Posts by Herby

IT manager approved downtime over lunch, but made a meal of it

Backup...

You can always use the proper BOFH method of backups. Just send them all to /dev/null. They go very fast that way.

Tech support chap's boss got him out of jail so he could finish a job

Re: $50

It should be noted that Mexico's currency, the peso, is usually written down using the '$' as the symbol for currency. Of course Mexico pesos are only worth about $(US)0.05. So, you do get a receipt for $(Mexican pesos)500.00 translating it to $US might be a reasonable thing to write down. Of course, you might not correct your travel department. My Bad...

For the pedantic: In 'units' the abbreviation for the Mexican Peso is 'MXN'

Contractor quaffed his way through Y2K compliance while the client scowled

Beer Busts...

Back in my youth (MANY moons ago), the EE department at a certain "tree" university (where I worked) would hold weekly (or monthly, I really don't remember) beer busts for graduate students (over 21 types). At the time I was a somewhat tall 18-20 year old "worker" that everyone seemed to know, and I gladly accepted a paper cup of brew (it was cheap stuff, but tasted OK). Did anyone notice I was consuming evil liquid at such a young age? I don't remember anyone. Even after passing the "hump" of the age of 21 (drinking age in the USA), nobody cared. Graduate students came and went, but I stayed there for a chunk of the decade, happy to imbibe. Good times...

Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo

Replace battery...

Jumper cables come to mind as something to assist this endeavor. When I replaced my vehicle battery, all the "learned" stuff went back to "original", although some did remain "programmed". I guess they had flash memory at the time (2002 vehicle).

Still swapping batteries in the Costco parking lot was pretty easy. Just need a spanner!

BOFH: What physics defines as impossible, sales calls a challenge

A rehortical question:

Is there an honest salesman?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Linus Torvalds: Someone ‘more competent who isn't afraid of numbers past the teens’ will take over Linux one day

Re: Count 1-20

Yes, the count counts, but he uses Fortran (arrays start at 1), not C (arrays start at zero) which is what Linus uses (0-19).

NASA safety watchdog says it's time to rethink Moon landing

Just make sure...

...That you only use ONE type of Oxygen scrubber canisters for all human use vehicles.

Oh, also carry some duct tape, as you never know when it might become necessary.

Work experience kids messed with manager's PC to send him to Ctrl-Alt-Del hell

At a place where I worked (a long time ago!!)...

Someone devised a Mac init that reduced the screen size by 1 pixel in each direction every time you re-booted the machine. It took a while, but the screen shrank ever so slowly, and since it was gradual, it wasn't noticed for while. Eventually the victim wondered aloud (or some such), and the jig was up. Removal of the init was all it took to restore screen size.

Yes, this was back in the 68k era of Macs, a long time ago!

BOFH: Nobody would be stupid enough to go live with the mirror system, surely

Is operation "Operation high flyer"?

Simon's version of "Take him to the train station"?

Maybe with a little "less" violence.

How the GNU C Compiler became the Clippy of cryptography

Old news...

In the distant past (the 60's to be more exact) IBM had optizations in its Fortran compiler. The "most aggressive" was opt level 2. I remember being told that while to worked most of the time, occasionally it could "optimize" entire loops out of existence. So yes, this is old news.

As for comparing passwords: You should read in all the characters of the password BEFORE doing anything with it. Sure go ahead and check the hashes, but the error time will always be consistent. If it is BAD, it will take some time. Since it is comparing hashes, the character on which the hash fails is irrelevant since the character of the hash being wrong tells little about which character in plaintext is bad (as that is what hashes are supposed to do!).

Tech support chap invented fake fix for non-problem and watched it spread across the office

Re: Paperless toilet?

Bidet vs. Paper. One must remember that the prize actually came from inside ones body. Then lookup ambergris.

BOFH: Loss adjuster discovers liability is a two-way street

Re: "the last full Moon on Feb. 29 was in 1972, and the next will be in 2048"

I was around for the last one (1972), and given that my parents lived a long life (mom over a century), I hope to be around for the next one in the power of two year.

