The Comms Room

Hennes

13:02

@syneticon-dj Well shaped bottoms? enblommigtekopp.blogg.se/2013/may/… (NSF, and utterly insane)

tombull89

@Hennes oh lawl

syneticon-dj

@Hennes Oh, American Apparel. They flooded the ad market with bottoms, that's true. heavy.com/action/girls/2011/07/…

Hennes

I think it is pretty bad.

syneticon-dj

I don't see much of it around here.

Basil

@pauska I'm only working 2 days a week for a few months, so this reply is a little dated, but we're using NFS extensively. We don't use it for VMWare because our VMWare installation is too large for the NAS we own. Also, we have a lot of problems with network infrastructure, so we'd have to run it on 1Gb non-buffered switch ports.

ewwhite

13:12

@Basil Ah.

MDMarra

@Basil two days a week?!

Basil

@MDMarra Like a boss.

Like a boss's boss.

MDMarra

sounds juicy

Basil

actually I worked 18 hours a day 7 days a week for the first 3 months of the year (that firmware clusterfuck I complained about)

MikeyB

@Basil "1Gb non-buffered switch ports" you poor bastard

MDMarra

13:19

I've worked from home the last week

Basil

and the company doesn't pay overtime, they give banked hours. And you can't carry banked hours over for more than a couple of months

MDMarra

but that's no 2 days a week

Basil

@MikeyB That's the high end port- we have plenty of 100Mb ports in the field.

The fucking telecom team here is broken.

ewwhite

Everything is broken everywhere!

2

(but I did learn how to do things with VMware PowerCLI today!!) I'm going to be the next @MDMarra

MDMarra

PowerShell!

ewwhite

13:28

it's powershell-ish

MDMarra

it is PowerShell

with custom cmdlets for vShpere

ewwhite

the window background is black, not blue... so it can't be Powershell!

MDMarra

The EMS console is black and that's PowerShell

Don't be so racist

jscott

PowerSmurf

ewwhite

:(

MDMarra

13:31

just shipped my old iphone to an island between California and hawaii

who wants to place bets on how long it takes the buyer to make a fraudulent paypal claim

Dan

@MDMarra I took the gamble and shipped an old phone to the Ukraine! No dramas

Basil

You guys are crazy.

2

Dan

I only did it because his entire eBay history was buying 3 year old smartphones from the UK, so it fitted the profile.

Oh, and to be fair to him, I put (as I always do) "WILL NOT SHIP ABROAD" in my post and he sent me a very nice e-mail prior to bidding. So, I took the fact that he'd actually read my eBay post to the end as a good sign

MDMarra

I lied, it's between Hawaii and the Phillipines

Northern Mariana Islands

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ) is one of two Commonwealths of the United States; the other is Puerto Rico. It consists of fifteen islands in the western Pacific Ocean located about three-quarters of the way between Hawaii and the Philippines. The United States Census Bureau reports the total land area of all islands as . As of the 2010 census, the Commonwealth has a population of 53,883, of which over 90% live on the island of Saipan. Of the fourteen other islands, only twoTinian and Rotaare permanently inhabited. The Commonwealth's center of government is in...

50,000 people and one of them buys my damn iphone with free shipping

I have it listed as "US Only" but....that island qualifies

Dan

Hehe

Miles Erickson

13:35

Hmm. Perhaps 'continental US only' next time.

Will USPS ship there in a flat rate P-mail box?

Hennes

/me peers at his 8 year old smart phone. (Still working).
I guess new smartphones are just not build as well as the older ones. ;-)

Dan

I couldn't help but go back and check, my guy is still buying similar priced phones from the UK. Must be doing okay

MDMarra

@MilesErickson It was only like $10 w/ tracking and shipping materials using USPS first class

Dan

@Hennes Well, over here you need a decent contract to get unlimited internet, so I figure I may aswell get a flagship phone while I'm at it

MDMarra

I didn't know ebay had a "continental US only" option

I will definitely be using that from now on haha

ewwhite

13:37

eff yeah!!

1

A: compare 2 directories and copy differences in a 3rd directory

Use --compare-dest. From the man page: --compare-dest=DIR - This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination directory). If a file is found in ...

Miles Erickson

@MDMarra Not bad. I really wish people would notice that we have the best postal system in the world -- and the cheapest reliable one, at that.

tombull89

Aww. One of our 8000 Elite Ultra-small desktops has quit working. Won't boot past the BIOS.

