Root Access

Michael Frank

00:00

@JourneymanGeek What a frustrating conversation...

Journeyman Geek

lol

Anonymous

@Bob do you have any ideas in mind or is this too much of a mess to help?

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco much like humour, timing is an essential part of moderation ;p (oh wait)

Bob

@PatoSáinz ...I have a couple. But I'd need to find a nix machine to test with :P

One min.

Anonymous

Sure, thanks

Anonymous

00:03

I can give you ssh details to one if you're short of a VM

Bob

@PatoSáinz Oh, I have a dozen VPSes.

I just need to figure out why my key no worky :(

gah

would be easier to just spin up a new one on azure

Anonymous

thank god for throwaway VMs

Journeyman Geek

;p

Bob

@PatoSáinz the one I'm tyring to get on is a throwaway :P

Anonymous

just don't forget to delete them unless you want to be mining bitcoins for a chinese cartel

Anonymous

00:10

off-topic: working with RHEL 5 and 6 machines have made me realise just how much I love systemd (not being ironic)

Bob

@PatoSáinz you wouldn't happen to have python or perl I suppose?

they'd be much easier

Anonymous

@Bob hmm I think they are available but it needs to be ideally portable

Bob

double gah

Anonymous

and I think neither are bundled by default with EL 6

Anonymous

I know, I know

Anonymous

00:12

but hey, constraints are where creativity flourishes

Bob

brb

Journeyman Geek

>_>

yum is in python

so you SHOULD have python installed by default

Bob

I normally don't like jumping into a different scripting environment but bash variable and stderr handling is just grotesque

Anonymous

hmm yeah, but

Anonymous

I'm editing an existing script which is in bash

Anonymous

00:15

so starting from another language and then jumping into bash is a no-go

Anonymous

@Bob this.

bwDraco

@JourneymanGeek Yeah, totally missed the timestamp until well after I posted the message.

I'll just be more careful next time.

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco I have some addon that adds the timestamp, Though I was alluding to the fact I repiled a few hours after the fact ;p

bwDraco

lol smiles

Journeyman Geek

hm. This is an odd flag

Someone flagged a "these comments have been moved to chat" comment as obsolete

DavidPostill

00:19

lol

bwDraco

When did the move occur?

Journeyman Geek

dec 22 2016

bwDraco

Yeah. That's a weird one. I'd probably dismiss the flag as invalid.

Journeyman Geek

the real question is - does the link have any value?

bwDraco

Is the room locked or deleted?

Journeyman Geek

00:20

I clearly thought so when I converted them to comments

frozen, but that's fine

bwDraco

I'd leave it for the benefit of future readers.

Journeyman Geek

That's what I'm going to do ;p

just wondering about the motivation behind the flag

bwDraco

Yeah. It isn't obvious why the flag was raised...

Anonymous

the worst is that this problem is not easily googleable

Anonymous

"redirect stdout to variable bash" only talks about the obvious $()

Anonymous

00:26

which is not of use to me because it won't redirect the whole script, as exec does

Journeyman Geek

ehhh

@Burgi ping!

I'm about to reject two of your flags, but considering your recent flag suspension, it feels like a good idea to check if I'm missing something.

Anonymous

how the hell is Aviation.SE the site I have the most e-points

Anonymous

I'm not even a pilot

Burgi

umm...

@JourneymanGeek which ones?

Bob

@PatoSáinz ok, back (to figuring out my ssh details)

Journeyman Geek

00:28

8

A: Mysterious blank folder keeps showing up on my desktop

According to this discussion, this issue seems to be related to remnants of an old Microsoft Office 2010 installation. http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/256250-random-empty-folder-keeps-appearing-desktop.html The fix suggests searching the registry for 138508BC-1E03-49EA-9C8F-EA9E1D...

Anonymous

@Bob thx

Burgi

i probably shouldn't flag while tired

Journeyman Geek

The top answer says why, what to do and provides a source

Bob

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

...

Journeyman Geek

the other answer, meh, I'd probably let it slide, It tells you what to do and where, even if its a bit cargo cultish.

