Tech support compared with 40k

[Altheus]

Working in IT I've noticed something about tech support people.

Windows support people are like Adeptus Mechanicus, they follow the rites and produce the result but the junior ones get stuck if the rite doesn't work and they have to go and get someone more senior who knows more advanced rites.

Linux support people are like Ork Mekboyz, they make things work with orky know-wotz, if the junior mekboy doesn't know something then the boss-mek gives him a thump around the head and tells him to use a different orky know-wot and stick them together in a different way.

Devops people are like Eldar Bonesingers, you can see them doing things, you can see the results but how things go from one state to the other is a mystery.

Am I right, or am I disparaging my professional bretheren and sisteren?

[snowblizz]

Nope. That checks out.

And Apple are ofc the Tau.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned.

Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.


Yup. That sounds like Technical Support.

[Taevyr]

So.... all that's left is finding a good match for Hereteks :smalltongue:

[Peelee]

It's hard to be more disparaging than the normal view of IT, which is basically "every job at IT is simply knowing how to Google things better than the people below you". :smalltongue:

[Jasdoif]

Am I right, or am I disparaging my professional bretheren and sisteren?Downplaying DevOps as "tech support" falls in the disparagement category, yes :smalltongue:

[Khedrac]

It's hard to be more disparaging than the normal view of IT, which is basically "every job at IT is simply knowing how to Google things better than the people below you". :smalltongue:
That's just not true. Once one gets into IT management then one is less good at using Google than the staff working for you - that's their job, yours is to manage.

I have what sounds like one of the best jobs in IT - I'm a tester, my job is to break things...

[Eldan]

As for forgetting tech, absolutely true. NASA has to occasionally get some programmer from the 70s or something out of retirement because they are the only ones who can make sense of old code.

Personal anecdote, I worked in a pharmaceutical company and we were obligated to keep all measurement data from quality assurance for lifetime of our products and, I think 25 years. (It's been a while.) Meanign that we also had to keep an old IBM server from the 80s in working condition, and a stack of magnetic tapes. We had exactly one guy in the company who knew how to fire up that old server, in case we ever got any auditors. It looked a lot like an AM ritual.

[Lentrax]

We must keep the spirits of these machines appeased, that they may bless us with the inner workings of DOS.

As college dorm tech support from the early 2000s, this does indeed check out and verify.

[Lord Raziere]

So.... all that's left is finding a good match for Hereteks :smalltongue:

I mean its probably people who make their own computers from parts they order and assemble themselves, DIY people or something else to that effect.

but adding mods to games like Skyrim and New Vegas certainly feels like modding tech myself, as I have to learn a bunch of arcane things to keep them functioning rather than crashing or glitching out, and its all largely self-maintained as it my personal mod set up, not really applicable to anyone elses problems, and nowhere near the tech knowledge of anyone with actual programming.

[Eldan]

Hereteks are people who invent their own programming languages. Alternatively, that kid who built a working nuclear reactor in his shed.

[snowblizz]

I mean its probably people who make their own computers from parts they order and assemble themselves, DIY people or something else to that effect.


There is a group of users who go one step beyond, for fun or necessity. They build their computer out of non-standard, modified or in other ways very much compromised parts. Resoldering cpu chips onto different circuitboards so the fit on a newer or older motherboard. Frankenstein parts that combined Intel and AMD stuff. Taking a cryptomining graphics card (that has no actual drivers or even even gfx output ports) and using that as their gpu. In many cases they also have to write the software for it.


There is even a project that is reverse engineering and I think opensourcing a Windows ME or XP build or some such. Doesn't get more heretical than that.

[druid91]

So.... all that's left is finding a good match for Hereteks :smalltongue:

That would probably be the on-site organization techs.

"Oh, this thing is out of warranty but it's broken and needs to work for another month until it can be replaced? Well, if we can't do this the official way...."

At least I know in my time in tech support you never see more heresy then when something had to be fixed right away but they didn't think it would need to last.

[Eldan]

That would probably be the on-site organization techs.

"Oh, this thing is out of warranty but it's broken and needs to work for another month until it can be replaced? Well, if we can't do this the official way...."

At least I know in my time in tech support you never see more heresy then when something had to be fixed right away but they didn't think it would need to last.

