* Posts by Stoneshop

5951 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2009

Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB

Stoneshop
Mushroom

Re: very unfortunate move,

... using the GUI, and accessing the NAS via its standard network file systems.

However, if you connect via ssh/rsync, the file system permits every account on the box to read and write any file. I've tested this extensively and have tried to get that behaviour to cooperate to no avail. It's also commented on in various NAS fora.

If Synology thinks they can ditch a standard rights implementation because it apparently makes their life easier in some way or whatever, then fsck them

Stoneshop

Re: very unfortunate move,

I test-drove a Synology DS620slim, selected because of its small size while still taking 6 drives (2.5" ones only), and returned it after trying to come to grips with its approach to security: at the file level all data is readable by everyone, and only when accessing the unit through FileStation the data is seen as having the proper protections. This is since DSM 6.something.

After trying to incorporate this idiosyncratic security implementation into my data storage I considered it beyond unusable, returned it and decided never to let any Synology gear soil my network again. I then built a small box based on a mini-ITX board, hotswap disk trays, ran up a Debian installer and laid down ZFS on those 6 disks. Took me less time (excluding data transfer) than I had spent wrestling DSM. It's not as small as that DS620 box, but that's the only downside.

This disk malarkey reeks of the same hubris.

Flash in the pan: Raspberry Pi OS is the latest platform to carve out vulnerable tech

Stoneshop
Go

Re: Attaching a tractor-fed Epson LX-80 dot matrix impact printer was the height of luxury

I've been meaning to see if my Roland A3+ plotter works on one.

We just got hold of a Roland CM24 cutting plotter, and after trying a bit to get it to work using an USB-parallel converter I remembered the two Axis540 network print server dongles that should be Somewhere In The Pile Of Tat. Found them, checked those out, configured one of them, plugged it in and told CUPS about it.

The Axis540 speaks lpd, and offers eight logical ports. Default it sends some ESCP/2 codes to reset the printer before and after each job, but I thought it prudent to blank those strings. CUPS is configured to use it as 'generic - raw', and this is what inkcut's HPGL output is sent to.

Worked right from the first attempt.

Stoneshop

Re: Attaching a tractor-fed Epson LX-80 dot matrix impact printer was the height of luxury

For some obscure reason[0] I came across a cable with a miniaturised C36 one end, a DB25 the other. "3M" molded into the cover of the DB25, no other markings. The mini C36 is constructed just like a standard 36 pin Centronics, with a ridge down the middle, contact fingers both sides, about half as long. Also, locking clips in the shell.

[0] The reason I have such a cable in the first place is what is obscure as I haven't had a printer that it might have been used on. But adding it to my junk pile Extensive Stash of Potentially Useful Tat is just second nature.

Stoneshop

Re: Attaching a tractor-fed Epson LX-80 dot matrix impact printer was the height of luxury

And now I can't remember the last time I actually used a piece of paper for anything work related.

Is that because you simply don't use paper any more[0], or that you just can't remember anything?

[0] as the "paperless office" is still anything but, I'm strongly disinclined to believe that.

Stoneshop

Re: I went big

Mine was a NEC P7, also 24 pin. Indestructible; the only downside was that the ink ribbon was exposed over the entire 15" width of the platen, so you had that length drying out when not using it. Its successor had a more sensible ribbon cartridge that sat on the printhead carriage.

It was quite noisy indeed, but it came with a piece of damping foam that fit underneath, and the same stuff covered most of the inside.

Although when I needed to print 30k barcode labels I kicked off the print job after a brief test, then left the house. Four times in total; the software only managed one column where the label stock was two wide, 15k labels per box.

Stoneshop

Re: Attaching a tractor-fed Epson LX-80 dot matrix impact printer was the height of luxury

until the lack of parallel port PCs made them obsolete

USB to parallel port adapters are still available as are network print servers, and for those early pre bi-directional port printers an Arduino can be taught to sit between a PC and one of those printers.

Perhaps they [HP] should change printer interfaces more often

For a while they used what I think were HD-36 connectors instead of the standard Centronics 36pin; they looked similar to the HD-50 SCSI connectors that replaced the C50 for narrow SCSI.