NASA delays Artemis II to March after hydrogen leaks bedevil countdown test

No moon orbit...

This Artimis II thingy is just a simple flyby, and they won't even orbit the moon. The last time we did that it was because of a failure (see movie Apollo 13). This time all that will happen is that 4 guys will be able to see first hand the far side of the moon, and not much else.

Good effort, and a participation trophy for you.

Techie's one ring brought darkness by shorting a server

Body parts and Bzzzert's

In my younger days (almost 50 years ago now) I was employed at a prestigious university in sillycon valley I witnessed a real BZZERT story. Back then graphical interfaces were pen plotters, specifically a Calcomp 565. It made nice graphs on roll paper by moving a carriage and a drum. The roll paper was kept tensioned by using a small 120VAC motor that was allowed to stall then the action was motionless. All fine and good, but these motors (capacitor run as I remember) did wear out. My boss had taken the cover off and was in the process of soldering the wires back, when I mentioned that he should turn the power off before doing that. He mentioned that he had soldered live wires before and it would be no problem. Then he touched the line soldering post with the GROUNDED soldering iron which did three things: 1) Evaporated the top of the soldering post, 2) blew the fuse. and 3) Destroyed the soldering iron tip. I then walked out to the storeroom and mentioned "I'll get a new fuse and tip" on the way out. His comment: When did they ground the tips of soldering irons? When they started having sensitive MOS integrated circuits (and insulated gate mosfets).

The body parts adventure: Back in those days, we used hard copy Selectric typewriter based terminals. One of my co-workers was of the long hair female persuasion. She leaned over the terminal and her hair gor wrapped around the shaft that was internal to the mechanism/ Thankfully she was able to get to the power switch before her hair was completely wound up in the terminal. When the IBM field guy came out he said some like "cut the hair". Which didn't set well. Being engineers her fellow compatriots didn't like that "solution" and seing tht there were two identical terminals next to each other, used one as a model on how to tear down the offending example. In the end, the hair was released, and two terminals were in pieces. All ended up good since they were leased fixtures anyway.

As mentioned in a TV show "Let's be careful out there".

BOFH: Eight pints of a lager and a management breakthrough

6-Sigma (seconf time around)

I once (this dates me!) worked on a Sigma 5 computer. Does that almost count. Sigma 7 was another computer in the line, is that better??

BOFH: Every computer system eventually serves ads

Re: The answer

Of course the answer might be October 10, 2010 if one is binarly inclined.

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re:Spinning fidget spinners...

The problem with this (as notes) is that there is some friction in the spinner, and whatever ball bearings you HAD have gauled up the races. If you hav things like ball bearings that you have just soaked in solvent (to remove the old grease), and spin them "dry", you have just made a colossal paperweight as the bearing is totally borked. This happened to my dad's car in the 60's when some "brain" decided that it would be the proper thing to do when re-packing wheel bearings. New bearings later, the problem was solved. He had to show the service guy (a different shop) the noise while driving through he Broadway tunnel in San Francisco.

Of course on a worthless fidgit spinner, whose life is measured in hours of inattentiveness it probably doesn't make much difference.

IT team forced to camp in the office for days after Y2K bug found in boss's side project

Re: Ah, the great Y2K scare

Choosing an arbitrary date (1950 in this case) is putting off the inevitable. There will come a time when the year 2050 rolls around, and someone will unexpectedly will discover the "but" that was designed in. All you can hope for in that case is that the guilty are way into retirement (or ...).

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: Go, Look, See

Re: Slashes...

It wasn't IBM that introduced us to slashes (the one below the question mark on many keyboards)m it was DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). The problem was made worse when they needed directory separators and chose the "backslash" (the one below the broken (or not) vertical bar).

Unix (which had directories) made the logical choice to use the slash since it was a lower case graphic, and a dash (minus sign) for the option separator. Although the option indicator is a matter of choice for the program.