Basil

@MDMarra I wonder if they have any storage admin jobs out there... I've always wanted to live on an island.

MikeyB

Awesome: stretch asks a question networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/135/… and in response gets linked back to his own blog post

5

Hennes

Oh, I had a decent contract (Eur 20 per month, 7 times more than I actually use).
After two years I switched it to 'SIM-only'

Basil

13:37

well, an island on the ocean. I technically live on a shitty river-island right now

Miles Erickson

@MDMarra At the moment, we seem intent on destroying it. Here in India you can't even drop a postcard in a mailbox without some postal worker stealing the stamps off it.

RobM

looks like mimecast have dropped service for all their UK users. Damn

MDMarra

@Basil There are 50,000 people there. What would your operating budget look like? Three coconuts?

Dan

I've been on eBay since 2003 and I've only done 50 transactions

Miles Erickson

@Basil Honolulu would be a much better bet, I suspect.

Basil

13:38

@MDMarra Who cares, so long as they pay enough for me to live ;)

Jenny D

I've been thinking it would probably work to have a computer centre on Iceland. Close to both Europe and NA, and lots of cheap power.

Miles Erickson

@Basil Or Singapore, for that matter... you can get an awesome job in Singapore, if you don't mind that all of your recreation will be of an urban nature.

Hennes

Potential cheap cooling too

tombull89

I've bought 4 things off eBay. The rest of my stuff I sell though Facebook (or here, come to think of it).

Hennes

And decent access rules.

ewwhite

13:39

@Basil I had an office in Honolulu for a few years... there are tech jobs there. It's a convenient point for US traders looking to trade in the Asian markets...

MDMarra

@JennyD I've heard of places building datacenters in Greenland for the outdoor ambient temp

Basil

@MilesErickson I'm much less interested by China, but Hawaii could be fun

tombull89

@JennyD Where's that sweet-ass Banhof datacenter? Isn't that Iceland?

ewwhite

(I didn't specify what was being traded)

Dan

@tombull89 Y'know, I never got to use the server I put that RAM in. "Lent" it to my dad to trial and he ended up buying it off me

Miles Erickson

13:40

@Basil Singapore is most definitely not in China.

Jenny D

@tombull89 I'm not sure. There's one in Stockholm, I don't know if/where they have others.

A friend of mine was in that datacenter when the police raided it to get at PirateBay

Basil

Anyways, these are all pipe dreams. I'm Canadian and am not interested in emigrating.

tombull89

Ah no it is just the one.

Basil

@MilesErickson What language do they speak there?

tombull89

@Basil Ask @JourneymanGeek - he lives there.

Miles Erickson

13:41

@Basil Mostly a local dialect of English. All signs are in English, Mandarin, and Tamil.

Jenny D

@Hennes And politically reasonably non-insane

Basil

Just read a bit on their wikipedia page- I always thought that it was in China for some reason. Go go Canadian public school...

tombull89

@Dan That was a DL360 or 380 G5, wasn't it?

Journeyman Geek

@Basil: english is the lingua franca, and you can manage with english VERY easily. The other major languages are Mandrin chinese (tho hokkien and cantonese dialects are spoken), tamil and mandrin.

Michael Hampton

@JourneymanGeek Aren't you in Singapore?

Miles Erickson

13:43

@Basil Also, it is almost certainly the most international city in the world, bar none. You will encounter professionals and visitors from every-freaking-where.

Basil

@JourneymanGeek Is it the kind of place you wouldn't want to bring a family, complete with toddlers and cats, to?

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson Can you buy a netbook there without getting ripped off?

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelHampton: how else would I know this? ;p

@Basil: great place for a family I suppose

Miles Erickson

@Basil Transportation and food are both excellent and cheap. Housing is expensive.

Journeyman Geek

cats.. is tricky

Miles Erickson

13:44

@JourneymanGeek It is conceivably possible that one may merely have friends there & have visited many times.

Michael Hampton

Are cats illegal or something?

Journeyman Geek

If you're an expat, chances are your housing will be taken care of

@MichaelHampton: cats arn't allowed in public housing for some wierd reason

Michael Hampton

@JourneymanGeek Too many crazy cat ladies, probably.

Basil

Meh, they're on their last legs anyways

Miles Erickson

@JourneymanGeek Do expats ever live in public housing? I thought it had years-long waiting lists.