Police drone plunged 70ft into pond after operator mashed pop-up that was actually the emergency cut-out button

Stoneshop
Headmaster

Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

The storage arrays that we were responsible for half a decade back required actually typing "YES" into a dialog field, twice, if you were about to initiate some irreversible and destructive action.

I'd have phrased the second question so that you'd have to answer "NO" to proceed, but as it was it was already pretty well guarded against inadvertent zapping.

Attack of the cryptidiots: One wants Bitcoin-flush hard drive he threw out in 2013 back, the other lost USB stick password

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: UK domestic rubbish collection ...

Near enough 20MPa. Why so much pressure to generate 0.5MPa?

Because that hydraulic pressure is pushing against a piston, which moves the piston rod, which is attached to the pressure plate via a hinged joint. The plate pressure can be calculated if you know the piston area, the angle (which varies during the stroke) between piston rod and pressure plate, and a few other dimensions. Some of which can be estimated, and others you just can't know unless you have the relevant construction drawings.

Fortunately the manufacturer already lists that plate pressure so you can skip the calculations.

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: UK domestic rubbish collection ...

I suspect a mechanical HDD is unrecoverable after a single compaction cycle.

I once had the opportunity to test the resilience of a 600MB Seagate 3.5" hard drive by putting it under a levelling jack of a JLG 330LRT scissor lift. With a bit of jockeying you can put half the unit's weight on that one jack, so 2.6 ton.

Flat - area would have been about 150cm^2, 200N/cm^2, 200kPa - no deformation

Long edge down - 40cm^2, 650N/cm^2, 650kPa - no deformation

Short edge down - 25cm^2, 1000N/cm^2, 1MPa - a bit of a gap between the case and the lid, platters still spun freely. I've seen drives way worse off still recovered.

Now 20 times that might well be quite damaging, especially if it gets caught the wrong way between the squeezer and something solid. However, the specs for this garbage truck state a press-plate pressure of 35 tons, and eyeballing the plate dimensions I'd say its area is 0.75m^2 (1.5m wide, 0.5m high), so that works out to 48 tons/m^2 or 480kPa, even less than the lift jack pressure with the drive long edge down. If the garbage load is not compacted again after it's unloaded from the truck but going straight into the landfill, the drive will likely be still fully intact. And water, mould and even the chemical residues you could encounter in standard household garbage (discounting aggressive chemicals that should have been disposed of appropriately) are unlikely to sufficiently damage a modern hard drive platter to make it unrecoverable.

The main problem though would be actually finding the drive.

Icon: full chemical hazmat suit with breathing apparatus.

Signal boost: Secure chat app is wobbly at the moment. Not surprising after gaining 30m+ users in a week, though

Stoneshop

different alert tone

I would want one particular Signal group and a few individuals to have alerts, but it's all or nothing.

So, nothing.

Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte and hellagram is going hella nowhere

Stoneshop
Trollface

the quadrennial meeting

of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)'s General Conference on Weight and Measures.

Well known for its long meetings where everybody weighs in on these matters.

How to avoid pesky border controls: Be a robot truck driver… or insanely rich

Stoneshop
Headmaster

Re: Ham and Cheese at Calais

That would have been un sandwich[0] avec jambon et fromage, which is almost entirely but not quite the similarly named item from the other side of the Channel, despite that one's freshness and edibility being guaranteed by washing it every two weeks and resealing it in clingfilm.

[0] l'Académie Française has clearly given up.

It's been a day or so and nope, we still can't wrap our head around why GitHub would fire someone for saying Nazis were storming the US Capitol

Stoneshop
Boffin

Have I? Last I remarked was the success of the vaccination purchase

Which is just one step in the process of actually vaccinating the entire population. And the fact that second shots are going to be postponed well past the recommendation of the respective manufacturers can be seen as a significant process failure.

What also appears to have been somewhat less successful is keeping the infection rate low enough that health services can keep up. The phrase "dog's breakfast" comes to mind.

Theranos destroyed crucial subpoenaed SQL blood test database, can't unlock backups, prosecutors say

Stoneshop

At the very least the judge can infer that to be so, and weigh it in passing the judgment.

