Posts by Zarno

BOFH: The devil's in the contract details

Re: Feels like oracle

Oracle does seem to have the crystal balls to do things like that.

They always know when you've downloaded Virtualbox or Java, after all...

Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with metre-long tool left inside engine

Re: "as it would pass through the rotating blades during flight"

Photo shows something that's not twisty enough to be a duck.

Oh Paris, where for art thy icon?

HPE goes Cray for Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs, crams 224 into a single cabinet

I am reminded of the anecdotal "spray painting" incident, where a painter set his pot of ceiling paint on a handy busbar trio and it went poof.

We had the big long 480V plug-in style busses along the rafters at one site I worked at, you would slide back an access cover and stab on a breaker-box that would finger-connect to the 4 bars.

Lately with the cost of copper I've seen plants are going to 11kv/13.2kv/13.8kv to a distribution transformer in each zone.

Somehow the math works out that it's cheaper, likely because they can use smaller/cheaper aluminum feeders to the xformers.

Back of the napkin says ~1300A at 230V, or ~625A at 480V for the rack.

That's a lot of power draw.

Icon because the contractors are going to need a few pints after pulling cables thicker than a mans forearm to power that beast.

Microsoft tries out wooden bit barns to cut construction emissions

Re: Net zero

Juno, I think that's a pretty funny one.

After we fix that, how about we also accidentally break something important?

My usual response if it's a late-in-week question: "Let me check back with home base to see if that is within the scope of this visit, and if it would need any PO changes."

You can never be too sure what the people higher up above you and your customer contact have talked about or agreed to after the fact.

Still annoying when the "One more small issue..." turns into an extra week, but at least they pay for it.

Kyndryl follows in IBM's footsteps with rolling layoffs likely affecting thousands

Re: Question

"ALERT! ALERT! THIS HAS NOT BEEN A DRILL!"

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

I have a rubber chicken for that.

I also have it on high authority that a pink squeaky pig is required to make things work at at least one major company.

BOFH: AI consultant rapidly transitioned to new role as automotive surface consultant

Re: ... almost there....

Sound advice for not doing the taters on the bottom!

The way I remember it, the usual non-novelty usage is grafting eggplants or peppers onto tomato root stock, because tomatoes have the hardier root system.

Re: ... almost there....

Did you know, you can graft tomato tops to potato roots? And even add in hot peppers, or eggplants...

I haven't done it myself, but it's on my bucket list to try it out.

Nature, it's a heck of a spud!

Did you hear the one about the help desk chap who abused privileges to prank his mate?

Invasion of The Fluffle

This is why I always bring up https://www.dotbun.com instead, when I see an unlocked workstation.

Always more fun, and gets the point across that an unlocked workstation will be invaded by The Fluffle.

Icon because every bunny knows they're innocent...

Crack coder wasn't allowed to meet clients due to his other talent: Blisteringly inappropriate insults

Re: Not rude, but bizarre

"init"

Careful, you'll risk coming down with a case of systemd if you say that out loud!

Icon because daemons like evil jokes too.

Lebanon now hit with deadly walkie-talkie blasts as Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war

Re: Yet another reason

On the note of mysterious toothache, it can sometimes be sinus pressure on the roots of the molars.

Went to a suitable(1) decongestant and the "Oh goodness why do I feel like I have the start of a cavity!" feeling went away.

Icon because my dentist found that one with an x-ray, and, well, yeah.

1:Good old fashioned pseudoephedrine, even if I felt like I had to sign my life away to buy it.

The phenylephrine decongestant never did work for me, and people thought I was full of it when I informed them years ago that it was bubkis snake oil.

Last laugh was mine when it was found to be just that...

Re: Yet another reason

There's an old joke about the bog roll and the toothbrush having a chat, comparing how bad their jobs are.

Muppet broke the datacenter every day, in its own weighty way

Re: Boldly going where no portly tech has gone before

Beware of the Leopard!

Yee be on thin ice, just wait till them gingers snap!

Boeing to launch quantum comms satellite testbed in 2026

And it will somehow go BOING!

And it will all, somehow, no we totally tested everything, the delays were inevitable, we need more money, it's just a minor thruster issue, go BOING!

Microsoft security tools questioned for treating employees as threats

Re: Limited scope...

And "Forgetting to return the compostable communal bamboo spoon to the canteen within the allotted time limit."