Journeyman Geek

13:45

@MilesErickson: hmm, the ones who end up staying long term often do.

Really depends on the expat

Miles Erickson

@JourneymanGeek Ah, got it. All the expats I've known have been there for only a few years, really enjoyed being there (and exploring the region via Tiger) and then have moved on. That seems to be a pattern.

Chris S

@Basil When you get there, see if they need a Network/Systems Administrator... I think I could handle that for a few years.

Journeyman Geek

@MilesErickson: my neighbourhood is a wierd mix of private (expat friendly) and public housing

my block has both a apartment full of prostitutes, and quite a few expat families.

Basil

@ChrisS I'd probably move to Switzerland before anywhere else

My sister lives there

Miles Erickson

@JourneymanGeek You know, Singapore is the only rich country I can think of where public housing isn't just for the poor.

Chris S

13:47

@Basil You'd take cold and mountainous over tropical paradise?

Dan

@tombull89 Yeah, 360. I liked it but was disappointed the PSU was noisy even when the power was off. Something I'd never noticed in a DC

Miles Erickson

@JourneymanGeek An apartment full of prostitutes? Wait, do you live in the durian ghetto?

Journeyman Geek

@MilesErickson: some idiot is renting out an apartment to them

Basil

@ChrisS yeah, but that's my heritage.

Miles Erickson

@ChrisS Cold and mountainous makes your heart sing, if you're predominantly Scandinavian. I sure know the feeling.

Journeyman Geek

13:48

eheh

Miles Erickson

@Basil (I presume it's the same if you're Swiss.)

Chris S

@MilesErickson I love visiting places like that... But living there, no.

Basil

I'm half Norwegian, half Swiss

Iain

@Basil I have a friend who lives in France but works in Switzerland as Switzerland is just too expensive

Journeyman Geek

our resident's committee (they're kind of the unofficial official ears of the government) has been trying to get them out.

Basil

13:49

@Iain It's not so bad if you buy your own place

Jenny D

@MilesErickson I like living somewhere where the seasons are really different. It's not uncommon for there to be a 70C degree difference between the coldest and the hottest day on the same year here.

Miles Erickson

@ChrisS See, now, that's how I feel about hot places. A few years, sure, but life without cross-country skiing isn't living.

Chris S

I'm German, Polish, Lithuanian, with a smattering of a bunch of other European nationalities.

Journeyman Geek

Its a nice neighbourhood. I've once had to chase off a pair of mainland chinese who were getting frisky on my doorstep tho

Basil

frisky?

Jenny D

13:50

@ChrisS I'm Swedish as far back as can be traced. On my mother's side that's back to the 16th century

Dan

@MilesErickson I really want a snow holiday. Not skiiing, though, a proper sport like snowboarding

Chris S

@MilesErickson That's what I meant before. I could live somewhere like the CNMI for a few years, then it'd get old.

Iain

@JennyD I really line the change in day length we get - I don't think I'd like to live close to the equator

Journeyman Geek

@Basil: well, they were in pyjamas, but the guy's hand was enough in the lady's top that I could tell she wasn't wearing a bra....

Chris S

I prefer places that have all 4 seasons (though I live in a state that only has Winter and Construction season)

Miles Erickson

13:51

@JennyD Love it. I've spent a couple of summers and a full winter in interior Alaska, where it's as cold as -40 in the winter and as warm as 30 in the summer, so... there you go, 70 degree spread.

Journeyman Geek

only happened once tho!

and next time, I'll just get a goddamned bucket of water.

Jenny D

@Iain I could do with a little less of a change there; it gets awfully dark in winter. I once spent a week in Haparanda in November; I didn't see the sun once during that whole week.

Basil

@MilesErickson -40 to +40 every year. MONTREAL- GET ON OUR LEVEL

Journeyman Geek

OH, and drunk ladyboy with bad teeth

I have NO idea what that was about

(only happened once too!)

Jenny D

@Iain but I do want there to be some change. Just maybe a little less than we've got.

RobM

13:52

being drunk, probably. You don't need much reason for anything when you're drunk

Iain

@JennyD we're nicely balanced I think provided you have an office with windows

Dan

@JourneymanGeek Each to their own, mate. Though, for me, one time with a drunk ladyboy with bad teeth is one too many

Miles Erickson

@Basil Montreal gets Arctic cold? I had no idea. J'ai visité à Québec seulement en été, alors je ne sais rien.

