Posts by A.P. Veening

Sysadmin summoned to explain italics – to a user with at least two degrees

Re: Fail to the Chief

I think you made another typo there. It can't have been "cum laude", must have been "cum fraude".

BOFH: Cross-department AI pitches are easier to swallow with a pint in hand

The USA has never been a civilised country, but I never knew how bad it really was until they stopped pretending.

User crippled a network while trying to learn Nmap

She said banks IT security is shit.

Depends on the bank. I used to work at a European subsidiary of a larger international bank and we had better security than international HQ.

Re: Destroying HDDs

A former colleague, who was also a military reserve sniper used them for target practice. After seeing the results, the auditors signed off on the method.

Security boss thought MFA would be too much security

Re: Ah the C-Suite

Presumably they all shared his password in order to do this.

More likely just (shared) access to his mailbox.

This is your BIOS speaking. Please fix me. Your PC is broken

Re: Lucky the text didn't default to Chinese

If you have to import CSV files into Excel, there is a trick to make it independent of the configuration of Windows/Excel on that machine. Just insert a line at the very top with five characters: sep=<separator character>. It made my work writing code to export to CSV files on other computers a lot easier as there were at least three different configuration settings in use.

While I am not a fan of Microsoft (or Excel), that is one thing I wish other CSV file importing programs would adopt.

Under-trained techie didn't claim overtime for mistakenly failing to phone it in

Re: A Demonstration Everyone who is going to plug anything into a LAN.

While he may not have been the originator, Scott Adams made it popular with his Dilbert comics.

Marketing demanded IT add website feature that was already working

Re: All too familiar

Because it pops up when looking for "man" (not sexist, both "management" and "manglement" start with those three characters).

Taiwan cops say student's radio kit brought bullet trains to a standstill

Re: Impressive radio kit....

That was already solved more than a century ago by using pre-signals, indicating what the next signal shows.

PowerPoint punishment sent users into an infinite loop after lunch

Re: Re "The law binds none of us unless it binds all of us"

That has a familiar ring about it........

One ring to rule them all and in darkness bind them?

To fix this Wi-Fi network, we'll need a crane

Mars is a harsh mistress... ;)

Reference to a revolutionary work by R.A.H?

Tech support chap's boss got him out of jail so he could finish a job

Re: Define work.

So congrats on the self-own, I guess?

I'd say "Congrats on demonstrating Muphry's Law".

Security contractor blew the whistle on support crew's viral indifference

Re: Lazy by design.

Management decided shortly after to forbid anyone from working before 09:00 and after 21:00, and with 11 hours minimum between 2 working slots.

That latter is completely superfluous as the period between 21:00 and 09:00 is 12 hours (except at the start of DST when it is 11 hours but which is on a non-working day anyway).

Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo

Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out

Triplicate? Quintuplate at the very least and by hand.

Sashiko: AI code review system for the Linux kernel spots bugs humans miss

Re: Not a Surprise

I can't tell you how much of my past 65 years have been spent gazing at code that quite clearly SHOULD do one thing, but in practice, does something else entirely.

I spend considerable time and effort on simplifying convoluted code so it is easier to understand. And the number of times I've found misplaced terminators to various conditions is probably comparable to how much time you've spent gazing at code.

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

Re: A switch...

but hadn't turned the socket on.

Nice way of telling you're in the UK without directly saying so.

Re: Toshiba?

Does networking on some machines still randomly die after patch Tuesday?

Not randomly and not some.

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

Re: Comparing fruits

where the parent is the person who controls the child's access to the internet as the bill payer, and presumably controls their access to the devices they're using to access the web too.

What bill? Internet at home is a fixed amount per month, shared among all devices at home. And the mobile phone of the child has Wi-Fi access at home to the internet.

Frankly, my control consists of a combination of nurture and "Please don't disappoint me". It seems to be working in both cases.

Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out

Re: Anyone worth their salt

As long as those firmware updates only go sideways, there is no real problem. The real problems start when those firmware updates go on a rollercoaster ride.

Re: Downvote - really?

The correct expression is state of the ark.

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

Re: give me some numbers?

Everybody knows the correct answer to that is 42.

Enforcing piracy policy earned helpdesk worker death threats

You would not believe how angry people can get over a thin bit of bread covered in cheese and tomato.

I can, especially when the discussion about toppings goes into pineapple territory.

Re: Americans

One was a cranky old geezer who never left his small ranch except to go to church. So no danger to anyone who wasn't trespassing and annoying his livestock (although he'd be much more likely to just set his dogs on them than reach for his old 12-gauge)..

That is one I would trust with a gun.

Re: Americans

The US has 11 times the population of Canada. There will be more nuts because there are more people.

So why does the USA have 1100 times the shootings of Canada?