Trump silenced online: Facebook, Twitter etc balk at insurrection, shut the door after horse bolts and nearly burns down the stable

Stoneshop

Re: Trump tried to kidnap Senators for a coup

As far as I could tell, other than tradition, the constitutional stuff doesn't specify a location where it has to be done. Is Blodgett's Hotel still standing*?

AIUI it just needs to be done by a combined session of Senate and House, chaired by the VP, but no limitations as to location. Although it might need to be within DC because something something federal something, in that case ruling out Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

Stoneshop
Headmaster

indefinitely, or for at least two weeks.

I'm under the impression Mark doesn't have a very good dictionary. Under "indefinitely" mine gives "without end", "endlessly" and "forever" as synonyms. There is no mention of a limited time period, not even when preceded by the "at least" clause.

Stoneshop

Re: isn't anyone going to stick up for this idiot?

I know that in our backwater our system isn't 100% builletproof but its certainy close to 100% fraud proof.because any attempt to interfere with the votes at the precinct level will stick out big time. Its then possible to back check to see if any votes have been added or removed.

How would you rate voting-roll purges?The, eh, overly-zealous ones, not perfectly normal administrative purging of dead people who are actually dead, but the ones that disenfranchise people from voting because there's some irrelevant error in their registration. That's not the type of fraud that interferes with the cast votes after the fact, which I'll accept your word for that it's near-100% watertight, but it's still a method of affecting the outcome.

Or just relocating (or closing) polling places so that voters face more travel, longer queueing. time and effort which they may not be able to afford.

Stoneshop

Re: So that's what freedom looks like

A large part of what would keep Congress powerless in the case of requiring a 2/3 majority for any significant proposal is its partisanship, and especially the valueing of party over country to the extent that "it would hurt my constituents if it wasn't passed, but it will hurt yours more, neener neener".

And that's an inherent problem in a two-party system. Multi-party, especially with a larger number of small, narrow-issue parties is not without its problems, but at least it requires having to craft compromises, both for assembling a government as well as for individual proposals, some of which can be made to pass even if not supported by all the parties in government if enough of the opposition can be motivated to get behind it.

Stoneshop
Holmes

Re: Trump tried to kidnap Senators for a coup

Might be some devil in the details, like the what happens if the votes go missing, but AFAIK, that's more embarassing than crisis-creating

There are, apparently as a holdover from the stagecoach era and the shenanigans common then, at least four copies being sent from each of the states to Washington, one copy is kept at that state's capitol, and yet one more sent to some government archiving institution.

I would expect that any of the copies remaining elsewhere could be used even if the ones that were being counted as the insurrectionists snatched them were shredded, blown up, eaten, buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters, or shat upon, shredded and then blown up. And I'd wager a guess that even a photocopy that's verifiably identical to the ones stored elsewhere would do.

Stoneshop
Holmes

Re: Not his finest hour

Will he pardon himself? We can expect him to give it a try. Will he pardon them? Interesting question.

And about pardoning himself, a related question that has seen some exposure recently:

"Scholars are divided" as to whether a president has the power to pardon himself, the division being between (1) people who say he does not and (2) idiots.

Pop quiz: You've got a roomful of electrical equipment. How do you put out a fire?

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: Sprinkler myth is all wet

It's not very difficult to devise a system that keeps the heads under low pressure (air or water) that the sprinkler heads are constructed to withstand, applying full pressure once one of them is breached, causing the other heads to pop. And this with just a pair of valves.

Explained: The thinking behind the 32GB Windows Format limit on FAT32

Stoneshop

Re: MS, how about recognising EXT,HFS+ formats... FFS 2021.

ZFS is not just a file system, it's also a raid-like storage subsystem that does have a few licencing tentacles on top, so I don't see that happening any time soon (just like the others you mention, only even less soon than those).

Native NFS would probably be the first as it's available already, only not as an option in a default install.

