Root Access

bwDraco

16:00

This is why this generation's AMD's cards are less efficient despite being on a slighter smaller process than NVIDIA. They're "wasting" transistors on GPU compute.

If more games used OpenCL and compute functionality like async compute, the benchmarks would probably favor AMD.

DavidPostill

@Ramhound Which one?

Ramhound

hold.

DavidPostill

@Ramhound I made a couple more comments and he deleted the answer.

bwDraco

NVIDIA has PhysX; AMD has Havok (but GPU physics acceleration is not widely available on AMD processors). PhysX is not exactly light on even NVIDIA GPUs and that tells a lot about how their GPUs are designed.

Ben N

@DavidPostill This one

Ramhound

16:02

0

A: Azure VPN disconnects when switching users

This is by design, we cannot switch the users and keep the Azure Point-to-Site VPN connection connected. When using Azure Point-to-Site (P2S) VPN, P2S connections use a VPN tunnel made via the Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) with authentication being provided by certificates. Actually, ...

DavidPostill

superuser.com/questions/1059605/… and superuser.com/questions/1059605/… (10k only)

Ramhound

there fixed it, had indicated, the wrong answer.

Ben N

Hmm, comments on deleted posts aren't oneboxed

Ramhound

So this answer

bwDraco

If more developers used OpenCL to accelerate physics using Havok, chances aren't bad AMD will come out on top.

Ramhound

16:04

he did the same thing as before, linked to a site, but didn't quote anything from it.

0

A: Azure VPN disconnects when switching users

This is by design, we cannot switch the users and keep the Azure Point-to-Site VPN connection connected. When using Azure Point-to-Site (P2S) VPN, P2S connections use a VPN tunnel made via the Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) with authentication being provided by certificates. Actually, ...

Bob

@JourneymanGeek sobit.me/2016/07/08/amazon-software-engineer-interview

bwDraco

It's just that AMD lacks the same level of developer support and ecosystem that NVIDIA has.

DavidPostill

Ramhound

So I call him on it :$ and instead of fixing it he said "I am not going to argue, I had the same problem, but doesn't improve the answer"

DavidPostill

@Ramhound You did the right thing. I guess he's pissed that you called him out twice :)

Bob

16:06

@DavidPostill ...re: your comments, making reasonable suggestions in answers isn't really a problem

remember that we're trying to help future visitors too

bwDraco

Until games make wider use of vendor-neutral GPU compute functionality (and PhysX is not vendor-neutral), NVIDIA's GPUs will continue to have a real-world advantage over AMD.

Bob

there's lots of cases where the question might have alternative answers depending on the situation, and having those documented can definitely help

if it's purely asking the OP a question, that's bad

Ramhound

@Bob - He provided no details on how to do those suggestions though

Bob

if it's a "if A, then you should do B", that's alright. Good, even.

@Ramhound I'm referring specifically to @DavidPostill's comments there.

Ramhound

Confused by your own comment about David's comment but alright -)

Bob

16:09

one of the biggest complaints about SE in general (and SO specifically) that I see (on external sites) is the apparent barrier to entry. If you don't do everything perfectly right people start calling you out -- without suggestions on how to improve, usually

"This isn't really an answer" -- so, why isn't it an answer? How can he make it better?

You did provide that info... in a later comment.

DavidPostill

Yes. But he is still asking a question of the OP. He could have easily rephrased his answer. Something like:

"If your WSUS server is configured to replicated with an upstream WSUS server then you need to check if the upstream server has the same products and classifications settings and also has approved the Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 related updates."

Then it becomes an answer. Note I only changed a couple of words ...

Bob

@DavidPostill That's trivial for you to edit, then. And the only difference is phrasing.

It's so minor I wouldn't even bother calling it out.

DavidPostill

@Bob In this case he got the hump and deleted the question before we had a chance to edit it ...

Bob

@DavidPostill Question for you: how many times have you been neck deep in debugging something and stumbled on a related question? How often has the accepted answer not helped? How often has an alternative answer helped?

