Posts by Alan Brown

Re: When Urban Myths Come True

"one of our mainframes losing network connectivity at the same time every night,"

We were copping abuse from staff in one building for the networking being intermittently dead on friday afternoons.

It turned out the network cabinet had been rewired into the nonessential power circuit of the workshops in the building and the staff there would knock off early if all jobs were complete, turning off the power as they left.....

This (and a few other Furphy) are why I insist on paperwork for all proposed electrical jobs - making sure that what's going to happen is what was actually asked for and that what was done actually meets the spec. There are a shitload of cowboy sparkies around and no paperwork == "not me mate" or "I just did what i was told" (even when speciifically told to NOT do something)

Re: So...

"Fortunately, this "cleaner uplugged the life support" story is a myth."

"Cleaner unplugged the server" is not. I've had it happen on customer sites.

Re: So...

"And if the boss really is too mean for that, a filing cabinet in front of the socket outlet."

I usually add a "DO NOT UNPLUG" label on the plug and "DO NOT TURN OFF" on the socket - it does seem to work.

Unfortunately that's no protection against other outlets on the same circuit being overloaded.

If the boss _IS_ too mean to pay for things to be done properly, then document everything and when the shit hits the fan, make sure _HIS_ boss is made aware of the paper trail. You'd be surprised how often a "There's no money for this" becomes "How much do you need to fix this?"

Re: So...

"So that the fuse had a near 100 percent load."

Fuses don't blow at 100% load. They run indefinitely at 100% load.

They "blow" almost immediately at _200%_ load and will last about 8-12 hours at 150% load or several weeks at 120% load.

Re: Historical inaccuracy ...

" Except, the size of those floppies has surely been overstated?"

Nope.

2.44MB 5.25" floppy drives did exist - they were rare and eyewateringly expensive - mostly punted by IBM as an improvement on 1.2MB 5.25inch ones. I think I've handled two such disks in my entire life.

3.5 inch were available in 720kb, then 1.44MB, then (rarely) in 2.88Mb (there were also 120MB 3.5" floppies but that's a story for another day and a ATAPI interface - they were blisteringly fast to read and write 1.44MB floppies. I timed mine at about 7 seconds for an entire disk)

Re: back in the day..

"storeman who kept a window sash weight in stock"

And an extra long one made up out of bar stock for the inevitable twat who would send the apprentice back because it wasn't long enough... (a lot of storemen didn't like the game of "pick on the apprentice")

Re: Magnets!

"We have an industrial magnet currently in the office to "scramble" the backup tapes from 2005!"

Very few data tape formats from 2005 will even notice a "large industrial magnet" - which is causing me headaches disposing of a store of LTO2 tapes that a user has dredged up from that era just after I'd dumped the LTO2 drives.

Re: On a side note

"The read/write heads were not always calibrated identically on different machines."

That was a common problem - the fact that you can _buy_ audio calibration cassettes escaped most people's notice. The fact they're about $100 apiece and you need at least two - 1kHz and 10kHz - is offputting for many more. (you need to calibrate both cassette spindle/drive motor speed AND head alignment - with the speed being surprisingly out of whack on a lot of mechanisms)

For floppy drives it was a bit trickier but calibration disks did (and do) exist if you're willing to stump up for them AND can read an oscilloscope. The demise of stepper motors driving linear positioning strips and uncontrolled spindle motors(*) made absolute track calibration less of an issue anyway

(*) These had a rudimentary trimpot speed control in the end of the motor just like cassette mechanism but no feedback mechanism telling the drive what speed the disk was rotating at. That coupled with "rubber band drive" between the spindle motor and spindle (the motors didn't have enough torque for direct drive) meant "wow and flutter" caused by varying friction between the floppy disk and its case was a serious issue. The original head stepper motors had no positional feedback to locate the first track and would just seek N times until they "should be" at the end of travel. Newer drives use a worm gear to slide the head, have an optical sensor for the end of travel (not just the hole in the floppy) and can hunt more precisely to locate the index track in the case of misaligned tracks.

Re: More urban myths busted

" an over zealous cleaner used a scouring pad to try and 'clean' the screen protector."

That happened more times than I like to think about. Most times people had to live with the results

Re: Then there is the "send me a copy"

"When asked for a screenshot from site, we got one, all right."

In some cases (BIOS issues) you actually _need_ to do this.

In all other cases I pretend I can't open the attachment and ask them to d it as requested.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

" But an electrical engineer who doesn't understand that colour CRTs have magnetic fields?"

The magnetic fiield around a CRT isn't enough to affect a floppy.

