* Posts by Just An Engineer

90 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Nov 2010

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CERN seeks €20B to build a bigger, faster, particle accelerator

Just An Engineer

Re: Priorities

“Some experts believe the €20 billion (£17.1 billion, $21.5 billion) price tag does not represent value for money and that the funds could be spent more wisely on research that addresses diseases or climate change.”

Is this due to the fact that value for money is code for cannot be profited from?

Oracle's $130M-plus payday still looms on horizon for Larry and Safra

Just An Engineer

So why would Larry the Lounge Lizard need additional comp.

"Big Red returned $5 billion to shareholders, including $3 billion in dividends paid" so with a 42 percent stake, he received almost 1.3 billion Dollars, just in dividend payments.

Thinking that aught to be adequate for anyone...

Defunct comms link connected to nothing at a fire station – for 15 years

Just An Engineer

Re: "NEVER SWITCH OFF"

Similar I am also of the turn it off and see who screams.

After a 24 month project of decommissioning a data center, and trying to identify a bit over 1000 servers or VMs, there were about 20 that no owner could be located.

So we waited until almost everything else was either moved or decommissioned.

So it fell to one of the PMs to head into the DC and shut down the hardware.

So of the approximately 20 servers with no known owner, we only got 3 screams. When asked why they had not responded over the last 2 years, it was usually i did not know the server or application name.

I just click on an icon....

Turns out the servers in question had long since been abandoned, with out updating the CMDB, which in itself was a "shock"...

Eager young tearaway almost ruined Christmas with printer paper

Just An Engineer

Re: Procedure update

I think I know the Answer.

It might be just me but, every accountant I have ever met was smart a hell, but utterly lacked ANY common sense.

Hench the reason for such arcane "Accounting Rules".

New IT boss decided to 'audit everything you guys are doing wrong'. Which went wrong

Just An Engineer

Back in the misty past, think early 2000's, I was a contractor for a large bank 40 - 45 hours per week. My job was to ensure the SUN servers were running, and the replication and DR environments were up to date.

The SUN environment was also in good shape, but with the occasional hiccup, but I also had a large tape library for all of the backups.

One day upon arriving at the office, there was a good old fashioned pager, on my desk.

It was requested that I go into the on-call rotation to take some of the pressure off of my co-worker who was based 2000 miles away.

I simply stated that as I was a contractor, that every time the pager went off outside of standard work hours there would be a 4 hour charge added to my time sheet.

Unfortunately he agreed, so I was in the rotation every other week. But all was not lost it was quite lucrative for the next year. The tape library was of an age and in an environment, where drives needed to be replaced about once a week.

Pager goes off, I check and then call out the Break/Fix engineer for a 10:00 am replacement.

The world was promised 'cloud magic'. So much for that fairy tale

Just An Engineer

Try Convincing IT Owners you need to test Resiliency

This may be a little long but i think background is required..

I have spent most of the last 3 years with my team, Me + 1, preaching that you need to test resiliency (DR). Since this is a very large org, it was decided all IT, with limited exceptions would be migrated to "The Cloud".

The App Dev teams all look at you like" you do not know what you are talking about" when you mention it early on in the dev cycle.

The cloud is always on, we are in multiple compute zones, we can auto failover if there is a problem.

Me: Are you in multiple geographically dispersed zones?

Them: no no need to be the cloud is always available.

Me: So you decided not to follow the corp architecture guidelines for mission critical applications.

Them: We were not willing to incur that expense.

Me: What happens if the datacenter where this is located becomes unreachable?

Them: Can't happen.

Then you know what happens next, the Zones became unavailable and only those who followed the corp standard and actually tested the recovery, were able to continue with on like nothing happened.

The others had to explain why they did not and having a email trail from the Resiliency Team to the various businesses that did not follow standards and resiliency test had a lot of explaining to do and there were a few head that rolled.

