Posts by Herby

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".

Re: It happens to the best of us.

Dead bulbs> At one time they were an interesting commodity in the soviet union. People would replace the lights in the workplace with the dead one and take the "good" ones to use at home. There was a shortage of "good" bulbs, and workers got creative.

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Re: Numeric keypad

The DTMF (TouchTone) keypad was to be used in telephone work. One fo the main reasons for the keypad having "123" at the top is that the telephone dial (rotary dial) has 1 at the top, and "0" at the bottom. Adding machine keypads ("123" above zero) like computer keypads are designed for fast operation (time is money!) and most of the digits used are in the "123" row.

So: two different used, two different layouts.

Me: I had the keypad changed to the telephone layout when I spec'd the terminal for use in a telephone answering service (back in the early 80's).

BOFH: The Boss meets the unbearable weight of innovation

Vending machines connected to computers

Of course there was the origina;: The Prancing Pony

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31663551

Dates back to 1974 before the internet (sorry Al Gore) was popularized.

Dilettante dev wrote rubbish, left no logs, and had no idea why his app wasn't working

Re: Nuke from orbit

Fortran...

Yes, Fortran 66 (as exemplified in Fortran 4 level H on the S/360) is an improvement on all Fortran compilers (past and future). By god, have you seen the things they've put in to Fortran 90, or later "standard" ones??

Of course, the Fortran G compiler was pretty good as well. Faster to compile, but didn't produce as efficient code.

Re: Divers log

On Aircraft carriers top speed:

Yes, I suspect that the advertised top speed is 30 knots, the actual top speed is likely (is) classified. I suspect that given the right circumstances one could easily water ski behind it, or surf the waves generated by the wake. So, yes, if necessary they can get there at "warp" speed.

Re: Divers log

On time having periods as dividers:

The problem when entering time is that the ":" key is not on the numeric keypad. I wrote a program for entering timecard values and to make it "easier" separated hours and minutes with a period on entry (it made my sister-in-law happy). I printed out the times with a colon (as I recall) to make it consistent. Probably not the "best" way to do it, but I did get it to work. It also assumes that the hours below 6 were PM, and the hours above were AM.

Old work now. I don't know if I'd do anything different.

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

What is REALLY needed...

Is to have vendors of the big software packages (like Photoshop, or Autocad) port their wares over to Linux (it is done with browsers, why not these). Then the "resistance" factor might go away. The "big" problem is that things like "Word" or "Excel" will never be ported. Of course that is a shame, and probably would have been done long ago if Microsoft lost its anti-trust lawsuit back at the turn of the century.

SO: Are you listening Adobe and Autodesk??

Linus Torvalds goes back to a mechanical keyboard after making too many typos

Re: Wish I knew what kind....

>>>the control key is in its proper place, above shift; bliss.

Yes, the control key should be to the left of the "A" key as it was on the ASR33 teletype as God designed/intended it.

Yes "CAPS LOCK" is a very useless key unless you are in a permanent SHOUTY mood.

Pentagon declares war on 'outdated' software buying, opens fire on open source

Oxymoron...

Probably been quoted before, but here it goes:

Military Intelligence.

Enough said.

You'll never guess which mobile browser is the worst for data collection

Privacy??

This was mentioned a while ago (25+years):

https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/

Seems to be true...

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

AI?

I've mentioned before: Artificial Intelligence isn't!

A new Lazarus arises – for the fourth time – for Pascal programming fans

This IS interesting, but people have opinions

See:

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pascal.html

Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee

Dog barking when phone rings

Now we have a program called "biff" which tells us know when mail arrives. Guess what "biff" is.

Re: Never heard of Romex cables?

Grounding...

>>>"According to the US wiring code, you are not supposed to connect Neutral and Ground (Earth), *except* at the panel."

Well not really. The only place they can be connected together is the FIRST panel, which may be the circuit breaker next to the meter. After that, they MUST be separate. The idea is that there is only ONE place where they are common, and it is early in grand scheme of things. The idea is that the safety ground should carry NO current in normal operation.

Of couorse, your milage will vary depending on the knowledge of the local sparky.

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

Back in the day

When printers consumed fan-fold paper and had chains, bands, or drums of characters inside them, things were a bit easier. Before everybody liked the "Centronics" standard, there were many parallel printer methods. Thankfully you would get a nic interface manual that explained things. The fun part was the carriage control tape that needed a special punch to indicate where the top of the page was. Not having one, I used an Xacto-kinfe with great skill.

In my garage, I have a Centronics labeled printer that actually has a Data Products interface with a strange 50 pin connector. So much for standards, there are so many of them.

These modern loose leaf page printers are such a bother!

Hacking US crosswalks to talk like Zuck is as easy as 1234

Why don't they put imformative sayings?

Like the Supremes "Stop in the Name of Love", or "I'm Walking" by Fats Domino. Now THAT would be cool!

BOFH: There's a fatal error in the blinkenlights

Re: It's Been Done

Equity Funding re-done. I don't know if those (Equity Funding) used something as sophisticated as an AS400, but computers WERE involved.

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

Re: Anglepoise Lamp

For those not in the USA:

AMF - A company that makes automatic pin setters for Bowling alleys.

Brunswick - Another USA company that does the same.

CSE? I have no immediate clue.

For reference: At one time AMF owned Harley-Davidson (the motorcycle people). It has since been divested. For purists, this was a "bad" time to buy HOGs (Nickname for Harley-Davidson motorcycles).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Tech trainer taught a course on software he'd never used and didn't own

Re: been on many courses where the trainer has no answers

Thermite... Brings back memories. Back in the summer between the 4th and 5th grades I was introduced to "volcanoes" made from Ammonium Permaganate (I believe that is what it was, it was a LONG time ago!). You lit it of and it made brown "magma" and looked like a volcano. Then my older brother returned from high school for the simmer where he observed thermite reactions. We then went down to the local "scientific" store and bought ingredients for more reactions. No problem, Iron oxide, and aluminum powder from the nearby paint store (I still don't know why they had it). We mixed them together and lit it off to much excitement, and even recovered the iron pelet that was the result of the reaction.

Fast forward to my own chemistry lessons and one "after school" session witht he chemistry teacher setup a nice thermite reaction. It was setup on a stand with a bunch (3 sheets) of asbestos sheets to capture the resultant (very very hot!) iron result. Well, we set it off and the iron went right through the multi sheet asbestos barriers much like hot knifes through butter only to make a nice divot in the chemistry lab bench surface. It remained that way for the rest of the time I was in high school, and (I assume) a bunch of years after that. I don't know the final fate of said lab top, but we did try to patch it with something like a bondo product (it could have been JB Weld) to no avail. High school chemistry was interesting to say the least.