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Thread: Tech support compared with 40k
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2021-05-06, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2018
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- Louth, Lincolnshire, UK
Tech support compared with 40k
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?
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2021-05-06, 02:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Nope. That checks out.
And Apple are ofc the Tau.
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2021-05-06, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- England. Ish.
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2021-05-07, 02:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2020
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- Right behind you
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
So.... all that's left is finding a good match for Hereteks
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2021-05-07, 02:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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".
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2021-05-07, 02:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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- Oregon, USA
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
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2021-05-07, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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- UK
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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2021-05-07, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-05-19, 11:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2012
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- In the Final Frontier
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-05-20, 12:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-05-20, 03:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Hereteks are people who invent their own programming languages. Alternatively, that kid who built a working nuclear reactor in his shed.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-05-20, 04:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-06-01, 10:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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- Lemuria
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
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2021-06-02, 03:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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..."Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-06-02, 04:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-06-02, 05:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- England. Ish.
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2021-06-02, 05:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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2021-06-02, 05:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-06-02, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Hmmm, sounds a lot like my company...
Wait, you have a safety on your pump system?
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.Last edited by Brother Oni; 2021-06-02 at 12:27 PM.
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2021-06-02, 08:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Geez, we connect and disconnect our FLD before and after every series.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2021-06-08, 06:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-07-07, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-07-07, 04:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Last edited by Lord Raziere; 2021-07-07 at 04:44 PM.
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2021-07-08, 06:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Avatar by FinnLassie
A few odds and ends.
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2021-07-09, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- England. Ish.
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Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2021-07-28, 12:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-07-28, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
“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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2021-07-28, 01:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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'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.
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2021-07-28, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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?
Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-07-29, 07:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Tech support compared with 40k
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.