But since I am just an engineer and don't understand tech, I was ignored, but not anymore...

BOFH: Something's consuming 40% of UPS capacity – and it's coming from the beancounters' office

Just An Engineer

Re: I love the smell of burning beancounter kit in the morning

I love the smell of burning beancounter in the morning

TFIFY

We don't know why it's there, we don't know what it does – all we know is that the button makes everything OK again

Just An Engineer

Re: The knob......

Or C Suite Dwellers

NASA pops old-school worm logo onto Orion spacecraft

Just An Engineer
Pint

Re: Watching at the time?

And you 3 or 4 actually turned into some useful. The Rest probably became Bean Counters or worse Marketing Dweebs..

Who'd have thought the US senator who fist pumped Jan 6 insurrectionists would propose totally unworkable anti-Big Tech law?

Just An Engineer

Re: Better Yet.

You need to remember the SCOTUS has ruled that Money = Speech and that corporations are People Too. Citizens United V FEC.

So no it will never happen.

Vote machine biz Smartmatic sues Fox News and Trump chums for $2.7bn over bogus claims of rigged 2020 election

Just An Engineer

Re: Should be fun: Donald J Trump as witness.

Nah, any money he "raises" for the "library" will only go into his or his Spawns pockets. The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library will never be built.

Unless the My Pillow Guy does it for him.

Linus Torvalds rates his own words 'incoherent ramblings of a crazy old man'

Just An Engineer

Re: Linus is mistaken...

I always wondered exactly when "middle age" started. I think i just skipped over it and went straight to old.

Dutch officials say Donald Trump really did protect his Twitter account with MAGA2020! password

Just An Engineer

Re: Gators!

Actually even his neighbors don't want him there.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trump-mar-a-lago-neighbors-dispute/2020/12/15/bc2ce1d0-3ed4-11eb-9453-fc36ba051781_story.html

Trumpian politics continue as senators advance controversial Republican FCC commissioner nominee

Just An Engineer

Re: The DNC need to win at least 1 seat in georgia

Sorry, but they need both seats to take over the Senate. It is currently 50 - 48, they win both seats then Harris can be the deciding vote.

Just An Engineer

“Section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the US to 'Big Tech' (the only companies in America that have it )".

Too bad this is a LIE. The US firearms industry has even greater protection from liability. They are well and truly protected.

Trump fires cybersecurity boss Chris Krebs for doing his job: Securing the election and telling the truth about it

Just An Engineer

Re: Another one bites the dust

I think he had 2 "education" secretary DeVos and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and old Betsy has been a complete disaster.

While lining the pockets of her supporters and refusing to follow court orders to ease the debt, of students who were cheated by the "For Profit" schools like Trump U.

Let's... drawer a veil over why this laser printer would decide to stop working randomly

Just An Engineer

Re: Never under estimate the ability of a user to out stupid you

Always remember, you cannot Idiot Proof almost anything.

There is always a bigger idiot...

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

Just An Engineer

Re: Short lived policy

Be careful and don't give them any ideas. There are still 90 + days till election day.

From off-prem to just off: IBM Cloud goes down planet-wide so hard even the status page didn't work

Just An Engineer

The knowing smirk...

I always get a knowing smirk when I tell people what I think of having everything, including the "Family Jewels", in the cloud. I always get the "but it is always on" and we "do not have to test resiliency" (my favorite), and the always popular, "we are in multiple zones and regions so we can be back up and running in minutes".

I always say really you need to prove it to my satisfaction.

They then try to old "but they tell us it is idiot proof".

I usually just say, that is impossible, since there is always a bigger idiot.

Just another arrow in the quiver for these discussions.

Amazon declined to sell a book so Elon Musk called for it to be broken up

Just An Engineer

Re: Twitter is a monoply too

Point Proved...

