Posts by Chloe Cresswell

Support tech caught by 'Technician Aura': the bug that only hides when you're watching

Re: "Technician Aura" takes many forms

I had a friend who worked on a machine with multiple cards.

To test one, you'd pull the card, put an extender card in place, so the card under test was outside the chassis so you could get to it for testing/diagnostics.

Worked fine till one time he met a fault card that turned out to have timing issues.

Didn't work properly in the machine at random.

Add the extender card, and it worked perfectly under test.

The extra traces of the extender "fixed" the timing issues, making it a bugger to work out the actual fault!

Anyone with a GSM based phone and being near anything with amp in it probably remembers the "duh duh duuuuh" type sounds the amp would pick up on it's input from the GSM phone going from "cell standby" to "making connection for call" before it rang.

Ah, the practical version of the old compuserve NT forum statement: Never trust benchmark you didn't rig yourself.

:)

Windows Update is a torture chamber for seldom-used PCs

new machines

The worse thing I find for updates on a new machine it letting it do it.

It will download update, reboot, download updates, reboot.. and eventually find there's a new version of windows 11.

As we're always using pro or higher and can jump parts of the setup annoyance, I've taken to getting it to the desktop asap, then pulling the update assistant (which then needs the windows 11 compatibility checker to check the machine running windows 11 can run windows 11, another MS classic there!) and jumping it to the current release before letting updates run.

It's a pain in the bum that MS is trying to make harder to do.

BOFH: Are you ready to raise our expense account limits now?

Re: B&Q sell those

It's by Crapola Inc.

$£19.99 + tax.

Re: B&Q sell those

Wrong franchise...

HOWDY DOODLY DOO! I'm Talkie, Talkie toaster. Your chirpy breakfast companion!

Talkie's the name, toasting, the game! Anyone want any toast?

Re: B&Q sell those

Shut your grill *thump*

Re: B&Q sell those

Perfect for dealing with the toaster.

Microsoft locks out VeraCrypt and WireGuard devs, blames verification process

Re: I vote Incompetence

I do believe the MS drone.. That they put it on a blog and that was the only form of contact regarding this.

Sticky-note security turned gym into hall of '80s horrors

Re: Manual

Share and enjoy!

Cloudflare, GoDaddy team up to curb AI bot brigades

I've always been able to read elreg in seamonkey

But I can't login at the moment as it gives me a cloudflare "verifying you are not a bot" loop.

You also have to verify if your browser isn't "common".

Cloudflare has said rarer browsers/agent IDs is a sign of a bot.

So waterfox works here but seamonkey gets flagged on every site that uses cloudflare, and their system just loops endlessly and never allows you to verify.

The developer who came in from the cold and melted a mainframe

Friend of mine, a US coder, once remarked it to me as "America. Where we want to wear sweaters in summer and tshirts in winter"

Lloyds app glitch turned transactions into shared experience for 447k users

Strange interactions

For once the inability for me to use Lloyds banking app was a plus?

Who'd have thought it...

Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin applies to launch 51,000 datacenter satellites

Re: Cooling?

"But the chips themselves work slower and less efficiently at higher temperatures. Just because they can survive protracted temperatures which would be lethal to humans doesn't make that a good use of launch-to-orbit resources."

60C is pretty lethal to humans, so I guess you make sure nothing you use lets it's chips get that hot then?

Re: Cooling?

Skylab, like the ISS, has (well, had) to have a heat radiating system to maintain a human comfort level temp.

Computers can run hotter and the heat radiating system can therefore be hotter and work better.

Scott Manley's video went into it.

Even in Skylab's day, it could have dumped more heat if it wasn't for those pesky humans!

Not saying it's a pipedream or not, just that it's complicated.

And I'm not a spacecraft designer!

Re: Cooling?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQYU3m1e80 for those who want it

("It will be taking that in from the solar panels, and converting it into heat... and cat memes" great line :)

Microsoft startup credits are the gift that keeps on billing unsuspecting users

MS communications

"We listen closely to customer feedback" - and file it all in the deleted items....

Blustering Blackbeard's PC was all at sea, sysadmin got him shipshape in seconds

Had a client with a machine with out network access.

Refused to do what I asked, and I was heading south to a consultant doctor's appointment in London (this was in Lincolnshire).

Ended up swinging past the site, walking in, pushing the network cable back in, walking out, back in the car, heading to south to catch my train.

The next week I replaced the cable, due to the broken latch on the connector.

Call out fee for pushing a cable in and walking away.

Dell laptops and slipcase style cases was one of my client's loves.