IBM did use slashes in JCL, but they were commonly limited to introducing JCL statements by using them in the first two columns of the punch card. Nowdays many languages use a double slash to indicate that the following is a comment (a poor idea in my book). That's life.

Irish Excel whiz sheets all over the competition in Vegas showdown

It might have been interesting if they...

Allowed someone to use LibreOffice and noted that it DIDN'T crash.

Vendor's secret 'fix' made critical app unusable during business hours

Databases, permissions, and all that...

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/327

Unofficial IETF draft calls for grant of five nonillion IPv6 addresses to ham radio operators

A nonillion here and a nonillion there and soon you're talking real money.

Everett Dirksen at his best (paraphrased, but apparently a false attribution).

Perhaps IP addresses ARE like the national debt. Pretty soon we run out of it.

Canadian data order risks blowing a hole in EU sovereignty

Ahh, the cloud...

Yes, someone else's computer that you have no control over. Subject to the whims of places where the wires extend.

Trans-border data flow is a really interesting business, and I suspect (given this story) that not everyone has come to an agreement as to who is in charge. I have doubts that anyone will.

So, the fraudsters in India (or other notorious countries) will continue to peddle their scams upon all of us. One of these days, it will come down to someone (or government) saying NO MORE.

(*SIGH*)

Cabling survived dungeons and fish factories, until a lazy user took the network down

Connector types

the B in BNC stands for Bayonet, the T in TNC stands for Threaded. Of course this isn't what Wikipedia says.

Wang Net used two 75 ohm cables. One for transmit, one for receive, and a head end that did the amplification. It used two different types of connectors so they wouldn't get mixed up and kill everything. I believe it used RF style things, not baseband (that's what the BASE in 10BASE-T stands for) like Ethernet.

Ring??

If you did the 10BASE2 up in a ring, it would fail. It would fail BAD. Reflections and all that. It needed to be a line with terminators at each end.

Of course then there was IBM's thing: Token ring. Big unwieldy cables that wouldn't bend easily, MAU things. Ring adapters. Generally a mess. It also had funny connectors that were "sexless". It ran at 4MHz, and 16MHz, and got outclassed by 100BASE-T (100MHz Ethernet). We haven't looked back.

Re: Ah, the joys (?) of 10Base2

TV Coax:

In both the USA and the UK, TV coax is 75 ohm (it started out as RG-59, and eventually became TG-6 (quad shielded). Ethernet uses 50 coax. For 10BASE2 the coax used was double shielded RG58, and for 10BASE5 it was RG213 (double shielded). Most RF things that transmit use 50 ohm coax (like ham radio setups). It is a balance between velocity factor and power requirements (if I remember correctly). The 75 ohm coax was used because folded dipoles are naturally 300 ohm things, and they used 4:1 baluns which got things down to 75 ohms.

Thank you for following this small history lesson.

BOFH: Forward-facing AI brand experience meets forward-facing combustion risk management

Count to 20 again...

No, count to 21 again. Probably only to eleven.

Actor couldn’t understand why computer didn’t work when the curtain came down

Thanksgiving...

Eh?

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Re: Make it somebody else's problem...

"Hello Federal". They do have cargo planes that they use. Problem: Most are 767's not 747's.

New boss took charge of project code and sent two billion unwanted emails

Re: The only thing I find odd about this story

Promoted to manager? Peter principle in action. Most people in manglement get there this way.

BOFH: Saving the planet, one falsified metric at a time

Re: Which side of the pond are you?

Failure to communicate...

That was a topic of an essay I did for my junior (5th form) year at school. It was right after the movie came out. I took on the imperial vs. Metric system of measurements.

Yes, it was a long time ago. Yes, I am that old.

Bored developers accidentally turned their watercooler into a bootleg brewery

Re: Water Boilers - and hard water

Brewing Tea? I understand that there is a British standard for doing just that. I doubt that anyone actually follows the standard as it is written as (I suspect) that everyone has their own standard for tea.