Re: Americans

I have no problems with guns for hunting and protection from dangerous wildlife. But the USA isn't unique in that regard and the situation is even a bit more extreme in Canada but reports about gun violence in Canada are about as rare as hen's teeth while they are daily from the USA and often multiple per day, so I just don't buy it.

New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor

Re: Quite a rare sight

We recently had our lock screens changed to say "All your passwords must be strong".

But when I tried to change my password to 'Strong' it wouldn't let me!

That is because you capitalized it.

Stash or splash? Lawmakers ask NASA to find alternatives for International Space Station

Re: Low energy to high orbit?

use the solar panels as solar cells to boost

Pray tell how you plan to use electricity to boost. Solar panels/cells don't provide reaction mass and massless propulsion in vacuum isn't possible (with the exception of solar sails, which are impractical for the ISS).

Re: Cheaper source

One minor detail: delta V is only a change in velocity, it doesn't specify the timeframe/acceleration for that change. Using a force necessary for a 0.01 G acceleration is unlikely to make it fall apart and will take 1,200 to 1,400 seconds. Even at that slow acceleration and over that timeframe the atmospheric resistance drag is negligible. Besides that, long, slow accelerations are more efficient.

Re: everything eventually ends up in a landfill (or burns up in a de-orbit maneuver)

Not everything, there are several moonlanders on the moon, some marslanders on Mars, one or two probes on Venus and of course the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft.

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: BS

Interesting though.

For the right kind of mind, everything that goes "BOOM" is interesting.

And some things that don't go "BOOM" can also be very interesting with FOOF being a rather extreme example.

Re: "a large US-based aircraft company"

That additional sensor would also have risked the type certification.

Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching

Re: Thunderbird for the win

Damn thing even gets confused and starts showing e-mails in the wrong order from time to time. It's the only client I've experienced this with.

That is you messing with the sorting by clicking on the headers. In over 20 years of using Thunderbird I never experienced the problem you are describing, at least not without user error (and it is easily correctable).

Thunderbird may not be a good e-mail client, but it is the least bad I've found so far.

The Y2K bug delayed my honeymoon … by 17 years!

Re: Good Times…

And the reason there were no plane crashes is that all planes were grounded. I don't know about other airports but Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport) had several runways converted to airplane parking lots and it was maxed out.

User found two reasons – both of them wrong – to dispute tech support's diagnosis

Re: These folks really grind my gears.

Damn, you are right, saw the cartoon and didn't look further. That also explains the down votes.

Can't edit it anymore unfortunately, will leave it as it is for others (and myself) as a warning.

Re: These folks really grind my gears.

Obligatory XKCD link.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: Shop floor automation

So that "manager" managed to seriously inconvenience somebody but couldn't be bothered to request somebody else to read the message over the phone? Being illiterate can happen and is unfortunate (and people are understandably sensitive about it), but this takes incompetence to a whole new level.

But the user NEVER gets educated. They learn nothing.

Just documenting the screw up for his (or her) superior/supervisor will make them learn rather quickly. If they don't, they have a tendency to get replaced rather quickly.

And (this one puzzled me for a minute) the computer has 2 video outlets and meaningful results require plugging into the right one.

Let me guess, the right one was the left one.

Re: "I found that a strange concept of 'nothing,'"

Don't forget "Where's the <Any Key>?"

Untrained techie broke the rules, made a mistake, and found a better way to work

Here's hoping that "high priority" wasn't linked to "increased permissions".

On the AS/400 (and its successors), there is no link whatsoever between priority and permissions with the exception that you need permission for the higher priorities themselves.

Vendor's secret 'fix' made critical app unusable during business hours

Re: Sneaky remote access

and most importantly, lawyers didn't get a cent.

That in and of itself is a positive point (the only one though).

Frustrated consultant 'went full Hulk' and started smashing hardware

No. the PA got laid, the wife got screwed without getting laid.

Re: I'm Not THAT Guy!

What do you mean "have been"? Some of us are still there.

The orderly manner being a doctor's note about your health problems having been caused by the employer, who now is liable for all costs.

New boss took charge of project code and sent two billion unwanted emails

And answering emails isn't their money producing job.

Windows 11 update breaks localhost, prompting mass uninstall workaround

Microsoft usually gets past that point by bypassing it completely.

Techies tossed appliance that had no power cord, but turned out to power their company

And you are sure you didn't have idiots working for you.

Doesn't matter as he is the chief idiot.

Read the article, there were no lights!

BOFH: Recover a database from five years ago? It's as easy as flicking a switch

Re: Or just use the backup data?

The problem isn't really in the level of taxes (though there is something as a too high level) but in the complexity of the tax legislation. A lot of international companies like to have their HQ in the Netherlands because the tax legislation is relatively uncomplicated and the tax authorities are open to agreements, not because the taxes are especially low.

Techie found an error message so rude the CEO of IBM apologized for it

Every serious programmer has experienced something like that at least once (the first time usually happens before becoming a serious programmer).