Posts by SomeoneInDelaware

Disk drive fired 'Frisbees of death' across data centre after storage admin crossed his wires

Itel disk drives

We had plug-compatible (mostly) 3330 disk drives (100 MB each) on our IBM mainframes. They were the top-loading washing machine format. Our Itel AS/5 (370/158) really swapped a lot due to our cheap manager not buying enough real memory and the swap disk used to vibrate so much that it would walk across the floor occasionally and the CUDI (control-unit device interface) cable would occasionally unplug itself.

Every Saturday I would come in and reseat the cables to reduce the probability of it happening during prime time.

Ah, they joys of working on real hardware!

Burroughs tape drive

I was cleaning tape heads one day when one of the tape drives went into fast rewind, the door came down and the latch released the tape reel. Anyone want to rewind 2400 feet of mag tape onto a reel?

No, me either.... :-)

IBM asks remaining staff to take career advice from HR-bot

Next Version

The next version will be named Catbert.

Salesforce sacks two top security engineers for their DEF CON talk

Re: we all backup our code and take it from job to job

Never did it -- I didn't want to go to Leavenworth!

Linus Torvalds pens vintage 'f*cking' rant at kernel dev's 'utter BS'

One of these days, the man is going to stroke out.

Indian Business Machines? One-third of Big Blue staff based there and Bangladesh

Long ago I discovered that IBM = Immense Bowel Movement. Or Immense Borg Machine, It takes thousands of them to make one decent IT professional.

We used to have what seemed like 50-100 "specialists" on a phone call whenever we had a problem.

No longer. Adios.

Routine jobs vanishing and it's all technology's fault? Hold it there, sport

Re: Production economy, no consumers

Until it gets hit by lightning. Or a defective update! Then it's "ooops, who can go out and fix it".

I've worked in the utility industry for going on 40 years (started as a System/370 systems programmer) and heard this story before.

Busted Oracle finance cloud leaves Rutgers Uni unable to foot bills

Look out

Maybe it's time for Rutgers to contract the issue to Tony Soprano for correction. Make Larry Ellison an offer he can't refuse.

(For the Brits out there -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos)

Ruh-roh! Rick Ruhl rolled out of Ham Radio Deluxe in software kill-switch aftermath

Low blood sugar

Before you shake your head over the low blood sugar "excuse", I have seen some folks with very low blood sugar during my ambulance days. Nearly got into a fist fight with the guy over trying to get him to sip some orange juice -- he thought his wife had poisoned it.

If that was his issue, I wish him good luck getting it under control. One of my co-workers died at home over a weekend from it.

Flight simulator sets fire to airport

Call out

-- the simulated fire truck to put the fire out.

(And yes, they have similar simulators for fire departments -- much more tree-hugging friendly than dumping 400 gallons of AFFF concentrate on the fire.)

Of course, if it is your server room that is on fire, it could get a little tricky.

Virgin America mid-flight panic after moron sets phone Wi-Fi hotspot to 'Samsung Galaxy Note 7'

Re: I say let him walk home NOW

Or just leave him/her in North Dakota. That's almost as bad as a D.B. Cooper!

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

VPs

I once had a VP of IT here who received one of our company's first color graphics terminals on the IBM mainframe. He had his boss in his office and was going to demonstrate his new toy for him.

But the screen was blank. So, of course, he called me directly (I was supervisor of network ops in those days). I walked into his office, said hello to them both, then reached over and turned on the power switch.

Executed a smart about face and left the office.

The Sr VP saw me in the elevator and asked me how I kept a straight face earlier. My reply -- never bite the hand that feeds you. :-)

US Director of National Intelligence legs it

Re: Oblig Goon Show Quote

"That's the guy who invented the toilet."

And then directed the toilet. And we all know what winds up there.

Microsoft ❤️ Linux? Microsoft ❤️ running its Windows' SQL Server software on Linux

Therapy?

Windows growing inside of Linux --

Which will it be, surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy?

Hewlett Packard Enterprise to outsource global IT team to CSC borg

Kiss HPE goodbye

From my own observations locally, outsourcing your internal IT to CSC is the beginning of the end for corporations.

Dupont is a good example. It is really sad to see the #1 chemical company in world commit suicide. But it is happening, piece by piece.

GM is another example.

I just can't imagine how HPE can remain a credible IT vendor if they can't run their own IT shop.

Post-outage King's College London orders staff to never make their own backups

Re: Re:And they TEST the ****ing backups.