Leaving Las Vegas... for good? IT industry conference circuit won't look the same on other side of COVID-19 pandemic

Just An Engineer

Back in the day there was the "EMC Technical Symposium" which was geared to the technologist. You could get hands on with the products get training and make contacts on the tech side. At some point around 2005, it became EMC World, which was that taken over by the Marketing Droids. Nothing useful ever came and I stopped attending.

If you want the real story talk to the tech folks, you want B**L S**t talk to the marketing and sales droids.

Yelp finally gets its chance to tell US Congress how Google screws its listings service every minute of every day

Just An Engineer

Re: Google Fu required

Damn, I miss Alta Vista..

Jeff Bezos: I will depose King Trump

Just An Engineer

Re: To be honest ...

You really should stop watching Faux News. These are all talking points presented by the entertainment division of that lofty and august network.

Unfortunately you are wrong. The Presidents "legal" team is not a relevant partner in these proceedings. The opposition party was in the room at all times, and had an equal amount of time to question the witnesses. This was not a Court of Law it was an Impeachment Inquiry.

If the president Cheeto wanted equal time he should have allow the witnesses that were called to testify.But as that would have been under oath, they would not want to run the risk of perjury, so they would have had to tell the truth. Based on the evidence presented, even the shame the Senate perpetrated would have been difficult to pull off.

Since the FCC won't act, Congress finally moves on robocalls by passing half-decent TRACED Act

Just An Engineer

Re: Reboot

There are currently 250 bills passed by the House sitting on the, or under the desk of the Senate President. So i guess the house has been busy over the last 10 months.

Just An Engineer

Re: Color me skeptical

But until they actually include the Politicians, in this robo-call ban, then it will make a difference.

Between my mobile and landline, i get as many as 5 a day, and during the high campaign season, there are as many as 10 a day. I live in a small state where the "first in the nation Primary" is held.

I cannot wait until the first of the year when and sitting quietly at home the land line will ring every few minutes until 9:00 PM, i just wait for my caller ID to tell me it is an unknown number, and then ignore it. I usually have to turn off the ringer and let CID tell me I have a call.

Steve Bannon-backed flick attempts to expose evil lurking at heart of Huawei *cough* Huaxing

Just An Engineer

Re: One America News Network

Currently only available on systems with access to ~10 percent of cable connected homes, not sure if available via satellite.

But it is a pay channel, and only the most die hard Trumpettes or Breitbart devotees would watch it and they probably can't afford the price.

They are mostly sustained by throwing out the most vile conspiracy theory's they can. But they do have a "reporter" with White House credentials.

Getronics CEO on HMRC winding-up petition: An 'embarrassing' blip with cash in the wrong places

Just An Engineer

Wondering why most companies

... don't pay their sales droids on gross margin instead of revenue.

i have been with sales that essentially give the product away at cost or less to the company, but still made the commission on the revenue.

selling at a loss and then expecting full commission is just wrong. I have had this discussion before, but they usually say "well that is how everyone does it". Just because everyone is jumping off the building does not mean we should as well.

If you gave them 33 % of the GM the corp makes money and the droids will do quite well.

US regulators push back against White House plan to police social media censorship

Just An Engineer

He may want to be careful what he wishes for

Since the Twitter in chief is the biggest purveyor of lies and misleading crap on his feed, he should have been banned a long time ago.

He is always insulting, misleading or just plain lying about his rivals and calls them out by name. I thought this was contrary to the T&C / rules of engagement of Twitter. It would have gotten many people banned for less.

Equifax to world+dog: If we give you this $700m, can you pleeeeease stop suing us about that mega-hack thing?

Just An Engineer

Re: Passing the loss to the shareholders is fine

It was legal until the Enron. WorldCom, Lucent fiascoes.

The law was changed after all of the value of these companies was essentially zero'd out, by mismanagement and fraud.

There was a time when 401K plans could be directed to company stock, and a second option was a guaranteed interest fund. Since there is no return on the GI fund, everything was "forced" into company stock.

