The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Oh, you should have seen the TWO UPSs we had for the production HP-UX boxes at a joint-venture automotive company I worked for in California. They literally had to bring them in with a fork lift, and they sat behind the main dispatchers control panel, keeping all the servers up. Noise wasn't an issue, since it was an assembly line environment. But they could keep the 4 HP-UX boxes and two PCs up and running happily for >4 hours. And the heat they produced?!! But that was one job where money to keep things running was easy to come by. Downtime worked out to ~$6k a minute at that point in the production process.

I've seen equivalents. At company HQ at aforementioned employer, we were constantly adding new servers, and pulling in additional power to run them. I realized we were going to have problems when I didn't have to wear a sweater in the server room.

We wound up having to beef up the A/C, and the UPS (a Liebert unit, IIRC.)

There was an emergency switch to hit that would trigger the Halon fire suppression system in the room right by the door. I can't tell you how tempted I was to slap it on the way out on more than one occasion...

I thought our servers were underutilized, and pushed to go with something like VMWare. My boss said out British sister company tried that and failed, so we wouldn't. I thought the sister company simply didn't know what they were doing, but we couldn't come out and say that...
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Thanks--I appreciate how neatly you let me off the hook, there. ;-)

No thanks required for stating a simple truth.

I was once so aggravated about Mr. X's drama (I mean, he could scream in ways that I didn't even know had been invented, I s**t thee not.) that I told him if he DIDN'T take two xanax, I wouldn't be in the following day--or EVER again. Bygod if he didn't at least shut up.

I interviewed once at a family owned computer outfit. I stood out as being the only guy they'd encountered who had ever heard of a key software package they used. (A former employer sold it.)

I got along well with the folks I spoke to, but was warned the elderly owner was wont to scream at and berate employees. I said "Thanks for the warning. If he tries it on me I'll close the door and scream back." (These days that sort of behavior would produce a lawsuit.)

Never did deal with him. I got rejected by his son, and likely just as well.

He should have been delighted. Usually, becoming The Shadow takes years of difficult training, after all.

He came by it naturally. Some people have "black thumbs", and plants die on them. He did that to computers.

As long as he stayed out of the computer room, I was content.

Been there, done that. In fact...I fear to look behind my main CPU as I type this. Probably have that scenario right now, sorry to say.

I try not to have that sort of rat's nest.

The last time I had issues like that, my desktop was spontaneously powering off. The problem proved to be dust accumulation inside the case, that had clogged the CPU fan and prevented it from working. The machine would overhead, and the CPU would stop dead and the machine would power off.

There were whole litters of dust puppies in it.

Open the case, vacuum out the dust, clear the fan, close it back up, and make sure the covers were in place on open slots in the back to prevent future dust build up.

Mostly, we don't read them. We obviously can't, not and finish them in a reasonably productive manner. And some--well. Let's just say, it's better if it isn't sticky. The tale about the Penthouse setters is amusing, thanks for that.

I thought you would appreciate it.

With the Internet and self-publishing, the Internet is now the largest slush pile in the history of publishing. There are reasons why trade houses now mostly only look at submissions from established agents. Reading slush was always an editor's least favorite chore, and much of it was "gouge out eyes with a spoon after reading" quality. Nowadays the unwary reader is subjected to it.

An old friend was former executive editor at a trade house, and is now a full time writer. She spent a few months as a freelance editor at a Harlequin books eBook imprint (and a unit of Harlequin was one of her publishers). She resigned, and said "I guess I didn't miss editing as much as I thought." The eBook imprint's deal was "no advance, but higher than normal royalty, and a well received title can be picked up by Harlequin for print edition." What it got in consequence was stuff that would hit the slush pile, and stuff established writers had been unable to sell elsewhere.

My take was "You do miss editing. You miss making a good book better. What you don't miss is reading slush, and that's what you were doing."

I don't even CARE about tripe becoming a best-seller. Twifright? 50 Shades of Dreck? Good-o. After all, let's not forget: by all meaningful measures, fully HALF of the population is below-average. They want reading material, too. This thought helped me reconcile myself to the idea of purportedly grown women being emotionally involved in crap like "Team Edward" or "Team whatever guy." So...good for the crafters of dreck.