Because I find that happens very often - and I'm definitely in favour of preserving the knowledge (and the people who have that knowledge, within reason) where possible.

Ramhound

I guess I just have high expectations. I didn't go into much detail because I tried that once with this specific user, and in another answer, he did exactly what I suggested he not do (link to a site without quoting the relevant information). It might be my (incorrect) belief that if a link is important enough to link to, it should b quoted)

Bob

16:13

@Ramhound I find I'm using this quote a lot, but:

DavidPostill

@Bob Probably 0. Note that I only answer questions on Super User and Stack Overflow. I've only asked one question on Super User and that was self-answered :)

Bob

> Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others

@Ramhound It's great to have high expectations of yourself and even established users. But new users ... SE is different enough from other sites that some nudging might be required.

Ramhound

I have used lots of answers on Superuser to solve problems. The best ones were detailed, provided information to support their statements, the one line answers suggesting I do something without telling me HOW were not helpful.

Ben N

@Bob That principle resulted in the huge mess that is web formats :P

Bob

@DavidPostill That's really surprising. So you never run into bugs? Programs, operating systems, misbehaving? Or do you never bother searching answers for that?

Ramhound

16:15

So telling me to "check" something isn't helpful, if i knew how to check that something, I wouldn't have had the question.

Bob

@Ramhound Hm. Maybe my experiences are somewhat unique, then.

Ben N

Besides, there's a place for "debugging questions": the comments section

Bob

@BenN IMO, the place for debugging questions is chat. It really doesn't fit Q&A.

But if you want to force it into Q&A, then anything that includes a concrete suggestion of what to do should be an answer.

Ben N

Right, sorry, I was trying to refer to follow-up questions like the one that was just deleted

DavidPostill

@Bob Of course I search. And I find good quality answers on Stack Overflow and Super User.

Ben N

16:17

Though, in fairness, "if X, then you can do Y" answers are answers, and I don't think I would have flagged the one under discussion as NAA

Ramhound

If I wanted "did you try that?" I just come to chat or go to a forum. If I asked a question, i want the answer, pretty simply to impress me with an answer. It just has to answer the question not, ask questions of me as the reader, a question to me as the reader indicates something is wrong with the question (if I am the author)

DavidPostill

@bob @Ramhound @BenN I voted to undelete that answer. If that happens I will fix up the answer.

Bob

It's a case where I personally probably would've left a comment because I like expanding on my answers.

bwDraco

The GTX 1060 is going to have a slight advantage over the RX 480 in terms of overall performance (15% faster, from the rumors), but it does it with considerably lower compute performance (4.4 vs 5.8 peak FP32 TFLOPS at boost clocks).

Bob

But SE policy seems to tend more towards "comments are very transient"

(see: the mass of deleted comments)

Ben N

16:19

3

A: How can I post comments to other users' questions/answers without reputation?

As the post DavidPostill linked to said, you should write answers that don't require extra information from the original poster. I like to use the form "this problem can be caused by thing because stuff happens; you can fix it by doing solution." Having sources/references in such answers helps a ...

bwDraco

This shows how NVIDIA and AMD spend their transistor budgets.

DavidPostill

@BenN It wasn't flagged as not an answer. It got comments that it could be improved. There's a big difference.

Bob

@Ramhound That works fairly well for theoretical questions (which I love answering). Doesn't work so well for troubleshooting questions.

Ben N

Right, sorry, I was trying to say that it is an answer. Maybe I need to work on clarity this morning ;)

I've only had one cup of coffee so far

Bob

Because the symptoms (the question) can have many causes (and therefore answers).

Ramhound

16:20

@Bob I made a great point though

He indicated he should check something (witout saying how)

he indicated something else witout showing how

Bob

@Ramhound There's also the question of how much knowledge can be assumed...

DavidPostill

@bob @Ramhound @BenN I give up. No more undelete votes. I can't fix the answer without your help.

Bob

I haven't actually seen the original question here, so I don't know how it was phrased.

