The computing stuff rant thread

[Kim]

This thread needs a nod to the jam-filled babbage engines of the QE Audiology department, which are at least as problematic as the symphony of cavitation and related rattles emanating from the heating pipes below the the fitting room floors (the one direction the rooms aren't soundproofed in, naturally).  Much Type-2 fun was had trying to get Cochlear's version of The Devil's Radio to work, with success appearing to hinge on the audiologist getting fed up at the critical moment and leaving the room in search of a working computer.

[Gattopardo]

Windows 10 May 2019 update, why have you been hiding on my machine?  Why won't you update and just give me an error 0xc1900223.  Even using the update assistant and creation media instal on this machine fails with the same error.  Yes I have searched and basically the nuke from orbit clean instal option seems to be the way forward.  Going to leave the laptop running as I'm trying the media tool download again and update this machine.

I have been messing around for 13 odd hours, well started at 11ish and have been coming back to it every so often.  Have upgraded the OH machine, and her 'work' laptop that a friend donated to her as her school laptop is still dead and never to be fixed by the school IT department. 

[Gattopardo]

The problem was solved by downloading the update iso, installing on a usb and then installing the update.  The update took 6 or so hours.

[ian]

Apple music. Generally good. But.

Why fucking duplicate all the stuff I've purchased from Apple in my library? For which the only solution seems to be to go to my purchased history and hide it. Album by album.

One I'm ruler of everything, my mercy will be carefully rationed.

[mrcharly-YHT]

A small component has failed on my mobile phone. A single sensor, the proximity sensor.

This turns off the screen when making calls and the phone is held to your face. Now it is faulty - the screen goes off as soon as I try to call and it cuts off the call.

Used to be possible to disable the sensor, but no more, not in later versions of Android. Nothing else wrong with the phone, it is just useless for making phone calls . . .

So I'm kind of forced into getting a new handset. Just because of one sodding sensor. Really bugs me.

[Kim]

Could you use a headset?  Or hold the phone flat and outwards like the Young People do?

I've long thought that Android would greatly benefit from an about:config style setting editor, so we're not at the mercy of whatever the molishers of the particular build thought to include in the GUI.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Could you use a headset?  Or hold the phone flat and outwards like the Young People do?

I've long thought that Android would greatly benefit from an about:config style setting editor, so we're not at the mercy of whatever the molishers of the particular build thought to include in the GUI.

Nope, the sensor is borked, so it cuts the screen as soon it thinks I'm making a call. Now also screws up calls.

Recent Android updates removed the option to disable the proximity sensor.

[Kim]

Strava appear to have done something to their API, b0rking the perfectly good stravaup Small Shell Script (is the author OTP?  I can't remember).  I CBA to investigate, but I expect the underlying problem is that I'm not a major manufacturer of PE-related gadgets.

[Kim]

I have spent the evening writing cargo-cult VBA for munging BHPC race results on the dubious basis that it'll save time in the long run.  It almost works (I'm currently defeated by the syntax for making it sort an arbitrary number of rows.  Why is it always the easy stuff?).

That isn't the rant.

The rant is that the Netgear USB WiFi dongle (required for notwork access on the 'mature' BHPC laptop) appears to have bricked itself while I was fighting with Excel.  It's utterly dead.  No error messages (apart from the "cannot access stackoverflow, how are you going to write computer programs now?" in FireFox).  No blinkenlights.  No inserted-a-USB-device noise.  Nothing in lsusb if I plug it into a proper computer.  Nothing.   

[freeflow]

Download the amazing RubberDuck addin and prepare to be astonished by the code inspections

[ian]

OK, mothership computer wants a MacOS update, I have my first cup of coffee, may as well get it out of the way so it doesn't come back to bite me half way through something important later, like when I'm midway through running a script to pull 100k records from an API (I have the most exciting days).

So I install the update. Takes about five minutes. All good, the version number has incremented. Start to write an email.

YOUR COMPUTER WILL RESTART IN FIVE MINUTES! screams the mothership installed IT nobbler. I just did that, says I.

So 33 minutes later and one incomplete email, I'm still staring at a progress bar. Sigh.

