Posts by Yes Me

Comment in code read 'Dear future me, sorry I wrote this'

Re: Caveat implementor

Been there, done that (but so has everybody, if they're honest).

Microsoft cancels Patch Tuesday for some Dell users over surprise shutdowns, overheating devices

In control

Dell user here. Nothing to report except that InControl still works. Who needs patches anyway?

User crippled a network while trying to learn Nmap

Re: Why some take security seriously

"your next stop is the job centre."

So, now we pretty much know which country you are in. That's a good start. Keep looking over your shoulder... no, the other one...

Datacenter MacGyver saved the biggest football match of the year

Re: If a UPS could do it...

And you'd have to connect it to exactly the right place, as our George did. Maybe having a diesel generator spewing exhaust in the control room for 2 hours wouldn't have been ideal.

Re: Close call

Longer than that. Many, many times around the world. Example from 1911:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

Still a common business practice in 2026:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37871189/swiss-bar-owner-locked-emergency-exit-dead/

Apprentice developer defied orders – then got a job supporting her weird code

Re: Have you left behind a mess you ended up having to clean up yourself?

What about the comments you put in like

// It is impossible to ever get here

?

Zombie ‘who owns Unix?’ lawsuit comes alive again

Missing information

"the presiding judge appeared to unwittingly be on mute at one point"

Did anyone check whether the presiding judge was wearing pants or a skirt?

User swore hacker called General Failure had invaded his PC

Re: Rank

I should explain why I posted essentially the same thing twice.

It weren't my fault, General Failure, Sir, no it weren't. It were that vulture's fault, Sir, or at least 'is server's fault, Sir, for not responding at all. It were as if 'e was marching round and round in circles, Sir. So off I went for a bevvy, Sir, and then I tried again.

Rank

General Failure is superior to Colonel Panic.

Linux problem?

Is General Failure superior to Colonel Panic?

Sysadmin broke hardware worth more than he made in a month – and lied his way out of the mess

Re: Stiction [was Sticky Bits]

You wouldn't have wanted to pay for it out of your pocket money. Wikipedia says "The IBM 1301 Model 1 leased for $2,100 per month or could be purchased for $115,500. Prices for the Model 2 were $3,500 per month or $185,000 to purchase. The IBM 7631 controller cost an additional $1,185 per month or $56,000 to purchase. " And those were 1960's prices.

Grammar clarification

Definitely Andy. But... he didn't think of that himself, he picked it up on one of his many visits to CERN, at a time when a lot of data was distributed that way, or in Swissair Jumbo jets for US universities. I'm sure somebody worked out the theoretical bandwidth of a 747 between GVA and JFK.

AI search could kill the web without new quality signals and revenue models

I don't see a problem here

"AI answers are killing content publishers..."

That isn't killing the Web, it's killing enshittification and making it more likely that the Web contains actual useful information instead of flim-flam. So what if it destroys some of the more spurious "business" models, gets rid of influencers, and nullifies sites whose only reason for existence is advertising?

Of course, if it significantly affects Google's advertising revenue stream, they might do something about it.

Bold move, Cotton: Trump administration tells US techies it expects American quantum computer by 2028

Re: Might as well

Indeed. I was about to point out that practicable fusion power is only a few years in the future. At least that's what I read in about 1958 (the Zeta project) , and again quite recently. Very similar to what I've been reading about quantum computers. We'll see.

Waymo hits the brakes after robotaxis keep missing the signs for freeway construction zones

Re: This is insanity

Um, it's the car that decides to go on the freeway.

Re: Driving Tests

"When using a driveway or parking space, you should reverse in and drive out facing forward whenever possible."

Whoever wrote that rule probably never drove a car in their life, at least not in a real city with real houses and real driveways.

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that

Waymo is recalling nearly 4,000 robotaxis

What if they refused to come?

Britain's privacy watchdog quits after 'poor judgment' admission

Attempts at humour

It does seem as though he should be opening an account on Linked-Out, doesn't it.

Great speculation in the Kiwi media this weekend whether he has "come home" but unfortunately these days there's nowhere to hide... and the current NZ Privacy Commissioner seems to be able to avoid making unfunny "attempts at humour".

(We need a better icon for that.)

