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Thread: Tech support compared with 40k
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2021-08-05, 07:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-08-14, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Lemuria
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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2021-08-19, 01:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-08-19, 01:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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."Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-09-06, 03:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2018
- Location
- Louth, Lincolnshire, UK
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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!
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2021-09-06, 07:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute."
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2021-09-06, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2021-09-10, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
- UK
- Gender
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2021-09-19, 07:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2021
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
All this would be a decent background for a Astartes vs mechanicus 40k or KT battle, the IT finally rebelling
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2021-09-21, 01:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-09-24, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Cippa's River Meadow
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-09-25, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
- Location
- Burbank CA
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude... seeming to be true within the context of the game world.
"D&D does not have SECRET rules that can only be revealed by meticulous deconstruction of words and grammar. There is only the unclear rules prose that makes people think there are secret rules to be revealed."
Consistency between games and tables is but the dream of a madman - Mastikator
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2021-09-26, 03:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute."
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2021-09-26, 01:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
- Location
- Burbank CA
- Gender
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude... seeming to be true within the context of the game world.
"D&D does not have SECRET rules that can only be revealed by meticulous deconstruction of words and grammar. There is only the unclear rules prose that makes people think there are secret rules to be revealed."
Consistency between games and tables is but the dream of a madman - Mastikator