Posts by C R Mudgeon

What to do once your Surface Hub v1 becomes an 84-inch, $22K paperweight

"We recommend a hardware refresh to Surface Hub 3 [...]"

I recommend a software refresh out of Micros$t's walled garden. It sounds as though the thing has a regular computer in it. Can that run Linux?

Junior techie rushed off for fun weekend after making a terminal mistake that crashed a client

Re: And one closer to the story here...

At one job, where my desktop machine ran Windows but I spent most of my day ssh'ed into various Unix boxen, I arranged something along that line using per-host prefs settings in the ssh client (SecureCRT, I think it was). Pale pastel background colours so as not to make my eyes hurt, but with distinctly green/yellow/pink casts as appropriate.

At another job, one of the web developers made a conspicuously messed-up version of their site's main top-of-page banner, and hacked his own desktop's hosts file such that he saw his weird banner on the dev site but the proper one on production. (This being "Who, Me?", one wants a punch line about his messed-up banner getting promoted to prod, but I'm not aware of that ever happening.)

In a more distantly related sort of visual cue, another web dev had, as his desktop's background, a series of rectangles (not concentric but, umm, con-top-left-corneric), sized to match then-common monitor resolutions, to remind himself of the limited visual real estate our users had available, as opposed to his own generous monitor.

Does this thing run on a 220 V power supply? Oh. That puff of smoke suggests not

Re: 100V

Mine has a capstan sleeve too -- not to compensate for line frequency differences, but to select between 1 7/8 and 3 3/4 inches per second.

The state of Right to Repair: Progress made, but key barriers remain

Re: Right to repair is great BUT

If by "jaws" you mean the work surfaces...

I made new ones. (Admittedly, I'm fortunate enough to have a family member's workshop available for occasional use.)

There are YouTube videos about it.

Is it really the plan to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal? It's been a weird week

Re: The unipolar world is officially dead

"Fortunately, it appears that Trump grasps the route cause of this pointless conflict - the ever eastward expansion of NATO."

What was it that convinced Finland and Sweden to abandon their long-term neutrality? Oh, right -- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If Putin's goal was to stop "the ever-eastward expansion of NATO", how's that working out for him? In terms of that strategic goal, he's already lost. All that's left for him is to keep sending the youth of his own country and at least one other into a meat grinder in order to -- he hopes -- conquer some territory and thus save face.

What imperialists like Putin and Trump refuse to accept is that the only people who should have a say over who governs any given territory, be it Ukraine, Greenland or Canada, is the people who actually live there. (I'm not letting the USA off the hook here; they have a long history of imperialism, stretching back at least to 1812. Now, under the very stable orange genius, it's rearing its ugly head again.)

After a long lunch, user thought a cursor meant their computer was cactus

Re: My Fastest Fix

[monitor's brightness turned down]

I had an odd thing rather like this just yesterday. On the highway and noticed that I couldn't see the rightmost part of my car's odometer, fuel gauge, etc. (It's a newish-to-me second-generation Prius.) I could see the essential bit -- the speedometer -- but still it was annoying and cause for concern. "What's come loose in that panel assembly, and how much is it going to cost to fix it?"

Then I remembered that the same thing had happened once before. I reached forward and removed the old pay-and-display ticket that was lying flat on the dashboard, not obscuring the display at all. Problem solved.

As nearly as I can figure it without getting off my duff to go look at the car, the actual displays are mounted in the dashboard facing straight up, and a mirror reflects them to where the driver can see them.

Re: Au Contraire

"these eliminated jobs has been pushed onto.........THE CUSTOMER."

The buzzword is externalizing costs.

Environmental degradation is another example -- "We'll foul the air/water/landfill and leave it to someone else to clean up our mess."

Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

That's a fine prank until it gets HR involved.

I'm recalling what Michael Moorcock wrote in a very different context about (I paraphrase) demons that can be summoned by a careless thought, but banished only with the most arduous rituals and spells.

Former NSA cyberspy's not-so-secret hobby: Hacking Christmas lights

Re: "Hacking" Christmas lights

It being the NSA, I was envisioning more along the lines of planting bugged bulbs on the nation's Christmas trees, in hopes of picking up secrets divulged in less-than-sober moments.

Microsoft reboots Windows Recall, but users wish they could forget

Windows Recall is making me recall why I don't use Windows.

Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with metre-long tool left inside engine

Re: My first full-sized pickup truck, bought used ...

I once picked up my car from being serviced and found a case of beer in the trunk that hadn't been there when I dropped it off that morning.

I didn't complain about the unauthorized use of my car -- I just drank the beer.

Re: Multi-Fail

Indeed.