Me? I drink office coffee with enough pollutants to make it taste OK for me.

Hardware inspector fired for spotting an error he wasn't trained to find

Circuit boards and design...

Back in the stone age (1976 or so), I had a board designed after my hand wired breadboard "prototype". It was nice and all that, but the components were on the wrong side of the board. I went ahead and "approved". only to find out that later I had to make ALL subseuent boards the same way. I keep on kicking myself for this one screw up to this day.

Yes, the boards did work but the standard prototype boards you could get commercially were the designed "the other way" so it was hard to do prototypes without flipping things over. (*SIGH*)

How Windows 11 is breaking from its bedrock and moving away

Parallels??

In the last century, there was AT&T (now a modem test command). It got its vibe going allowing "universal service" back in the 1910's (as I remember it). This was the beginning of its downfall which happened in 1984 with the breakup mess. Later the result was two companies (AT&T and Verizon) that now do most of the telecom work in the USA.

Windows (Microsoft) and Intel had a symbiotic relationship that started with MS-DOS, and has continued to Windows 11. But that is starting to break apart. People are seeing alternatives to this structure much as long distance carriers did with AT&T (note: Long distance subsidized local service by a bunch). Now people are adapting and the crack are starting to appear. Intel is floundering (government getting a chunk of it), and Windows 11 doesn't seem to be "better" (for some value of "better") than its predecessor.

Life goes on. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

Re: 'Many of us'?

Yes, a Mac actually IS Unix. Why do I know? I was involved in the certification of MacOS being Unix. You need to run a WHOLE bunch of tests to make sure it "conforms" to the specification that Xopen promulgates. The tests check EVERYTHING in minute triviality just to make sure. This included errors. It is actually quite rigorous.

Yes, Xopen holds the UNIX trademark, and is quite particular in who is allowed to use it.

Pro Tip: If you want to specify a MacOS in a purchasing document, but don't want to say MacOS, just say it needs to be UNIX at a price, and there you go! All the other alternatives are higher priced than a MacOS machine.

BOFH: HR plays checkers, IT plays 5D chess

Re: The PFY still has a lot to learn

"Rust is involved, and not the programming language"? Maybe the programming language IS involved to some degree.

The plan for Linux after Torvalds has a kernel of truth: There isn’t one

Sometimes succesion happens.

Take a recent example. The UK had a long serving (70 years) queen. Now we have Charles (the former prince of Wales.

From the looks of it we need a "penguin prince" that has been anointed from the Emperor Penguin himself. Sometimes this works, but sometimes the heir apparent goes away before the transition (e.g. Berkshire Hathaway).

We may never know the succession to the Penguin, but it might be a good idea to think about it, and given them (whoever they may be) the proper training to take over the crown in the style of Linus. Hopefully the successor will have the same (proper) temperament as the original.

Just remember when we lost DMR!

Intern did exactly what he was told and turned off the wrong server

on fancy switches for making a "splash" in a picture (or similar)

The principle of "faking it" with a "show switch" has a long history. Sometimes the reporters fix problems as well. This goes back over a century and a half. When the golden spike (yes, it is actually solid gold, I've seen it!) was driven to complete the US trans-continental railroad the dignitary who was supposed to hit the spike missed, but the telegrapher saw the problem and closed the circuit (which the hammer that was to hit the spike was supposed to do) anyway.

So, we all need to accommodate for the foibles of those that (think) they are important. History is on our side.

Re: Sharpies

Back many moons and orbits around the sun ago, my mom labeled dahlia tubers. These labels were Aluminum tags that were written with a ball point pen. While the ball point ink didn't survive being planted, the impressions on the tag did, even after being buried for 9 months. I suspect that sun wouldn't fade the impressions either. Something to be said for embossed labels, not thermally printed ones.

Re: Server naming need intelligence, not just a pattern

Re: females (those with two X chromosomes) having better color resolution.

