The Comms Room

6:08 PM

@AdrianK generally a good rule.

@voretaq7 Being prepared is an especially good idea here. I'm 60 miles from an active volcano and live on top of an active thrust fault.

tombull89

6:23 PM

@Zoredache yeah, i wasnt sure if that was supposed to have been hidden or not, but i guess the 'public' bit clears it.

MDMarra

This is old, but still WTF worthy guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/17/usa.oliverburkeman1

Zoredache

@MDMarra the last paragraph confuses me a bit. Did they have too separate codes? Was the 00000000 to launch or detonate. If that was the detonate code, it seems a little less bad. Wouldn't that mean that someone has to be close enough to the bomb that it would take themselves out?

MDMarra

@Zoredache Seems like it was probably the detonate code and not launch

And I'm sure there is a timer :)

s/is/was

AdrianK

I think those were designed with accelerometers to prevent premature detonation.

MDMarra

Not that someone blowing themselves up has ever really been a concern for some people

Scott Pack

6:31 PM

painfully withholds premature detonation joke

Zoredache

If someone has physical access to the bombs though, isn't that kinda pointless? Presumably the people with physical access had enough training to bypass any of those silly safe-guards anyway.

They could simply pull out all those silly safeguards and blow themselves up.

MDMarra

@Zoredache At the time though, there were what, 20? 50? people in the whole world that might be capable of that?

That was before Call of Duty came out. Now everyone's a weapons specialist :)

Plus, how exactly does one detonate a nuke? Short of smashing the tip of it with a hammer, I'd have no idea where to start.

Jeff Ferland

@MDMarra Detonator circuit is included. Call detonate() (through the keypad) and kaboom.

Iain

3

Q: Why can there be fire in space while there is no oxygen?

The sun is made of fire but fire needs oxygen right? So.. Why can there be flames in space, while there's no oxygen. Same idea as with the rocket engines of the spaceship which also produce fire while there's no oxygen.

sun

head desk

MDMarra

@Iain So...if the sun isn't made out of fire...why is it hot?

Jeff Ferland

6:35 PM

@Iain I'm going to call that one reasonable to ask.

MDMarra

Fire = hot. Sun = hot. Sun = Fire.

Duh

@sysadmin1138 NICE HAT

Jeff Ferland

Similar vein: last night one of our (train) engineers brought his girlfriend for her first cab ride on a steam engine. It didn't occur to most people who were part of the crew that having never been in the cab of a moving steam locomotive is normal. Most people probably haven't had cause to be taught the physics of such things as rocket fuel.

Zoredache

I suspect it depends on the type, but I believe you have some kind of high-order explosive that need to go off in order to initiate the fission reaction. Seems all you should have to do is to get that explosive material to explode. Everything is already there...

AdrianK

@JeffFerland Most people don't understand the physics of stopping their cars on slick roads either.

Iain

@Zoredache it's a shaped charge and it has to hold the 2 sub critical mas bits together for just long enough

Jeff Ferland

6:38 PM

@Iain Yeah, well, that's another rant entirely. At least in the US we need to stop handing out driver's licenses like candy. Driver's ed needs a skid pad and an autocross course.

Iain

s/iain/AdrianK/

AdrianK

@JeffFerland No kidding, eh? Of course, the whole thing around not suffering any consequences of one's own stupidity takes most of the efficacy out of that one anyway.

pauska

@sysadmin1138 aww nice little avatar

0

Q: Automatic harvesting of hacked hosts and reporting to domain/site admin

With so many internet attacks out there, I just think it would be convenient (and quicker and wise) if there is a way to automatically harvest the hacked hosts that are used to launch internet attacks/probes. For example a SSH host could install DenyHosts and/or implement hosts.deny. From failed ...

security hacks

"OK" ?

Holocryptic

Doesnt fail2ban do that?

Scott Pack

@Holocryptic fail2ban adds rules to the firewall. DenyHosts adds entries to the hosts.deny file

Basil

6:47 PM

I'm just going to leave this here: ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20111219/…

MikeyB

@Basil Right, Kent prevented opposition MPs from attending the climate conference and then had the gall to ask them "Why weren't you there?"

AdrianK

Looks like a Hasenpfeffer bonanza to me. shrug

MikeyB

Hahahaha: guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/17/usa.oliverburkeman1 (TL;DR: nuclear launch codes set to 00000000)

MDMarra

25 mins ago, by MDMarra

This is old, but still WTF worthy http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/17/usa.oliverburkeman1

MikeyB

@MDMarra Heh, oops.