Doesn't even have to be "50 Shades Dreck" (which was done definitively 25 years ago by "Elizabeth McNeill" in "9 1/2 Weeks", in one much shorter volume, and got a bad movie adaptation.)

There are lots of things that just don't grab us, but become best sellers. For instance, I'm not the market at which romance is aimed, and I wouldn't take a Harlequin offering free. I have no time to read it and no interest in doing so if I did. But there are people who do that sort of thing well, and a large market that likes it.

As long as publishers make enough money to continue offering what I do like, I'm content.

Thanks--I'd love to take credit, but mostly, that's a store-boughten template. Because I'm terminally cheap, I ended up doing scads of the work myself, but I still had to hire out all the Joomla customization. (Wanker CMS, let me just add that. Utterly crackpot ways of doing things.)

Templates are fine. No point in rolling your own if something off the shelf is applicable. The trick is recognizing it needs to be done and picking a good one.

I haven't looked at Joomla, but my suspicion is that the problems are mostly in understanding how to make it do it. An old friend is a noted open source advocate, and was griping about the quality of the lot of open source (which Joomla is) documentation. I proposed a drinking game. Look for open source projects. Take a drink for every one where you don't understand the documentation on how to use it. Take two drinks for every one where you can't even find a description of what it's supposed to do. You will be under the table in short order...

I've definitely become more savvy at simply cutting off customers that are unsuitable, no matter whose fault it is. Some simply need more than we provide--that's hardly anyone's fault. Some...we just don't gel. No click. But I've learned how to catch on to this sooner, fortuitously.

You learn things after you do them long enough. And the issues are inherent in any client oriented business.

Thanks. As I said: I mean it.

Any time.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<snippage> I said "Thanks for the warning. If he tries it on me I'll close the door and scream back." (These days that sort of behavior would produce a lawsuit.)

Never did deal with him. I got rejected by his son, and likely just as well.

I've done this with screamers. There doesn't seem to be any other way to deal with them. At heart, they are schoolyard bullies, trying to pick on people that they think are "weaker" than they. Usually one good shriek back works, but I did have an employer/client that required an additional step. I think I'll pass on explaining that in detail, as I'm pretty sure it makes me sound like a loon.

I try not to have that sort of rat's nest.

Agreed. It's pretty inexcusable. I have all of my rats' nest occupants labled and bundled, but it's also true that they DO seem to have a mind of their own, somehow--SOMEHOW--getting jumbled up.

There were whole litters of dust puppies in it.

Hell, I name mine. Cute little buggers. I do find, however, that they are difficult to tell apart, darn it. Perhaps I ought to get them color-coded collars...hmmmm.

With the Internet and self-publishing, the Internet is now the largest slush pile in the history of publishing. There are reasons why trade houses now mostly only look at submissions from established agents. Reading slush was always an editor's least favorite chore, and much of it was "gouge out eyes with a spoon after reading" quality. Nowadays the unwary reader is subjected to it.

An old friend was former executive editor at a trade house, and is now a full time writer. She spent a few months as a freelance editor at a Harlequin books eBook imprint (and a unit of Harlequin was one of her publishers). She resigned, and said "I guess I didn't miss editing as much as I thought." The eBook imprint's deal was "no advance, but higher than normal royalty, and a well received title can be picked up by Harlequin for print edition." What it got in consequence was stuff that would hit the slush pile, and stuff established writers had been unable to sell elsewhere.

My take was "You do miss editing. You miss making a good book better. What you don't miss is reading slush, and that's what you were doing."

GMTA! That's what I tell people all the time (the slush pile comment), nearly verbatim. And, after 7 years of this now, I've come to have FAR more sympathy for editors and slush-pile readers than I ever did before. OTOH, let's be honest--you can rule out a bunch just by reading the cover letter/inquiry; and my theory is, if the book doesn't show decent promise by the time you've slogged through 5-10K words, it never will. I don't mean the oft-discussed "hook;" I just mean that unmistakable ebb and flow of a GOOD writer. The mastery of the word, the phrase, dialogue, etc. I can tell in one page if a book is worth even trying. That's a skill I'm sure we've all honed through Amazon's LITB.