Bob

00:29

I don't have a bob user on that VM

Burgi

to me the first one looked like a link only answer

Bob

it's just root

fml.

Journeyman Geek

@Burgi its concise but its fine

Burgi

fair enough, and the 2nd one seems to be just a comment

Journeyman Geek

It has a 'what to do' - and while it confirms the first answer, it adds some information

what scares me there though is that there's no reference to what these keys do

and its mostly distinct

Burgi

00:33

the edit improved it

Journeyman Geek

yup

Burgi

fair enough

i only came across them while reviewing edits

Journeyman Geek

nods

allquixotic

@Bob still stuck on lame client channel

Burgi

i'll not flag anything else until tuesday to make sure i don't get the silly 5 in one day thing that happened last time

Journeyman Geek

00:36

lol

just stick to obvious spam I guess?

and/or keep these things in mind.

Bob

@allquixotic what URL are you connecting to?

Burgi

yeah i can

your rolled up newspaper isn't as harsh as i was expecting it

Journeyman Geek

lol

One never actually learns from the rolled up newspaper ;p

Positive reinforcement is always better.

Burgi

i can haz biscuit? ;)

Journeyman Geek

tosses @Burgi a scooby snack

Burgi

00:39

NOM!

halfway through the meeting with that freelance client they suddenly started asking me how many babies i had, why i didn't have any, why donald trump was amazing and crazy stuff like that

Journeyman Geek

0_0

Anonymous

@Burgi that client was foreign?

Burgi

literally mid sentence they would veer off into random observations

Anonymous

Maybe he needed a political analyst

Anonymous

not a programmer

Journeyman Geek

00:42

"I have a whole box full of em"

"Question is really, boiled or baked"

@Burgi smile and nod, and pad the bill? ;p

Burgi

@JourneymanGeek thats what i'm thinking

Journeyman Geek

Someone's politics matters little as long as he pays on time IMO

Burgi

@PatoSáinz devout jewish guy who sells shoes

i think they were american israelis

certainly not a Mancunian accent

Bob

well

I couldn't do it, but try this @PatoSáinz: stackoverflow.com/a/26827443/1030702

Burgi

their daughter was cute

Anonymous

00:46

"really ugly"

Anonymous

will look in it

Bob

@PatoSáinz once you have it in the two vars, you can do standard echos to get it back to real stdout/stderr

Burgi

shes going to email me the basic designs soonish

Anonymous

@Bob but, will it do it in order?

Bob

@PatoSáinz nup! does it need to be?

because I think you're probably asking too much of bash by this point :P

Anonymous

00:49

@Bob yes ;_;. It has to be seamless to the console

Bob

you can ask on Unix & Linux I suppose

Anonymous

and the variable has to reflect exactly what the console was shown

Bob

dunno if they have anything up their sleeve

Anonymous

Ok, so it's complex enough to warrant a question

Anonymous

thanks anyway @Bob

Burgi

01:01

has @Rahul2001 been around since he got his last girlfriend grounded?

DavidPostill

@Burgi He was around earlier today (now yesterday)

Burgi

ah ok

i must have missed him while playing transistor

Journeyman Geek

yup

Burgi

which is an odd game... you appear to murder people with a giant USB stick

DavidPostill

I feel naked without my hat :)

Burgi

01:10

paint does odd things with PNGs

nn

allquixotic

@Bob github.com/allquixotic/kynnaugh-cc smcnam.me/win64_bin.7z

the latter contains the grpc/sndfile natives and other headers you'll need; look in the .pro file and it contains one or two references to a hard-coded path

Journeyman Geek

01:38

lol

@Burgi paint.net >>>>>> paint

lol

Unrelatedly

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/…

> It doesn’t spend much time comparing its newest chips to the previous generation, either. What the company focuses on overwhelmingly is PCs from about five years ago. The PC market is saturated, which means most computers sold are replacing an older one. What Intel has to do is convince you that you need a new computer, and none of the chips from the last two or three years has made a great argument for that.