I just opened a whole bunch of tabs to read articles while I imaged some blades, so it's entirely possible I opened it from here :p

MDMarra

6:51 PM

@Zoredache thinks it's not such a big deal since if they fell into the wrong hands they could probably be detonated through other means.

I think that other than hitting the thing with a hammer, I'd have no clue how to detonate it.

Zoredache

@MDMarra but I suspect you don't have a nuke, or have the interest in obtaining one. I would suspect that if someone was interested enough in trying to steal one, they probably would have an electronics/demolitions expert available to assist.

MDMarra

@Zoredache May I bring up the case of Coyote vs. Roadrunner. Coyote seemed to have infinite technology available to him without a clue of how to use it properly.

Zoredache

If so, then if Coyote was in possession of said bomb he would probably try 12345678 or something else... He would be too smart to believe that someone would set a code like 00000000

MDMarra

Hm.

well played

Zoredache

Nobody would ever try that code since nobody smart would ever use it...

MDMarra

6:57 PM

Very true

Basil

Interesting- there are almost no questions about mainframes on serverfault.

Peter Grace

I should fire up my AS/400 and start asking midrange questions.

Scott Pack

@Basil I don't know if "interesting" is quite the right word.

Basil

We have a team of 20-30 people who work on the mainframe. I think there's not one of them below 40, and the average age must be pushing 55.

How much should I ask as a raise when they start retiring?

Peter Grace

It was a big concern for the AS/400 crowd back in the 90's too

how to get young people into the platform.

Basil

6:59 PM

lol

Ward

Why are you all ignoring the hatlessness of @Zoredache and @voretaq7?

Basil

luckily, the as/400 died a nice clean death.

The mainframe is more entrenched than ever in the large shops

Peter Grace

say it ain't so!

Man, I fuckin love the AS/400.

Basil

it's called the iSeries now, right?

Peter Grace

i5 actually.

It was iSeries before.

Basil

7:00 PM

well the hardware is the same as the AIX platform

the software is now converging with all the other hypervisors

Peter Grace

Yeah, they started moving from the MFIOP boards to the AIX hardware back when I left my last AS/400 shop.

Basil

Now it's mostly used as a high reliability accounting box

afaik

Anyways, I'm not going to try to make the jump to as/400 because we dont have one. We do have a large mainframe, though, which runs our most critical apps

Peter Grace

as/400 also runs db2, which makes it a great rdbms box.

Zoredache

@Ward I am too lazy to mess around with my gravatar, but if someone else made one I would switch.

Basil

yeah, we use db2 extensively

oracle and sql too, but db2 is the only one on the mainframe

and the only one that has something like a 10 year uninterrupted runtime ;)

Scott Pack

7:08 PM

@Basil We used to have a BSDi box like that.

I'm glad it was burned to the ground.

Basil

Most of the time when something has that long an uptime, it's a light load on a heavy server. This is our primary business application

it's a 20TB database

well, 20TB on disk...

Scott Pack

@Basil Ours was one of two authoritative DNS servers.

Basil

I have no idea how much of that is empty

those are a good thing to not have failing :)

Iain

Scott Pack

@Basil They're also a good thing to, you know, be patched.

Iain

7:10 PM

@Zoredache

Ward

@Iain What are you doing that in? I got a much crappier result in MS Paint...

MDMarra

s/crappier/awesomer

Iain

@Ward paint.net

pauska

@Iain I think it needs to be a bit bigger

Zoredache

@Iain, thanks. I believe I have updated it.

Holocryptic

7:15 PM

SANTIFY ALL THE GRAVATARS

5

Iain

@pauska I am working on horns for you too

Basil

the new paint is almost as good as paint.net

MDMarra

Snipping Tool is my image editor

anything else is for noobs

Rob Moir

nytimes.com/2011/12/16/business/…

^ Research in Motion - next big name to go bankrupt?

Peter Grace

makes me sad.

I love my blackberry.

TylerShads

7:26 PM

@RobMoir ny times, require login!

Rob Moir

yeah lots of people do

MDMarra

@RobMoir PAYWALL

Rob Moir

really? It didn't ask me to login

Mark Henderson

@PeterGrace Blackberry is the scum of the corporate world

Rob Moir

torontosun.com/2011/12/19/…

Peter Grace

7:27 PM

@MarkHenderson NO U

MDMarra

interesting

Peter Grace

Honestly, I love the e-mail experience on the blackberry.

Mark Henderson

Sorry that was a bit harsh. I just remember all the trouble we had with getting blackberry onto exchange

And all the shit and knee-deep pools of crap I had to wade through

And then that little roller ball always used to fall out of the phone

Rob Moir

I don't think blackberry have moved with the times myself. Too much resting on their laurels and thinking that people would never, ever switch.

