RAID whoops

IT horror story of the day from a friend in the US –

 

Corporation’s large RAID array drops disk 1.  They don’t have a new spare, so under protest and on direct order of the IT manager, they insert a used disk.  The array rebuild starts.

 

5 minutes later, they’ve got a flood of tickets from users unable to access network shares, and alarms going off from applications that have dependencies on them.

 

Investigation showed that the particular RAID controller will rebuild the array from NVRAM configuration… unless it finds a working schema on disk 1, then it uses that by default.  Which is a problem if your disk 1 used to be disk 1 in another array with a different schema.

 

Whoops.

Non-news of the morning [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Your non-news of the morning – two convicted and beyond exhaustively tried drug smugglers shot.  And lo, the world has two less scumbags in it – good riddance.

Of course, now we have to put up with a few days of pathos and heartache from the assorted bleeding heart liberals of the world, but by the end of the week there will be something new to talk about.  The posturing politicians will be looking for something new to say to keep their taxpayer funded heads in the paper, the magazines will make up a scandal about some celebrity, and nobody who matters will care less.

Laughing to read some of the comments in the media as the pollies have a competition to see who can screw the most popularity out of the whole deal, with the results apparently judged through social media.  That’s like having a cooking contest to see who can make the best cheesecake and gauging the outcome by seeing which one can be flushed down the bog the easiest.

The Australian government (or the buffoons we currently have, anyway) are huffing and puffing about WITHDRAWING OUR AMBASSADOR as a firm measure of protest.  Yeah, that will show them.  If we really want to show we’re displeased we could even think about delivering a stiffly worded note beforehand – that would show them, eh?  Make them really quake in their sandals.  Perhaps we could stamp our foot as well?  No chance of us doing anything useful or substantive like withdrawing the hundreds of millions of dollars we give Indonesia in aid, of course.

The dumbest comment of the whole saga (and that’s really saying something, believe me) has been that capital punishment isn’t effective as a punishment, because criminals are stupid and don’t expect to get caught.  As far as I can see, that’s basically an argument that says don’t bother trying to enforce the law at all, because if the death penalty doesn’t deter crime – what will?  Perhaps we should torture people for a week or so before executing them, would that be more effective?

I say just shoot ‘em.  Quick, cheap, and deterrence debates aside, I know two scumbags who sure as hell won’t be smuggling drugs any longer, and that’s worth having quite apart from anything else.

Oh yay

Yeah, this is really what I want to come home to.  Great.  Fucking scumbags.

Anzac public holiday ripoff

As anyone working for a living will have noticed, we're being ripped off this year by not receiving a public holiday for Anzac day.

This is bullshit of the first order, and due to one and one only factor - we had a Liberal government in power at the time the decision was made.

Often, but not always, when a public holiday falls on a weekend, a public holiday is granted on a Monday. Boxing Day in 2015 falls on a Saturday, so Monday, December 28, will be a public holiday. But the Napthine government will not legislate for a public holiday for Anzac Day. 

"The purpose of Anzac Day is to respect, commemorate and remember the brave soldiers who sacrificed so much for our freedoms,’’ a spokeswoman for Small Business Minister Russell Northe said.

“It is not about getting a day off and taking for granted the liberties our soldiers fought so bravely to protect."

OK... so why do we get a day off when it falls on a weekday then?  Surely we can respect, commemorate and remember quite adequately regardless of the day of the week?

Only Western Australians will get a public holiday on Monday, April 27.

Bzzt, wrong.

The ACT state government has announced a last minute Anzac Day public holiday on Monday 27 April for all state government workers.

So that's two states that can do it, but Victoria can't... even though we can apparently manage a holiday the Friday before the bloody AFL grand final!

Personally I won't be surprised if half the country takes a sickie on Monday, dire warnings to the contrary.  

Typical government bullshit.  When it comes to give and take, we give - they take.  At least any decisions taken for the next couple of years will be by the Labor government, even though I think they are an incompetent set of buffoons.

I love Trackmania

Ideally watched in 1080p fullscreen, and not with a full glass.  I find I tended to lean into the rolls a bit.

Hot load

I reckon he's going to have to back off the charge weight a bit on that one.  Recoil seems a bit harsh.

Little drive in the country

Went on "a nice drive" with the handbrake yesterday.

Note to self 1: next car will have cruise control.

Note to self 2: when having a mild whinge about the length of the journey, and the handbrake says "next time we could stay overnight", muttering under your breath about buggering the whole weekend up now is best done with internal voice.

On the plus side, I met a very nice vintner who produced some even more nicerer 2006 reserve shiraz, which he now has several bottles less of that previously.  He also bottles zinfandel, which I wasn't aware was even grown outside the Napa valley.  I also bought a bottle of their reserve sauvignon, which as spectacular in taste as it is in price.

By the time I topped that off with a case of cleanskins, half a dozen bottles of sweet Moscato for the handbrake (the only wine I have found in 8 years that she actually likes), some of his lemon preserved olives and some cold pressed dipping oil, we were on very good terms, and he ended up giving me a couple of extra bottles of the shiraz for free, which I wasn't saying no to at all.

We then got into the charcuterie and cheese cellar along side the winery for provisions for a decent rustic dinner.

We comprehensively broke the dogs, though.  Both had to be carried to bed last night.