Doesn't even have to be "50 Shades Dreck" (which was done definitively 25 years ago by "Elizabeth McNeill" in "9 1/2 Weeks", in one much shorter volume, and got a bad movie adaptation.)

<snip>

As long as publishers make enough money to continue offering what I do like, I'm content.

Agreed.

Templates are fine. No point in rolling your own if something off the shelf is applicable. The trick is recognizing it needs to be done and picking a good one.

I haven't looked at Joomla, but my suspicion is that the problems are mostly in understanding how to make it do it. An old friend is a noted open source advocate, and was griping about the quality of the lot of open source (which Joomla is) documentation. I proposed a drinking game. Look for open source projects. Take a drink for every one where you don't understand the documentation on how to use it. Take two drinks for every one where you can't even find a description of what it's supposed to do. You will be under the table in short order...

Hooooooooo, no. You're not gonna get me plastered with that one. I've been around websites for so many years now that I've SEEN all those promised but grossly-undocumented platforms, programs, and the like. BTDT.

The Easter-Egg Hunt for destructions or information or ANYTHING is certainly part of it with Joomla! (J!). But that's not the biggest issue I have with J!. My first biggie is that it's entirely "article" based. (Think of a blogging system, essentially). So, you create articles, then you assign them to a menu item. So far, normal, yeah? Oh, but wait--you create menu items through telling the system what particular "articles" it's created FROM. Yes, that's right--there's no way to craft an article/entry and see what the hell it will look like, live, nor know it's final URL (particularly if you're using a lot of rewrites for SEF's). You can't just create a menu item, like one would normally do with HTML. You have to create this content, or pile (category) of content, and then MAKE a menu item from that. For example, menu entry X is compiled from all the articles in category y, or all the featured articles in category Z, or...it's endless. From my perspective, that's precisely the opposite of how it ought to be, this subsuming of the power of code to these end-user-type workarounds.

ANYWAY...(oh, and yeah--99% of the users of the cursed thing know less than I do. So their end-user forum is filled with people calling themselves "Joomla experts," but that seems to equate to someone who can put plug-ins into a Wordpress framework/theme/template.)

You learn things after you do them long enough. And the issues are inherent in any client oriented business.


Any time.
______
Dennis

Yes. I'm simply accustomed to a completely different client base, and TYPE of client base. I've been lucky, working with some of the top hotel companies, RE Developers, architects, et al, in the WORLD, much less just here. My clients were always some of the sharpest guys in the room. Obviously, that's a pretty far piece from what I'm doing now, although we've been very lucky in clientele for this line of work, too.

Best,
Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I thought our servers were underutilized, and pushed to go with something like VMWare. My boss said out British sister company tried that and failed, so we wouldn't. I thought the sister company simply didn't know what they were doing, but we couldn't come out and say that...
______
Dennis

Amen. These days one server does the work of dozens. Even my "home" network (which would make a lot of SMBs jealous!) is down to a mere 4 actual servers. And two of those are laptops that have been beefed up with RAM and large SSDs. They make _great_ lab servers. Oh, and they come with their own UPS.

As for my network? At the office, I'm proud of it. At home? It's a mess. And not likely to get much better. Sigh.

[Cinisajoy]

What is UPS?

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

What is UPS?

Uninterruptible Power Supply - a battery back up for power failures.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

What is UPS?

Uninterruptible Power Supply.

You plug your computers into the UPS, and the UPS into the wall.

The UPS provides power conditioning and a smooth even flow of power at 120 volts/60 cycles, and has internal battery backup to keep the power going to computers long enough to gracefully shut them down if the power fails.

Computers don't like voltage spikes/brownouts and misbehave when they occur, so power conditioning may be more important than battery backup.

The ones I've dealt with can communicate with the systems plugged into them, send a shutdown command if the power fails, and keep them going long enough for a proper shutdown to occur.

How long they can maintain power is a function of size, and some of them are very large indeed.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Amen. These days one server does the work of dozens. Even my "home" network (which would make a lot of SMBs jealous!) is down to a mere 4 actual servers. And two of those are laptops that have been beefed up with RAM and large SSDs. They make _great_ lab servers. Oh, and they come with their own UPS.

