* Posts by chivo243

6487 publicly visible posts • joined 10 May 2010

xAI's Grok lurches into right-wing insanity, offers tips on assaulting man

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Re: if it wasn't so dismal...

in a large mason jar of ketamine spiked brine.

should be in a large mason jar of ketamine spiked urine. No?

GPS on the fritz? Britain and France plot a backup plan

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Facepalm

maps?

Maps work. Just need a bit of light to see them.

Security company hired a used car salesman to build a website, and it didn't end well

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Re: Log

Big Log?

How to trick ChatGPT into revealing Windows keys? I give up

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Totally...

We're number 1! Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10

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Trollface

What about?

All those times I installed Win11 in a vm and then blew it away? Surely I'm not the only one to try 11 and spit it out, and foolishly try again?

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

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AI played a part

I have the feeling that AI made it easier to make me redundant, I wonder how it might be working out for that outfit? I doubt they could feed it the support tickets, some had some brutal internal only comments...

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Happy

Re: Carol Burnett

Was this Mr. Tudball?

How to get free software from yesteryear's IT crowd – trick code into thinking it's running on a rival PC

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Contoso!

If contoso.com has a dns server... sorry, couldn't stop myself. We used to bust a gut laughing at those training questions from Fravo.com

Don't shoot me, I'm only the system administrator!

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Pint

Re: Land of the Free - to be shot

I once had a close call. I was 19* and was the manager of a fast food joint. I had been there a while, and had gotten a better offer from a mom and pop joint. My last night of work was celebrated, some of my older colleagues brought a few bottles of beer, really 3 or 4, and to keep them cool, I put the in the walk in cooler. During all the farewells, I forgot two things at closing time, one was the last bottle of beer in the walk in cooler. The other was I left the water on to fill the steam table on just a trickle as I had a lot of things to do. I locked up, dropped the deposits at the night slot at the bank and headed home. As I lay there in bed the realization hit me that I forgot the beer in the walk in! I jumped up grabbed any clothes I could find, and headed back to the restaurant. I ran in and got the beer, but the label had become slippery and I dropped the beer bottle in the tiled walk in cooler! Cue frantic cleaning, sweeping, mopping etc, but I still couldn't get the smell out. I then looked over my shoulder at the nearly overflowing steam table, and my heart drops another foot. 10 minutes later, I've done all I can and exit the building and lock up again. Just as I get to my car, two cop cars roar into the lot and block me in.

The interrogation begins, and I stupidly let slip it's my last day, and I forgot to shut off the water to the steam table, and brows furrow and I have the bright idea to call my supervisor, he lived with in walking distance. They make the call, and he shows up in about 15 minutes, they enter the restaurant and see the steam table full to the brim, and that backs my story, and we all calm down and go away.

*This was 1983, no security systems to disarm, no cameras, and I was trusted to work my last night and return the keys to the joint the following day. And the cops didn't have full tactical gear or weapons drawn when they arrived, it was 1983.

AI may be after your job, but this AI agent promises to help you get a new one

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No thanks

I will keep my CV* as it is. If I get a job on my real skills then it's a win-win situation.

*I don't know if my CV or the referrals have done the heavy lifting, but I know that without the referrals, my CV rarely is seen by a person...

Techie went home rather than fix mistake that caused a massive meltdown

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Trollface

Re: Honestly

Me too... I learned the metric system in 7th grade, the US was going to the metric system Baby! I still have the folder from school. We only got sugary drinks in 1L, 2L and 3L jugs out if it. I know both systems, and while working in Europe, for an American entity, my knowledge of both made the one eyed man in the land of the blind. I also learned time zone calculations, exchange rates and how to use a roundabout! I have to laugh when I see a Mercan implementation of a roundabout, the radius is always way too small, big trucks\tractor-trailers can never navigate them.

Yes it's almost 35c here at just after 11am...

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Pint

Yep, never start/continue/work on a project on a Friday. Or Monday...

Looks like Aflac is the latest insurance giant snagged in Scattered Spider’s web

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Facepalm

Off of he list

Just got a message from some job board that Alfac is looking for help, sorry, I won't be moving forward with the next round of interviews...LOL

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Pint

Re: I thought spiders bark?

HA! Barking Spiders!! ->

Have one on me!

Microsoft testing PC-to-Cloud-PC failover for those times your machine dies or disappears

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One of the greatest terms in Tech...