BOFH: The true gravity of the Boss and the 3-coffee problem

To quote Blue Man Group "That is when it becomes interactive" (quote may be mangled, show was LOUD!)

Yes, I am being intolerably smug – because I ignored you and saved the project

When I was a cable monkey doing CCTV/Door/Network runs, I used to use masking tape, a sharpie, and cellphone photos.

Saved a lot of time and heartache.

Icon because I was usually able to scoot to the pub after the cleaning crew was done and first (third?) shift was just getting the sheeting lines and VEMAG ballers up.

Customer bricked a phone – and threatened to brick techie's face with it

'cracked and crumbled..." But of course, since all the rebar fell out of his spine.

Google to kill off URL shortener once and for all

Re: Good riddance

I have memories of shortening services that did advertising redirects back around the mid to late 2k's.

One of them was a bee themed one? You got sent to an advert landing page, then clicked "continue on".

I also have a very small tingle of it paying a portion of profits to the people who created the links, based on click-through/impressions.

Very weird idea back then, still odd now.

Call, text logs for 110M AT&T customers stolen from compromised cloud storage

Re: Get ready for the SOP

13. We regret to inform you that we have to raise rates, this has nothing to do with the prior event.

Cancer patient forced to make terrible decision after Qilin attack on London hospitals

There is a special place in the underworld...

There is a special place in the underworld for vile scum.

These entities deserve the place that's even more below that.

Messing with critical medical infrastructure is abhorent.

I feel the icon would be too lenient a punishment, but it's a start.

Japan's space agency helps to target advertising with satellite photos of crops

Re: "Which, of course, assumes anything can improve cabbage."

"Mind you, I can remember the days when the cooking of cabbage in Britain was timed by calendar."

The trick is a small amount of white vinegar in the water when doing a par-boil. Helps out immensely.

Pretty much required for Gołąbki, along with shaving down the thicker stem part of the leaf with a paring knife. The cut off bits are then fried off as a chef's snack...

Decomposed glowing cabbage on the other hand, see the icon...

"Which, of course, assumes anything can improve cabbage."

I say, I rather love cabbage.

Dice up an onion fine, sweat off in some bacon fat in a cast iron pan, add sliced cabbage, cook till tender, and toss in an entire kielbasa sometime along the way at that magic time that it's hard to explain to people.

Another favorite is cabbage alfredo.

That one needs a par-boil in water after slicing, then you bake with jarred alfredo sauce and sliced kielbasa at gas mark 4/350F till it comes out al dente.

Then, of course, there are the sweet cabbage and the sauerkraut pierogi.

And coleslaw.

Now I'm hungry.

Icon because of course a pint goes good with cabbage!

FDA gives Neuralink 'a second shot' at human brain chip

I am reminded of a short story.

There is a short story, God is an Iron by Spider Robinson, Omni 8 May 1979 , that is tangentially topical about brain stimulation and rewards.

An excerpt: The plug was snapped into a jack surgically implanted in her skull, and from the jack tiny wires snaked their way through the wet jelly to the hypothalamus, to the specific place in the medial forebrain bundle where the major pleasure center of her brain was located

A bit of warning, it gets more than a little deep in some very very dark corners of things, has a fair bit of "sticks with you" that you won't forget soon, and a serving of graphic mental imagery sprinkled.

Icon because it's really a "can't un-read".

Oracle CEO says more tech can help offset tech's worst effects

Re: Shades of the late Mandy Rice-Davies

It's an honest mistake, you need a license to check.

Tesla devotee tests Cybertruck safety with his own finger – and fails

Re: "The frunk is powered and shouldn't be closed manually"

They likely used a worm gear someplace in the actuator, and manually collapsing it will shear teeth.

Or, they used a leadscrew pitch that would allow someone to shear teeth.

Or, they forgot the flyback protection diodes to clamp the voltage generated by the linear actuator being driven backwards.

I can see a few things they could have overlooked/"just dealt with" to get it out the door.

Nothing absolves them from the whole "increase torque request till it shuts" methodology, that's just really bad design.

You break it, you ... run away and hope somebody else fixes it

Re: config files spread around /etc

Nowadays, grouped by subsystemd....

Serial extortionist of medical facilities pleads guilty to cybercrime charges

There's a joke about the touch and finger commands someplace, but I can't find Paris to tell it.