This is true ;p

entirely unrelatedly to both, other than being a 50 year old CS teaching tool imgur.com/a/gy1ro this is beautiful

Bob

@JourneymanGeek ugh.

> Even with those downsides, adding more cores is probably the easiest and best way to boost performance at the high-end and convince consumers to replace that three-to-five-year-old PC.

uh, no.

> Enough apps are built to take advantage of multiple cores that users would see benefits immediately.

nope.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob essentially, the PC's become an appliance

People don't replace their air conditioners and fridges cause 'they're obsolete'

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I'm just saying. Ars' claims that more cores are useful... is just wrong, IMO.

Journeyman Geek

Not disagreeing ;p

but "at the high end" is different

Bob

For the average consumer, a dual-core part is plenty.

Journeyman Geek

01:46

and more cores = bigger numbers = MOAR DAKKA!

Bob

quad-core is already going to be sitting mostly idle.

Journeyman Geek

My dad's happy with a decade old machine with 2 cores and a gig of ram

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Ars wasn't talking purely about the high end.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob more that more cores = bigger numbers...

which is the same sorta thinking that resulted in PR numbers and netboost....

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Yea, I've mentioned that before.

But as long as you're talking about normal consumers... the most intensive thing they might do is gaming.

Journeyman Geek

01:48

And em

I'm agreeing with you, mostly ;p

Bob

And it's only in the last year or two that we've really seen games use more than two cores.

And even then they don't tend to max out four.

Journeyman Geek

indirectly, in saying 'older machines are good enough for most people'

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Ya, I know :P

I just felt like ranting a bit.

Journeyman Geek

;p

bwDraco

...I'm tempted to sign up for Medium.

Bob

01:49

Don't particularly like these recent Ars articles.

Journeyman Geek

lol

I mean, I'm a hardware geek's hardware geek

and I'm not looking at my PC and going "hey, I could use [more ram| more cores|faster storage]

Bob

> If Intel feels threatened, it will be quicker to drop prices and introduce new chips to counter AMD’s.

Journeyman Geek

I do kinda want more hard disk space

Bob

Drop prices? Yup, probably.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob and a wider product line, racing to the bottom ;p

Bob

01:50

Introduce new chips quicker? Uh. Nah. Not unless you want more filler crap.

It's not like someone can wave a magic wand and a new chip design appears.

Journeyman Geek

competition is generally good

Bob

"Oi, engineers, we need a new chip 20% faster by next month!"

Journeyman Geek

but unless AMD gets the sort of proper mass market appeal...

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I can see Intel dropping prices, and that's good.

Journeyman Geek

Yup

We'd benefit cause we're the segment that builds our own PCs

bwDraco

01:51

Unlike AMD, Intel generally does not make minor CPU updates mid-cycle.

Bob

New chips... either they won't (good), or they will and those will end up being barely different from existing chips (not good).

Journeyman Geek

like now? ;p

for that matter, I don't have a compelling reason (if I had the money) to go from say, ivy to kaby or coffee

In fact, my last major upgrade (laptop) was driven by display quality over ... well everything else

bwDraco

New build? Sure. But there's practically no reason to upgrade from Skylake to Kaby Lake.

Journeyman Geek

yup

bwDraco

Even from Haswell.

Ivy Bridge, maybe.

Nehalem, sure.

Journeyman Geek

01:55

lol

bwDraco

(well Nehalem is ancient by today's standards)

Journeyman Geek

(I run Ivy)

Last generation GPU tho

bwDraco

How much IPC improvement has Intel made this generation? Zero, zip, zilch, nada.

Hence, unless your application is extremely sensitive to compute performance, there is no reason to upgrade. Even Optane support is not worth it (you might as well get a small enterprise SSD instead).

Journeyman Geek

Optane's not interesting yet

and I suspect other features would be more compelling for me, even if I'm a bit of an outlier.

Out of band management would rock my sox.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek The commenters on that Ars article at least match what I'd expect :P

Some people there are also upgrading purely for a new mobo/chipset.