At another employer, we were a streaming video shop. Our preferred platform was a 1u Dell rackmount with dual quad core Xeon CPUs and 32GB RAM. Everything was under VMWare ESX, and server instances booted Centos and talked to a back end Isilon SAN array. (EMC acquired Isilon.) Spinning up a new VM was simple.

As for my network? At the office, I'm proud of it. At home? It's a mess. And not likely to get much better. Sigh.

My home network is quite simple. Usually, it's my desktop and SO's laptop. There are assortment of other things that can join the party, including another laptop, a netbook, a notebook, an old PowerMac, and Win2003 and Solaris servers, plus a few tablets, but in practice they don't.

Too many OSes. Too little time.
______
Dennis

[CRussel]

My job(or one of them) is writing about enterprise environments. I run a fairly complex lab environment. All on Hyper-V.

[Rumpelteazer]

I've got several set top boxes for my tv, all with different functions; one for digital tv and recording, a Blu-ray player (which I mostly use for Netflix) and a mediaplayer for the dvd's I have copied to an external HDD.

Today I came across the Roku, though not available in the Netherlands I should be able to order it from the UK or Germany. The Roku 3's got Netflix, and an USB port, though it supports limited file formats for the latter. But that can be solved by converting files. It's also small, easy to take with me on vacation or when house sitting. And I really love the headphone jack on the remote control, that eliminates the extension wire for my headphones from my tv (plus it makes the remote easy to find )

I just Googled if it really isn't possible to buy the Roku 3 in the Netherlands and I came across an article stating that, yes, Netflix is available in the Netherlands, however it won't work on the Roku devices.

So, it's back to searching for a new device.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I've done this with screamers. There doesn't seem to be any other way to deal with them. At heart, they are schoolyard bullies, trying to pick on people that they think are "weaker" than they. Usually one good shriek back works, but I did have an employer/client that required an additional step. I think I'll pass on explaining that in detail, as I'm pretty sure it makes me sound like a loon.

More of a loon than the employer/client?

Agreed. It's pretty inexcusable. I have all of my rats' nest occupants labled and bundled, but it's also true that they DO seem to have a mind of their own, somehow--SOMEHOW--getting jumbled up.

I dream of a cable free environment, but it won't happen near term. I do try to tidy things with wire ties and Velcro, and label what various cables connect to. The biggest PITA is the chargers for various things, each of which has it's own idea of a power connector. I have a parts drawer full of such things, and in some cases I no longer recall just what they charge.

Hell, I name mine. Cute little buggers. I do find, however, that they are difficult to tell apart, darn it. Perhaps I ought to get them color-coded collars...hmmmm.

A favorite on line comic is User Friendly, set at a Canadian ISP. One of the characters is Dust Puppy. He appeared in the server room, but unlike others, he has eyes and feet. He uses the feet like hands, to write code and play Quake. Another character is Erwin, a snarky AI that normally resides in a Mac.

Dust Puppy wrote him. Erwin was introduced by Dust Puppy to Sid, the old time hacker who is the ISP's tech director.

Sid: "Whoa! That's impressive, little guy! What language did you write Erwin in?"

Dust Puppy: "COBOL"

Erwin: "I'm not your friend any more..."

User Friendly offered plush Dust Puppy toys, and I got one.

GMTA! That's what I tell people all the time (the slush pile comment), nearly verbatim. And, after 7 years of this now, I've come to have FAR more sympathy for editors and slush-pile readers than I ever did before. OTOH, let's be honest--you can rule out a bunch just by reading the cover letter/inquiry; and my theory is, if the book doesn't show decent promise by the time you've slogged through 5-10K words, it never will. I don't mean the oft-discussed "hook;" I just mean that unmistakable ebb and flow of a GOOD writer. The mastery of the word, the phrase, dialogue, etc. I can tell in one page if a book is worth even trying. That's a skill I'm sure we've all honed through Amazon's LITB.

I suspect experienced slush pile readers can tell in the first page or so.