Russian oligarch's financial network crashed thanks to a crank and a cleaner

Re: Yes they could

Remember this for next time: "Putain de merde!" or "Va te faire foutre!"

And, only if you can run faster than the cleaner: "Et ta soeur!"

ICANN again intervenes to defend AFRINIC

Fun fact

The final court of appeal for Mauritius is still the Judicial Committe of the Privy Council in London. So theoretically, this whole mess could end up being decided, formally speaking, by King Charles III.

Years after UK Post Office scandal broke, Accenture and OneView Commerce bag contract to replace Horizon

Wanna bet?

"It is set to stabilize services and upgrade software as it prepares for a complete business transformation and manages the migration to new <buzzword>."

Um, anyone willing to offer odds that this miracle will be achieved on time and under budget?

'Run for the hills' as the icon says ---->

AI sackings reach New Zealand, which will use it to eject 14 percent of government staff

In case there's any doubt, that business model is alive and well in NZ, which also has weak (i.e. no) regulation of Parliamentary lobbyists, and the current coalition has never met a lobbyist that it didn't wish to share fine lunches and dinners with.

Big bet, indeed

"Minister Willis’s plan is therefore a very big bet on AI."

It's also a big bet on the current right-wing/very-right-wing coalition winning the General Election later this year. With a bit of luck, she will be out on her ear. (She's not wrong that NZ has far too many silly little Ministries. I don't think there's one for Silly Walks, but there might be.)

On-call techie decided job was done and hit the bottle – just before his pager went off

Re: Crash of a different sort

When that failed, there was the "progressive drop" fix. First drop it a quarter inch, if that didn't fix it try a half inch, and so on. Eventually the loose connector would get shaken back in place, or the customer would be told, truthfully, that the TV was too badly broken to repair. (Worked better without a witness, e.g. if the customer was in the kitchen making a cup of tea.)

Lab worker built a fake PC to nuke his lunch

Re: What am I missing?

Why did you bother with the third wire?

User found the perfect formula to make Excel misbehave

Re: Analogue clocks

NTP geeks hate leap seconds, because there is no correct solution, on account of 1+1 = 2.

Re: Analogue clocks

> It follows that the time 24:00:00 doesn't actually exist

From which it follows that 23:59:59 doesn't exist either. The gap between 23:59:59 and 24:00:00 does exist, however.

Re: Maths

When you tell him he's wrong, he'll change it to 590%.

GoDaddy customer claims registrar transferred 27-year-old domain without any security checks

Re: Schitzo

Funnily enough, an insurance company sent me policy renewal documents from noreply@$DOMAIN a few days ago, and they had a clerical error. The only way to contact them without encountering an AI bot or endless on-hold music was to invoke their formal complaints procedure. (Which was effective, to their credit, but why not just accept email?)

To fix this Wi-Fi network, we'll need a crane

CERN could detect both the phases of the Moon, and French TGV trains several km away, with LEP (the machine that previously occupied the LHC tunnel).

The Moon's gravity slightly distorts the tunnel every (lunar) month, and the TGV generated feeble but detectable ground currents.

'Invisible mouse' made a mess of PC rebuild

Can't parse

"Steve's had been using the new mouse..."

Steve's what? Steve's who? Or were there two Steves and a grocer wrote the story?

IPv6 carried half of internet traffic – for one day, according to Google

Re: El Reg

None. They're stuck in 1994. But on the other hand, this page uses a lot of googlecrap, all served preferentially via IPv6:

fonts.googleapis.com,2404:6800:4006:800::200a,142.250.195.106

www.googletagmanager.com,2404:6800:4006:805::2008,142.251.42.104

securepubads.g.doubleclick.net,2404:6800:4006:804::2002,142.250.183.34

fundingchoicesmessages.google.com,2404:6800:4006:800::200e,142.250.195.110

ep1.adtrafficquality.google,2404:6800:4006:806::2002,142.250.195.162

ep2.adtrafficquality.google,2404:6800:4006:803::2001,142.250.195.225

www.google.com,2001:4860:482b:7700::,2001:4860:482a:7700::,2001:4860:482d:7700::,2001:4860:4826:7700::,2001:4860:482c:7700::,2001:4860:4829:7700::,2001:4860:4827:7700::,2001:4860:4828:7700::,142.251.153.119,142.251.151.119,142.251.157.119,142.251.156.119,142.251.150.119,142.251.154.119,142.251.155.119,142.251.152.119

pagead2.googlesyndication.com,2404:6800:4006:801::2002,142.251.222.226

Re: "Dominant"- for whom?