Quite a few seem to have realised that single-thread perf is probably still the most important.

@bwDraco Most people don't do yearly upgrades anyway.

So the question becomes "buy old Skylake processors, maybe discounted, or new Kaby"

And yea it's more peripherals than the CPU these days.

@JourneymanGeek eh. exists. mostly dependent on mobo support. but not on unlocked CPUs

bwDraco

02:22

...*Alastor* updated for Kaby Lake.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pd6Dm8
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pd6Dm8/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($349.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H80i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($97.88 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS IX FORMULA ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($393.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 960 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($358.21 @ B&H)

($400 for a mobo does seem to be overkill. This is the most advanced of the Z270 ASUS ROG boards, short of the EATX Maximus IX Extreme [which is not yet available].)

Journeyman Geek

@Bob insanely rare on consumer/enthusiast machines. I think intel Q series boards have em

Sandy to skylake for me was 1) deep discount 2) better display

though if I'd waited, the gen 2 model was twice the ram, but whatevs ;p

._.

My dad's laptop wouldn't power up. Checked with a spare power adaptor, realised his phone wasn't charging either. Switched the fuse on the multi adaptor.. no luck. Moved his table a nudge, made sure the mains was switched on (it was in an odd, middly position) and... everything works.

shoulda checked that first ;p

rofl

> Most of the non geeky people I know think of computers like appliances, and expect nearly the same longevity from them. Good luck trying to market new cpu's to that crowd.

bwDraco

@JourneymanGeek At one point, there was a Supermicro Z97 board that had out-of-band management capability.

Journeyman Geek

02:37

@bwDraco @Bob if it was a standard chipset feature, it would be pretty darned useful

and something intel would/could add for minimal engineering budget - enterprise grade setups are a single chip that hasn't been updated in decades, and intel has an in house one that ties into AMT

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Only for business chipsets

And I can see the uproar now

Journeyman Geek

ehhh.

Bob

INTEL ADDING BACKDOORS

IS INTEL SPYING ON US??

Journeyman Geek

@Bob this is true. And ruining it for the rest of us ;p

bwDraco

...actually, that's an X99 board

Supermicro C7X99-OCE-F

Journeyman Geek

02:39

@Bob though being able to disable it would be a good idea, for security reasons, and presumably having it disabled by default.

bwDraco

AST2400 BMC.

Journeyman Geek

ah

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Pretty sure these things are usually an option in firmware.

> If you find out that only 10% of the users ever checkout in your webshop, would you remove the "Checkout" button?

89

A: Should we kill the features that users are not using frequently, to improve performance?

Beside what was said in the other good answers here, you have a much more basic problem. You are misreading your data. A heatmap generally sums up all clicks on a pixel, regardless of who made them. And you (and the other answers) seem to be interpreting this heatmap as the proportion of users ...

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco that company essentially makes ~~all~~ many of the BMCs

@Bob which is why crying about it ruins it for the rest of us ;p

Bob

It's always fun when your BMC blows up and takes your server with it.

That's happened to me.

Twice.

Journeyman Geek

02:42

lol

Bob

Once at each dedi host I've used o.O

Journeyman Geek

my last work place had a bunch of blade servers with broken BMCs

bwDraco

...okay. There does exist a Z97 board with IPMI, and that's the C7Z97-MF.

Journeyman Geek

video broke, so we had a checklist of keystrokes to do things

@bwDraco the wider point I was trying to make is that there's ways to add value other than raw performance ;p

bwDraco

I'm going through Supermicro's products right now...

...can't find much more.

Anonymous

02:45

/me still battling with bash...

Bob

02:56

@PatoSáinz so you're bashing bash?

or is that just bashing?

Anonymous

bashception

bwDraco

Is a router configured as a bridge (to allow connecting wired devices) acting as a layer-3 router or a layer-2 switch?

...nvm, bridging is a layer-2 operation.

Bob

03:12

> We just got this notice from the IRS -- amanda@<companyemail>

lol.

1. we don't have an amanda (...I hope?)

