back to article BOFH: Don't back up in anger

Backups. Backups Backups Backups. Backups Backups Backups Backups Backups. What more can I say? "So do you have a backup of that?" the Boss asks. "No." "We don't back up your laptop." "But you told me you back up everything?" "Everything on the server, yes." "YOU SAID you backed up everything but desktop machines." " …

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  1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Pint

    The moral of the story?

    Be nice to your BOFH! Buy them a pint, a packet of pork scratchings, heed the "do not disturb" signs, buy them something nice on sys admin day…

    1. Gerhard Mack

      Re: The moral of the story?

      A better moral of the story is: Do not try passing blame for your own mistakes on the IT department.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The moral of the story?

        Especially when you faked the mistakes?

        How about: "If you must lie on your CV, and your get-out-of-shit strategy requires a victim, be careful who you choose"?

    2. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: The moral of the story?

      And the classic: "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The moral of the story?

        Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle only in comparison to a brick through the window with "fuck me" written on it?

        1. SteveK

          Re: The moral of the story?

          I thought it was "Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are quick to anger and have no need for subtlety" ?

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: The moral of the story?

          I thought it was "do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup"

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The moral of the story?

            Pfft, amateurs.

            Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins for they have fully charged cattleprods.

  2. Josco

    New technical terms.

    I thought I was up to speed with most jargon, but I haven't heard of bitwise comparison of tesla signatures on the disk surface. Can it really detect as low as 3 or 4 micro-gauss?

    Marvellous stuff.

    1. Si 1

      Re: New technical terms.

      The latest version can go as high as 6 micro-gauss but you need a Bayesian compatible GPU to provide the additional processing power needed for the double ROT-13 calculations.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: New technical terms.

        Surely you need a tunnelling scanning cryo-electron microscope to profile the magnetic polarity of the diatomic regions, visualise the granular domain boundaries and generate a probability density map for the distribution of annealed and fixed data domains?

        1. Kevin Johnston

          Re: New technical terms.

          Recent advances in confocal microscopy actually allow 3D modelling in real-time of nano-level anomolous profiles.

          Although the last time I tried it looked like a dog had eaten my homework

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: New technical terms.

            Combined ultrasensitive magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) / 3D image reconstruction achieves magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with resolution <10 nm. The image reconstruction converts measured magnetic force data into a 3D map of nuclear spin density, taking advantage of the unique characteristics of the “resonant slice” that is projected outward from a nanoscale magnetic tip. The basic principles are demonstrated by imaging the 1H spin density within individual nano-scale particles sitting on a nanometer-thick layer of adsorbed hydrocarbons. The result represents a 100 million-fold improvement in volume resolution over conventional MRI, demonstrating the potential of MRFM as a tool for 3D, elementally selective imaging on the nanometer scale.

            Think I'm making this stuff up?

            1. frank ly

              @TRT Re: New technical terms.

              A quick Google search says it's genuine, and in quite a few locations.

            2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

              @TRT - Re: New technical terms.

              No, but did you understand it?

              Not sure I'd want an MRI taken with this technique, given the phrases, "adsorbed hydrocarbons", "nanoscale magnetic tip", and more importantly, "slice".

              1. BoldMan

                Re: @TRT - New technical terms.

                You forgot the reciprocating trunion that helps avoid sinusoidal depleneration...

              2. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. barbara.hudson
            Happy

            Re: New technical terms.

            Next time, order a colonoscopy - most self-proclaimed "experts" are full of sh*t.

        2. Phil W

          Re: New technical terms.

          It works better if you do the recovery while the drive is rested on top of the user's head, due to quantum entanglement between the electrons used to store the data and the electrons in their brain that originally created the work.

          Although this does inconvenience the user a little by requiring them to sit perfectly still with a hard drive vibrating away on their head, it's worth while if it means they get their data back surely?

          1. John G Imrie

            Re: New technical terms.

            Although this does inconvenience the user a little by requiring them to sit perfectly still with a hard drive vibrating away on their head, it's worth while if it means they get their data back surely?

            The problem with that is if they do move you get the smell of burning hair as the lazer hits their scalp.

            1. Robert Moore
              Thumb Up

              Re: New technical terms.

              The problem with that is if they do move you get the smell of burning hair as the lazer hits their scalp.

              It's not a bug. It's a feature.

          2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: New technical terms.

            electrons in their brain

            I think we've found the problem: what brain?

            Anyway, what the boss deserves sacking for such a pathetic attempt to cover up not being arsed / able to do the presentation!

            1. NukEvil

              Re: New technical terms.

              Given what was on the presentation slides, I'm thinking they were speaking of the "other" head.

        3. PNGuinn
          Pint

          Re: New technical terms. @TRT

          Utter Bollocks.

          Have one of these!