Journeyman Geek

@Dan: tell the creepy looking french guy

Jenny D

@Iain You're in UK, right? Daytime in Stockholm in winter is 4-5 hours...

Dan

13:53

@JourneymanGeek Sorry, I presumed she was with you

Journeyman Geek

@Dan: naw, I DID once date a pre-transition FTM person tho

Iain

@JennyD yeah , here it's 7ish midwinter

Jenny D

On the other hand, going out for a ride on a snowy moonlit winter night is just plain awesome

Iain

@JennyD show off

Basil

@MilesErickson not always, but yeah, a couple days a year. Technically, arctic cold is more like -50 and under- -40 is just because the air doesn't come from the direction of the ocean

Jenny D

13:54

@Iain Today is a driving lesson, I'm hoping to go on sleigh rides this winter

Dan

@JourneymanGeek Yeah, that's not *quite( the same

Journeyman Geek

yeah

Dan

@JennyD Horses?

Basil

be back in a bit, meeting time

Jenny D

@Dan Yep

Got a five year old one

Miles Erickson

13:55

@Basil Non-technically, arctic cold is anything that limits my appetite for outdoor recreation, and that's -30C and below.

Iain

@JennyD I rode yesterday, you can tell he's out on spring grass - more forward than he has been for quite a while

Dan

@JennyD Cool - not really my thing, but I can see the appeal.

And I spoil animals too much, if I had a horse it'd wind up living in the house

Journeyman Geek

XD

My parents would end up doing that

Iain

@Dan Caligula

Basil

@MilesErickson I think we had a whole month of -30 this year

Jenny D

13:57

@Dan It makes me happy, and I like being in a place that's completely disassociated with work. I can't think of work there, I have to focus on the horse or stuff can go badly wrong. It's good exercise too.

Basil

and now, I'm off to that meeting.

Miles Erickson

@JennyD No kidding! That was my favorite thing about the winter I spent in the bush... there were maybe 3 hours of daylight in December, but when the moon was out, it was as good as daylight all night long. It's something one has to experience to really understand.

Dan

@JennyD Yeah, I switch to stuff with engines for that :D

Jenny D

@Dan I've got cats for spoiling. I don't want the horse spoiled; he ways about 600 kgs and you do not want an animal that big to get ideas about who's the boss...

Dan

Or jogging, not that I've done much recently

Jenny D

13:58

@Dan I do craft stuff too; weaving is very meditative. But it's not as good exercise.

Dan

@JennyD No, what little I did of horse riding really showed me what a tough sport it is

@Iain I don't like to think so!

Jenny D

@Dan I've got some chronic pain after a surgery that didn't go completely well 14 years ago. Ten years ago I walked with a cane every day. Then I started riding; had to take lots of pain killers at first. Now I'm no maybe a quarter of the dosage I had back then, and I rarely need to use the cane anymore.

Iain

@Dan I think you have to be slightly mad to compete ate some equestrian sports which I guess, is why eventing is popular with the aritocracy

Jenny D

@Iain I've a friend who does cross-country jumping, I'm not sure what it's called in English. That is scary

Dan

@Iain Haha - I went horse racing for the first time ever a few months back and enjoyed it way more than I expected

Jenny D

14:01

I do dressage and plan on doing long distance rides in a year or so

Dennis Kaarsemaker

Y'know what's fun? Having oracle engineers (mysql replication guy & mysql performance schema guy) over and in front of them crash an entire production replication chain by accidently finding 2 bugs in the combination of the two. Never seen a bug acknowledged & engineers diving in the code so fast :)

Dan

What's long distance in horse terms?

Jenny D

@Dan 20-40 kms

Dan

Oh, not that it's a short distance but would have expected even longer.

Iain

@JennyD like the final phase of eventing ?

Jenny D

14:02

@Iain Yes, that would be it. You ride fast and over "natural" fences, on grass

I've done some jumping in a paddock on lowish fences and I'm scared almost all the time...

Iain

@JennyD I've been on a cross country course once - it was fab but way scarey

Michael Hampton

Cross-country equestrianism

Cross country equestrian jumping is an endurance test, and is one of the three phases of the sport of eventing; it may also be a competition in its own right, known as hunter trials or simply "cross-country" - these tend to be lower level, local competitions. The object of the endurance test is to prove the speed, endurance and jumping ability of the true cross-country horse when he is well trained and brought to the peak of condition. At the same time, it demonstrates the rider's knowledge of pace and the use of this horse across country. History of cross-country Historically, the so...