2. that there's the old company email domain. like, 5+ years old and no longer used.

3. ...yea no we don't directly operate in the US

4. ...yea no tax etc isn't my job anyway

ahhhhhh fun spam

@bwDraco The real question is: "does it matter?"

It's acting as a PCB with ICs soldered on it that performs briding.

That's about as accurate a description as any.

Journeyman Geek

03:32

lol

the OSI model is an abstraction. As is the other model whose name I completely forget but has fewer layers

bwDraco

03:46

Dec 31 '16 at 1:49, by bwDraco

Add me to the list of medically afflicted. Dropped a door from a damaged cabinet while it was being moved, fell on my bare left little toe. I'm not sure as to the extent of the damage, but I must assume that a fracture had occurred (even if minor) to avoid further complications.

...and my toe has not fully healed. AARGH

Pretty sure it's a fracture. How long it'll take to heal, I wouldn't know.

I'm getting tired of dressing the injured toe every night.

Journeyman Geek

go see a doctor.

Bob

04:27

@JourneymanGeek America

Anonymous

04:37

@Bob then he could sue somebody

Anonymous

the cabinet maker for starters

Anonymous

in /dev/chat, 32 secs ago, by Pato Sáinz

Are there any read-writeable filesystems before init mounts /sys, /proc and calls udev?

Anonymous

I sure hope so

Journeyman Geek

@Bob if its actually broken, not getting it looked at would be a bad idea.

Anonymous

05:00

@Bob apparently /dev is readwriteable

Anonymous

I think I'll write a FIFO

Bob

@PatoSáinz I wonder if you can manually create a tmpfs :P

Anonymous

@Bob I think it'd be a bit of a contraption

Anonymous

to create a tmpfs only to kill it 2 seconds later

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Oh, ya, I'd be the first to say go to a doctor. Well, after you :P

Anonymous

05:05

but this whole thing is contraptions

Anonymous

I think I'll be able to finish this in half an hour

Anonymous

finally

Anonymous

I've been at least 7 hours dealing with this crap

Anonymous

I can't believe I missed trying the /dev filesystem, I thought I had already tested it

Journeyman Geek

05:33

@Bob amusingly the first person I ask these things is my mom

Bob

05:45

> How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it, and another one to change it back again.

Psycogeek

and the whole time thier constiuants are left in the dark

Rahul2001

05:58

@Burgi Hi!

I was in an aashram (monastery) for the last five days. I'm back now!

Journeyman Geek

(by which he means, he was on the lam from all the angry parents)

;p

Rahul2001

Kinda, my mom sent me for a course on yoga and meditation and stuff

Journeyman Geek

did you find inner peace?

Rahul2001

Hehe, maybe? IDK yet...

Rahul2001

06:21

Does anyone know of an easy way to convert png and jpg files to svg?

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek pastebin.com/eg9e8Sz8

Anonymous

don't ask me why

Anonymous

just don't

Anonymous

Finally.

Anonymous

I'm done.

Anonymous

06:22

It's an ugly hack but it works.

Journeyman Geek

That's the best sort

Anonymous

I never in my life though I'd have to hack rc and rc.sysinit

Anonymous

It's 03:23 AM and I'm done with bash.

Anonymous

hey @Bob I've done it. With an ugly as hell hack. Well, it's fitting because I'm editing the rc and rc.sysinit files, and the whole SysV system is an ugly hack too so it's not a problem. (pastebin.com/eg9e8Sz8)

Anonymous

As you see, trying to do anything useful before even udev is started is kind of hard

Bob

06:38

@PatoSáinz nice

or not-nice actually :P it's ugly but it works?

Journeyman Geek

That's always the best? ;p

Anonymous

it works

Rahul2001

YAY! New gravatar!

Journeyman Geek

refreshes

also, did you miss all of winterbash?

Rahul2001

@JourneymanGeek Nah, I was here most of the time

I've just been gone since the 4th...

XKCD

06:48

Hey Rob, sorry it took me a while to get back to you! Sure, I'd love to see WALL-E opening weekend! Are you still doing that, or...?