We have an HPLC on site that is 10 years out of warranty. The Post Doc who has been servicing that thing for the last five years (including her entire PhD) scares me. And yes, she's a full on Admech, too. Apparently, once the sampling-arm (an arrangement of pistons and a syringe, total about 20 cm or a bit less than a foot long, I don't know the official English name), went out of alignment and couldn't callibrate its position, so it started flailing around wildly enough that it broke the glass on the sample unit and started poking outside. She just cursed at it for about ten minutes solid while taking it apart and ad-hoc-ing it. She's not even a tech, officially, she's a biochemist.

And yeah, some of the "manuals" get scary. "So, we get salt deposition in this pump valve if we get use this solvent. Manufacturer wanted to sell us a new pump. Isntead, what we do is that once a month, we pull out this tube, then pull out the degasser unit, plus this solvent bottle here right into the pump head, disable this safety, , unsscrew these bolts, then we use this hot plate, heat ultrapure water to 55°C (with a thermometer duct-taped to it), unplug the FLD, and use this capillary that's below standard diameter to create some back pressure..."

[GloatingSwine]

So.... all that's left is finding a good match for Hereteks :smalltongue:

People whose first instinct on buying literally any piece of technology is to install Linux on it.

[Manga Shoggoth]

People whose first instinct on buying literally any piece of technology is to install Linux on it.

Surely: People whose first instinct on buying literally any piece of technology is to run Doom on it.

[Lord Raziere]

Surely: People whose first instinct on buying literally any piece of technology is to run Doom on it.

Then make a mod of a mod of Doom and play that as its own game? :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

Now I'm kinda tempted to model some hereteks or admech who use the doom title screen as their banner. It's an old invocation of the machine spirit, used to test new cogitators.

[Brother Oni]

We have an HPLC on site that is 10 years out of warranty. The Post Doc who has been servicing that thing for the last five years (including her entire PhD) scares me. And yes, she's a full on Admech, too. Apparently, once the sampling-arm (an arrangement of pistons and a syringe, total about 20 cm or a bit less than a foot long, I don't know the official English name), went out of alignment and couldn't callibrate its position, so it started flailing around wildly enough that it broke the glass on the sample unit and started poking outside. She just cursed at it for about ten minutes solid while taking it apart and ad-hoc-ing it. She's not even a tech, officially, she's a biochemist.


Hmmm, sounds a lot like my company...


And yeah, some of the "manuals" get scary. "So, we get salt deposition in this pump valve if we get use this solvent. Manufacturer wanted to sell us a new pump. Isntead, what we do is that once a month, we pull out this tube, then pull out the degasser unit, plus this solvent bottle here right into the pump head, disable this safety, , unsscrew these bolts, then we use this hot plate, heat ultrapure water to 55°C (with a thermometer duct-taped to it), unplug the FLD, and use this capillary that's below standard diameter to create some back pressure..."

Wait, you have a safety on your pump system? :smalltongue:
I'd recommend fitting a dead column and running that straight to waste as swapping the tubing around for narrower ID stuff is just asking for trouble as someone is going to forget to replace it back after cleaning. I also find FLD modules a bit temperamental when reconnecting them, so I'd rather not mess about with connecting/disconnecting them.

I also hope you don't have any important stainless steel parts in the flow path as that hot deionised water is gonna do a number on it.

Can I ask what your piston shaft's made of? If you're getting leaking and salt deposition, I'd check for scoring and/or your pump seals aren't degraded.

[Eldan]

Geez, we connect and disconnect our FLD before and after every series.

[RandomNPC]

5 years ago I quit a job that instead of emailing a file to a customer to check product specs, would put it all on a floppy disc.

[Vizzerdrix]

So where would the tyranids fit into all of this?

[Lord Raziere]

So where would the tyranids fit into all of this?

The Tyranids fit into this as locusts. or kudzu. things like that. very different hardware. :smallwink:

[Amidus Drexel]

At least I know in my time in tech support you never see more heresy then when something had to be fixed right away but they didn't think it would need to last.

The worst thing about "temporary" fixes is how rarely the fix is actually temporary.

[Manga Shoggoth]

The worst thing about "temporary" fixes is how rarely the fix is actually temporary.

And vice versa.

[Lacuna Caster]

As for forgetting tech, absolutely true. NASA has to occasionally get some programmer from the 70s or something out of retirement because they are the only ones who can make sense of old code.