The magnetic field around the DEGAUSSING COIL is another matter.

How often was this monitor powered down/up?

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

"Even now you can still visit offices where there are separate circuits for thew pc's with marked 'cleaner' and 'kettle' sockets."

We still do this.

The alternative was people unplugging things to insert their variety of equipment in said receptacle. Cleaners are informed that plugging into any outlet not marked for their use is a sacking offence.

It's compounded by shitty consumer equipment that breaks down or otherwise shorts out and takes out circuit breakers, You don't want them on the same spur as your computers or comms equipment - not because of filtering, but because you don't want the power going off without a good reason.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

The level of cluelessness was about equally spread.

Women were at least:

a: More likely to ask for help

b: More likely to actually read the fucking manual.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

" And if the departmental laser printer was out of paper, do you think he would deign to refill it? Or ask his secretary to do so? No, he would just resumbit it. Again. And again. And again"

Don't worry. That mentality is still alive and well - to the point that I've got a filter in the print servers to block such things.

It's one thing when the user resubmits a 1 page job and another when he does it for a 200 page one. 5 times (Then there's the user who sent a 75 page report to the A0 poster printer and refused responsibility for having done so. When she left some months later we couriered the print job to her a few weeks afterwards. I'd be less forgiving if she hadn't made such a song and dance about being an electrical engineer, then promptly building an unauthorised PC that caught fire.)

> Yeah well, Trump needs to "Make America Great Again"

He's been an unqualified success in Making America Grate

"Now Huawei and China are 18 months ahead of the Americans in 5G and they don't like to lose, hense them bullying all their allies to ban Huawei and buy inferior American crap."

Typical US trade war stuff. Look up "the Chicken Tax" sometime (and realise an early 1960s "trade war" over poultry hygiene is why americans love SUVs/pickups and explains why they have protectionism on such vehicles over 50 years later - protectionism that arguably almost destroyed the US carmaking industry)

The UK was doing exactly the same thing over telco/radio kit against the "Japanese threat" in the late 1960s early 1970s, which resulted in the NZ govt of the time forcing the NZPO to buy a bunch of frankly atrocious and utterly unreliable bunch of UK and Anglo-Italian kit instead of the NEC/Fujitsu stuff they would have preferred, for twice as much as they'd agreed from NEC and Fujitsu. (This was long after "made in Britain" had come to be regarded as a warning label) - unsurprisingly having been forced to buy "from the friendly country", things were further dogged by non-availability of spares, stupidly long delivery delays of the things and extremely high costs for them (Sellers who know they have you over a barrel will charge whatever they want and take as long as they want)

Next time around steps were taken to ensure that the NZ government couldn't interfere with the dealings - Something that seems to have been forgotten in recent years.

The USA was pulling the same stunts in the 80s and 90s with its telephony and radio communications equipment. A lot of the world was shielded from this by virtue of using CCITT digital standards instead of the strange US-centric ones but those who did get suckered into buying E-spec AT&T switches found out the hard way that the same rules of engagement applied, coupled with the "europeanisation" of the kit being a kludge. Those who were forced to buy US-centric T-spec kit were in an even worse state as they had to bridge between T and E trunks using highly expensive conversion kit. (This is common across parts if the middle east and certain small island nations)

Re: Now he's up the creek

well it's margate, so "shit creek" is certainly appropriate.

"While forcing out people shortly before retirement is a shitty thing to do"

In the old days forcing people out was early retirement and they still got pensions.

These days it's being done to AVOID paying out pensions, so it's seriously shitty.

I seem to recall black people not sitting at the back of the bus was illegal in various parts of the USA at one point too.

And then there's the Pentagon Papers, etc....

Apartheid was legal. Nazi concentration/death camps were legal. Stalin's death camps were legal.

Laws are made by the people in control, not all of them of them have anything to do with common sense and some have a lot to do with allowing those in power to STAY in power by any means possible.

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

"12 months in British prison for skipping bail"

Skipping bail (first offence) and the nature of the charges means that he _CAN'T_ get 12 months (that's the maximum. The usual punishment for habitual offenders is a slap on the wrist and a telling off by the judge.

As long as the Swedes have first dibs on him the USA can't extradite him.

If they don't resume proceedings then the americans can have a go.

it'd be ironic if he got 48 hours in the clink for the bail skipping after 7 years in a broom closet, only to get hauled back in for the USA charges - and as a proven flight risk he won't be bailed again.

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

As others have pointed out: A chicken is not a salad.

