Posts by spuck

Linux admin hated downtime so much he schlepped a live UPS during office move

Re: Frogger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5etwHVarNgI

Server virtualization market heats up as VMware rivals try to create alluring alternatives

Gartner thinks this moment is therefore an opportunity in which VMware users should contemplate [...] the alternative virtualization platforms that will make that possible.

If cost or worry about the uncertainty about what Broadcom is going to do is important to your organization, that moment was over 2 years ago.

Atlassian twice shunned AWS Graviton CPUs, but now runs Jira and Confluence on them

The article's datapoint of "over 3,000" customer workloads moved to Graviton processors means they must have plenty more than that... and yet they still think they're saving money using AWS instead of owning their servers.

Serious question: Given that they chose to migrate away from their own hosting towards AWS a couple of years ago, is this now strictly about accounting and managing cash flow? I could see how a subscription-based service would prefer the pay-as-you-go option of Operational Expenses rather than the Capital Expenses of buying their own servers.

Re: They call themselves engineers

Cost is always a factor, if you're engineering for anyone making a product that has to be profitable. Apparently only engineers working with someone else's money (i.e., the government) have the luxury of not caring what something costs.

Engineering is not science: it is the art of reasoned guesswork, trying to solve a problem by using available resources. Money is just one of those resources.

Deploying to Amazon's cloud is a pain in the AWS younger devs won't tolerate

Re: "This feels generational to me."

Amazon doesn't need to make it simpler, because if you're a serious player they can also sell you a whole series of courses and an exams to become AWS Certified^TM. If you're not serious there was no money to be made from you, anyway.

Seems like a large part of the nastiness of IAM is that it's been tacked-onto and evolved over the last 20 years, all while trying to keep everything as backwards-compatible as possible.

Of course, if they ripped it all out and started over today, AWS would look like a different thing but one must admit the fact that it's still here, underpinning all the New Shiny on top of it at all is an amazing feat.

Win10 still clings to over 40% of devices weeks after Microsoft pulls support

Well then, Microsoft, let me upgrade!

We have two computers in the office at home for web browsing, homework, etc.

The newer one (2 years old) upgraded itself to Windows 11 last year. The older one (6 years old) Windows Update tells me is not compatible with Windows 11 because the CPU is too old. The only thing it can offer to do is refer me to places where I can buy a new computer.

Of course, we know I could do a fresh install of Windows 11 bypassing the CPU check, but I've been too lazy to figure out how to jump through the hoops to do the update.

Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

Tesla stock down 4% is not horrible. They've had worse days than that and it seems to recover fine.

Everyone thinks His Muskiness is a genius that an do no wrong, but it's a very real possibility that Tesla might do even better with someone else as CEO.

There were a lot of people who thought that Apple would implode once Steve Jobs was gone. One could argue that the "vision" has faltered without him, but you can't argue with the financials that Cook has delivered or the health of the company.

Frustrated consultant 'went full Hulk' and started smashing hardware

Ted's first red flag

'They asked if I could get into the servers, I said yes, and they handed me a huge pile of old notes.' With that 'documentation' to hand, Ted managed to wrest control of the servers, a feat that earned him the job.

Working for free, under the guise of a job interview...

Everything you know about last week's AWS outage is wrong

You forgot:

0. Board determines they want to cut staff, but are all too cowardly to look anyone in the eye and do it themselves, so they vote to bring in a 'hatchet man'.

I can fill in this one too:

6. Board pockets their own bonuses, congratulate each other on another great quarter.

Apple's AirPods Pro 3 are still chuck-and-buy-again specials

Re: "destined for recycling"

One smaller than a pencil eraser? I'd take that bet... this ain't a Tesla-sized battery we're talking about.

Re: "destined for recycling"

Why? Grind them up like many other types of e-waste before extracting the metals.

Texas man accidentally shoots cable, brings internet down

You're assuming the cable wasn't aimed at. "Stray bullet", my eye...

Yeah, they obviously should be building the airplanes right at the aluminum mine...

I would argue that with shipping as relatively cheap as it is, it makes more sense today than ever to have manufacturing spread across the country. It's not a big deal to book space on a train that's running between two cities anyway; there is so much more involved in running a business and a factory to be worried about, including workers' skillsets and housing, energy costs, etc...

Blood-red bot stalks the burbs armed with . . . groceries

Yes, it doesn't solve every problem, but I'm sure it would have its uses.

Maybe I don't need them RIGHT NOW, but if I could click a button as I squeezed the last bit of toothpaste on my brush in the morning and had a replacement on the porch when I got home, that would be great. (Isn't that what Amazon was trying to build with their Dash buttons?)

As for diapers... with an infant at home sometimes leaving the house is just not an option. Having diapers delivered within a couple of hours might be a godsend with a colicky or sleeping baby.