For that matter, you can tell by the online blurbs. For instance, I can't wait for Zombies to be "so last year". Part of my problem is that I read SF/fantasy, and have for five decades. New writers often simply haven't read enough to know what was done to death 30 years ago, and won't get why folks like me say "Oh, no! Not Yet Another One of X!"

Hooooooooo, no. You're not gonna get me plastered with that one. I've been around websites for so many years now that I've SEEN all those promised but grossly-undocumented platforms, programs, and the like. BTDT.

I can offer you some tasty single malt...

The Easter-Egg Hunt for destructions or information or ANYTHING is certainly part of it with Joomla! (J!). But that's not the biggest issue I have with J!.
<...>

I'll take your word for it, but since that's the case, why use it in the first place?

Yes. I'm simply accustomed to a completely different client base, and TYPE of client base. I've been lucky, working with some of the top hotel companies, RE Developers, architects, et al, in the WORLD, much less just here. My clients were always some of the sharpest guys in the room. Obviously, that's a pretty far piece from what I'm doing now, although we've been very lucky in clientele for this line of work, too.

I'm accustomed to dealing with sharp people too.

The former editor I mentioned earlier and I had a discussion at one point about the issues involved in communicating publishing reality to aspiring writers and readers. She said "The problem is, we're smart, and we surround ourselves with people who are smart. We tend to forget most people aren't smart until we have to deal with them. They just don't get things that are obvious to us." She was quite right.
______
Dennis

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I've got several set top boxes for my tv, all with different functions; one for digital tv and recording, a Blu-ray player (which I mostly use for Netflix) and a mediaplayer for the dvd's I have copied to an external HDD.

Today I came across the Roku, though not available in the Netherlands I should be able to order it from the UK or Germany. The Roku 3's got Netflix, and an USB port, though it supports limited file formats for the latter. But that can be solved by converting files. It's also small, easy to take with me on vacation or when house sitting. And I really love the headphone jack on the remote control, that eliminates the extension wire for my headphones from my tv (plus it makes the remote easy to find )

I just Googled if it really isn't possible to buy the Roku 3 in the Netherlands and I came across an article stating that, yes, Netflix is available in the Netherlands, however it won't work on the Roku devices.

So, it's back to searching for a new device.

I'm sorry! I love my Roku and Netflix.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I've got several set top boxes for my tv, all with different functions; one for digital tv and recording, a Blu-ray player (which I mostly use for Netflix) and a mediaplayer for the dvd's I have copied to an external HDD.

<snip>

I just Googled if it really isn't possible to buy the Roku 3 in the Netherlands and I came across an article stating that, yes, Netflix is available in the Netherlands, however it won't work on the Roku devices.

So, it's back to searching for a new device.

Bummer.

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

I'm sorry! I love my Roku and Netflix.

Me, too. What I like most about Roku is the huge range of channels and every possible type of content you could want. We have a Roku3 with Netflix, Amazon Prime (not electively; we simply have it already, so...), AcornTV and Hulu. Basically, it gives us choices that we wouldn't otherwise have (for legal content, I mean). I like the ability to stream some European and British shows that I otherwise would never see. And Aussie shows, too.

Forgive my ignorance about this, but what about google Chromecast? or is the issue the licensing (by area), rather than the device (pipe) for it? We haven't used the remote headphone jack, on the Roku...mostly because I forgot we even had the option. :-)

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

More of a loon than the employer/client?

Well...yeah, no. I can't find any way to write that story without being a loon.

A favorite on line comic is User Friendly, set at a Canadian ISP.

<snip>

User Friendly offered plush Dust Puppy toys, and I got one.

That sounds fun. I'm going to look for that. I once bought a "Buddy Jesus" figurine from Kevin Smith. ;-) I really bought it for my dentist, who was a MASSIVE KS fan.

For that matter, you can tell by the online blurbs. For instance, I can't wait for Zombies to be "so last year". Part of my problem is that I read SF/fantasy, and have for five decades. New writers often simply haven't read enough to know what was done to death 30 years ago, and won't get why folks like me say "Oh, no! Not Yet Another One of X!"