That's true as far as it goes, but if your home ISP and home router support v6, your home network will do so too and probably nobody will even notice.

Re: Still not ready for regular DNS use

No, because in that case it wouldn't be mainstream. IPv6/IPv6 coexistence is the norm - there really isn't any effort to get rid of IPv4 for people who want to go using it. As someone said upthread, a lot of the increase is due to v6 on smartphones (which need billions of globally routable addresses that IPv4 simply can't provide).

As time goes on, v4-only websites will discover they are no longer mainstream. But that might take quite a few more years.

Windows takes a crash dump after one McDonald's order too many

Re: Scrap the BSOD, read the sticker

At least there's a symbolic picture of the picture menu; an astute analphabet might notice that and ask for one.

Also, if a blind person comes in with an analphabet friend, the friend could notice the picture and tell his blind friend to ask for the Braille menu.

Which wouldn't work if the blind person was also deaf, or if the friend was also dumb.

Maybe they should just give out free food? It would be simpler.

Physicist reckons two-button calculator can do all elementary math

And you could do a lot with ISZ (increment and skip if zero) followed by JMP on a PDP-8.

Windows Update is a torture chamber for seldom-used PCs

Re: Windows Update

I'm an unconditional fan of InControl. Seemed to calm down Windows Update on Windows 10 very nicely, and since I switched to a Windows 11 machine for various reasons, it has done the same. Security updates still come through, but not pointless feature updates.

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

Re: Timing

I may have posted this before, but I used to evaluate software development time by asking three programmers and adding their estimates (and not dividing by 3). Surprisingly accurate.

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

Re: Define work.

Americans meet with people. Brits meet people. Deal with it.

Americans eat a couple muffins. Brits eat a couple of muffins.

While I'm here, Americans eat tasty things called "English muffins", which Brits just call "muffins". Brits occasionally eat nasty things called "American muffins", which Americans call "muffins." I hope that's clear.

Cryptographers place $5,000 bet whether quantum will matter

Re: In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies

I hope you also realise that the whole affair resulted in hounding Stephen Ward to death. It was a judicial disgrace.

Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out

Re: Downvote - really?

Not so. I have just been happily toggling you between 1-1 and 2-0.

And so on until what? Is there a quantum mechanical limit somewhere beyond A42?

And do two A0s make an A-1?

Server crashes traced to one very literal knee-jerk reaction

Re: Probably my first diagnosis in anything resembling tech support was something similar.

I had a feline somebody would say that.

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

Re: cabbages

And there was that Tub of Lard on the HIGNFY panel once. Not a joke.

Why does the Windows 11 taskbar hurt me like that?

Who's afraid of random... ?

Winhawkdows 11 is very dangerous and greatly depends on trusting random InternetMicrosoft developersmanagers.

FIFY

Final step to put new website into production deleted it instead

Re: Delete

"No need to delete emails. "

Um, with all due respect (i.e., none), there is sometimes a compelling need to delete emails.

Recent partial and redacted disclosures by the US DoJ offer thousands of examples of failures to delete.

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

Re: IT adjacent

Someone I know had a smart meter installed, which works fine except his house doesn't have cell coverage. A person comes to read the meter once in a while. Once in another while, a person comes to investigate why the meter isn't calling home, logs the absence of cell coverage, and goes away. It's the same person, since he's the tech assigned to both meter readings and meter repairs in that area.

Re: Wiggle the mouse

> Indeed, having something moving to tell you it's working makes things feel quicker than "just nothing".

That is _exactly_ why cursors on alphanumeric terminals flashed continuously. If they didn't, users would complain that the mainframe was stuck. This goes back to the 1960s.

Oh look, Firefox's little | cursor is flashing as I type. If not, it's a sign that the Internet is stuck.

Not if you have the right proportions of red, green and blue ones.

But surely they cost more so most employers wouldn't allow them. I always treated them as a luxury item.