I can just picture these little robots, running down the side of an 80 km/h highway at 20kmh, bringing us soggy takeaway tacos and room-temperature milk...

Socket will block it with free malicious package firewall

An unfortunate name

"Socket Firewall"; both words are already used for so many other things in IT.

OpenSSF warns that open source infrastructure doesn't run on thoughts and prayers

Re: Contribute.

How do I sign up for the OpenSSF to give me money for my Open Source work each month?

Re: Maybe….

build_banks_v5c_FINAL_NEW_REALLY_WORKING_7_TESTING.py

A tale as old as time...

Every scrappy new project starts out as a side project of an individual or small group, and as people start to give it a try (because it's free) it starts to feel the weight of what they've bitten off for themselves.

Maybe it's time to write a letter?

Bored developers accidentally turned their watercooler into a bootleg brewery

Re: should have left this job to the hardware team...

Working as a firmware engineer, we often bantered around an existential question: If the problem can be fixed in software, was it really a hardware problem?

Word to the wise: Don't tell your IT manager they're not in Excel

I'm always amazed she was not once called before any unfair dismissal tribunal or anything.

How do you know she wasn't, and perhaps often?

I hear that it's a pretty accepted practice for a dismissal package to include an agreement to not talk about it.

Re: Typical case of...

Sounds like a case of shoot the messenger; the request for help had to be so secret that the help was fired afterwards-- the corporate equivalent of an execution.

Can't let word get out that I don't know what I'm doing, after all.

Why Microsoft has the name of an old mouse hidden in its Bluetooth drivers

Re: "using metric makes you a communist"

So, you're no longer ordering in pints on the right side of the pond?

Even fantasy money can buy a lot of power – just ask Larry Ellison

Re: Tesla

I understand the principle of what you're saying: Musk's purchase of TSLA shares drives the price up; I get that much. But I don't see how the stock price going up 10% would give him a 10x return on his $1B.

And if he wanted to convert his holdings to cash, could the market absorb him selling $100 billion worth of shares, even over a few months?

My meager understanding of the stock market means I'll forever be a "buy index funds" kind of investor. I think I understand the same two rules that you do: 1. The game is rigged, and 2) the house always wins.

After deleting a web server, I started checking what I typed before hitting 'Enter'

Re: Never delete the old web site, only rename it

The real trick is to only need to learn the lesson once from your mistakes.

It's akin to the question: Does this fool have 10 years of experience or 1 year of experience, ten times?

BOFH: These office thefts really take the biscuit

Re: So the boss got away with it?

Always good for the boss to owe a favor.

‘IT manager’ needed tech support because they had never heard of a command line

There's an analog to managers that I can relate to: I "manage" some tasks in my life by hiring others to do them for me. I am fully capable of replacing brakes or changing the oil in my car--sometimes I even do it. But I usually pay someone else to do it over lunch so that I can use my time for something else, which is how I buy back my Saturdays.

Having a small amount handiness with my car gives me the knowledge to know what jobs really are above my ken and best left to professionals. And I like to think a little knowledge allows me to judge if the professional knows what he's talking about or trying to shine me on.

It's not much different for managing business tasks. As I've told management here a few times: there is a reason I went to engineering school and not people school. I will manage/supervise if you want me to, but please don't expect me to be as competent at the task as I try to be at the technical side I've been practicing at for 30 years.

Re: On-topic, eventually.

The last thing you need are cheapskates for clients. If they complain about your rates they will probably think you're trying to run out the clock on them for every thing you do, and they probably will try to weasel out of paying, to boot.

Re: Thus it is

No one has a cat. There are two that allow my family to live in their home, however.

CIO made a dangerous mistake and ordered his security team to implement it

And usually in those instances, money somehow magically appears to solve the emergency...

Let me guess: the memory that was "too expensive" ahead of time was then purchased faster than you can say "priority shipping" and the field techs arrived to install it, thus averting disaster.

It's amazing how some managers seem to bumble their way from emergency to emergency, and somehow can tap dance around ever needing to explain why they seem to have so much experience solving crises...

Re: A customer of mine once

Obligatory link: But you did not persuade me!

The Unix Epochalypse might be sooner than you think

Re: Attitude problem

But, but, then how does it know when to remind you to renew your Acceleration and Braking license?

Re: Attitude problem

Anecdotally, I've found the younger people in the tech world really don't think it's a problem - and that worries me.

I've noticed this same laziness as the years go on...

1. There's no need to worry about how much memory is being used or cleaning up after yourself; the machine has lots to spare and the garbage collector will get around to it sometime, probably.

2. We now accept that a reboot is required every month/week/day anyway. Gotta keep those patches up to date!

3. Things just break, but it seems to be working fine now that I've rebooted. I have no idea why or interest in tracking down the root problem. The reboot erased all clues.