The "vessel's left" term used to be larboard, but that led to a different sort of confusion, and so a word that didn't sound like starboard was chosen instead. For those interested, here are the etymologies of all three terms, including the specialized sense of port.

Re: Multi-Fail

A different medical use for marker on skin.

A few years ago my foot was badly swollen and painful with some kind of infection. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic. He then took out a marker and drew an irregular line on my foot -- basically a contour line. His instructions were to expect the swelling to increase a little more over the next day or so (I think; it's been a few years) -- "but if it goes past the line, get to Emergency". (In fact it didn't; all was well in the end.)

I made this network so resilient nothing could possibly go wro...

Single point of failure

Sometimes it's the human in the loop...

Techie took five minutes to fix problem Adobe and Microsoft couldn't solve in two weeks

Re: PITT

Surely Limbo is your helpless, frustrated wait when the clock is ticking down to an important meeting for which you need something from your computer, but Windows has decided it's a good time to install updates.

Linux admin asked savvy scientist for IT help and the boffin blew it

Re: The warning was well annouced

That (or at least the original you're riffing on) is from "Oliver!".

In some stage productions and the movie, that song was sung by Ron Moody -- which is what the network was being that morning.

Oracle urged again to give up JavaScript trademark

DIMScript, for "Dog In Manger", which is how it seems Oracle is behaving.

HMD Skyline: The repairable Android that lets you go dumb in a smart way

Re: No headphone socket

Is there any *technical* reason to prefer wired headphones/earbuds over Bluetooth?

I absolutely get people's resentment at being prodded to retire perfectly good kit. I agree! My question isn't about that.

But if one is in the market for a new pair anyway, is there a reason not to go wireless? Having recently done so, I find them incredibly more convenient than my old wired earbuds.

Google is a monopoly. The fix isn't obvious

Re: Maps

"If ad profiling is forbidden for everybody, Google is the company who will profit."

And that would be fine. I don't really care how much money they make. What I care about is how they make it.

"Whatever fine may be imposed against them, when it comes time to pay after all the ensuing appeals and challenges are over, the corporation being punished will have grown large enough during that time to comfortably file the original fine under its business expenses."

How about this, then:

"The fine is set at X% of the total annual revenue of $CORP or any successor entity. The actual dollar amount to be paid shall be determined in the year in which the final appeal is concluded and the requirement to actually pay the fine is locked in."

Obviously that's just pseudocode; much refinement would be needed for the final wording.

"Platform owners should be forbidden from favoring their own services and competing unfairly with platform tenants."

See also: net neutrality

The above is a well generalized formulation of a principle that needs to be enshrined in law -- and unlike the EU's DMA (as I understand it), the rule needs to apply generally, not just to specifically targeted "gatekeeper" corporations.

CrowdStrike president cheered after accepting 'Epic Fail' Pwnie award

Aides-mémoire

In his long-ago youth, my brother totaled our parents' car. For years afterward, he kept that car's now-useless key on his keyring as a reminder to himself of how not to drive.

"[The award is] going to sit pride of place because I want every CrowdStriker who comes to work to see it..."

It seems as though this guy has the same idea. If that Pwnie award gets put in a glass case in CrowdStrike's lobby, it will be serving its purpose.

Time will tell, of course, whether the lesson will be learned...

Customer bricked a phone – and threatened to brick techie's face with it

Re: Motorola brick

"They refused -:)"

Yes, but did they stop making that clearly false claim?

Stop installing that software – you may have just died

It could have been worse

At least Lyle wasn't ordered to report to a disintegration chamber...

FreeDOS and FreeBSD prove old code never dies, just gets nifty updates

Re: Why?

"If all that wasted talent had been added to the FreeBSD pool, it would be even better than it is now."

*cough* Poettering *cough*

BSDers of all stripes can be glad that Linux drew his attention elsewhere.

Re: Why?

Medical CT scanners, more likely, given the mention of moving images around. (The acronym used to be "CAT" == "computed axial tomography", but the "axial" has fallen out of use. I presume that's because technological advances mean that images are no longer restricted to the axial plane of the body, but correction/clarification would be welcome).

I suspect you're right about (GTA == Greater Toronto Area), given the reference to "CAD$" (Canadian dollars).

Starliner to remain docked to the ISS into July – with no new departure date

Exactly.

IIRC it has to do with the amount of supplies on hand.

Andrew Tanenbaum honored for pioneering MINIX, the OS hiding in a lot of computers

"The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from; furthermore, if you do not like any of them, you can just wait for next year's model."

- from his "Computer Networks", 1981

(I don't have the original available to check against, so no guarantee that errors haven't crept in.)