Jenny D

@MichaelHampton that's it, yes...

Iain

@JennyD I like show jumping but you need to have confidence that the horse is going over - dirty stops aren't fun at all

Jenny D

@Dan There are longer ones, but I'm not aiming for those at the start

Dan

14:04

@JennyD No, that's fair comment - I just didn't know

Jenny D

@Iain I usually judge our local jumping events, but that's on a very low level. We mostly don't have anybody jumping more than 1m, maybe 1.1 m

tombull89

When I was in year 6 we had a school trip to the Brecon Beacons. One of the activities was a half-day horse ride.

Iain

@JennyD I've jumped 1.2m on a class but the highest course I've jumped in 90cm

Jenny D

@Iain I've been on a horse that jumped 80 cm. Fortunately I didn't fall off; I hadn't intended to jump at all...

I don't think I've ever voluntarily jumped more than 50-60 cm.

Dan

@tombull89 Did you enjoy it?

Iain

14:07

@JennyD I prefer them that size and above as the horse has to make a proper jump

Jenny D

@Iain Yes, if they're too low they'll just walk over them instead. I might jump with my horse later on, but somebody else will have to train him to jump first - I'm no good at it so I can't train him very well, especially as I do find it scary. I've liked it on horses that are good at jumping, but not otherwise.

tombull89

@Dan Yes, it wasn't anything particularly adventerous and only got up to a trot. Some of the girls had been horse riding before and took to it like ducks to water. Some of the guys weren't impressed with the horses :P

Iain

@JennyD you have to be confident in the horse or know what it may do so you can take appropriate action but it's great fun when it all comes together

Dan

@tombull89 Hehe

I'll stick to mechanically propelled silliness I think

Jenny D

@Iain Yep, I'm not there yet. I used to think I'd be a jump rider, but it seems I never get around to it, so I've decided to recalibrate my self-image and focus on stuff that I want to do enough to actually get them done.

Iain

14:13

@JennyD I enjoy dressage as much as jumping

Dan

One for the Brits

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/science-fiction-fans-now-harder-than-football-fans-2013051668958

Jenny D

@Iain besides, no matter what you're focussing on, you always need the basic dressage training for strength, agility and balance.

@Dan Damn, conventions have apparently gotten more interesting since I used to go...

tombull89

Do we have a canoical question for this sort of thing?

0

Q: How do I take my web server offline for maintenance when its a single server

I have a Windows 2008R2 server that hosts Sql Server and IIS for our company. I need to take it down occasionally for updates and backup. This is the setup Dedicated Windows 2008R2 server hosts my Windows 2008R2 vps web server (which is the one I need to take down). When I take this server do...

Miles Erickson

Heh.

Hennes

Based on the title, you use "shutdown" to the the [web] server off-line. ;-)

Jenny D

14:22

@Hennes I was tempted to answer that, but I managed a save on my diplomacy dice roll

2

Miles Erickson

The best one can dream to achieve with such a server is 99.9% == ~8 hours downtime per year. It's as @Hennes says. But really, 99% is more realistic.

Hennes

Aye. Similar here.

I guess a redirect could work. All traffic to server A which forwards all to server B. If B goes offline for maintenance then put up a static page with "offline for maintenance".
Ofc. then server A will fail or need maintenance, but by then you have your consultency pay

Jenny D

@Hennes If it's really important, then you'd have redundancy, probably with load balancers and sorry servers and stuff.

if they don't want to spend money on it, obviously it's not that important.

Hennes

Agreed

Jenny D

Anyhow, time to go or I'll be late for horse driving class. Cya.

MikeyB

14:27

@JennyD #firstworldproblems

@Hennes shove haproxy in front of it. BAM. Two problems solved.

Cole

Morning

Hennes

Shht,! First ask money. Then ask extra herdware. Then install HA proxy

Chris S

@tombull89 Probably not... We could use a "What are the basics of website redundancy?" Canonical Question

Miles Erickson

@Hennes Herdware? I love it. Ties in with the "pets vs. livestock" distinction so nicely. Anything that's a member of a cluster probably ought to be herdware.

Michael Hampton

14:52

0

Q: Modern solution for error correcting storage?