Personal anecdote, I worked in a pharmaceutical company and we were obligated to keep all measurement data from quality assurance for lifetime of our products and, I think 25 years. (It's been a while.) Meanign that we also had to keep an old IBM server from the 80s in working condition, and a stack of magnetic tapes. We had exactly one guy in the company who knew how to fire up that old server, in case we ever got any auditors. It looked a lot like an AM ritual.
Wouldn't magnetic tapes be hopelessly degraded by now regardless? I'm puzzled by why the data couldn't be transferred to a more modern format.

[Keltest]

Wouldn't magnetic tapes be hopelessly degraded by now regardless? I'm puzzled by why the data couldn't be transferred to a more modern format.

Because its a lot of work and people are lazy/cheap/foolish/all of the above.

[snowblizz]

Wouldn't magnetic tapes be hopelessly degraded by now regardless? I'm puzzled by why the data couldn't be transferred to a more modern format.
Often the problem is converting the data is completely manual as there is no way to connect the source and destination formats/devices.
The cost of and effort of converting is orders of a magnitude larger than just keeping some old stuff around for the few times it's needed.
The problem lies in just that, it might be needed, or not, and you don't want to spend loads keeping data that you never end up needing.
Especially in such cases where you don't continually and regularly move data into new systems.


Because its a lot of work and people are lazy/cheap/foolish/all of the above.

I've seen similar things, I worked at place where they had to keep some old PCs as the only ones capable of running the old Paradox database system. Basically most of the old data wasn't particularly needed. There was little point in keeping up to date system clogged with the employment details of people who only worked 1 day in 1985. And then one day some insane person comes in and wants their employment history from the 1970s and you are digging in the archive because legally you have to provide it.

[Lacuna Caster]

Often the problem is converting the data is completely manual as there is no way to connect the source and destination formats/devices.
The cost of and effort of converting is orders of a magnitude larger than just keeping some old stuff around for the few times it's needed.
The problem lies in just that, it might be needed, or not, and you don't want to spend loads keeping data that you never end up needing.
Especially in such cases where you don't continually and regularly move data into new systems.
I'm fairly sure modern OCR could literally read stuff off a screen and convert it to a text file for further processing, so if you're capable of looking at the data at all it should be convertible in some sense. I mean, if you're legally obliged to provide the data and old formats are unstable and old machinery is going to break down sooner or later, what's the cost of a lawsuit?

[snowblizz]

I'm fairly sure modern OCR could literally read stuff off a screen and convert it to a text file for further processing, so if you're capable of looking at the data at all it should be convertible in some sense. I mean, if you're legally obliged to provide the data and old formats are unstable and old machinery is going to break down sooner or later, what's the cost of a lawsuit?

The problem is that "further processing". Someone has to interpret that data. And yes, that's the question, what's the cost of the lawsuit. In a lot of cases the answer is no where near as costly as spending time and effort translating the data. Often it's a calculated risk you take.

[Eldan]

So, more Fitting anecdotes. We had to restart an expensive piece of lab equipment today. Usually, it runs constantly, so it hadn't been restarted in like two years. Something wasn't right, but the software wouldn't let us access the right diagnostics without a password the manufacturer wasn't handing out. While two of us were taking turns on the waiting loop of the manufacturer's Hotline, one of our post-docs walked up to the machine, which is about a five foot cube of mysterious wires and cubing, put her ear to a Panel and after about 30 seconds said "Turbopump 2 is running at half speed, turbopump 1 is fine". In a room full of dozens and dozens of running machines.

[druid91]

So, more Fitting anecdotes. We had to restart an expensive piece of lab equipment today. Usually, it runs constantly, so it hadn't been restarted in like two years. Something wasn't right, but the software wouldn't let us access the right diagnostics without a password the manufacturer wasn't handing out. While two of us were taking turns on the waiting loop of the manufacturer's Hotline, one of our post-docs walked up to the machine, which is about a five foot cube of mysterious wires and cubing, put her ear to a Panel and after about 30 seconds said "Turbopump 2 is running at half speed, turbopump 1 is fine". In a room full of dozens and dozens of running machines.

I mean that's like me and my old game-cube. I could tell if it was going to accept a game disc or not just by the noises it was making long before it displayed the 'something went wrong' screen.