2

djsmiley2k

@bwDraco weeks :/

Jester Tran

Friend spilt water on laptop, left it to dry for 7 hours and turned it back on. Now stuck on American Megatrends BIOS screen. What should he do?

help

djsmiley2k

let it dry longer.

bwDraco

@djsmiley2k From what I've read, it can heal on its own if properly treated (a doctor visit is not necessary if it's not broken clean) but it could take up to six weeks to fully heal.

Journeyman Geek

Don't trust everything you read on the internet.

bwDraco

07:00

I've checked several sources.

Jester Tran

@djsmiley2k but like it's turning on

djsmiley2k

yeah i've broken my toes several times

nothing much docs can do other than straighten it

Jester Tran

what if he turns it back on and does this: tomshardware.com/answers/id-1766044/…

bwDraco

It ultimately depends on severity but since there is no loss of range of motion or deformation of any sort (just persistent, slow-healing swelling and pain), I doubt it needs a doctor visit.

Journeyman Geek

@JesterTran that's a desktop

and a very specific error on a very specific brand/model of desktop

bwDraco

07:02

Frankly, I've had a similar (stubbed toe) injury affecting a different toe many years back and while it did take many weeks to heal, it didn't require any special treatment and it went back to normal with no significant complications.

Journeyman Geek

WIthout actually having the laptop in front of you, and at least minimal troubleshooting information, there's little we can tell you

bwDraco

I've been dressing and buddy-wrapping the injured toe pretty much every night and the condition has been improving, albeit very slowly.

Rahul2001

Why American TV needs a Muslim Modern Family

►

Jester Tran

I'm in a skype call with him @JourneymanGeek

Journeyman Geek

Chinese whispers

Chinese whispers (or telephone in the United States) is an internationally popular game, in which one person whispers a message to the ear of the next person through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming misheard and altered along the way, part of the enjoyment is that, regardless, this usually ends up happening. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly from that of the first player, usually with amusing or...

Rahul2001

07:05

@JesterTran SWITCH IT OFF! AND LET IT BE FOR A FEW MORE DAYS! 7 HOURS IS NOT ENOUGH

Jester Tran

@Rahul2001 is 24hours enough at room temperature?

Rahul2001

@JesterTran Not nearly

Bob

that xkcd is so true

GOOMHR

Journeyman Geek

even then

"It boots to the bios screen" is hardly helpful

bwDraco

What is the output on the POST screen?

djsmiley2k

07:25

woooooo

so come into work for the 'early' shift this week

expecting a bit of havok being one of only 2 people here in on th early, and a distinct lack of training on the bits I'm dealing with

no calls in 24 minutes \o/

Journeyman Geek

... dude, don't jinx it

djsmiley2k

I dry out keyboards for like 3 days

A laptop, maybe a week i'd guess

@JourneymanGeek :D

it's ok, they know I've only just had the training

yey a call, on a client I know

Rahul2001

@Bob I made my first email account in '08 (I was 7 years old)... I still have unread mail from then

Journeyman Geek

0_0

facebook.com/minliangtan/posts/1283410441716735

Rahul2001

07:40

Check my new gravatar out!

djsmiley2k

@JourneymanGeek ouch

Journeyman Geek

@djsmiley2k yeah. Also, they'll never be able to sell it, and outside of mechanical design (which isn't perfected) these arn't actually original concepts

wouldn't be surprised if the 3 screen laptops were one working model with fixed screens, and one with the hinges, and the projector was a shell

djsmiley2k

I didn't see the models but yeah

it'll likely be some scabber who just grabbed it as it was tehre and looked cool

Journeyman Geek

Well, they had 2 concepts. One was a projector that would project around your screen for room scale displays - MS did a concept called illumiroom

djsmiley2k

oh yeah I recall that

Journeyman Geek

07:54

the other's a 3 screen laptop, that was a little like a polished up cross between the old 2 display thinkpad workstation, and the slidenjoy @Dog linked some time back

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