Stoneshop

Re: MS, how about recognising EXT,HFS+ formats

I have to use 4 different OS's as part of my job, yes, you can use exFAT, FAT32 across these, but it's about time Windows 10 20H2 could recognise these 'unrecognised file systems'

W7 throws up a BSOD if you offer it an ODS-2 formatted USB drive; haven't tried with W10 yet and at the moment I don't have that stick at hand (it's at the office, haven't been there since March and I doubt I'll be going there any time soon)

Loser Trump is no longer useful to Twitter, entire account deleted over fears he'll whip up more mayhem

Stoneshop

Re: At least Trump has finally conceded

Which has very little to do with actually conceding, and he didn't even do that. Trump stated there would be an orderly handover "to the next administration" while leaving whose administration that would be up in the air.

Being present at the inauguration of your successor is merely the polite thing to do, it has no bearing on the actual process. Biden's win has been certified by the combined meeting of the House and Senate, with Pence presiding, and that's what matters.

Titanium carbide nanotech approach hints at hydrogen storage breakthrough

Stoneshop
Boffin

it's really just an electron and a proton.

Er, that's just half a H2 molecule, which is what we tend to deal with in all but the rarest of instances. Still very small though.

United States Congress stormed by violent followers of defeated president, Biden win confirmation halted

Stoneshop
Stoneshop

Re: COUP

US military refused to release the National Guard until so ordered by the President Donald Trump after the damage was done.

It was Mike "Lawful Evil" Pence who did that (and has the authority to do so), the Orange Oaf wouldn't have lifted a finger to thwart these 'fine people' in any way.

Stoneshop

Re: Careful. Slow down and THINK.

Yes, I know, apparently one women was hurt badly, possibly shot.

She was full QAnon, and she put herself in that position.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Stoneshop

Re: I wonder ...

...and the President has the power to pardon the VP

There was already no chance of that after Pence refused to throw out votes from states the Orange Oaf falsely considers fraudulent, and now he's certified the electoral college votes so double whammy.

Stoneshop

Re: I wonder ...

Mike Pence tweeted that?

My impression is that while he's evil, he's lawful evil. So the spells he can cast includes "Throw the Book"

Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal

Stoneshop

Re: Actually....

....chips don't have schematics ("circuit diagrams") in the generally accepted sense.

Mmmmno.

Look up the datasheet on a 74x00, a 741 or a 555, and you'll find the actual schematic on one of the first pages. Even the Intel 4004 is published in full. With more complex chips what you will find in publicly available docs will mostly be block diagrams as the full schematic will be too unwieldy and impenetrable for everyday design use, but there will be partial schematics of input and output circuits, or a circuit equivalent. Still, every chip designer would have the full schematic for each of their chips, including the silicon layout.

Stoneshop

Re: Ha ha ha.... but it's not funny

Sure, but a larger pool in which viruses can mutate would not be a positive contribution to getting them under control.

Stoneshop
Devil

Re: Doh!

If those nanobots are built around this circuit there will be a marked increase in appreciation for heavy metal, which as all good people know has deep ties[0] with Satanism just like the 'music' by those four perverts from Liverpool, Satanism involves child sacrifices and this all needs to be prevented at all cost. Even torching not-5G phone base stations is perfectly fine because you just need to be very very thorough in cases like this.

[0] and if not directly obvious you should just play the songs backwards.

Stoneshop
Angel

No, The Lord is a cat.

“Ah!” barked Zarniwoop, “you say ‘The Lord’. You believe in something!”

“My cat,” said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it, “I call him The Lord. I am kind to him.”

Stoneshop
Go

Re: I'll just leave this here

Aren't those giving you cramps?

Stoneshop
Boffin

Re: Ha ha ha.... but it's not funny

You'd have the same problem every year (or whenever the vaccine wears off)

And there will be mutations that won't match what your antibodies (through vaccines/low-level infection) have been taught to stomp on.

Stoneshop

of those that get COVID, many will survive

with a fair percentage occupying IC beds that could have helped more deserving people.

Stoneshop
Flame

The truest gearheads

should redo the schematic using glowbottles and size the other components appropriately. You know, those things that become rather hot when in use, and run on 100 Volt DC and up.

Size leaves little option as to where the devices then need to be 'injected'.

Stoneshop

Re: Doh!