Should also force him to sit next to a chain printer churning out all the form letters being sent to his victims, till his fillings rattle out.

Toyota, Samsung accelerate toward better EV batteries

Have they optimized the sample containers yet?

Have they optimized the sample containers yet?

The press-release ones for the electrolyte had a very distinct shape...

Icon because, well...

Husqvarna ports Doom to a robot lawnmower – not, thankfully, its chainsaws

Re: I'm a Stihl bloke

Makita happens to have a coffee machine, the DCM501Z.

James Hoffmann did a video on it, titled "The Makita Coffee Machine: A Bizarre Battery-Powered Brewer"

If I remember right the takeaway was it worked, and it worked in places you would never think to brew coffee before, or such places where Elven Safety didn't allow fire or extension whips.

Be warned, there is a chance you go down a rabbit hole watching all the rest of his stuff.

Rice isn't nice for drying your iPhone, according to Apple

Re: Moral dilemma

Ask them how their cat or dog is doing.

Biggest Linux kernel release ever welcomes bcachefs file system, jettisons Itanium

I can see a whey for that to be the case.

Curd be wrong though.

Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

"... lost profits!"

Fixed it to normal Boeing java master language norms for ya.

Mine is the one with an increasingly large list of "Do I dare book this?" notices in the pocket.

Systemd 255 is here with improved UKI support

Re: Mixed feelings.

So, you're telling me, I'll soon have to crash my computer to use an image editor?

Nope.

Drat, I only have 192 gig in that server. Time to upgrade.

Re: Mixed feelings.

That would be an insult to the image, my good internet denizen!

Although I could see the ability to load custom images, splash animations, and the like being shoehorned in at some point.

Icon because, well, that's what I'd set mine to...

Mixed feelings.

At least let me customize the shade easily if it becomes "A Thing" to use the color #007FFF ?

Mine is the one with a swatch pack in the pocket, fancying #120A8F or #FF6700....

Bank's datacenter died after travelling back in time to 1970

Re: Yearly tasks....

"Oh, that thing? We stuffed it in a bag with some towels till it stopped making noise."

or "Oh, we replaced it with a nicer wall clock that didn't need batteries so often."

I could list way too many theoretical situations...

BOFH: Groundbreaking discovery or patently obvious trolling?

Re: The New and Improved "Bovine Adjustment Implement"

10 feet of 4" pipe, u-bend, 2" sprinkler valve, 10 feet of 2" schedule 80 electrical conduit sleved on the inside with 1.5" SDR 21 irrigation line.

Golfball relocation device that will surprise and terrify.

Standard warning that DWV or foam core 4" is not desigbed to be used for pressure applications, and solid core is not designed to be used for air applications due to shrapnel vs split on overpressure.

Tool bag lost in space now tracked by garbage watchers

I found one of those screwdrivers in a cupboard in my new house actually...

Icon because I think the aliens are just messing with our inventories as they play SimLife...

One door opens, another one closes, and this one kills a mainframe

Re: Tech support call

I remember at least a few of the older ones had actual liquid drain channels built in, to divert spills to "safer" locations.

They don't make them that robust anymore.

Icon because they may have been bomb proof.

Why can't datacenter operators stop thinking about atomic power?

How long before they start selling VR pods that harvest your body heat to offset the energy costs of running the AI servers? Asking for a guy named Neo...

Sure, give the new kid and his MCSE power over the AS/400. What could possibly go wrong?

Re: Umm. Mainframe?

My vacation soaked brain read that as "gerbils", and it still made me laugh up a storm.

Why these cloud-connected 3D printers started making junk all by themselves

Ooooh, that's a nasty little one!

I like it!

The small print was noticed. :)

I was meerkat-ly postulating and making musings on what it would later expand to, once one was to have paid for the full document to be printed and couriered in by trained pigeon.

Your SlowBreadmaker will feed you your whole life

I assume life being defined as however long till it decides to introduce one of the more interesting ingredients.

Naturally, it would allow you to obtain your unique daily antidote by watching 20 hours of advertisements, paying for another BreadCartridge, or both, depending on your subscription tier.

Contacting the company by the form found in the bottom of the locked filing cabinet in the disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.” will summon a free antidote in 4 to 7 business years.

No, they got the old one that looks like a clown nose on a bit of string.

Mine's the one with a rubber chicken on the shoulder and a daisy in the pocket.