When I did my MSc back in 2003, I was contemplating on making my thesis: 'How the use of spreadsheets and QBE databases has destroyed the productivity of businesses,' I change it to mundane SCADA subject instead when I discovered, from initial interviews, that nobody would actually admit the truth!
Posts by VE3ID
14 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Feb 2020
Excel Hell II: If the sickness can't be fixed, it must be contained
In a time before calculators, going the extra mile at work sometimes didn't add up
Cop drone crashes into flight instructor's airplane
Pi calculated to '62.8 trillion digits' with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space
Breaking Bad or just a bad breakpoint? That feeling when your predecessor is BASIC
Monday 9th August 2021 10:40 GMT
Somebody else's disaster
If the disaster is in hardware, much harder to fix! I was once doing tech support for a distributor of DEC-compatible add-ons. Sold an 8-port DZ11 to a government agency where all techs had to have 3-year College Diploma in electronics. They installed it, and didn't work. Getting them to scope the lines over the phone, nothing made sense. Site visit needed. Problem was obvious on arrival - the panel had male DB25s and the user needed female. Not understanding the difference between DTE and DCE, he took 16 connectors, and soldered them back-to back to make 8 adapters. Unfortunately, this connected pin 1 to 13, 2 to 12, 3 to 11 etc. Not sure if he unsoldered 16 times 25 wires or threw them out and ordered new - not my problem as I left after testing it with loop-backs to make sure he hadn't blown anything!
It's safe to leave your bunker: Blame that Chinese nuclear plant alarm on fuel rod faults
Ever had a bogus call from someone claiming to be the IRS? A tax scam ringleader just got sent down for 20 years
Thursday 31st December 2020 03:31 GMT
I have a foolproof way to foil them, but it only works in Canada. Here the law says that any citizen can communicate with the Federal Government in either English or French. When I see a suspect number (they have a habit of spoofing numbers on your own exchange to make you think it is a local call) I simply answer " 'allo?" Then when the speak, "comment? hein?"
If it was a real government call they would then switch you to a real French speaker!
It's never happened!
Another eBay exec pleads guilty after couple stalked, harassed for daring to criticize the internet tat bazaar
US cybersecurity agency issues super-rare emergency directive to patch Windows Server flaw ASAP
COBOL-coding volunteers sought as slammed mainframes slow New Jersey's coronavirus response
Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees
So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance
Monday 3rd February 2020 14:15 GMT
Don't keep your floppies in a fireproof box
A business software developer customer of mine bought an 80 MB QIC24 backup drive for $3000 from me. He tried to sell it to his client who owned an asphalt plant, but the guy thought that his backup floppies were all he needed. So my customer went and demo-ed it to his client anyway, because he had spent some time there developing and there weren't any compatible media to take his work home with. In this case 'demoing' meant a full image backup.
A few days later, the asphalt plant burned down. The heat was to intense that the only recognisable thing left was the Faraday shield around one of the VT100 terminals.
The client proudly went to his fireproof box to get his backups, and found them all melted! Fireproof boxes do not double as Thermos flasks!
Naturally, with the client having $250,000 in receivables to collect from his general contractor clients, my customer made a killing selling him his own data back!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