Trump would keep setting the clock back so he'd have more time to 'think', and having been checkmated already, will put pressure on FIDE to have them declare half your moves illegal .In the end, having received 'no' for an answer after making offers that can easily be refused, he takes a golf club and smashes the board and all the remaining[0] pieces.

[0] the ones you allowed him to capture are immediately locked up.

Stoneshop
Facepalm

Because the knobs are really "how they control you."

Not quite.

It's the knobs[0] that are controlled.

[0] The other type, to be clear.

Stoneshop
Megaphone

Biggest problem is the feedback loop.

Stoneshop
Pirate

Re: That must be

The most useful effect would be a mute button for a fair percentage of the population.

Which is already there. You just have to make sure that if the body happens to be found there are absolutely no traces leading back to you.

Stoneshop
Boffin

what process node is this fabricated on?

I'm super excited that someone has managed to implement a 10uF electrolytic capacitor in silicon.

Could be a thick-film circuit[0], with 10uF ceramics in 0805.

[0] very appropriate when dealing with conspiracy thickos.

Beware the ghost of operating systems past: In which our hero is visited by an old friend

Stoneshop

Re: User Name: Administrator

The real admin account was called something completely different.

Nqzvavfgengbe ?

I built a shed once. How hard can a data centre be?

Stoneshop

Part of Ruth Goldenberger's team?

I still have my "VMS Internals and Data Structures"[0] somewhere, though most likely in a box in the loft.

[0] Or "VMS Infernals and Data Struggles" as it tended to be referred to.

Stoneshop

Re: Sounds like my house

Hmm... Normally, 11/70s needed three-phase power.

Not necessarily. Depending on configuration they could draw more than a single circuit can handle, and the prudent solution is to feed it 3 phase but the power supplies feeding the logic don't care at all if they're fed from different phases or not. However, several disk drives of that era would require 3 phase; I've heard of at least one case where the phases were wired wrong at the feed to the local breaker panel causing the disk drives to spin the wrong way.

Totally the inverse of this is the Alphaserver DS20. It has three separate power supplies, needs 2 to start up (and it has 3 for that n+1 redundancy), but they MUST be on the same phase or they'll crap out.

Stoneshop

Re: And contrawise

Commer TS3 -- seems to be a sort of mini Deltic

Hmm, more like a flat six but with opposed pistons, so three cylinders And instead of the conventional twin crankshafts outboard of the cylinders this one has the conrods driving some sort of rocker, then a second conrod from that to the central crankshaft underneath. Wooler tried a not-dissimilar engine configuration in a post-WW2 motorcycle. That one was two flat twins on top of each other, the lower pair driving the crankshaft directly, the upper pair attached via a rather demented rocker arrangement.

Flat-(n*2) engines have a nicely low profile allowing underfloor mounting in buses and trucks; Büssing pioneered such engine configurations in Germany.

Even a small Deltic, with its three crankshafts, would be a bugger to fit in a truck except maybe flat with the crankshafts vertical, but then you need an extra angle drive again.

Stoneshop

Re: Sounds like my house

I still remember some of the details. The processor alone was about 3feet of 19" rack

Processor cage plus an OmniBus expansion cage then, most probably. We got one from the University of Wageningen, one of the agri departments. Two low-ish racks, 3ft and 4ft high, an ASR33 and a panel with several dozen BNC connectors hooked to A/D and D/A interface boards, clock signals and some digital I/O. Mounted on a cart, it had been used to monitor environmental conditions for plant growth experiments in a greenhouse. Its program was still in core after having been put aside at least 15 years earlier, and would log to the ASR puncher.

Two full height 19" racks, and just enough room to still get his bed in.

In University I raised my bed to sit over a cupboard and built a workbench in the remaining space underneath. Setups like that were fairly common, and I can easily picture a bed on top of 19" racks; a couple of years ago I've heard of someone with an 11/785 in his apartment; with his bed over it.

Pick an end, any end: Lost that critical Christmas cable? We know how you feel

Stoneshop
Facepalm

Re: I’d be intrigued as to what the error might mean

Bizarrely such a connector does exist

A HDMI, DisplayPort or maybe just USB plug that allows mating with a 3.5 audio plug? The error image isn't showing the other required component: a large hammer.