Are there any modern solution (software and/or hardware) for error correcting storage, especially at home? Probably there is a tool which is able to encode files on harddrive that will protect data from most probable harddrive errors and keep data for hundreds of years?

storage

Miles Erickson

cough S3

(presuming he wants to keep paying for hundreds of years)

Chris S

@MichaelHampton Actually, etching data into platinum-iridium disks works quite nicely, and should last for several thousand years without noticeable derogation.

Michael Hampton

@Iain Paper beats rock.

Iain

@MichaelHampton scissors ...

Michael Hampton

@ChrisS Do you have some data of how well that worked for the last several thousand years? :)

Miles Erickson

14:55

I'd etch the data into stone, personally.

Who knows whether we'll have digital technology hundreds of years from now?

Michael Hampton

If I wanted some data preserved for hundreds of years, I'd write it into a book and create a religion around it.

Iain

@MichaelHampton there is plenty of evidence for rock

Miles Erickson

@MichaelHampton Ooh, clever.

Chris S

@MichaelHampton No, but scientists have measured how quickly platinum-iridium "loses" mass, and it's <0.01% per decade or something like that.

Michael Hampton

@ChrisS So it's theoretical at this point. :) "It should work..." Famous last words.

Iain

14:57

@MichaelHampton that's still not perfect there are plenty of different but the same religious books

Chris S

@MichaelHampton Well, they thought platinum-iridium stored in noble gas should not "lose" mass, but it actually does. Interesting problem considering "The Kilogram" was made out of it. Also, even stored under the same conditions, different Sister Kilograms lost different amounts of mass.

Michael Hampton

@ChrisS That's going to be a real problem when they start getting into the exabytes per square centimeter density on those things.

Chris S

@MichaelHampton Usually when those are "famous last words" they're being spoken by someone with limited observational evidence to support their theory...

Adrian

Oh. My. God. Stupid Cat is not capable of getting on or off the furniture without using my laptop as a springboard!

Mornin' Gents.

Cole

@Adrian have you not seen "Sad Cat Diary'?

Chris S

15:01

@MichaelHampton Yeah, it certainly would be. I'd suggest etching into them in human readable form though. Helps with the whole "how do you read this thing" issue.

Cole

►

Adrian

@Cole No, but I will now. =)

Cole

You'll enjoy it.

Iain

@ChrisS kg is the last SI unit that is still a physical thing

Chris S

@Iain I'm aware, and probably not for long. Google "silicon sphere" for details.

Cole

15:04

Adrian

Well, that was an honest jobs page. The online form to apply had a bunch of checkboxes for Yes/No re: familiarity and Certs with the equipment they use.

Iain

@ChrisS I haven't looks for a while but I know there is work underway to do away with the physical objects

Chris S

I find it rather fascinating. They're going to base the kilogram on the mass of X silicon atoms; they're still calculating X.

Miles Erickson

@Adrian Speaking of which, overall, how's life post-you-know-where?

@Adrian (My wild guess: no regrets.)

Adrian

@MilesErickson Very relaxing. It has my internal calendar all messed up though. It feels like it should still be mid-winter and not almost-June.

Though I do miss the seriously fat paychecks.

Iain

15:10

@ChrisS I thought it was going to be some number of Planck masses

Chris S

@Iain Sounds familiar, but I'm no expert.

Miles Erickson

@Adrian If it's any consolation, Mother Nature is confused as well. Friends in Alaska report that it's still snowing. (Normally there is zero snow at inhabited elevations by mid-May.)

Adrian

@MilesErickson Weird. Probably getting our weather. We've had the most amazing May that I've seen in 15 years.

MikeyB

@MichaelHampton that method suffers SEVERELY from bit rot. And no error correction.

Iain

@MilesErickson we had snow in the UK this week which is very unusual.

tombull89

15:19

Irrelated, but blocking your site completely to IE users is not particularly fair. If someone want to quickly view the files they shoudln't be forced to download another browser or do some trickery. — tombull89 35 secs ago

Is that ass-hattish behaviour?

user

@Iain weather , unusual and UK , is very common :D

Miles Erickson

@tombull89 Yes, but no more so than making a site that works only in IE. Arguably less so.

MikeyB

@tombull89 wtf are you talking about?