This is a well known genetic fact. If you want good color sense ask someone who can tell you the difference. I suspect this is the reason that mens clothes are fairly "bland" and similar. Just watch the "red carper show" and who do the commentators point out? It is usually the female, and not the escort.

First release candidate of systemd 258 is here

Fork?

One of these days it WILL happen. When I can't really say, but as things get more complex, someone invokes Occam's Razor.

Just have init have a list of things to do, one simple file. Of course it would never be THAT simple.

‘I nearly died after flying thousands of miles to install a power cord for the NSA’

Re: Step onto the scales sir!

Scales:

One thing to try is to bring in a 10 lb/kg weight, that is pretty compact (lead works), Then leave it "behind". It would be interesting when they find out you weigh less than before.

You might even do this with your own body, as it produces waste products (letr your imagination wander here!).

You have a fake North Korean IT worker problem – here's how to stop it

Re: Korean War...

"oh, who won? And who came second?"

Nobody won, everyone came in second. Something about the United Nations playing a part.

Two years of arguments, and everything was back to where it started.

Wayback gives X11 desktops a fighting chance in a Wayland world

Re: Historical note/quibble

Kist for completeness, the name of Bulwinkle (J. Moose) was named after a car dealer in the (San Francisco) East bay (possibly Oakland). The show usually began with the opening serializing of Rocky & Bulwinkle adventure, then a couple of intermediate segments, Mr. Peabody & Sherman and the Wayback machine was but one. Others were "Fractured Fairytales", and "Dudley Do-Right". The cartoons always had some silliness to them. One Wayback adventure was to go to Pizarro's conquering of the Inca. At the end Mr. Peabody said "And those are the Amos mountains", to which Sherman said "The Amos mountains??" Mr. Peabody: "You haven't heard of the Amoses and the Andies??" [end].

Good times as a kid of the times. Nowdays all you get are hours of news programs repeating the same thing over and over in the 5pm hour (*SIGH*).

Techie went home rather than fix mistake that caused a massive meltdown

Re: Honestly

Both -40 in either Celsius, or Fahrenheit:

Back in the days of programmable calculators (HP-65 if I remember correctly), I complained to my buddy that the temperature conversion wasn't working. I entered -40 and pushed the convert (I don't remember which one) button and noted that nothing happened. He got VERY curious. I kept showing him that it doesn't work with "-40". He looked frustrated. I walked away. I believe I told him later the "problem".

Miss you Lou!

What if Microsoft just turned you off? Security pro counts the cost of dependency

Re: there are more mobile phone owners than toothbrush owners

Toothbrush? I just a free one by going to my dentist to have my teeth cleaned. Seems logical to replace them every 4-6 months.

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: I touch it and it breaks!

>>>Out of interest, is the spelling with double 's' then only reserved for donkeys?

Just wondering but isn't there a character in _Shrek_ called "Donkey". Should we infer something from this?

Behold! Humanity has captured our first look at the Sun's South Pole

Re: Any rocket scientists

ESA Ulysses probe

This was (as I understand it) supposed to be the next prove after Voyager (AKA MJS77). The original proposal was to have two probes go to Jupiter and have one go up, and the other down. Budget cuts and other things reduced it to a single probe. I don't know what is final fate was, but it did a bunch of science. It was called the "out of ecliptic" probe.

Automatic UK-to-US English converter produced amazing mistakes by the vanload

Re: Whoops

About the German keyboards with Y and Z swapped...

My mom's college roommate had a "noiseless" German typewriter. When my mom used it, she always included a note that the Y's and Z's might be reversed.

Of course this was when manual typewriters were the vogue (before the war).

Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor

Fixes that have strange relations...

Back in a previous life (the 1980's) I worked for a company that provided equipment to answering services. These people smoked like chimneys and ashtrays were everywhere. I'd come to "service" things and took some Windex and always cleaned the terminals. Afterwords I'd say that I tuned up the terminals. I got LOTS of praise and everyone liked the "tuned up" terminals.

Of course the paper towels that I used to clean the CRTs were black after they did their job. All part of the "service".