Oh, me, too. It's got to be generational. I don't get the fascination with zombies. Never did, whether it's Romero or now. Walking shambling/running icky dead things? Yick. And yes--one of the genres really hit hard by self-pubbing is Sci-Fi, (and romance and, er, "romantica"), particularly, and it's not necessarily in a good way. LOTS of, lemme see, how shall I say this?...hmmm..."homages" to earlier books abound.

I'll take your word for it, but since that's the case, why use it in the first place?

STUPIDITY? I mean, really. I was so desperate to get AWAY from Expression Engine--my former CMS, which took suckage to whole new places (although it was fine when I first started to use it in '05-'06--just keeled over from old age, really) that I misunderstood the realities of J!. I looked at J! templates, addons, etc. and, no one to blame but myself, I failed to really understand the fundamental workings of the thing.

I shouldn't whine like a puppy; it's not godawful. Many are worse. It's just...some of the way it works feels precious. Sort of like..."we started with this CMS this way, to make it usable by people with NO experience, and weren't we CLEVER? And just because that clever bit gets in the way for people who can spell HTML, why, no, we're going to leave it that way." I don't know if that 'splains it or not. Just seems like some of the philosophy gets in the way of making it work like a "grownup" CMS. As I said though--to find the culprit, I need look no further than the nearest mirror. IDIOT!!

I'm accustomed to dealing with sharp people too.

The former editor I mentioned earlier and I had a discussion at one point about the issues involved in communicating publishing reality to aspiring writers and readers. She said "The problem is, we're smart, and we surround ourselves with people who are smart. We tend to forget most people aren't smart until we have to deal with them. They just don't get things that are obvious to us." She was quite right.
______
Dennis

Did you read Mudd's The Head Game? He made a simple but profound observation, which I parroted here in this thread: that by definition, fully half the people are below average. Yes, I know that it ought to be obvious; but I tend not operate keeping that in mind. I probably ought to quote it in big print and hang it under my big wall clock, in my line of sight.

The idiot part of me continues to expect that my clientele will be like my clientele (former). And lo, by and large, they are not. This isn't to say that some of my clients are not geniuses or near-as, but holy crap, it's an entire new experience. I like to tell myself that I'll be a better person for it, but my inner cranky broad thinks that's BS, and thinks I'll have better luck improving myself if I light candles and burn incense.

Thanks!

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Me, too. What I like most about Roku is the huge range of channels and every possible type of content you could want. We have a Roku3 with Netflix, Amazon Prime (not electively; we simply have it already, so...), AcornTV and Hulu. Basically, it gives us choices that we wouldn't otherwise have (for legal content, I mean). I like the ability to stream some European and British shows that I otherwise would never see. And Aussie shows, too.

Forgive my ignorance about this, but what about google Chromecast? or is the issue the licensing (by area), rather than the device (pipe) for it? We haven't used the remote headphone jack, on the Roku...mostly because I forgot we even had the option. :-)

Hitch

I do plan to get a Chromecast, mainly because it's so cheap. But it won't be replacing any of my settopboxes.

First of all, you not only have be online for it to work but the connection needs to be fast enough to stream. This won't always be the case. For instance, in January I'm renting a cottage at a holiday park. You can get access to internet, but they want on the website that it isn't a high speed connection; it's fine for reading emails and reading websites but downloading big files and streaming music/movies will be problematic. Also there is a limited number of devices that will be able to connect to wifi (unless you purchase more vouchers).

Second, I don't like to be dependant on a phone, tablet or notebook. I'd rather have a bigger (though you can't really call a Roku big) device that has it's own remote and will work stand alone.

Finally, I like the Roku's ability to plug in a memory card or an USB stick loaded with my own films and series. That is especially handy when wifi isn't available or fast enough. I'm probably able to copy a film or series to my tablet or phone and stream from there, but then I'm, again, dependant on another device.

The Roku 3 seemed to be the ideal device to eliminate a couple of other devices and would be great when not at home. I assumed that since we now have Netflix in the Netherlands it would work on the Roku, too. I didn't count on any other streaming services to work. I think it's a bit silly of Roku not to get to an agreement with Netflix so you can use it outside of the US, Canada and UK/Ireland.