Pulling the laptop out of the tight case moved the switch every time of course.

White House activates Yu-Gi-Oh's trap card by using anime clip for war comms

I read it as Staler and Waldorf.

Retro tech fan views LaserDisc movie data with a budget microscope

Re: Chips are cool, too

Shelby does get that energetic when he finds stuff on his live twitch streams.

That part of the youtube video is from the live stream.

They made a TV programme on it, where kids had to work out things using the domesday system as their reference.

The only part I remember is them looking around a north sea oil rig on it.

Hah, Checked Shelby's video on the domesday duplicator, where he showed the discs. And sure enough, on the centre label is a clear "RLV" logo/note.

Shelby (techtangents) has some recordable laserdiscs.

They were used (in his examples) for the video in a motion simulator ride.

From the different types you listed, I think his are RLV.

And IIRC he said the drive to write them at the time was like, $50,000.

Re: laserdiscs

Shelby (TechTangents) actually has some recordable laserdiscs.

They were used for limited use things, like those motion simulator rides in the days of LaserDisc.

Issue was the cost of the equipment to record it. I think Shelby said it was like, $50,000 for the drive alone!

Re: Obviously magnetic media is a different ballgame.

Panasonic PD did it too. Read with laser, write by heating with laser, set magnetic flux with a 2nd magnetic head.

Re: Disc

Yeap, CED the needle is just a guide for the heat, unlike a record, where the needle is the reading head.

I get to cheat with the video, in some shots you'll see Shelby's chat overlay to the left side. And sometimes you'll see my messages in there ;)

Disc

Although Shelby got images from both a LaserDisc and a CED, the credits from True Grit are from the CED, not the laserdisc.

The laserdisc credits are from "The mind's eye" ;)

True Grit was found as a bare disk inside his player, and as it wasn't able to be removed normally as the caddy and tray were missing, Shelby was happy to look at that disc under the microscope as the damage to it means it will never be put into a player again.

Users fume at Outlook.com email 'carnage'

Re: Payslips

"would put you in hot water with local privacy laws" Really?

Because it's fully compliment with the provisions of both GDPR and DPA (2018)

"Sending a pay slip in a plain text" You're the one assuming plain text.

Please inform the class what part of "Attached is your payslip in an Adobe PDF document, You will need a copy of Acrobat or Acrobat Reader to open is" is in such a violation of the law that it needs to be called out?

That is the plain text you are so upset about.

The PDF itself is password protected.

Stop projecting how badly _you_ would do this onto other people.

Re: Payslips

Also, it's a recruitment company.

They have 12 members of staff, and over 1000 people signed up to them looking for work.

Factory comes to them and wants 4 staff for 4 weeks, and the client is meant to provide them an email account to send their payslip to?

This week they will send 395 payslips for those staff.

This is a recruitment firm. You think we set every single person they find a job for on a site a company email account with the client's company?

If someone comes to them for a cleaner's job in a factory for 4 weeks, you expect them to have a recuritment company's email account, or the factory's email account?

Or maybe, you know, the client sends the payslip to the _person_

On Wednesday they will send 395 emails for payslips.

They have 12 permanent staff members.

You think we should provide email to those 395 people? Setup their devices to access the client's email server?

Plus we'd have to lock down every account to prevent it being used to send email, after all, they'd all be sending from the company's mailserver, with a company email address, how more ligitimate looking can you get?

Every few months a client of mine (a recruitment company) has their emails rejected like this for their payslips.

One response from was really helpful: the emails which are individually generated and sent need an unsubscribe option for the mailing list.

That's right, we need to fake an unsubscribe option for the mailing list they aren't on, to improve our reputation.

Burger King turns to AI to flame broil employees who aren't friendly enough

Re: Now I can't even buy it.

I can't use a cash machine, it doesn't matter now little they charge, they can't take signatures.

The banking hubs tell me "Cash? You need to use a cash machine. Oh? you can't? Go to the branch"

To get cash I need to:

Between the hours of 1000 and 1400 on a weekday: Drive 36 miles, including a trip across a toll bridge, park, go to the branch, get cash, drive home.

In my time/lost income, milage, 2x tolls, parking, it costs me £180. Plus what ever I'm taking out.

"I mainly use cash & it's no real hassle getting hold of it via ATMs"

I'm glad it's no hassle for you to get hold of cash via ATMs, BUT I CAN'T USE CASH MACHINES, THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT.

"I have no issue with stairs, I don't get why people in wheelchairs have to have ramps"

Re: Now I can't even buy it.