Now they are no longer allowed this option, but you can have, I believe, up to 15% of your 401K invested in company stock, but it is the employees option, and cannot be decreed by the company.

Just An Engineer

Re: Settlement is BS

Nope, in about half the States they are appointed by the Governor. But still politicians...

The Empire Strikes Back: Trump discovers $10bn JEDI cloud deal may go to nemesis Jeff Bezos, demands probe

Just An Engineer

Re: Here is a first

“I suppose the Republicans' mistake was to write letters. They should have gone on Twitter.

Still it is an odd way to run a country.”

FTFY

Anyone else find it weird that the bloke tasked with probing tech giants for antitrust abuses used to, um, work for the same tech giants?

Just An Engineer

Re: I'm shocked, shocked, that gambling is going on in this establishment!

Organised crime is jealous for a reason. Largely because they are labelled as criminals whereas the politicians and their appointed flunkys are not.

TFTFY

Do Not Track is back in the US Senate. And this time it means business. As in, fining businesses that stalk you online

Just An Engineer

Re: Bad comparison

"promises to be "similar to the national 'Do Not Call' list," "

"Considering that the Do Not Call list isn't effective at all and mostly ignored,"

FTFY.

Banhammer Republic: Trump declares national emergency, starts ball rolling to boot Huawei out of ALL US networks

Just An Engineer

The People at the Wharton School and all of the alumni, must really be cringing on this Dim Wits really solid grasp of Economic Principles.

The biggest uptick in demand for software devs by bosses is for... *rubs eyes* blockchain engineers?!?

Just An Engineer

Re: Blockchain

Could also be called a Management Chain..

WeWork restructuring bites El Reg hacks where it hurts as afternoon brew delayed

Just An Engineer
Facepalm

Pot Plants?

" artfully lit and adorned with pot plants, brick walls,"

Having this benefit alone would make not having Mugs agreeable.

US prosecutors: Hey, you know how we said 'net gambling was OK? LMAO, we were wrong

Just An Engineer

Considering this DOJ, I would assume the Giant Orange Pillock will be trying to get back into the Casino business, in the not too distant future, and wanted NO additional competition. Either on-shore or Off.

Americans are just fine with facial recognition technology – as long as they get shorter queues

Just An Engineer

Re: I think the real problem is...

You beat me to it.

Notice it doesn't ask, "what if it screws up N% of the time?" or "what if it wrongly identifies you?" or "would you support strict limits if facial rec. wrongly identified and caused X people per day to be detained for Y minutes/hours?" and "what if one of those wrongly identified and detained caused a delay to your flight?"

They did not ask as they know the results, if it becomes personal, then no one would want it around. if it caused them to miss a flight to see the grand kids they would be right pissed.

I have always had a healthy skepticism of the accuracy of "online" polls. Since most of us just ignore them and only those with nothing better to do will fill them out. But I am SURE it must be reflected in the margin of error.

Hubble 'scope camera breaks down amid US govt shutdown, forcing boffins to fix it for free

Just An Engineer

Re: How many Shuttles could have been kept operative..

I think you meant G.W. Bush shut it down. Started the shut down in 2004.

Just An Engineer

Re: How many Shuttles could have been kept operative..

To keep him at his word, 1956 Miles x 23 million = ~ 45 billion. Granted there are rivers and natural barriers, but he did say a wall from sea to shining sea.

Amazon exec tells UK peers: No, we don't want to be dominant. Also, we don't fancy being taxed on revenues

Just An Engineer

Re: Tax allowance for costs is a grace

"Now they're making money, as the shareholders insisted on some return on their equity"

I might just be me, but if stock purchased prior to 2006 for around $5.00 per, or even in 2016 when it priced out at ~$300.00 and today it is $1650.00 per share, I think they have gotten more then a fair return on equity.

Shareholders have not asked for profitability only share price appreciation.

Gartner to wearables biz: Through failure comes success!