Failover, or fallover. I used Win2003 in a clustered environment, Exchange regularly decided it liked the other node better and failed over. The minister of the dosh phones up, not happy, and when I explained what happened, he didn't like the idea\sound of a failover. Come to think of it, that conversation may have led to the early demise of that Exchange, it was shown the door in 2005. I've not touched Exchange as an admin since.

Brain activity much lower when using AI chatbots, MIT boffins find

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Boffin

Using AI chatbots actually reduces activity in the brain versus accomplishing the same tasks unaided

Who'd have thunk it? Great headline!!

Microsoft broke DHCP for Windows Server last Patch Tuesday

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Mushroom

Re: It just works . . .

ageism? I can attest to it!

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Trollface

Static IPs for all my friends at the Bar!

Or use something else to hand out DHCP addresses? I know that MS DHCP has always jus worked, and it pretty easy to implement, but how about plan B?

BOFH: Rerouting responsibility via firewall configs

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Re: "web interface ... a back-rev browser that doesn't complain about certificate errors."

I came to say " a back-rev browser that doesn't complain about certificate errors." have been plaguing IT for a loooong time. We kept an old lappy with a serial port (how antiquated), and running XP. I think it was a toshiba.

Unemployment is spiking for US IT pros - unless you want to babysit bots

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Unhappy

Right you are!

I was made redundant in March, and nothing so far, nada. I will say I have more rejection replies at this time than I did before my previous job. Over 50% said "Soz old chap". AI, is that you answering my applications?

Field support chap got married – which took down a mainframe

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I don't wear my ring anymore

I got my ring caught during while filling a rack with new server, a few band aids later I was back to work sans ring. I told my wife and she was fine with it, in fact she stopped wearing hers too when I told her as she worked with her hands in one of her businesses. I told my dad the story, and he held up his hand, and no ring... he had been an assembler of large road making equipment and told me a similar story, by the time he stopped with that job the ring no longer fit his finger.

Fast forward 20 years, and I see my cousin with a rubber ring instead of his cool LOTR wedding ring.

Techie traced cables from basement to maternity ward and onto a roof, before a car crash revealed the problem

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Coat

Re: At my last place....

Aargh! the sun! It played havoc with some super fancy touchscreens that had cameras in the four corners of the screen. One camera would be blinded by the light, and the others couldn't triangulate the touch point properly. Blame it on the architect, they wouldn't allow curtains in their fancy new building.

There are sunglasses somewhere in this coat...

Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire

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Thumb Down

Re: Tesla that burned so hot, it melted part of the road

yeah, the deplorable DPF problem... facing it right now.

KDE targets Windows 10 'exiles' claiming 'your computer is toast'

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Re: Gnome is my favourite… I think

this^^ I know I'll be doing something* for mom, both of her computers lappy and DT do not have TPM.

*Anything but Microshaft. I have an M1 macmini I can offer to replace the DT, and/or the linux route on the lappy and DT.

Admin brought his drill to work, destroyed disks and crashed a datacenter

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Re: New AC...

and both ends of patch cables!!! outlet numbers, machine asset tag number, services that run on that cable...

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Re: Not to cast doubt but...

I worked in a place that repurposed telecoms racks, due to no BUDGET, and I can say the holes are not the same size, bug the correct cage nuts and bolts make this a no brainer... They had to be ordered from someplace in Asia?!

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Facepalm

Re: New AC...

New AC! Installed in the ceiling of a 4mx4m server room, directly above the racks while they were ON! I mentioned it to the Facilities Manager, and said "I hope someone is insured for this idiocy." Nothing bad happened, but the AC wasn't installed correctly the first time, the second time, but come the third try, a senior installation engineer was sent and found the issue in about 3 nano seconds... He was not happy... I'm sure there was a full round of retraining for the first two engineers!

FacePalms all around!

Wanted: IT manager for UK government agency – £60k

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Unhappy

Re: Could be worse

No affording about it, I'll probably be forced into it within a year if I don't find something.

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Unhappy

Re: Govt has got used to indian rates

Public sector? Damn, I'm in the market for work, and I see plenty of jobs in the private sector in the US paying $15-20/hr for Level 3 tech, same company pays +$100,000 for the director. I can make $15-20/hr for slinging pizzas at a relative's restaurant. It's a fsckedup world and getting worse. I really fear for my kid and his future.

Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away

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Coat

Re: Aquarium offices....