Ramhound

I suppose I just feel, if you can't literally explain the behavior in an answer, and you have to assume to much get clarification.

I can't vote to undelete

qwertyuiop

Dang it.

Ramhound

16:22

3000 short

:-)

bwDraco

AMD's been betting on compute for a long time now. That approach has put them at a disadvantage, and game developers have not been doing much GPU compute (aside from PhysX, which is very hard on NVIDIA GPUs) until recently.

qwertyuiop

Might have to reflow this PCB without the thermal camera :-(

Ben N

13K short, it takes 20K to undelete an answer ;)

bwDraco

Your thoughts?

Bob

Some question seem to require a lot of hand-holding. Others, the OP seems to know what they're doing. Hm.

@DavidPostill Wait, we can vote to undelete when it's owner-deleted? o.O

DavidPostill

16:23

Ah. Never mind. @BenN @Ramhound I wasn't thinking rep :/

Bob

That seems... weird.

DavidPostill

@Bob Yes. I can anyway.

Bob

ok, I just read that question

Ben N

IIRC the only things trusted users can't delete/undelete are posts that were torched by mods

Bob

OP requires a lot of hand-holding, it looks like -_-

so, yea, @Ramhound has a good point here :P

DavidPostill

16:24

Ben N

I assume the revisions link is from a userscript?

DavidPostill

@BenN Yes.

Bob

@DavidPostill I've chucked one on there but needs a third.

Ben N

@bwDraco?

Bob

OTOH I'm not 100% sure about undeleting/fixing an owner-deleted... if they don't want it there anymore... :S

Dammit, I need to start doing review queues more.

bwDraco

16:26

@BenN AMD and NVIDIA's approaches to making GPUs.

jokerdino

@BenN yes

bwDraco

8 mins ago, by bwDraco

The GTX 1060 is going to have a slight advantage over the RX 480 in terms of overall performance (15% faster, from the rumors), but it does it with considerably lower compute performance (4.4 vs 5.8 peak FP32 TFLOPS at boost clocks).

DavidPostill

@BenN I think it is this one:

7

Q: Add Timeline and Revisions Links

Screenshot About This is a simple Greasemonkey script which adds both timeline and revision links to questions and answers in many of the different question views. Within a question view, a timeline link as added to the question and revisions links are conditionally added to all post...

Ben N

29

Q: When is it OK to vote to undelete posts that were deleted by their owners?

Sometimes, I encounter genuinely interesting questions that get deleted, either because the OP figured it out right after posting, or because it was receiving downvotes and close votes for any number of (valid) reasons, and answers that get deleted out of doubt or to be reposted as comments but t...

discussion deleted-questions 10k-tools deleted-answers

Ramhound

Looks like Green Yi is removing any answer with a negative vote

Bob

16:32

@DavidPostill I've edited it anyway, whether it's undeleted or not.

DavidPostill

@Bob Oooer. I didn't know you could do that ;)

@Ramhound The other (now deleted) question was on 0

Ramhound

Well he deleted like 3 answers

Bob

@DavidPostill Still can't comment, though :\

DavidPostill

@Bob Nice edit :)

Mokubai

Y'all having fun?

Bob

16:35

Oh yea, how's the threaded comments working out for you?

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Yep.

Bob

I disabled that a while back... it wasn't very accurate :\

Mokubai

@DavidPostill Is that a Chrome only one? Doesn't seem to work on FF + Greasemonkey

Bob

> August 30, 2012 - Added Chrome support.

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Hmm. I'm on Firefox. Wait

Mokubai

16:36

@Bob Yeah, saw that, but wondering if they removed FF

Bob

@Mokubai Are you on HTTPS?

The default includes are only HTTP.

Mokubai

I don't believe so

Bob

I can't remember if Greasemonkey respects the protocol

DavidPostill

@Mokubai You want a copy of the script I'm actually using?

Mokubai

@DavidPostill You have a modified one?

DavidPostill

16:38

@Mokubai No idea, but it works for me.