          1. Sir Runcible Spoon
            Boffin

            Re: New technical terms. @TRT

            I recently read a white paper (with perforations) on how our brains store an image map of all the file names on our computers (so that we know where to find them, natch). If you delete the files you can apparently induce the brain to re-produce this image map by flashing an 100000lux light directly onto each retina in 1ms pulses. Apparently the image map will form on the wall behind the persons skull, so be ready with that photo insensitive paper to record it! (You won't get a second chance, because once the retina is incinerated it can't be used to transfer all that light to the brain anymore).

            I'm sure the paper used more technical terms, I've paraphrased it for the management types.

        4. Johndoe132

          Re: New technical terms.

          Is that you aManFromMars1??

      2. John G Imrie

        Re: New technical terms.

        double ROT-13 only works with ascii for full Unicode compliance you need double ROT-557056

        1. rjmx
          Go

          Re: New technical terms.

          John G Imrie: Since it'd be completely useless, it'd be bound to have an ISO classification. Say, ISO910367812-45bis?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: New technical terms.

            "Since it'd be completely useless, it'd be bound to have an ISO classification. Say, ISO910367812-45bis?"

            Surely that would be a British Standard - as in "BS"

            1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge
              Headmaster

              Re: New technical terms.

              BS ISO maybe as BS tends to take up the ISO where it exists and is relevant

        2. Mpeler
          Pint

          Re: New technical terms.

          "double ROT-13 only works with ascii for full Unicode compliance you need double ROT-557056"
          Otherwise it's only half-ASCII...

          1. Sir Runcible Spoon

            Re: New technical terms.

            I'm anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulations.

            1. Aladdin Sane
              Coat

              Re: New technical terms.

              Of course, you could just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

              Mine's the one with the jelly babies and long scarf.

              1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

                Re: New technical terms.

                Surely yours is the one with the little comm badge and Earl Grey Hot cuppa?

            2. Frumious Bandersnatch

              Re: New technical terms.

              Eh, they're all perfectly cromulent words round my way.

          2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

            Re: New technical terms.

            "Otherwise it's only half-ASCII..." - I think that would be half-ASC'ed

      3. chivo243 Silver badge

        Re: New technical terms.

        Or you can just discombobulate the fratisstaff, either way...

        1. Chemical Bob

          Re: New technical terms.

          "discombobulate the fratisstaff"

          It's quicker to flatternize the Giff-Hiiny quadrasnopes...

        2. herman

          Re: New technical terms.

          "Discombobulate" - what does the bra-size of a booth babe have to do with magnetic storage?

          1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

            Re: New technical terms.

            "Discombobulate" - what does the bra-size of a booth babe have to do with magnetic storage? - It has far more to do with it than you can possibly imagine - just dont go there

          2. Mad Chaz

            Re: New technical terms.

            Why not just use a flux capacitor and an old car?

            1. TRT Silver badge

              Re: No, but did you understand it?

              It can be neatly summed up as "Use the force."

          3. oldphart

            Re: New technical terms.

            You must, of course, multiply the bra with the ket.

    2. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: New technical terms.

      Reading the 'deleted' data off the platter isn't the hard bit.

      The hard bit is programming the butterfly to write to a new disk by generating the correct eddy currents in the upper atmosphere.

      And don't give me C-x M-c M-butterfly. That doesn't work.

    3. Blofeld's Cat
      Alien

      Re: New technical terms.

      "It had um, interesting rhythmic devices, too, which seemed to counterpoint the the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the poet’s compassionate soul which contrived through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other. And one is left with a profound and vivid insight into whatever it was that the poem presentation was about!"

      With apologies to the late Dentarthurdent Douglas Adams.

      1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Alien

        Re: New technical terms.

        Death's too good for you!

        1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

          Re: New technical terms. Death's too Good For You

          As it is for all ctitics

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We only backup the shared drives

    Unless you're a certain London based university...

    1. Anonymous Blowhard

      Re: We only backup the shared drives

      "Unless you're a certain London based university..."

      I think you'll find they didn't lose a single one or zero; but they might not necessarily be in the right order...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We only backup the shared drives

        I once worked for a major I/T provider (name withheld to protect employment!) who told us that "They back up the system disk packs nightly.". Seemed safe enough. So, we used them for six months or so, before, in an idle conversation with one of the system guys, it became apparent that by "system disk packs", they meant the disk packs that held the operating system. This did NOT include the "user disk packs", which held all of our development code. Ack!!!

        Oh, yeah, this was the same outfit that, once they did start backing up the user disk packs to tape, they ran short of backup tapes. So the night tape operations person grabbed a tape from the scratch tape pool, used it to finish the back up run of the user data, and then returned the tape to the scratch pool! ACK!!!

        You just can't make this stuff up. The sad part is, I could go on and on and on about such screw-ups that I've personally experienced.

        Anon Y. Mus

        P.S. Did I just hear a stampede of running feet, to check on the backup status of user disks?

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