Posts by Zarno

Apartment living to get worse in 5 years as 6 GHz Wi-Fi nears ‘exhaustion’

Re: Run wires

Yep, hence the "doesn't play well with", which I guess I should have worded as "is completely incompatible with".

Re: Run wires

Quabbin Wire makes DataMax Mini 6, which is under 5mm diameter.

Can handle PoE, and is pretty good stuff.

Designed for datacenter trunking/patching in racks, but can be used for backhaul.

The thing I dislike is the end connectors are difficult to find, and it doesn't play well with punch-blocks.

Linky to their spec sheet

_{No affiliation directly, they just happen to be known in my industry.}

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

Re: Sheer genius!!

On the subject of microwaves in the office...

Many moons ago (ok, ok, about 111 moons ago. Ish...), at a firm that's better unnamed, there was a wall of microwaves in the break room/cantina bullpen.

I can't remember the brand, but I know for a fact that opening the door the moment the timer ticked over to zero and the beeper started to bleat would brick them.

Just one long, sad, ceaseless tone denoting that it's dead, persisting through a power cycle.

There was also another microwave where we swear someone nuked a plumped up used nappie, the stench was as strong as bear attractant, and never went away fully.

Google begs owners of crippled Chromecasts not to hit factory reset

Re: Don't do themselves any favours

...or a failed CAPCHA over bicycles...

Oh, I see you too have dealt with the ones where it says "Select all bicycles", then shows one bicycle, with the rest being mopeds/sport bikes/choppers, and gets snippy when you try to tell it there aren't any more...

Fresh Wine-flavored version of Mono released

Re: This is another WTF happened story ?

Easy, all the people at Microsoft didn't get jobs at NASA.

The system is working as Designed SEGFAULT ERROR (Something has broken, please contact yyyyour adminninnnnnnistraaattor!!21wonton soup for two!

(Icon because obvs a joke...)

Altnets told to stop digging and start stuffing fiber through abandoned pipes

So what happens when they put a fibre run through a gate valve, and roadworks shuts the valve while turning off others?

Because you know that will happen.

Or "That water main has been disconnected for years, water authority confirms, no problem if we cut it out."

Interactive plumbing is best left to the Blue Man Group imho.

FDA clears Google watch feature to call 911 if you flatline

Oh bother.

Oh bother.

I hope it's not going to do the literal rollercoaster thing that the Apple Watch did, where it called EMS to report a crash when people rode a coaster.

If it means I need to dis-arm (Hah, pun!) my watch before I hop in the shower, then it could be very interesting indeed...

All joking aside, if rolled out properly, this could be a good thing for elderly or those with a heart condition, as a tertiary layer of check.

I was told to make backups, not test them. Why does that make you look so worried?

Re: Here are the copies

I remember a tool on Linux that would tell most ATA optical drives to limit their speed. I used it at one point to avoid vibration and subsequent bad data reads when a disc was off-kilter.

On a quick search, it was "eject -x N /dev/cdrom" where N is the "x number" that you want to limit to.

Re: The only verified backup is one that you have restored from

I really need to put "Automatic backup SSD gaffered to the rafters of shed." on my todo list.

Thanks for the idea!

Copilot+ PCs? Customers just aren't buying it – yet

My only use-case for "AI" is having it barf up hundreds/thousands of words of slightly-better-than-Markov-chain hacker bunny stories for amusement at weird hours of the night.

And the occasional laugh when Dalle makes a frumpy rabbit doing something silly, or makes a goat with three heads when you request Cerberus Simulator.

It's also great at making fake executive orders declaring strawberries and alfalfa the national fruit and candy flavorings.

All of it gets blown out of the water by a real creative person though, and for that there's merch I happily purchase to show support.

US watchdog sticks probe into 2.6M Teslas over so-called Smart Summon crash reports

Re: It is an ASS...

Models C, 0, and K are no doubt currently in rigorous testing...

Microsoft coughs up yet more Windows 11 24H2 headaches

Re: Avoid 24H2 for now

Ah, yes, "Pigeon stood on keyboard, moggie followed pigeon. Cleanup in shoe closet, STAT!"

systemd begrudgingly drops a safety net while a challenger appears, GNU Shepherd 1.0

Re: "There is an effort to do that total rewrite"

I guess someone let him get too close to the Windows 11 team, given how that UI changed...

Google Timeline location purge causes collateral damage

Re: Used for business millage

I've been using a service called TripLog (Intended for fleets I think, but it's cheap enough for a single user), and while it's not "always there in the background" it does well.

The annoying thing is if I forget to "start" the trip manually in a rental car, then it doesn't log the route or mileage.

For personal cars it checks for a bluetooth connection to the radio/head unit, and starts/stops trips based on that connection and a speed threshold.

There's also a cheap BLE beacon dongle that you can use to auto-start a trip, which works OK, when I remember to plug it into the rental car...

I primarily used it to keep track of my fuel expenses, and mpg, but when Timeline got axed I fell more into using the mileage portion.

It's been pretty accurate vs the car odometer, well within a mile or two on a 1200+ mile trip.

No affiliation, just a happy customer for (checks account registration) Wow, it's been a decade...

Microsoft hijacks keyboard shortcut to bring Copilot to your attention

Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

We at least have official sanction from Rockwell to run their stuff in a sandboxed "unsupported by minisquishy" Windows 10 VM, after Windows 11 summarily barfed memory management bits and broke Studio 5000...

Might actually be able to get away with a dual-boot-and-VM situation that way.

No, I can't help – you called the wrong helpdesk, in the wrong place, for the wrong platform

Re: Me Too!

My big question: Was she able to attend the next D&D session, where someone else invariably had a schedule issue?

Mine's the one with a few character sheets in the pocket.

"The code is in the bottom of a filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard'. No, I do not know where the key to the cabinet is."

Re: The other side....

my habit of having one coolant spray hose aimed at the door

Cheeky. I like it.

In an even more prior job, I was opening the door to a horizontal machining cell to do some inspection/maintenance task, and unbeknownst to me the operators had bypassed the door switch.

Got a face-full of soluble oil coolant when the timed washdown started up, since the controller did not sense that the door was open.

Safety glasses saved me from getting it in the eyeballs, but the taste lingered on the flavor saver the rest of the day. Had to change shirt as well.

Those were Hyundai-Kia and Mori-Seiki systems, doing some very interesting machining on things I still can't talk much about.

Re: Warren's big mistake

If it was a secondary line I'd have considered that, but I'm not changing a number I've had for decades because someone gave it out.

The difficulty of contacting literally hundreds of people/places/institutions and updating it on about as many official forms/documents/accounts outweighs the annoyance of the occasional call from a prior place that I don't answer anyways.

GDPR wasn't a thing when this happened, but I did kindly state that I would selectively no-answer forward all calls from the people who were given my number to certain other numbers (theirs) if mine kept being given out. That seemed to do the trick.

Re: Warren's big mistake

At a previous job, when I applied, I gave my personal number on HR paperwork at the application process (not having a work line at that moment).

Coworkers/etc got the number of the company supplied mobe.

HR then gave out my personal number to anyone who asked for it.

"We couldn't reach him on his vacation, do you have another number for him?"

I don't work there anymore thankfully.

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....