// ==UserScript==
// @name Stack Exchange: Add Timeline and Revisions links to posts
// @description Adds links to posts to always show history and links to questions to show the Timeline".
// @namespace StackExchange
// @match *://*.askubuntu.com/questions/*
// @match *://*.mathoverflow.net/questions/*
// @match *://*.serverfault.com/questions/*
// @match *://*.stackapps.com/questions/*
// @match *://*.stackexchange.com/questions/*
// @match *://*.stackoverflow.com/questions/*

Mokubai

If you have the source then I can at least check it is the same... Might be the mod stuff

bwDraco

GPUs aren't the topic here right now, so I'll hold the discussion for later.

DavidPostill

@Mokubai See ^^^

Mokubai

Definitely not the same.

bwDraco

I have a different userscript than this that enables timeline links.

Mokubai

16:40

@bwDraco Got that one, the revisions would be useful... for things...

bwDraco

// ==UserScript==
// @name          Stack Exchange Timeline Link
// @namespace     stackoverflow
// @description   Add a 'timeline' link to Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow posts - based on stackapps.com/questions/2047/add-timeline-and-revisions-links
// @include       http://*stackexchange.com/*
// @include       http://*stackoverflow.com/*
// @include       http://*serverfault.com/*
// @include       http://*superuser.com/*
// @include       http://*askubuntu.com/*
// @include       http://*mathoverflow.net/*

Mokubai

I do have a neat script that shows deleted chat messages though... you need to have room owner rights tho.

bwDraco

Dec 5 '15 at 2:56, by bwDraco

Be advised that at this time, if I were granted room owner privileges, it is likely I will simply revoke them from myself.

...still not sure if I want room ownership right now.

Things are getting better but I don't think I'm ready just yet.

DavidPostill

@Mokubai I have one as well. I do have to reload the page though :/

Mokubai

@DavidPostill I adjusted it to add a button under the greasemonkey menu so no reload needed

Ben N

16:43

I wonder how hard it would be to fiddle the chat JS to just not respect the "message deleted" notification

bwDraco

Here's a substantial update that adds support for all Stack Exchange sites, including Meta sites for the Trilogy and sites such as Ask Ubuntu which have different domain names. I've also removed the return false; at the end of the start function because answers now have their own timelines. gist.github.com/bwDraco/85a5806b0d0681efc596 — bwDraco Jan 8 at 3:58

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Hmm. Can you share?

Mokubai

// ==UserScript==
// @name Show deleted chat messages for Stack Exchange
// @grant GM_registerMenuCommand
// @match *://chat.stackexchange.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

function showDeleted() {

var userscript = function($) {

$('span.deleted').closest('.message').each(function() {
var id = this.id.replace('message-', ''), _this = this;
$.get('http://chat.stackexchange.com/messages/' + id + '/history', function(data) {
var msgtxt = data.match(/<div class="content">([\s\S]+?)<\/div>/)[1].trim();
$('.content > span', _this).html(msgtxt).css({backgroundColor: '#f4eaea', color: '#000'});

Ramhound

guess what time it is guys?

Bob

I prefer to let deleted stay deleted unless I really want to peek :P

Ramhound

16:45

youtu.be/68uWlNjm4lA (strong language used)

Mokubai

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Thanks.

wgwz

Hi, all. @Psycogeek @BenN couldn't get into the servers today. unfortunately my uncle has hired a company to try to crack the ransomware.

he's getting ripped off, and i told him so. but he felt like he had no option :(

Ben N

Good morning! Sorry to hear that. Could you ask him to let you look at the ransom note?

Bob

@wgwz Wouldn't it be cheaper to just pay the ransom?

Assuming no backups and you really need to get the data.

wgwz

16:49

yah. but he doesn't want to do that.

Bob

... :S

I mean... that'd be the pragmatic approach.

Ben N

My guess is that the company will pay the ransom for you if they can't break it

(and then charge you for that, of course)

wgwz

there are backups but they have been encrypted.