I worked in one of these glass houses. Glass on three sides. I didn't like it, when a colleague left, I promptly moved into the vacant desk as far away from the glass as possible. It was nearly impossible to work without colleagues waving to us, and when I stopped waving back, some people thought I no longer liked them?! WTF?

Adobe turns subscription screw again, telling users to pay up or downgrade

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Didn't I read this story yesterday?

Only it was M$ shafting Non Profits...

Microsoft pulls MS365 Business Premium from nonprofits

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WTF?

Re: I don't understand the Hate

Um, Hello? It could be a tax benefit to help the NPOs? Donations? Item 376b on the Corporate tax return? Good will to fellow man etc? And above all Smelling like a Rose for doing the right thing?

Posting near record profits, and cutting employees? Smells like something M$ stepped in.

GAO finds billions in possible government savings, all without Elon's help

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Re: How to get DOGE on board with GAO recommendations

perforated? double ply? Quilted?

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WTF?

I was always saying Department of Gut Everything.

Just like the icon gallery - used to be 3 rows of 12, and "All hands man the pumps" was not in the middle row where it now appears. Now rows 2x12 and 11.

Maybe it ran away with Paris?

Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25%

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Re: Green card – which is itself a pathway to citizenship and freedom

I have a friend from the UK, summer plans to visit us in US are probably canceled as we are mid May and nothing firm.

Anthropic’s law firm throws Claude under the bus over citation errors in court filing

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Facepalm

The Jetsons

Uniblab! Cue Hanna Barbera background music!

"Our manual citation check did not catch that error." Manual check? hahaha ha. Ha.

Side note, is there another icon missing from the gallery?

Qatar’s $400M jet for Trump is a gold-plated security nightmare

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Stop

Wait

isn't this the kind of spending DoGE* is trying to stop.

*Dept. of Gut Everything.

The current president will be out of office before either plan is hatched. Boeing nowhere will not finish the deal to the feds standard, and as stated it will cost mucho dinero to bring the bug** laded gift from Saudis.

**software or watergate type of bug it's your choice really, they are both present.

So your [expletive] test failed. So [obscene participle] what?

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rule of the work jungle

The last employee to quit or be fired shall be blamed for everything. I told my ex-colleagues to milk it for all it was worth when I resigned.

Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways

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Coat

Re: Useful

I've been cracking eggs for decades, all that wasted effort! I should have been cracking them at the tip or bottom!

BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts

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Stop

A former employer created a Wellness director position for some relative, and company morale went through the floor... no raises for us, but a new D level position for a D level relative.

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

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or Echo Valley 26809 I used to call that number all the time...

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Facepalm

No good deed goes unpunished!

no wonder the suits were agitated. I'm curious about how she was even let in the premises? Let alone the secured server room?

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

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Gleam and Smirk

My first IT manager had the ability to show both, even though he wore glasses and had the requisite dwarf beard. It was a couple of weeks into my new job, I got the short straw, and had to visit the office of the new Director, and it was a hot PRINTING issue just before a meeting. As a n00b, it took me a few minutes to track down the cause(s) first was the fact that the new director wanted to use his personal laptop he brought from the states, instead of the company issued laptop. Second was our friend A4 vs. Letter. I explained the difference, and how the work computer was already configured for printing AND backed up and left the decision to him.

The next day I got the gleam and smirk, and was told just to report stuff like this back to him and not to give the user a choice! I later assisted this director with other issues, and earned a letter of appreciation.

20% discount offer on Windows 365 expires around same time as Windows 10 support

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Thumb Up

Oh Boy, Buck! If I had a win11 installation disk, it would quickly become that all important drink coaster. Useful?

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Facepalm

Here it is!

WaaS Windows as a Service. It didn't take a rocket scientist to predict that.

Duolingo jumps aboard the 'AI-first' train, will phase out contractors

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Re: Glad I ditched it.

yeah, no more real photos in your profile, no more forums!! When renewal comes up... I think I'm done.

Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline

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Re: big tech and the future

I'm sure those Tech Bros have plenty of cash stashed, along with gold and silver, somewhere in their safe house... They only want you to put your money into the COIN...

AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs

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Happy

Robot Wars new champion?

I loved when I could watch that show...

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

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Mr Haney!

I felt like I was watching BoFH visits Green Acres for a second...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-sT5vHnYNE

Or Lyle Langley....