Cole

@MikeyB yeah I'm totally confused

I clicked the question but I was like wait, what?

tombull89

I did say Irrelated to his question. If you go to his site in IE (cfgfactory.com) it blocks you from viewing the page outright.

MikeyB

15:23

@tombull89 ahhhhhhhhh

user

Bold move. I like it.

Miles Erickson

If everyone did it, would the world be a better place?

Basil

What happens if you have two users on two different unix servers with the same UID? I think that's bad, right?

user

On the contrary , there'd be thousands of angry IE users.

Adrian

@Basil Uh, yeah. Even NIS helps prevent that. =)

user

15:28

@Basil Yes they have to fight to the death :(

Dan

@Iain The weather is far from amusing me recently

Basil

@Adrian I don't know how the hell it was set up that way. I need to edit /etc/passwd on the nas to allow for a multiprotocol share, but they have two users that share a UID.

Can you change a user ID without creating a new one and modifying everything?

Adrian

@Basil Sure. if it's just accounts in the flat files and not LDAP, it's pretty easy.

Basil

@Adrian ok

Adrian

@Basil Find out who actually owns which files, then set new UIDs for each, and set those files/directories to the new UIDs using the numerics.

that way if the users find stuff they need that is still on the old UIDs, you're not flipping stuff back & forth between users.

But really, that's a matter of personal preference. Like most things in *nix, there's more than one way to do it.

MikeyB

15:32

@Adrian Giving BOTH of them a new UID? GOOD PLAN!

Adrian

@MikeyB Hmm. I thought that's what I wrote. Perhaps I need to write that more clearly.

MikeyB

@Adrian Nope, I just need to read more good.

Adrian

After all, unless you plan on exceeding 64535 users, you don't really need to worry about UID exhaustion.

Michael Hampton

Adrian

Nice

Cole

15:35

wow

Dan

Aw, passive aggressive web developers. Bless em.

Adrian

@Dan I think that one might've flipped right over to straight-up aggressive.

Scott Pack

@Dan Why did you repeat yourself?

Michael Hampton

If it were just IE6, I wouldn't blame him. But he blocks all MSIE.

Dan

@ScottPack ?

Scott Pack

15:36

@Dan You said passive-aggressive web developers.

Dan

@ScottPack A-ha

Miles Erickson

@Dan PA == WD

Dan

@MichaelHampton Yeah, I mean it's not my choice but IE 10 seems fine

I mean, they use dubstep in the adverts, so it's got to be cool and modern, right?

Miles Erickson

@Dan Until you leave it alone in your house and it raids the medicine cabinet.

Michael Hampton

I've heard fewer bad things about IE 10 than any previous version. So...

Dan

15:38

To be honest, Firefox is the one that disappoints me the most. It can be a terrible resource hog

I'm a fan of the simplicity of Chrome, personally

Chris S

Same here - too minimalistic

Miles Erickson

You know what I hate about web browsers?

Backspace key behavior.

Michael Hampton

Backspace does nothing for me.

Miles Erickson

All of them get it wrong, yes?

@MichaelHampton Do tell.

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson I click on some random space within the window, touch Backspace and nothing happens.

Miles Erickson

15:41

@MichaelHampton OK, I want your life.

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson Chrome on Linux. Enjoy.

Miles Erickson

@MichaelHampton Weird. You're saying that the idiot backspace-means-back behavior is hard-coded into the Windows and Mac versions of Chrome, but not Linux?

Basil

@Adrian There's no shortage, but sometimes the aix sysadmins get confused. Fucking AIX sysadmins.

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson I guess so. I try to stay away from Windows...

And, that backspace-means-back behavior has been around much longer than Chrome. Browsers were doing that since virtually the beginning.

Adrian

@Basil Honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to admin AIX. shiver

Miles Erickson

15:43

@MichaelHampton Ergo, it is what I hate about web browsers in general.

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson Meh. It's reasonable in a text-only browser running on a terminal, when you don't have any better options for a Back button. Graphical browsers have no excuse for doing it.

Adrian

Well, that explains why I had a great phone screen where the interviewer was really excited and then I got no call back. EMC is RIF'ing a bunch of people.

Miles Erickson

@MichaelHampton Because I would never even think of using backspace to go back, it happens only by accident, resulting in data loss, when I am filling in some sort of excessively long secure form.

Adrian

@MilesErickson Wait, text entry boxes don't override the backspace behavior?