"Backups never fail"

Horse hockey! For about 15 years of my working life, I had staff who's sole function was monitoring the backups, correcting problems with the backups, and TESTING the recovery from backups.

Early in my career here, I witnessed the complete loss of our stockholder master files! The restores didn't work -- we had three of them on hand! We had to recreate them (keypunches in those days) from microfilm printouts.

Cue the tune, "nobody knows the trouble I've seen...". :-)

Red squirrels! Adorable, right? Wrong – they're riddled with leprosy

Squirrels in California

We all know that the predominant squirrel species in California is the two legged squirrel, Sciuridae Homoerectus.

Panicked WH Smith kills website to stop sales of how-to terrorism manuals

Won't do any good

Any decent chemistry major/mad bomber (I was both during my childhood) knows that you find all of the information you need in any decent university library.

When I was in middle school, I hopped on the bus and rode down to the state university's chemistry department library to search in Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry, It was huge, had to be 400-500 volumes on the shelves! A very helpful librarian taught me how to locate specific molecules in the indexes (it is all an online database now). Dad was a duPonter and helped me build a beautiful lab in the house -- even had a homemade fume hood. And the chemical supply store clerks in town knew me by name and would sell me things like nitriic and sulfuric acids, no problem.

The article was written in German, which wasn't a problem as I was well aware from my father that German was more or less a required skill for chemists.

I didn't do too badly. The neighborhood has fewer treestumps in the parks and I still have all of my fingers and toes.

McDonald's sues Italian city for $20m after being burger-blocked

The real reason

The under the table payments probably aren't happening, hence all the drama.

'F*cking crap' aside, Linus Torvalds says Linux 4.9 is coming along nicely

Re: Misrepresentation

"So how do you justify your headline?"

We made a f*cking mistake. So calm the f*ck down, all of you. :-)

No spin zone: Samsung recalls 3M EXPLODING washing machines

Is it true?

Is it true that they are designing a battery-operated washing machine? How many Li-ion batteries would it take?

Maybe the plan is to give them to North Korea to take out Fat Boy without developing their own nukes! :-)

Wikimedia chucks sueball at NSA and DOJ over mass surveillance

FBI

J Edgar Hoover must be really proud (in the afterworld) of how much we've progressed from his index files.

And for our next trick, says Google while literally wheeling out a humongous tablet ...

Ted Nelson's Xanadu, anyone?

Reminds me of Ted Nelson's book Computer Lib/Dream Machines, circa 1974.

My Nest smoke alarm was great … right up to the point it went nuts

Smart? Right....

1. Retrieve two-pound maul from toolbox.

2. Strike fire alarm until in unidentifiable pieces on the bench.

3. Go to Home Depot and buy a $15 smoke alarm.

Sleep well. And do try not to be fooled into buying something "Smart" in the future, dummy. Replace the batteries twice a year and you probably won't be awakened at night unless something bad happens.

I wonder how many of those Nest devices are sitting in landfills now?

Narcissist Heidi Powell wants her dot-com and she wants it now, now, NOW!

The judge is probably wishing he could dismiss the case with EXTREME prejudice.

Dell swings layoffs axe at 3,000 EMC people

BOHICA.

Customers should start to consider their SAN/NAS exit strategies, just in case.

Here's the relevant bits from VMworld, sliced and diced just for you

Bootnote

Ah, it brought back memories of my middle-school Latin teacher. I knew there was some reason my father made me take Latin.

Having offended everyone else in the world, Linus Torvalds calls own lawyers a 'nasty festering disease'

Linus just needs a little housebreaking. At gunpoint.

Or a little "wall-to-wall counseling".

Adblock Plus blocks Facebook's ad-blocker buster: It's a block party!

We're having a block party!

The developer died 14 years ago, here's a print out of his source code

Re: Huh?

I would must rather ride the Metroliner into Washington DC and use the subway than drive into DC and then try to find a parking spot! And the same into New York City (although I'm not too fond of their subways).

Gullible Essex Police are now using junk science lie detectors

What they need

is a palm-reader. Probably as accurate, and a lot quicker.

What's big, blue and red all over? IBM. Profit, z Systems down, cloud up

Remember when IBM make really good hardware, and has great service?

Debian founder Ian Murdock killed himself – SF medical examiner

Re: With friends like that ...

And then there are stupid drunks and dead drunks....

Having been a volunteer firefighter/EMT/Fire policeman for 25 years, I've see quite a few of all five types.

Megaupload overlord Kim Dotcom: The US has radicalised me!

Perhaps Kim dot what ever could flee to North Korea and join the other Kim.

Lovely thought.