If only Google and Apple didn't exist, then RIM would be happy

Peter Grace

My 9700 with OS6 is misbehaving lately, I'm probably going to get a Galaxy Nexus

just grumps me out that I can't have that polished e-mail experience.

Mark Henderson

7:29 PM

@RobMoir Indeed. But if only Google and Apple had decent enterprise management solutions. We have between all our clients, about 500-600 iPads and iPhones out in the field and it's just impossible to help some of these people (they're plumbers and carpenters etc, not tech geeks) because there's just no remote assistance for these devices

Rob Moir

Oh I'm not impressed with how either of those companies approach corporate stuff either

Mark Henderson

There's no way of even viewing the device's screen remotely, let alone interacting with it, and apple's management is half-arsed as they provided an API but no default interface to it, so you're forced to buy a 3rd party solution

Rob Moir

which is why its even sadder that RIM fiddled why rome burnt. If they'd kept their eye on the ball they could have remained strong and relevant and Google/Apple would have to try harder and we'd all be happier whatever platform we were on.

Mark Henderson

And until recently if you wanted to use their default configurator tool you had to actually have an iMac

Rob Moir

I'm thinking windows mobile 7.5 is quite interesting having had a decent play with a dell phone using it

not sure that's quite "there" yet either, but I prefer it to android

Mark Henderson

7:32 PM

@RobMoir Biggest issue with ahve with 7.5 is that the version with HTML5 is not yet released in Auystralia

Peter Grace

I just hope they get NXOS or whatever new BBOS is going to come out

Mark Henderson

As soon as we get a Windows 7 phone that does HTML5 we'll be encouraging our users to deploy new devices as Phone 7

Rob Moir

ah didn't know about that. Not helpful

Peter Grace

I'd love to see how qnx works on a handheld.

Mark Henderson

There is a version of the Phone 7 that does have HTML5, but the Australian market is pretty much always the last place in the world to get these things

pauska

7:33 PM

I'm considering a switch from samsung galaxy s2 to windows phone 7.5

Rob Moir

as for the playbook, why would RIM not release a decent email client on it from day one? Messaging is supposed to be their one big strength after all

Mark Henderson

(with the exception of apple products, which are pretty good at doing simultanious launch, but we always get virtually no stock so if you don't get it on Day 1 you're in for a months wait)

pauska

its just that im so fecking hooked on wordfeud (on my private time ofcourse)

Mark Henderson

Biggest issue with changing devices - all the money you spent on apps, you may as well have pissed it down the toilet

Apps are a great barrier to switching, because they literally have a high switching cost

Rob Moir

yes

pauska

7:34 PM

oh i'd buy wordfeud again, but I get your point

Rob Moir

this is a big part of the infrastructure lock-in

Jeff Ferland

Other thing about apps: free ones often discourage me from upgrading. They often release new versions that remove features or add advertisements. Nothing sucks like downgrading with a higher version number.

pauska

the HTC titan looks promising, but its so enormously big...

Rob Moir

I don't mind ads in free apps if they're not too painful. I don't work for free so I don't expect the devs to do so

MDMarra

@pauska You could say that it's...titanic

Rob Moir

7:36 PM

I think the "bigger is better" mobile phone thing is an urban legend. A phone that I can not comfortably carry around is not better than one I can.

Jeff Ferland

@MDMarra We know it willl sink, but will it blend? That is the question!

pauska

the nokia lumia 800 doesnt have a front camera.. kind of makes it useless for video conferencing (we're deploying lync Q2 2012)

horns @pauska

lol

@Iain nice one

7:40 PM

hah

Kenny Rasschaert

add a red nose

Rob Moir

perfect

Scott Pack

@KennyRasschaert That usually takes a few years of heavy alcoholism

Kenny Rasschaert

He's a sysadmin, aint he? The heavy alcoholism is a given.

pauska

I guess I'll switch over to winmobile when something a bit smaller than the HTC Titan arrives with LTE support

and indeed, im going home now to take a few beers and kill people in bf3

Zypher

7:46 PM

@pauska i approve of this

Rob Moir

sounds like fun

Kenny Rasschaert

Oh man pauska I feel for you

accepted answer at 94

So close to that precious gold...

Iain

2

Rob Moir

poor Pauska

Basil

OMG

my boss just gave us christmas gifts

Kenny Rasschaert

7:49 PM

http://f.asset.soup.io/asset/2095/9375_348a.gif
(substitute reddit upvotes with stars)

Basil

I got a geek magic 8 ball

Kenny Rasschaert

how is it different from a regular m8b?

