Posts by Karl Vegar 59 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Apr 2008
Just guessing here
* is a wildcard, so making ~* not work might be more work than leaving it in
Not to mention I can see a few cases where it might be handy for admin (backup, clearing out all userdata...)
I'd guess designers didn't foresee users having access to more than their own home directory, so leaving it in shouldn't cause any issues (theory meet reality)
That is a question the customer service team (aka after sales aka add on sales) dept will deal with
They will slightly rework the meaning to something more like: "Is your CEO an utter moron who's swallowed the cloud hype and is prepared to pay a huge monthly subscription that lets him write exactly the same simplistic word documents that he could have produced with Office 2001 yet? Or do we need to convince them some more?"
And reword the question in something more sales oriented, positive and with more buzzwords, maybe something like this, but stretched out a bit,
"Are we extracting your full potential yet?
Remember:
Our agile cloud offerings are fully devops compliant
Our slave level agreements offer a healthy cost/benefit ratio
Our standards compliance is perfected to make us a market leader in customer retention"
Laxative breath mints served in a meeting room with dodgy ac, somehow I suspect the meeting room to be secure when it comes to sturdy soundproof walls and doors, no windows to worry about, bit of a Faraday cage when thinking about wireless signals really, and sturdy locks that doesn't always unlock from the inside
At least the AC tech is due Monday afternoon?...
Because it kills your flexibility.
Sure, as long as it is OK to "install once and run until unit is ready to be replaced" it will have those other benefits
In a public cloud of some size, that can make sense. At that size you gain enough from your standardization it will outweigh the lack of flexibility.
In any kind of on-prem private cloud kind of setting, you will need that flexibility to be a viable alternative to the public behemoths
The boffins at Cambridge have trained an AI on public statements, comments, and discussions by top politicians from all over the world.
This failed utterly at the stated goal of making a Political AI
By some strange coincidence, they have instead created a virtual Quantum entity. Every statement can at all times be both true and false, and in no way whatsoever contradictory unless that might be advantagious.
I live in Norway, and yes, we have the same struggle with a new emergency response network.
Are the needs of the first responders that different from country to country? Or could it be possible to create a system that would work for most, and then changing out crypto keys for the different customers, or even better, let the customer install their own keys as needed.)
(OK, apparently we need to add 100k £ in mods to any police car we get here in Norway, and for some reason the specs called out in requests for offers usually have a 99,9% fit on some model and tend to have demands that exclude some others... has nothing to do with a public sector that consider cost cutting to be foul language.;) )
Back in the mid nighties I used to handle in house IT, and we'd started using laptops instead of stationary machines.
Back then Dell had some issues work their keyboards, so replacement was easy and a phone call away. (Direct line to 3 lone was a massive timesaver as well.)
So far, all good
But we also had a user that kept smearing her hands with some lotion and eating "knekkebrød" ... let's call it crackers, not quite the same but near enough for this purpose. Keyboard files up with a nice porridge of the lotion and the crumbs, and stopped working as it should.
Getting the kb off was simple enough, in an "attempt at recension" I left the plastic wrapper on when reassembling the laptop. For some reason this was noe appreciated by the user...
Way back when...
We were updating from Win XP to 7, and to lesse the inconvinience, we were updating in place.
Most of the time this worked just fine.
And then, we hade one site, where the road warriors where called in to, to get their laptops updated overnight. And a lot of them failed at various times in the evening. Somewhere between 19:15 and 20:20 or something like that.
OK, image as new, and hear the users complain. This happened with a lot, but not all of the laptops whenever we tried to mass update at that site.
Turns out that as a eco initiative, the desks were setup with regular and green outlets. The green outlets where ment for desk lamps, phone chargers and such, and to power to these would be cut when the office was empty. Fair enough. And the laptops connected to these outlets would then lose power, but since they had "buildt in UPS", they would go down at some later time, depending on the state of the battery.
Something as simple as replacing the rear brake pads will require a connection to the onboard 'puter in order to reverse the electric handbrake back to where the calipers will take the new pads and the disk. Some models require you to code in a new battery.
And there are a lot of settings and diagnostics you can only get at through the diagnostics port. Yeah, they all use the ODB or the ODB-II port, and there is a comono set of commands / diganostics data there. But the standard port was put in to allow US police to plug in a device and check that your car is withing emissions rules. Most of the other stuff is using vendor spesific subsets of the command and diagnostics. There are some 3.rd party tools for some vendors, (VCDS and ODBEleven for VAG for instance), for others like Mercedes there are some pirate versions available. Or the more recent approach, you can lease access to the software to diagnose your car. (Oh, and the brand repairshops are no longer able to buy the software, they must also start to lease the software.)
Well, this was presented as a three step process.
We never see what happens after step 1. I expect these maybe backup plan 1 and 2.
If the IR test does not fix the issue at hand, nest step would be a salvia test. I guess this involves spiiting on someone, probably big, important and aggressive.
And if all else failes, there is allways room for electrocution.
Although in my case it was a teachers work room, where all network was down after the summer vacation. And half an hours from my office.