Just An Engineer

The 2018 Ig Nobel Prize Winner

NUTRITION PRIZE [ZIMBABWE, TANZANIA, UK] — James Cole, for calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets.

REFERENCE: "Assessing the Calorific Significance of Episodes of Human Cannibalism in the Paleolithic," James Cole, Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 44707, April 7, 2017.

https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2018

Great Scott! Is nothing sacred? US movie-goers vote Back To The Future as most-wanted reboot

Just An Engineer

I think Caddy Shack 2 should get a reboot. The Original was so bad a reboot could not help but improve it.

Rookie almost wipes customer's entire inventory – unbeknownst to sysadmin

Just An Engineer

Re: .cobol

"when the boss comes in at 5:30 in the evening and says he has a presentation at 10am at CeBIT the next day and needs 40 slides..."

There are 4 little words that come to mind when this happens to me. "sucks to be you".

Or conversely "it's really going to be a log night for you, boss."

Usually when this happens the "Boss" has known about it for 3 to 4 weeks, then the Oh Shite moment happens and remembers the night before. Usually when his boss asks if he is ready for tomorrow...

Abracadabra! Tales of unexpected sysadmagic and dabbling in dark arts

Just An Engineer

Re: Case sensor

In the WAAYYY back in the day, you did the same with the Sparc IPXs and IPCs. If for some reason the system was shutdown over a weekend, you did not hit it with a mallet, you dropped it on the desk.

It seems the lubricant used on the drive spindle would congeal when it cooled off, specially if the system was a couple years old, so a good slam on the desk top while powered on would crack it free and it would boot up nicely.

Sysadmin trained his offshore replacements, sat back, watched ex-employer's world burn

Just An Engineer

Karma can be tough

Working for a large Financial Services firm via a well known Professional Services firm in the early 2000's. My jobs was to keep the Solaris systems running and ensuring the replication to the DR center was running and up to date, with limited back log.

Since I was a contractor and being paid by the hour, I did not care if I had to go to the Office once every 6 months, so the DR could be tested on a Saturday.

For the next 14 months This was done and duly documented. Then the S&%T hit the fan. There was a new Service Delivery Manager put in place, who frankly did not know his Arse from a hole in the ground, and he wanted his "own" people on the contract.

Since my contract only had another month to run I was shown the door at the end. He was "smart" enough to wait until after the bi-annual test. Test went smoothly and everyone was happy.

Then a mere 6 weeks after I was shunted out the door, a real disaster occurred. Apparently a contractor managed to dig up the networking cable to the building where the DC was located, and they assumed the fail over would occur automagically. It didn't since the clustering SW in use at the time did not have the intelligence to perform that act.

So my phone rings on a Wednesday night and it is the new SDM, and he is begging me to drive into the city and help restore the services. I politely decline the offer. My replacement was supposed to be fully certified in this particular SW and should have been a no brainer. Turns out that was BS as well (no one ever checked the certifications).

Since I had already accepted a new position and was awaiting my start date, and since I had tee times for the rest of the week I felt absolutely no guilt watching from afar the CF that was this disaster.

Hooo boy, Commvault, your activist investor is not a happy chappy

Just An Engineer

Dear Elliot Mis-Mangelment

GFY

Sincerely,

Commvault Management

HPE HQ to leave Palo Alto birthplace as it 'consolidates' offices

Just An Engineer

Dear Mug

"no one dares tell you the clothes you wear are invisible."

Now I will have that visual in my head for the rest of the day, Thanks A Lot...

Home Sec Amber Rudd: Yeah, I don't understand encryption. So what?

Just An Engineer

Re: Rudd

that would be something like Amber Rudd Raxacoricofallapato.

How to avoid getting hoodwinked by a DevOps hustler

Just An Engineer
Facepalm

Re: If they’re a 'DevOps Expert', they probably aren’t

You had me right up until you mentioned Agile...

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