Posts by Karl Vegar 44 posts • joined 4 Apr 2008
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.
Well, yes if you're buying the handset yourself.
But, when corporate is supplying the handset (, and the beancounters already have whined themselves a decent 5S, and the VIP's are exempt from regular policy), some beancounter could very well find that this is a good idea. Small savings pr handset, will give some substantial savings if you multiply it enough times.
Needless to say, understanding that most any decent midrange smartphone will be better (and possibly cheaper) than a nerfed into uselessness iPhone will be saddly lacking among the exec's who someone has sold on the idea that IOS is the better mobile OS.
Meanwhile at mission central, the resident BOfH is stringing his crossbow, whistling the Willhelm Tell overtyre...
Hey, if you really want to separate the chaps from the weak, you need to go further north.
Start in Tromsø, go north and east, (in that order), and stop before you get to the Russian border.
If your lucky with the weather, you get to test the round the clock endurance, otherwise, lets just say light might not be a good idea in heavy winds. Gnats and mosquitoes are naturally there to test the anti air defenses.
- 10 minute email... and laugh my head of.
- Yeah, lets drive the pedo's and perv's deeper into hiding, that'll work. As it has ever done before.
- Yet another proof that homo politico needs extermination.
- A least it is not just my government that's fubar.
- Must be april fool's...
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