So before I even got into the car I looked up swtich locations for the building, and prepared myself for a round of "trace that port". (I still do not understand why "wallplug - switch" port is never documented anywhere.)
Got to the teachers workroom, had a little chat with a smug teacher, that happened to be the teacher for one of my kids, and usually an intelligent and technically hands on kind of guy. Traced the cables to the wall to find the wall plug label, only to find that they were all unplugged.
I'll admit I had to let him know the cables really need both ends plugged in to work properly.
And then there are the jokers that put a piece of clear tape on the switch end of a cable just for laughs. Took a while to troubleshoot and find.
Have had some brushes with typos in text files that are automagically imported.
Though not the vital service killing kind.
Once uppon a time (early noughtys) I was working on / inherrited a web service to present financial data. This data was entered using a dos "application", exported to a CVS like file, using | as the only delimiter, passed on to my system over the internjet, and then imported into my system. The closest thing this had to any kind of validation, was the db schema.
Every now and again, someone would misstype 1 as |. And this would not be overly visible in the DOS application. Export would not be troubled by this at all, file transfer would naturally not notice at all. The import would fail with a note to the logs, and if I didn't notice the logs, the client would complain about stale data after a couple of days.
When the logs were showing error at line 3'254 I coule easily use * text editor, and fix it easily enough. However, when got to complaining about line 325'400, I learned to love SED.
For anything I'd like to collect from the wild web, I'd like something more secure then FTP myself.
And for any more serious file transfer one could use FTP for, why use your browser, there are better clients around. (And they usually support SFTO, SCP in addition.)
But I guess it will live on for a lot of local stuff.
PXboot, Wyse config files and similar. And probably a load of IOT stuff that really should know better.
Seen that done wrong.
New building.
Technical people were as usual kept well away from any planning
Since the company had a subdivision delivering aircon, the project leader basically ordered the largest units he could fit two of. And placed them in the ceiling somewhere.
Spring comes, and we're moving in. all sorts of cables have been run nicely to the racks. The racks have been nicely bolted to the floor.
IT comes carrying the servers, and notice the aircon units are set to pull air from the front of the racks, and blow over the tops of the racks to the rear.
Not ideal, but can't be that bad, right?
That summer, we had a heatwave. And the massive stand alone UPS units shut down from heat. I seems to recall some of the legacy kit didn't come back up after. (And would be the silver lining of this story.)
Yes, the FBI have done everything right. And yest they are kicking at the front door.
Makes no difference. That is not what this case (or any of the preceding ones)
To take your door analogy. The door is 5 inch tempered steel. Apple cannot make it half inch soft wood just because FBI is asking nicely. And a court order will not change this.
Smart politicians: Not necessarily as much of an oxymoron as you'd think.
I'll grant you that a lot of politics don't make sense in pursuit of stated goals. But we all know politicians have an understanding with truth. So why do we believe the stated goals?
And what might be a less than optimal way of completely missing the stated goal, might just be a less visible way to achieve something else.
It's a nice sobriety indicator.
When the audience at the pup sort of nods along to the beat, they're about rightly drunk.
When they start to dance, that is proof they've drunk to much, and should be escorted to a cab...
Anyone start to sing along, and you know attempting to cut them off will result in a fight, prep the pints of nearbeer, and call security.
Well.
Log in as a few of them, and send out an invite to their team / the rest of the company.
Open bar event of some kind, some words about bringing a cake on Friday, BBQ at home.
After the first few, some just might take a hint. Otherwise, these events are probably going to be a nice benefit. Just make sure you make them something you enjoy as well.
Yeah, you're right.
And they're halfway right...
(They get more human resources pr square meter/feet.)
I'm not so sure the loss in productivity will not balance out the rent saved. But this will be depending on factors like salary, invoicing practice (do you charge by the hour or by the project/service?),the rent, cost of turnover...
Had a demonstration of what happens if you use inkjet overhead transparent papers in a laser printer.
Who knew not all plastics are good with high temperatures.
I would have assumed the local Fire dept should have some idea of these kind of issues. Apparently I was wrong.
Fuser was quite accurate.
1,2 as stated *
3 seal drain/output side
4 Displace one side of hose above suitable drain.
5 as stated.
* or get fancy:
- Stick tube down into the bin, one end first, make sure to let air escape through the other end. When there is an inch or two left above water, block the dry end. Dry end is drain end. move on from 3. If done right, all that gets wet is your thumb.
>Some of these f'wits HAVE CHILDREN...
Doesn't exactly take a genius to make a child.
All it takes is two persons of opposite physical sex, each with an orientation that makes them compatible, in the right circumstances at the right time of month. No sense, common or any other involved.
To raise a child... is another matter entirely.
If we for a moment pretend biometrics are 100% perfect, secure, foolproof and able to determine if the fingerprint is provided from a live and willing judge. Just for the sake of the argument.
Are you planning to grant US Federal judges this power over all phones in the world? Isn't that a bit overreaching, and out of jurisdiction? Or only handsets sold in the US? (And what makes you think handsets wont be bought in Mexico, and resold in the US...)