Just last week I had to urge a co-worker to tap the brakes... they were ready to go ahead and re-install the OS because a VM wasn't working, when the underlying issue was a Group Policy Object that was no longer applying. Turns out that's what happens when you move a computer out of the OU it was in... you know, like it warned you with that dialog box you clicked Ok on without reading.

It's like the schools have decided it's better to teach the framework du jour rather than instill a sense of curiosity, fundamental troubleshooting skills or scientific thought process.

Re: It's not such a big problem out of museums, I suppose.

But how may SCADA systems are assuming that time_t always increases, and will do bad things if = measurement/(time_t - prev_time) returns negative, or NaN ?

If that's the logic they're using, those systems will have already encountered this problem. Assuming time is always monotonic and increasing means that any clock adjustments backwards would cause the same issue.

These adjustments could be due to daylight savings or just normal adjustments from NTP, etc.

US government snaps up 10% of Intel for $8.9B

Or how we (the US) like to cry foul on solar panels built in China because they are "unfairly" subsidized by their government.

AWS Lambda loves charging for idle time: Vercel claims it found a way to dodge the bill

If your Lambda functions are spending significant time sitting idle waiting for something else to happen, you're using the wrong tool. Look into Step Functions.

Raspberry Pi RP2350 A4 update fixes old bugs and dares you to break it again

There's a difference

Is this new chip 5V tolerant (i.e., doesn't blow up if an input pin sees 5V), or can drive 5V on output?

BOFH: The auditor is asking too many questions. We have just the laptop for that

"What are you going to tell them?" he asks

"It depends on what they want to know."

"What do you think they want to know?"

Yep, must be a manager, as he expects his employees to be mind readers and predict the future.

Security company hired a used car salesman to build a website, and it didn't end well

Re: secure passwords

To be fair, it's not much worse than today's least-common denominator of e-mailing you not the password itself, but a link to set a new one.

The "Forgot Password?" link on most websites is the weak link: whomever controls your e-mail account controls every other account.

Semiconductor industry could short out as copper runs dry

Re: Self-fulfilling prophecies.

Does the US have internal, commercially viable sources of copper. And if so can they be brought on-line quickly?

Yes, we do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copper_mines_in_the_United_States

I live about 100 miles from the largest hole mankind has ever dug, in their quest for copper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine. It's pretty amazing to see.

Atlassian migrated 4 million Postgres databases to shrink AWS bill

Re: Atlassian

However, for a company of the size of Atlassian you'd have thought they might want to own their infrastructure for the same reasons, just like StackOverflow did.

The irony would be too rich for Atlassian to swallow: moving their data from the cloud to on-prem, just after finishing screwingmigrating their customers from on-premise to cloud-hosted as the only option for the Confluence and Jira.

BOFH: Peeling back the layers of the magic banana industrial complex

Magic Banana Certifications

Simon forgot about the whole industry that will spring up selling vague training "bootcamps" and certifications.

I look forward to my Peeler Associate 3-day seminar and my Smoothie Architect certificate will look great framed.

Apple-Intel divorce to be final next year

Re: Actually yes, X86 compatibility was a selling point for apple.

Yes, you've got me there. Bootcamp was a valuable thing for some users, but I still submit it is not a feature that a majority of users use or one that Apple touted as a selling point.

I'm not a Mac user, so forgive me if I'm wrong... the last Macs that use x86 were released in 2019, is that right?

Has compatibility with x86 ever been a selling point for Apple?

Floppy disks and paper strips lurk behind US air traffic control

Re: Wire cutters

Sounds like a job for a wireless system... assuming broadcasting the status of the fuel tanks would not be a concern for operational security, of course...

It doesn't even need to be funded by tax dollars...

In FY24 the TSA collected $4.4B in "Passenger Fees" by collecting $5.60 from each passenger for every flight.

https://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/security-fees

VMware drops the lowest tier of its partner program – except in Europe

Re: So weird

When Broadcom first announced they were actively trying to drop less-profitable customers, I wondered how they could be so shortsighted. It's not like small customers (like me) cost them a lot; as long as my stuff keeps running and I have access to patches, I am happy.

Why would they be actively trying to push small customers into the arms of open source alternatives?

But now I wonder if they are playing a longer game than I realized. Maybe Broadcom realizes that as those alternatives get better, VMware's time inevitably is running out with the small and medium-sized customers, so it doesn't matter if they pay attention or not.

I think they are trying to be Oracle.

Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor

Re: Does not sound like any kind of fix to me

This guy painted his car with it: https://youtu.be/43OGgDaR2aE

Empire of office workers strikes back against RTO mandates

Re: Cuckoo land

We recently had a similar Zoom call; the biggest difference was that the information was _presented_ to us; there was no chance for anyone besides the presenter to speak.

One of the main points that was given was that our customers need to be able to contact us... so apparently all our company-issued cell phones all work better while we're sitting in our offices?