> Have you a banking hub in a nearby town? - they are useful for stuff like that.

Banking hub: yes. Can do anything except cash, for that, they tell me to go to a branch.

> Do you not also have a PIN for chip and sign card?

Do you know what you call a chip and sign card with a PIN? A chip and PIN Card.

The entire point of Chip and Sign is for people, like me, who can't remember PINs

> We care for a disabled relative (who has chip & sign card - but her card also supports a pin number) - I know it works in *some* UK ATMs as I have done the button punching (including PIN) at an ATM while she sits in her wheelchair beside me.

If you add a PIN to a chip and sign card, when you put in into a PDQ it will match on PIN verification, and not move to Sign verification, rendering the card useless to me.

The way the authentication is determined is there is a list of authentication types on both the card and the PDQ.

The first they match on is the verification the PDQ will use.

The order is:

Online PIN

Offline PIN

Online Signature

Offline Signature

No verification

The best my bank can offer is a cash card. Which I would have to write the PIN down for.

But it doesn't matter, as that card only works in the bank's machines, and the nearest machine is a 36 mile drive, across a toll bridge.

Re: Now I can't even buy it.

Where am I getting this cash from? Only places around me to get cash are: cash machines.

Cash machines can't use chip and sign cards.

Or do you assume I have an infinite supply of cash hidden under my bed or something?

Re: Now I can't even buy it.

2 issues: means going somewhere and buying something I don't really want.

2nd issue: Very few of them left.

Asda dropped cash back last year.

Tescos only do it at the customer service desk, you have to buy something there, not the main tills, and only at the larger stores, the locals/etc just tell you they have a cash machine outside.

Re: Hi There!!!

It doesn't resemble meat.

"The words 'Share and Enjoy' were displayed in illuminated letters three miles high near the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Division until their weight caused them to collapse through the underground offices of many young complaints executives. The upper half of the sign that now protrudes translates in the local tongue as 'Go stick your head in a pig,' and is lit up only for special celebrations. "

Re: Now I can't even buy it.

To get cash means doing a 36 mile drive in working hours across a toll bridge to the nearest branch of my bank.

I worked out it costs me £180 to get £40 out.

Chip and Sign was introduced with Chip and PIN in the EMV spec for debit and credit cards.

So weirdly, no.

When I typed "Chip and sign" I did not mean "Chip and PIN", I meant "Chip and Sign".

Re: Hi There!!!

Go stick your head in a pig?

"on all 3 occasions I ordered something they weren't serving at that time"

I used to like BK's stuff.

Now I can't even buy it.

(seriously, the kiosks reject my cards as they can't handle chip and sign, and tell me to go to the counter. The counter has no PDQ, so can't take cards...)

Engineer held hostage by client who asked for the wrong fix

Re: idiots

But did you try to get the capacitor replaced under warranty after you smoked it?

If you went "my fault, arse, need a replacement part" you're not an idiot *nods*

If you say "it's the fault of the supplier, they owe me a new capacitor to replace the one I blew up", then yes, you'd be an idiot ;)

If you are an IT tech for a company, and don't know you need to power off the machine before installing expansion cards, I would still maintain you are an idiot.

If you then hook in a device using a cable that doesn't meet the spec, then I'd still say you're an idiot.

Did some work for APC (now part of FedEX UK).

Network wasn't working right.

Machine had been supplied with 10/100 10baseT networking.

Found fault PC with a 10baseT/2 PCI card installed, and a 20 cm cable looping it into the network (50cm is the minimum distance)

Examined the machine, the PCI card had been installed while the machine was running.

I got banned from the site as I told my boss not to honour the warranty as the machine was damaged by the client's IT staff being an idiot.

BOFH: Nobody would be stupid enough to go live with the mirror system, surely

A transfer of potential energy building at 9.8ms/2 into kinetic energy?

IBM stock dives after Anthropic points out AI can rewrite COBOL fast

IBM said this years ago?

So an "AI" company is repeating something another source already said?

How apt.

HMRC spares 661 from Making Tax Digital as rollout nears

Re: Naming of people.

That would still make us customers. We're not.

Naming of people.

"Thousands more customers are signing up every day and we urge customers to check out our guidance on GOV.UK to find out what they need to do."

We're not customers. We don't have a choice. We're users, people, companies, taxpayers, but we're not fucking _customers_

MoD ticks shopping list as PM considers weapons budget boost

Beep...

"The system detects acoustic pressure waves from gunfire, mortars and explosions, allowing troops to pinpoint their resource"

First thought in my head: "Micro changes in air density, my ass."