For a graphic illustration of this, look at food poisoning rates in the US associated with chicken contaminated at source vs Europe. (Hint: the rate in the US is 10-100 times higher than the European one)

US chicken farming _and_ slaughterhouse hygiene standards are revoltingly low with fecal matter being a common contaminant on the meat. The "chlorine wash" is supposedly to deal with that but the reality is that it's not strong enough to kill salmonella (common in US flocks) and mostly serves to simply spread any bacteria which remain.

It was food poisoning incidents that led to it being banned by Germany (and across Europe) in 1963 but the USA has always made it out to be an economic blockade and used the ban as an excuse to impose import taxes on vans and pickups (The chicken tax - aimed mostly at the VW T2), which in turn led to pickups being wildly profitable for US automakers, which in turn led to US car market being uncompetitive and pickups/vans being heavily promoted - which leads us to the current market where pickups are one of the largest market segments.

It's arguable that the Chicken Tax was a major factor in the decline and destruction of the US car industry based around Detroit.

"websites that don't allow a simple 'not accepted' but divert you to pages of how to jump through hoops "

The ICO needs to make a statement about those - along the lines of taking off and nuking them from orbit.

Although I suspect that will come from mainland European data privacy regulators. The ICO is quite deliberately choked of funding to limit its effectiveness

"Apparently he spent quite a lot of it on prostitutes."

Given someone else mentioned the taxman:

Those are not tax deductible as entertainment expenses.

Use of the Inland Revenue could be an entertaining way to keep fraudsters looking over their shoulders for years, There's very little they're _not_ allowed to do when pursuing the government's money.

Re: Wrong Agency...

They can still be charged with wire fraud - and if they used the postal system in any way the USPS will be more than happy to pursue mail fraud charges.

The real problem sounds like these agencies have been ordered to stop their pursuit. It was the FTC and FCC who permanently put fax.com out of business despite their 10-year campaign of phoenixing to avoid enforcement.

Re: Re unpaid fines

There are statutory per-call fines involved

When sued by individuals it's $500 per call, tripled for wilful violations (forged caller ID, hitting DNC numbers, robocalls)

When sued by the FTC or FCC it's $11,500 per call - again, tripled per call.

$LARGE_COMPANY tends to make more calls than small ones - and because the damages are mandatory - AND because they've been up to supreme courts and back, it's hard for anyone to argue against them.

Re: Call it what it is - Corruption

The FTC used to go to court quite regularly to enforce its collections, as did the FCC.

They even went after fax spammers based out of the UK in the late 1990s - and collected.

I'd be interested to know when that policy changed...

Re: Appropriate punishment

"pull all their fingernails out and pour lemon juice on their hands."

I'd prefer they were scrubbed all over with a lemon zester, then dunked in rubbing alcohol before being smeared in honey and staked out over a fire ant colony on a sunny day.

Re: Comission

"Alright, I think I will take your advice, then. Since you've already proven you're a criminal by the very act of calling me on this phone number that's on the federal Do-Not-Call list I guess I shouldn't hire your company..."

There's the added slap in the face you can provide of a small claims filing under the TCPA - $1500 for a wilful breach (calling anyone on the DNC list is a wilful breach - which triples the $500 per call claim)

Re: Comission

"Can telco's determine whether callers use a fake caller ID?"

YES.

There are a number of fairly simple ways of doing this, most prominently there are 2 numbers buried in the accounting data of the call - the origin data (which you don't see) and the presentation data (which you do). If these are wildly different then there's something afoot.

Telcos get termination revenue when you answer calls originating from other networks, which is an incentive for them to NOT block scam calls - until the scammers start injecting calls into the global network via fraudulent methods and the terminating telcos don't get paid.

At that point those same telcos go bonkers trying to block the calls whilst claiming it's for_your_ protection when the reality is that they're protecting their bottom line.

Re: Hopefully a few of the gangs will now dispose of their enemies

"key people are removed and then the two gangs become one larger, more powerful unit"

There _are_ ways to take the wind out of gangs. The prime reason they exist with the power and danger they do isn't "cred", it's _money_ - specifically the insane profitability associated with drugs(*) and trading in stolen goods to pay for them.

(*) A medically pure knockout dose of heroin or cocaine is less than a pound. It's a hell of a lot more on the street and cut with "godknowswhat". Every pence of the difference is why you have gang wars.

Re: They knew who sent the e-mail - Were they sacked?

Shit management - who will actively cover things up when they realise they've fucked up and then when the inevitable is unavoidable will do everything they can to push the blame to flunkies.

The fines aren't nearly large enough and there aren't elements of personal accountability for management to drive the point home.