How about other nations? Should every judge at the level determined by the individual nation be granted this? Would you like the commissars of Putin or Kim to have access to your phone at will?
And what happens when a judge is replaced?
And how long would it take before apps had a possibility whether or not to trust the builtin biometrics, for instance requiring a password or other form of authentication instead.
So in short. This would greatly reduce the basic security of the handsets. Add a lot of cost. And slightly inconvenience anyone who wants to keep something secret.
No, this is not the solution to the problem with IOT, it's a workaround to limit the symptoms of the problem with IOT.
The problem is: Every vendor have a "standard" communications protocoll pr generation and type of device.
This is merely a hub that will speak them all.
That bein said, if it at least remain true to the promise of openness, then it might be worth procuring for my own smarthouse experiments.
Oh, nasty. And difficult to protect against.
For the no USB on a locked machine crowd: Ever had to replace a keyboard? Kind of difficult unlock if you can't use the new keyboard.
For the no auto install of USB without clicking on something: Ever replaced a keyboard (so you can unlock) or mouse (so you can click)?
For the reboot required crowd: What are the odds you need to replace x for your C*O with the machine locked, and that important draft not saved...
For those not reading thearticle, and seeing this as something that needs both ethernet access and external power: RTFA. The device would look like a largeish USB thumb drive. To the machine it appears to be a generic ethernet card (drivers already installed), with a network behind it. And since this fake network is wired, new and unreasonably fast, it becomes the new default. Then the computer tries to do something on the network, and the credential hash is uploaded to the DB on the device. Plug it in, look at the lights / give it half a minute, unplug and move on.
Best way I can see to mitigate it, train your users to log out or power down when they leave for any period of time. Or make sure anyone with physical access to the USB ports are trustworthy.
Milk in a teapot, massiv NO.
A: Not everyone will want milk, or the same amount of milk.
B: Getting the pot clean again is going to be .... a suitable punishment for the miscreant.
That being said, I must confess: I have, on occation, brewed tea directly in milk (heated in the microwawe no less...) To my defence, this was some spicy variant, I'm usually a coffee drinker, not much of one for tea, and I'm not a Brit.
Nononono
If you've had milk in a glass, it needs to be thouroughly cleaned before you add beer. If there is any milk fat left on the glass it messes up the formation of a good head (in turn leading to your beer going flat before it's time.)
Basically, never serve dairy products in anything you want to serve beer in later.
Maybe this is a bit squewed..
Anyone willing to sell old drives might not have the sharpest IT dept.
I can nearly understand old drives, that had been part of a raid5 setup,, and that have been low level formated being sold alongside a server, if that is the only way to shift the old ... iron.
Otherwise, I thought storing the old drives for a time, untill one can arrange for a physical og magnetinc solution was standard procedure.
Personally, I'd go for thermite, but for some reason my boss won't let me. (Something about fire and / or environmental hazard in a the middle of the city...)
This IS NorK we're talking about.
There's some 2.5 gb in the install image. What are the odds theres a little undocumented "I'm still compliant" heartbeat feature or two in there somewhere? And what do you think might happen if the heartbeart flatlines while the ISP still show traffic on your line (using a familiar mac?)
Then there's penalties. I'm guessing loss of PC privileges and some labour on first offence for a script kid of good family. For willfull distribution, I guess the hard part is over when you get to the firing squad.
A while back I was between assignments, and got some ad hoc assignments from my temp agency.
One such memorable assignment was related to a credit card terminal.
The assigment: to set up a new terminal in a shop.
I got a nice little documentation burn before you read and self terminate after package. And spent some time familiarizing myself with the procedure I was supposed to perform the next day. Didn't seem to complex, but there was a part with activation that needed a 25 digit code or some such. This part looked like it was a bit beyond your regular user.
I then drove a couple of hours to the site. Took a look at the terminal I was supposed to set up and activate. It was already placed where it should be, and nicely connected. But not on or activated.
Talked to the customer, and she'd had a bad experience last time she tried to activate a terminal.
OK, as the connections looked fine, so I fired it up and looked at it while it self tested all OK. Including connections to the bank... basically it seemed to be activated already.
- Hm, has this terminal been sed before somewhere? I asked.
- Naturally, it's the same I had problem with the last time. We didn't need this POS for a while, so we've had the terminal in storage the last 6 months.
OK, so we tested charging my card some minimal amount. Worked like supposed, both banks accepted. Had the back office test while I found some lunch. All OK. (I allways get suspicious when something look to be too easy, hence the vigorous testing.)
Total time spent fixing the issue: 5 min
Time spent testing: 15 min
Invoice: 1 hour work + 4 hour drive + expenses.
If nothing else, it makes for a good story.
All tests turned out OK.
Lexan shield hanging under the drone?
Yeah, should be pretty sure the drone won't get shot down... since it will never take off.
The propellers create lift by pushing air down. The mentioned air going down will be pushing down on the shield and create a negative lift that will be aprox of equal the positive lift generated, and kind of negate any upwards mobility.
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