Basil

favourite answer so far: "rtfm"

Kenny Rasschaert

:D

Rob Moir

and "outlook not so good" is always the answer?

Basil

7:51 PM

haha, they should have left that one in

Rob Moir

you mean they took it out?

:o

Kenny Rasschaert

"503" instead of "ask again later"

Hello everyone

yo

8:03 PM

momma

WesleyDavid

llama

Scott Pack

drama

TylerShads

drama?

@ScottPack flagged for jinx

84104

@RobMoir I wish I were fighting Outlook. Right now I'm trying to pry people away from Eudora.

WesleyDavid

@84104 1996 called. It doesn't want Eudora back.

Peter Grace

8:07 PM

lol. I miss my first ever e-mail. It was on a waffle bbs.

Scott Pack

@84104 Could be worse. Could be Mulberry.

MDMarra

@ScottPack Could be worse. Could be a fax machine.

Scott Pack

@MDMarra You shut your mouth. I hear we're gonna get one of those new fangled printers that has a built in fax.

Jeff Ferland

@84104 Are they still on Windows 3.11?

AdrianK

@PeterGrace Heh. Mine was on a RemoteAccess BBS with a BinkleyTerm frontend.

at 300baud.

WesleyDavid

8:16 PM

@AdrianK Mine was scratching symbols onto pulped tree material with a pointed shard of graphite and handing them to people when the teacher wasn't looking.

84104

@JeffFerland No, but on a related note, the new Mac OS refuses to run it. "What is the PPC binary thing. Get it away! Get it away!"

WesleyDavid

@84104 I have an SE/30 around here somewhere. Want it? You pay shipping...

AdrianK

@WesleyDavid Oh! You're one of those luddites. There oughta be a flag for that.

84104

@WesleyDavid On the list of things I hate Eudora does a pretty good job at occupying the top slot. Sometimes it's overtaken by printers. Both of which need to die in a raging canoe fire.

MDMarra

@84104 s/canoe/douche-canoe

Jeff Ferland

8:19 PM

Lp0 on fire

lp0 on fire (aka Printer on Fire) is a semi-obsolete error message generated on some Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems in response to certain types of printer errors. lp0 is the Unix device handle for the first line printer, but the error can be displayed for any printer attached to a Unix/Linux system. The message is intended to be humorous, and does not reliably indicate whether or not the printer in question is actually alight. History The probable origin of the "on fire" message was the late 1950s, when high speed computerized printing was still a somewhat experimental...

Alnitak

sounds like the old "HCF" asm opcode ("Halt and Catch Fire")

Halt and Catch Fire

Halt and Catch Fire, known by the mnemonic HCF, refers to several computer machine code instructions that cause the CPU to cease meaningful operation. The expression "catch fire" is intended as a joke; the CPU does not usually catch fire. In early CPUs The HCF instruction was originally a fictitious instruction, claimed to be under development at IBM for use in their System/360 computers, along with many other amusing instructions such as "Execute Operator". One apocryphal story about the HCF instruction goes back to the late 1960s, when computers used magnetic core memory. The story go...

84104

Has anyone in the last decade received valid mail to any of their postmaster addresses?

Zoredache

@84104 no, but I have tried sending to it a few times. It seems to either non-existent or ignored.

Basil

I have half an hour until a meeting where HP will try to explain how they made my XP24000s go boom

84104

@Basil Too many HCF commands?

Basil

8:34 PM

heh

84104

@Zoredache They probably got tried of all the .xls files from china.

Zoredache

I suggest you simply forward all your postmater mail to rfc-ignorant.org. I am sure they will enjoy it.

Jacob

@84104 I always keep my postmaster address open

WesleyDavid

Zordy, your head is naked.

Zoredache

@WesleyDavid, tell Kyle/George/Peter to clear the caches....

MDMarra

8:42 PM

AdrianK

@84104 Yes, but just one. And I ignored it because they didn't understand that the To: field from one of my users didn't actually mean my servers were spamming them.

WesleyDavid

@Kyle @George @Peter CLEAR TEH CACHES MOAR!!

MDMarra

@WesleyDavid You should know by now that it's all client-side :)

ctrl+f5, padawan

WesleyDavid

@MDMarra That's what she said.

voretaq7

@Ward I had a hat.

It was posted on Friday.

AdrianK

8:44 PM

so what's with the santa hats?

voretaq7

@AdrianK there's a meta topic around somewhere.

TylerShads

19

Q: It's Santa Time!

Let's do this. What with the DramaLlama being out in full force, I think it's time to take a breather and bring the funny back. To wit: I propose the Santification of your gravatars till after the new year. Some of us have already gotten started. You can use the image as your baseline. or ...