Michael Hampton

@MilesErickson I try to avoid the Backspace key. :)

Basil

15:45

@Adrian It's not that bad- it's kind of cool, actually- we have some pretty high end hardware. Thousands of LPARs running across 3 sites :)

there's about 10 sysadmins just for AIX

Miles Erickson

@Adrian Sure they do, if the user and the browser agree that the cursor is in one.

Adrian

@Basil I had to do a double-take. LPAR is IBM jargon for an acknowledged software bug. =)

Basil

@Adrian logical partition- it's like a VM

Adrian

@Basil A little Googling helped with that one. =)

@MilesErickson Ah. It does drive me nuts that web browsers don't allow key re-mapping

Michael Hampton

9

Q: How can I turn off backspace navigation in Chrome?

Some people seem to want to be able to have the delete key on a Mac behave as a backspace key and go back when navigating web pages (ie, this question here). As I commented there, I believe that this behavior on a Mac would be a bug, since the command-left arrow combination already lets the user...

osx google-chrome

Nathan C

15:48

Ugh. The IT manager insists on a GUI for the new mailserver I'm setting up since it's easier to administer ...hello 350+ additional packages :(

MDMarra

What are you using?

Michael Hampton

@NathanC You did tell him it isn't April Fool's Day, right?

Nathan C

CentOS ...it was a minimal install so I have to download everything.

MDMarra

I meant for a mail server

Nathan C

Oh. Kerio

Miles Erickson

15:49

IT managers who can't read or type... gotta love 'em.

Nathan C

It's practically 100% web-based aside from when it goes kaboom

MDMarra

@NathanC minimal doesn't even come with wget. minimal really is minimal in CentOS land

Nathan C

Yep, I found that out when it bash was looking at me funny.

Kerio is RPM-based so I get to have fun hunting for its dependencies until it installs.

Michael Hampton

@MDMarra Eh, it's not that minimal. I can strip it down to maybe half the size of a minimal install. Though I typically don't bother...

Cole

@NathanC my manager puts things on Windows because it's easier for the other people in my group to manage - even if it's not recommended by the vendor

Michael Hampton

15:51

@NathanC yum will resolve them for you, if they're in repos. yum install kerio*.rpm

Adrian

@NathanC Eh? That sounds like a problem with the Kerio package if Yum isn't working

Cole

I...oh god

the guy I'm working with out here

Miles Erickson

@Cole Because, after all, it's not the team's responsibility to learn to use the best tools for the job.

Cole

Didn't know what a chipset was for.

Nathan C

@MichaelHampton I forgot about that part...that'll save some guesswork for sure.

Adrian

15:52

@MichaelHampton I find multiple repo dependencies very annoying

But then I have distinct curmudgeonly tendencies at my age.

Cole

@MilesErickson my "team" only knows Windows - aside from me and another guy who doesn't know Windows at all

Nathan C

why oh why does KDE require the mysql-server package?

Miles Erickson

@Cole Easy! Buy enough chipsets and glue and you can piece together an olblock.

Michael Hampton

@Adrian My standard build has base repos, EPEL, puppet, and VMware repos (for VMware VMs).

If it isn't in one of those, I probably don't want it.

@NathanC Several KDE components can store data in MySQL, though I don't know why they would pull in the server. The client should be sufficient.

Nathan C

i did a groupinstall for "KDE Desktop" and that was one of the packages i noticed Hm.

Adrian

15:54

@MichaelHampton And that's why I don't use KDE. Not that Gnome is much better.

Michael Hampton

I didn't really notice, since I already have MySQL server installed on my workstation...

Nathan C

I just irk at installing a GUI on a server :P

Michael Hampton

Looks like the offending package is akonadi-mysql. That's what pulls in mysql-server.

Miles Erickson

@MichaelHampton Nice. BackStop seems to do the job. I had tried BackspaceMeansBackspace in the past and found it unreliable.

Nathan C

Then again, I wouldn't be able to administer a Windows server without its GUI (ala Server Core) since I'm not nearly as adept in that

Miles Erickson

15:57

@NathanC After all, Server Core is sort of like barbecuing without a grill. You can do it, but you have to forget everything you know about barbecuing.

MDMarra

@MilesErickson Install it, install RSAT on your workstation. Done.

Miles Erickson

@MDMarra Fair. Back when I administered a bunch of Windows servers, that's exactly what I did.

Nathan C

Ah, it needed the 32-bit packages...

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