Posts by john bertelsen

Tupperware looking less airtight than you'd think

Compost

.....so your refridgerator is also your compost?

In the battle between Microsoft and Google, LLM is the weapon too deadly to use

Re: Futile

Talkie-Toaster! He's BACK!!

+1 for Red Dwarf reference.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

Never call soomething "NEW ...."

In 1978 when I started at my last job there were two supply cabinets labelled "New" and "Old". Nearly 40 years later both were still in service with the same labels.

Remember, the next day after an asset is placed in service it is no longer "New".

I've got the power! Or have I? Uninterruptible Phone-disposal Stuffup

In the distant past....

...when I was at Lehigh Uni as an undergrad the bartender at the A(llentown), B(ethlehem), E(aston) airport used to serve us in spite of our tender age. We were often his only customers. This was in the late 1960's.

He had a huge collection of cigarette lighters.

I see ABE has come up in the world.

Loser Trump's last financial disclosure docs reveal Tim Cook gave him $5,999 Mac Pro, the 'first' made in Texas

Astounding Apple Prices

Somewhere around 25+ years ago I bought a Macintosh SE30 at the local uni's surplus store for $10. Just out of curiosity.

The SE 30 sold new for about $4,400 in 1989!

I boot it up every once in a while to see if it still runs. So far so good.

A paper clip, a spool of phone wire and a recalcitrant RS-232 line: Going MacGyver in the wonderful world of hotel IT

Re: Proper lash up

At the company I just retired from there are two supply cabinets in the office. The keys are labelled "New Supply Cabinet" and "Old Supply Cabinet".

Both were present when I started in 1978, and they are both old now.

A Notepad nightmare leaves sysadmin with something totally unprintable

PowerLAN

We also had PowerLAN in the late '80s, early '90s, can't remember. It ran over ARCnet on co-ax cables mainly to share an expensive (for then) printer, later a multi-user accounting program. It actually had a dedicated server, but I don't remember much about it.

It worked surprisingly well. No one locally (Northern New England) at the time could support PC networking so had to drive 300 miles to see a vendor.

Man drives 6,000 miles to prove Uncle Sam's cellphone coverage maps are wrong – and, boy, did he manage it

Rural not urban

The author probably meant rural. In the not too distant past there were more cows in Vermont than people.

On another note it took more than a week for our local rag, the Burlington Free Press, to give this story a quick line. For another take with a different slant look at the version on vtdigger.org.

We live in Burlington so are blessed with good cell coverage and free Wi-Fi downtown courtesy of our own local ISP. (There's another story for another day.) However I was recently in Craftsbury at a popular ski resort with zip, nada coverage. I used to live in Dover where the local politician quoted in the vtdigger article resides. It also hosts a large ski resort, but a narrow valley between high hills and mountains probably has many blind spots.

Former Intel love rat Krzanich finds his calling, lands at biz that sells tech to car dealers

from a CDK customer

i used to work for a CDK customer. Their software is is a non homogeneous mass getting more complicated all the time. Their prices are humongous once they've got you. I do say their support is excellent, but some of it is now being off-shored.

They are bleeding customers to newer more nimble competitors.

Fixing a printer ended with a dozen fire engines in the car park

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

+1 for the Red Dwarf reference!

Nvidia: Using cheap GeForce, Titan GPUs in servers? Haha, nope!

Re: Whats Next?

Upvote for the Red Dwarf reference.

User left unable to type passwords after 'tropical island stress therapy'

Re: Government staff: need I say more?

A dept manager called and said "The net is down." Turned out that the printer he was trying to print to was out of paper.

I always have to prompt the user to tell me what's really going on. To non-IT people the functioning of systems is a black box. It's not there job to know otherwise unless they are somehow personally interested.

But it is still funny... cute like hearing a two year old trying to talk. (or annoying if that's your point of view)

Forget your RTO*: Real world Disaster Recovery needs garbage bags and bubble wrap

Our state IT workers were quick enough to move server out of the basement of the state office building in Waterbury, Vermont as Hurricane Irene poured rain into the nearby river. Some of them lost their cars in the parking lot, but they saved the servers....on a weekend.

Much of the central part of the state was paralyzed for weeks and the state workers did not get new digs for several years, but at least they were able to operate.

Label your cables: A cautionary tale from the server room

...you forgot ....

That's the way I've always done it, and it always worked. (It isn't, and it hasn't).

BOFH: I'm not doing this for the benefit of your health, you know

Re: Meh...

I think the PFY hit him with a phone book fired out of the ether cannon built into his filing cabinet. Pushing out the window without either pyrotechnics or electricity (cattle prod) is lame.

BOFH: Is WHAT 'running slow'!? GOD

"The Net is down"

My favorite, all time luser statement:

One of our managers calls me and says, "The Net is down!"

I check it out. Turns out the printer he is trying to print to is out of paper.

I've got a super free multi-petabyte storage box for you: /dev/null

Re: Rigorous backup processes...

Or Dilbert

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-09-02/

Experts stroke beards over LOHAN's vacuity

Vote for vacuum accumulator

I support the idea of a vacuum accumulator to sustain the low pressure in the firing chamber as long as possible. The tube between the REHAB chamber and the accumulator needs to be large enough to accommodate the sudden change in pressure inside REHAB when the motor fires.

The cost not mentioned is that it will take much longer for the pump to achieve the targeted low pressure.

Publisher hails CS Lewis 'space trilogy' e-book debut

CSL Space Trilogy

IIRC Lewis insisted that these were not to taken as biblical parallels, but I don't buy that.

Peralandra is somewhat tedious because of the long debate that takes place, but the series is definitely worth a read.

LOHAN demonstrates impressive sucking skills

Re: Low pressure only until ignintion, right?

Why not add a second chamber to the system to act as a vacuum accumulator? It will enable the pressure to drop more slowly after the motor ignites.

If the accumulator sits between the pump and the chamber, it will reduce the amount of hot gasses ingested by the pump while firing the motor.

Vote now for the WORST movie EVER

Any Kevin Costner movie........

....except Dances With Wolves. He had so few speaking lines because there was nobody to talk with because most of the characters did not speak English. Robin Hood (boring, liked the Mel Brooks version MUCH more) and Message In A Bottle (stiff, unbelievable) both really bad. Fortunately I avoided seeing Waterworld.

BOFH: Dawn raid on Fort BOFH

Re: Darned youngsters.

That would be ARCNet cards more than likely!

PARIS in 89,000 ft climax

Glimpse of PARIS

Aren't there a couple of quick tiny glimpses of PARIS well after release?

BOFH: Join the club

Clueless Boss .........

.....wheels spinning in the sand...........

Apple touts tips to sidestep iPod earphone electric shocks

Headset shocks

I have experienced shocks from headphones while riding a bicycle on rollers. It happens when the audio device is NOT in your pocket and static builds up from the rollers and discharges through the headphones. It is actually quite a blast right in the ear. I'm amazed it didn't fry the audio (CD) player.

Naturally I use a different music setup during our cold northern winters when I need the miles and our heating system dries the air.

Hackers demand $10m ransom for Virginia medical data

Someone has been reading .............

..........."Burn After Reading".

Red Dwarf finally returns to Earth

Chicken Vindaloo

I will be brewing a big batch of chicken vindaloo in celebration!

Cops taser JCB thief in 'slowest police chase ever'

Tracked JCB

Years ago (1980's) JCB used to make a tracked front end loader. It was quite quick. Had the opportunity to operate one briefly moving some snow around.

J