We need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this network

Re: "I literally crawled over broken glass for this company."

It was "20 minutes before the opening" when the problem was reported to them.

Yes, it was a dumb initial decision, but by that point it was too late to do more than just solve the immediate problem.

GhostStripe attack haunts self-driving cars by making them ignore road signs

Re: There are other ways...

"The technique ... is undetectable to the human eye"

BBC exterminates AI experiments used to promote Doctor Who

Re: He's The Doctor not Doctor Who.

No, Who's on second. Guess Who's on first.

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

Capex vs. opex, perhaps?

That doesn't justify it, of course; it's just a different flavour of boneheadedness.

Re: Well...

"yeah but now it's happened, it won't happen again..."

Maturity of chance implies immaturity of human.

Linux 6.9 will be the first to top ten million Git objects

Re: Git object

CVS.

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

Re: I may have told this one before...

"Has anyone been able to find out exactly what value HR add to a company."

Oh, they provide great value to the *company*.

To the "resources" in question? Not so much.

Health system network turned out to be a house of cards – Cisco cards, that is

Re: Heading off after completion of a task

In my experience, the go-live often takes place after far too much overtime, not just on the day but in the days/weeks/months leading up to it -- in which case, people can be tired and/or approaching burnout.

Corollary: the willingness to stick around for a while is especially low -- at a moment when the risk of exhaustion-related mistakes makes the need to stick around even higher.

Indeed. I pictured him pushing them around by casting fireballs at them.

It's that most wonderful time of the year when tech cannot handle the date

Re: the number of days in a year is not an integer

We've already become a Kardashian civilization. Fortunate there are pockets of resistance, including (I like to think) the El Reg community.

"As for 2100 - there's still a push from some to get rid of leap years/days ... Which [if that happens] means we'll likely have other software bugs in date functions to deal with."

Not least of which will be the massive installed base of software that *does* understand leap years.

Re: Don't people test edge cases any more?

"But "divisible by 4" is entirely adequate for use ... if anything I've written is still in use for something important come 2100, I would be ... very surprised"

Which is exactly the sort of cavalier attitude that caused the Y2K situation in the first place. (Different technical problem of course, but the same short-term thinking.)

They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut

There was this one guy...

... who had a tell -- a tight little smile that meant he was about to f*** someone over.

Re: Depends on your definition of growler I guess.

"But everyone calls me Growler, because I'm a rhymes with hunt"

"... and I'm proud of being one!"

A more competent RWH wouldn't warn you of the fact in advance.

Are you ready to back up your AI chatbot's promises? You'd better be

Re: I'm not a Luddite, but

Hype cyclist.

Self-taught-techie slept on the datacenter floor, survived communism, ended a marriage

The olden days

I had email in the late 80s via dialup UUCP. My home machine (an AT&T 3B1) had links to two or three friends' machines, and some of those had links to the wider world. They had cron jobs to call each other a few times a day to exchange any accumulated messages.

Email routinely took days to arrive, and it was fun looking through the Received: headers to see the (sometimes circuitous) route it had taken.

Not to mention the fun (TM) with UUCP-style bang paths and the .UUCP pseudo-domain.

When someone gave you their email address, it was wise to send a test message. (From that memory I infer that there was reason to suspect that things might not work, but I no longer recall why, beyond the obvious spelling errors.)

Re: Daily!?! RFC begs to differ

Each TLD makes its own decisions as to how to organize its own namespace. That's kind of the whole philosophy of DNS.

In particular, .co., .ac., and any other peers there might be, are .uk'isms. Try emailing to .co.anything-but-uk and you'll find how un-interchangable that is in general.

Please install that patch – but don't you dare actually run it

Re: Uptime

"Speed Razor"

I see what they did there. Nice.

Mozilla slams Microsoft for using dark patterns to drive Windows users toward Edge

"…Are they new here?"

No, but as long as M$ keeps pulling the same crap, they need to keep being called out for it.

The 'nothing-happened' Y2K bug – how the IT industry worked overtime to save world's computers

Re: Part of the problem....

"the Y2K bug had no relevance to getting it to boot"

Yes, but was its date right?

I had a desktop system at home whose BIOS wasn't compliant; after the rollover, it would boot up into 1900. There was no problem setting the running system's date to 2000 -- but I had to, on every boot.

A trivial problem in the grand scheme of things, but still, it showed why it was important not to trust even the hardware.

That box's motherboard was of late '94 / early '95 vintage -- by which point they should have known better.

Re: Yeah but…

"one went from 1999 to 19100"

Likely written in perl. That was its characteristic failure mode.