Bob

No offline/offsite backups, then?

:S

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Hmm. My "User Script Commands" is disabled (greyed out) :/

Ben N

16:49

In the future, make sure you have offline backups

wgwz

i would certainly hope so. they have until monday to crack it

qwertyuiop

!!tell 30918101 wat

ChatBot John Cavil

Ben N

@qwertyuiop They were accessible from the machine that got hit

wgwz

@Bob unfortunately no.

Bob

16:50

urk

Ben N

If you have a spare Windows machine, you can set it up as a file server. Enable File History and have people only access it via network shares. If the files get encrypted, you can roll back, and since it's over the network, ransomware that clears shadow copies won't do anything to it

wgwz

i'm looking into solutions for that now. hoping to save him some money there, but seems like they will go with another company for that as well

Mokubai

@DavidPostill probably means it didn't find the script or you're not in a chat window, might just need to reload chat.

Bob

@BenN Assuming no network vuln on the server, of course.

wgwz

looking into solutions for offsite backups

*

Bob

16:51

But most ransomware targets low hanging fruit anyway.

qwertyuiop

^^ this

Bob

That's what I did at one place.

Rotating daily (RDX drive) backups, taken offsite. Shadow copies enabled, every 3 hours.

qwertyuiop

Sure they could probably figure out some way I've left insecure to connect to my server, escalate to root, and then dd if=/dev/urandom all the drives or just zfs destroy all the snapshots

But they probably won't

Bob

Actually we might've increased shadow copy frequency to 1 hour at some point.

wgwz

i've been considering this: jungledisk.com

Bob

16:53

That covers lost work during the day, and the offsite backup covers catastrophic failure.

wgwz

seems relatively cheap.

Bob

@qwertyuiop Not much point when you don't even need privilege escalation on the infected computer. That's the beauty (horror?) of ransomware.

qwertyuiop

@Bob Well wiping everything from the infected computer wouldn't clear existing zfs snapshots on the server. They'd have to be root on the server too to manage that

Bob

@qwertyuiop Yup, but most people don't even have a server. Why spend the time and effort attacking those who do?

qwertyuiop

Could the NSA do it? Probably. Will it ever happen to me even if I do get infected by ransomware? Probably not.

Bob

16:55

We should all thank the simple consumers of the world for being more attractive targets :P

qwertyuiop

@Bob Because more stuff, more money, more everything!

I'd happily pay $10k to get all my lost data back if I could

Bob

@qwertyuiop Hm, if they were targeting businesses... yea, that's a good point actually.

Ramhound

-1

A: Windows 10 white lock screen

I have exactly the same on my home Win10. When I hit Win+L a bright white screen comes up, and stays forever. I need to press Ctrl+Alt+Del there to get to the login screen. This is ugly, and outrageous :)

qwertyuiop

I think an NHS hospital or GP clinic in England got targeted sometime recently

They were basically out of action for two weeks.

(And I do believe some businesses have elected to pay the ransom, but not sure if that was the same case)

I have offline backups anyway. I physically yank out the drives when I'm done

Paranoid perhaps, but meh

wgwz

any thoughts on jungledisk?

qwertyuiop

16:57

Better safe than ~~sorry~~ unexpectedly zapped by a stray bolt of lightning

Bob

@qwertyuiop I keep most of my backup externals off, though that's more for disk life :P

But they're still plugged into mains. Hmm.

qwertyuiop

@Bob Now that is paranoid :-P

Mokubai

@DavidPostill not quite sure why that script was set up to only insert the timeline link on questions, but fixed now.

Bob

@wgwz Unknown. Possibly something more common? Dunno. Also, if that's 'cloud' backup, make sure you have enough upload bandwidth. And have a restore plan.

@Ramhound Ok, that's more of a "me too" :P

DavidPostill

@Mokubai Oh. You have it working on answers as well? Please share :)

Bob

16:59

I dunno if the "hit ctrl+alt+del anyway" counts as a workaround but that's pretty much implied in the question. blah.

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