[oxybe]

Wouldn't magnetic tapes be hopelessly degraded by now regardless? I'm puzzled by why the data couldn't be transferred to a more modern format.

Because just like a Titan, this god-machine has momentum and is difficult to stop if you're just one guy.

See, years and years ago, management decided to buy stuff.

Management HATES buying stuff. For other people. It likes buying stuff for itself, but that's another story.

We need data storage, we get data storage.

Now we have data storage.

Along comes the march of time and new software and hardware is created. We could get new and more efficient data storage, but the current stuff does technically work and see line 3.

At this point we're probably 2 new operating systems in and still using the old format.

But the company has grown and many of our systems are now bound like Prometheus to this data storage rock. Moving away from it would require petitioning Zeus or the god-emperor of mankind himself and proving that spending money not just on upgrading the hardware, but also the software used to interface to it and every other piece of technology that it interacts with is worth their money.

We know that it's worth our time, but our time is their money.

And see line 3.

[Eldan]

Also, they have to keep stuff around for set time periods. Don't remember what it was, exactly. 20 years+lifetime of product? 30 years? Something like that...

So, at some point someone realizes "Hey, if these tapes degrade we are screwed if there's a government audit. But it would cost 500'000 (made up number) to hire a company to copy it all to modern storage. But wait. They have only ever requested any data older than 15 years once, and it's only 5 more years until we no longer have to keep that data around. So we'll just... put it on a shelf and pretend it's still readable and hope no one asks to see it."

[Altheus]

I've just had a good one.

In a cloud situation using a system created by a very clever man who has since left I found something that didn't work. I asked a colleague who said "I did some magic that I don't pretend to understand and it works now".

All praise the Omnissiah!

[farothel]

You should always try to store your long-term stuff in the 'lowest' format possible. For instance, don't use a .xslx format when a .csv format works as well or don't use a .docx format if .txt also works. The lower formats can be read by more types of programs.
I have files from 20+ years back that I then saved in .txt format (as the floppies we were still using could only store so much). I can still open those without any problems whatsoever. Not on the floppies of course (the last time I saw one of those was in a science museum about 5 years ago), but if you transfer them over to your new system, they stay readable.

[Keltest]

You should always try to store your long-term stuff in the 'lowest' format possible. For instance, don't use a .xslx format when a .csv format works as well or don't use a .docx format if .txt also works. The lower formats can be read by more types of programs.
I have files from 20+ years back that I then saved in .txt format (as the floppies we were still using could only store so much). I can still open those without any problems whatsoever. Not on the floppies of course (the last time I saw one of those was in a science museum about 5 years ago), but if you transfer them over to your new system, they stay readable.

.txt... .txt never changes...

[caden_varn]

.txt... .txt never changes...

Unless it was originally in EBCDIC of course

[Ursinorum]

All this would be a decent background for a Astartes vs mechanicus 40k or KT battle, the IT finally rebelling

[oxybe]

Not on the floppies of course (the last time I saw one of those was in a science museum about 5 years ago), but if you transfer them over to your new system, they stay readable.

I still have a floppy disk case with all 7 floppies needed to install Windows 3.1 and the 2-disk videogame juggernaut... Metal Marines. It's on a shelf of nostalgia, next to my NES Zapper, a copy of Dragon Warrior for the NES and a 1995 VHS box set of the original star wars trilogy.

[Brother Oni]

Also, they have to keep stuff around for set time periods. Don't remember what it was, exactly. 20 years+lifetime of product? 30 years? Something like that...

Eudralex Vol 4 Chapter 4 states 5 years after the Qualified Person's last certification of batch.

I read that as 5 years after the last batch made by a particular company, so 5 years after the original company gives up and manufactures its last batch, then 5 years after the generics give up and make their last batch.

Which is odd as I remember it being 10 years after the last batch but I'm too drunk to search for the appropriate legislation.

[dafrca]

Tech Support at my work is often more like the Old Ones. Someone we know existed, we see signs of their work at times, but finding them is impossible. :smallbiggrin:

[farothel]

Tech Support at my work is often more like the Old Ones. Someone we know existed, we see signs of their work at times, but finding them is impossible. :smallbiggrin:

And summoning them leads to insanity? :smalltongue:

[dafrca]

And summoning them leads to insanity? :smalltongue:

In many cases, why yes it does. :smallbiggrin: