CASH |
79.28 |
|
TOTAL CASH |
$814.15 |
Items of Interest
SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2015
contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire
May 5 - BarBQ
June 2 - Pizza
July 7 - Chicken
Aug. 4 - Subs
Sept 1 - Baseball Night (choose your own)
Oct. 6 - BarBQ
Nov. 3 - Pizza
Dec. 1 - Subs
Systems zTidbitz
contributed by Ed Webb
"zTidbitz are a collection of condensed or summary information on a wide range of z/OS and System z hardware topics. You can think of them as "cheat sheets" or reference sheets in that they greatly condense considerably more product documentation. So they leave out a lot of detail and subtleties, but nevertheless, they can be very useful if you need a reminder or quick review of a topic area you are somewhat familiar with. Enjoy!"
And they mean condensed - check out this recent IOS and FICON PDF page:
Look at all of the zTidbitz here.
Registration for SHARE in Orlando Has Opened
contributed by Ed Webb
SHARE returns to the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort August 9-14, 2015. Registration for the premier vendor-independent training conference is now open.
See the Registration details at SHARE.
How to Embrace the Hacker Culture for z/OS
contributed by Ed Webb
"Phil Young delivered 'The Security Gap' keynote at SHARE in Seattle on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015.
In 2012 a z/OS breach was discovered. Hackers in Cambodia had full control of a Swedish government’s mainframe for 3+ years. Using multiple different techniques they had learned on this breach they then preceded to breach bank & university mainframes. Culminating in trying to transfer one million dollars from Denmark to accounts in Cambodia. Very few people have heard about this outside of Denmark or Sweden, but in countries the mainframe, and IBM’s, security posture has come under fire. Many people believe this platform to be secure by default but that’s not always the case, and while the IT security world has grown, their knowledge of this platform has not kept up. Phil explains what you can do to help bridge the divide between the mainframe world and the security world, how to embrace hacker culture for the betterment of z/OS and what that community thinks of this ‘legacy’ system."
See the YouTube link in this
SHARE blog post
.
Web Enablement Toolkit for z/OS
contributed by Ed Webb
"[from] Stephen Warren [of IBM]:
The proliferation of web services applications utilizing the Internet in recent years has been staggering. RESTful applications using HTTP as a means of communication and sending JSON or XML data is as common as it gets in the mobile, client/server world. Wouldn't it be cool if your existing z/OS applications running in traditional environments could easily ramp up to play in the game as well through a set of base z/OS® services available to any program on z/OS? Enter the new z/OS Client Web Enablement toolkit! The toolkit enables these applications to more easily participate in this client/server space by providing a built-in:
• z/OS JSON parser to parse JSON text coming from any source and the ability to build new JSON text or add to existing JSON text
• z/OS HTTP/HTTPS protocol enabler using interfaces similar in nature to other industry-standard APIs.
Just about all environments on z/OS can avail themselves of these new services. Of particular interest are traditional z/OS programs running in native z/OS apart from either a z/OS UNIX® or Java® Virtual Machine (JVM) environment...."
View the rest of this SHARE blog post
here. There's a link to a full IBM zLetter of articles highlighting sessions at SHARE in Seattle.
Humor
Mensa Minds
contributed by Chris Blackshire
Some years ago, there was a Mensa convention in San
Francisco. Mensa, as you know, is a national
organization for people who have an IQ of 160 or
higher.
Several of the Mensa members went out for lunch at a
local cafe. When they sat down, one of them
discovered that their salt shaker contained pepper,
and their pepper shaker was full of salt.
How could they swap the contents of the two bottles
without spilling any, and using only the implements
at hand? Clearly--this was a job for Mensa minds.
The group debated the problem, and presented ideas
and finally, came up with a brilliant solution
involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer.
They called the waitress over, ready to dazzle her
with their solution.
"Ma'am," they said, "we couldn't help but notice
that the pepper shaker contains salt and the salt
shaker has pepper." But before they could finish,
the waitress interrupted. "Oh -- sorry about that."
She leaned over the table, unscrewed the caps of
both bottles, and switched them. There was dead
silence at the Mensa table.
Proves that COMMON SENSE is still greater than
BRAINS!!
Understanding
Engineers
contributed by Chris Blackshire
Understanding Engineers #1
Two engineering students were biking across a
university campus when one said, "Where did you get
such a great bike?"
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking
along yesterday, minding my own business, when a
beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to
the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take
what you want."
The first engineer nodded approvingly and said,
"Good choice: The clothes probably wouldn't have fit
you anyway. "
Understanding Engineers #2
To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the
pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer,
the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Understanding Engineers #3
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one
morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must
have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never
seen such inept golf!"
The priest said, "Here comes the greens-keeper.
Let's have a word with him. " He said, "Hello
George. What's wrong with that group ahead of us?
They're rather slow, aren't they?"
The greens-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group
of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our
clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let
them play for free anytime."
The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said,
"That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer
for them tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my
ophthalmologist colleague and see if here's anything
she can do for them."
The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"
Understanding Engineers #4
What is the difference between mechanical engineers
and civil engineers? Mechanical engineers build
weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Understanding Engineers #5
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does
it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How
does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How
much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want
fries with that?"
Understanding Engineers #6
Three engineering students were gathered together
discussing who must have designed the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look
at all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer.
The nervous system has many thousands of electrical
connections."
The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been
a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste
pipeline through a recreational area?"
Understanding Engineers #7
Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't
fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't
have enough features yet.
Understanding Engineers #8
An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog
called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll
turn into a beautiful princess."
He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his
pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me,
I'll turn back into a beautiful princess and stay
with you for one week."
The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled
at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me
back into a princess, I'll stay with you for one
week and do anything you want."
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it
and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've
told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay
with you for one week and do anything you want. Why
won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't
have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog - now
that's cool."
Understanding Engineers #9
Two Irish engineers were standing at the base of a
flagpole, looking at its top.
A woman walked by and asked what they were doing.
"We're supposed to find the height of this
flagpole," said one engineer, "but we don't have a
ladder."
The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a
couple of bolts, and laid the pole down on the
ground. Then she took a tape measure from her
pocketbook, took a measurement, announced, "Twenty
one feet, six inches," and walked away.
The second engineer shook his head and laughed, "A
lot of good that does us. We ask for the height and
she gives us the length!"
Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
7 p.m.
Location: LabCorp in the RTP
Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto 1912 T.W. Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.
Free Food: BarBQ, Drink,
Dessert
Program:
Omegamon Performance
Monitor Suite
Speaker:
Someone of IBM
SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
First Class Postage
SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:
