Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server The IT support chaps and chapesses among you doubtless have a few entertaining war stories regarding preposterous causes of system outages, and we'd like to offer you this fine Friday the tale of the cantankerous crapper and the company server. Reader Stuart Drabble wrote to explain that in his almost 15 years of IT support, …
A company that I worked for years back did computer maintenance and we were called out to a computer that had died suddenly - only to find that it had been cavity wall insulated! The site was being insulated with the expanding foam insulation that is pumped in through holes drilled at intervals. Unfortunately it turns out that there was a hole in the wall behind the computer and the foam had spilled out and filled the case!
Naaridge is a good approximation of the sound. The more rural the longer the "aaa". (no rush in the country)
I think most people still say PeeCee rather than com-poot-er. As in a local IT professional would say "Do you go to Naaridge and buy yourself a new PeeCee." (not a question)
Anon. cos I leave there (here?)
Sump Pump Dump Lumps Stump IT Chumps...
I know they fixed it, so that's nor fair. Still if I'm doing headlines, I don't actually have to tell the truth do I?
If anyone can think of a word for server or power system that rhymes, I'll be very happy indeed. I suppose the other version is:
Clumped Dump Lumps Stump Sump Pump
so let me bore you with yet another war story. My home linux server would crash every time I cut the grass. Reason: The attached webcam, sensing motion in the garden, would take up to 10 photos a second and attempt to email each one with a seperate sendmail process. Soon after, the server dies for lack of memory. Or rather, the OOM killer would kill something that mattered.
Server sunk in cesspit sludgefest
Norfolk server sits on naughty stool
these pithy headings are not as easy as they look
I recall with.. well I wouldn't say fondness... the cesspit that the Grandmother used to have before she got a digester - basically a miniature sewage plant - fitted. Every three months or so, the "poo lorry" would come down, pop the lid, stick a big pipe down there and slurp everything up. The eyewatering stench was close to indescribable. The entire 7 acres would become close to uninhabitable, with everyone retreating inside the cottage with all doors and windows shut. Of course, me being at a young age, I would try and get as close as I could to the action before the invisible wall of nostril-hair-curling stink became too much to bear.
And someone might have to go down and fix this pump? Poor, poor souls. I don't envy them one bit.
This post has been deleted by its author
The closest thing I have to this was the time I was decommisioning a dialup POP at a remote 'site' in a rural part of Arizona. Said site consisted of an ex bathroom in the back of an storefront.
While the T-1 NIU and the 56K frame relay boxes were correctly and appropriately attached to the wall, the RAS server was simply sitting on the floor directly above the (sealed off) closet flange.
My report to the boss after I had finished was " {site code} has been flushed from the network". He was amused by this as he was the one who installed it in the first place.
as I've just been editing and organising images for the past fecknows hours...
Would like to add the story of the place where some wonk (no doubt, with the usual impish sense of humour prevalent in all those people who've had to deal with us IT folks for a while) decided to locate the main comms racks directly under the main soil downpipe for the 10 storey building whose basement it was located in, just at the elbow joint...oh, how I laughed the day the elbow failed...
Or the IT staff kitchen at a.n.other location with a rather similar 'issue' . Ok, it was not usually the most hygienic of places at the best of times, I'll admit, but a very slow leak in the soil pipe on the floor above was 'percolating' through the ceiling and dripping on the dishes and cups gave us, for a week or so, some rather unfortunate, ahem, 'run'time errors...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