[Ham]

https://xkcd.com/2261/

[Tim Hall]

Watched a band or two Saturday night and bought a CD off the merch table.
Get home, rip CD to flac so I can play it using my Raspberry Pi in the Grand Lounge.
This is SOP and works well.
Copy files to the Big SD card that lives in the car, so I can listen to it whilst tooling up and down the motorways of this fair land.
It works to start with, then craps out, not finding playable files. All the other files are playable.
Remove SD card and put it in my lapdancer.
The newlyt copied files play just fine.
Put it back in the car. No change.
Remove from car, put it in the lapdancer.
Copy the files onto lapdancer.
Delete from card.
Reinsert card into car, so it can reindex.
Back into lapdancer and copy files back onto card.
Back into car, still won't find them.
Listen to Radio 4 instead.

[Kim]

Is there a name for the law of technology being more annoyingly broken when it's a difficult to replace part of something big and expensive like a car?

[pcolbeck]

Watched a band or two Saturday night and bought a CD off the merch table.
Get home, rip CD to flac so I can play it using my Raspberry Pi in the Grand Lounge.
This is SOP and works well.
Copy files to the Big SD card that lives in the car, so I can listen to it whilst tooling up and down the motorways of this fair land.
It works to start with, then craps out, not finding playable files. All the other files are playable.
Remove SD card and put it in my lapdancer.
The newlyt copied files play just fine.
Put it back in the car. No change.
Remove from car, put it in the lapdancer.
Copy the files onto lapdancer.
Delete from card.
Reinsert card into car, so it can reindex.
Back into lapdancer and copy files back onto card.
Back into car, still won't find them.
Listen to Radio 4 instead.

Filenames that the Car doesn't like? Underscores, spaces, special characters, length of filename including directory or not or some combination of these?

[Feanor]

Car's handling of Big SD cards is sub-optimal, and you've just reached a sector that's just out of reach of it's buggy filesystem driver?
Try a different SD card.

[Tim Hall]

The files played a couple of times, so the naming scheme should be OK.
The different SD card thing sounds a plan, so I'll try it when I get home, which won't be for a couple of days.

[Jaded]

BitRate on the new files too high?

[Tim Hall]

Copied the files to a different SD card. Played like a charm.
(Bit rates etc are as all the other files on the Big Card)

I suspect the Big Card is on its way out.

[Tim Hall]

Went to another gig last night and picked up a couple more CDs.  Ripped them, copied them to the card. Deleted the problem folder from the card. Re copied it.

Put card in car. All works.

It's a puzzle and no mistake.

[Mr Larrington]

Since the demise of the Puffin browser I am using Chrome for my webby needs on this FruitCo slab.  It is the most slackwitted piece of awfulness in the WURRRLD, unless you include Farcebok's godawful iOS app, which sucks like a turbocharged Henry.  Mega-Global Chocolate Manufactury Corporation of Mountain View, USAnia, your wanky product is so dim it makes disgraced former International Development minister Piggi Patel look like Einstein.  It is so slow to react that slofs could run away from it.  Backwards.  And its ability to select a chunk of text is as accurate as Jeff Healey playing darts.  You are supposed to be clever.  Fix it.

[grams]

All web browsers on iOS are just Safari in a box, so there’s not much point using them unless your goal
is to share browser history with the box maker, and bugs and performance will be Apple’s problem.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Went to another gig last night and picked up a couple more CDs.  Ripped them, copied them to the card. Deleted the problem folder from the card. Re copied it.

Put card in car. All works.

It's a puzzle and no mistake.

Hmm - when you removed the card from the computer, did you just take it out, or did you eject it (i.e. dismount).

If you don't eject, then it is a lottery whether files are left 'locked' to the computer's OS or not.
Windows is shtty and doesn't care. Other operating systems will detect a locked file and say 'I can't open that'.

[Davef]

All web browsers on iOS are just Safari in a box, so there’s not much point using them unless your goal
is to share browser history with the box maker, and bugs and performance will be Apple’s problem.

Can you elaborate ? If I install chrome and then delete the safari binaries from the application folder I believe chrome will carry on working. Various other things will break so I would not recommend doing it but I don’t think chrome depends on safari, but then again  I often turn out to be wrong.


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[bludger]

Not really a rant but sadly since my new job (and seemingly all jobs now...) is a hot desk role, I can no longer have my own keyboard. I don't like computer work much but I do appreciate a quality mechanical keyboard, and there's no way I'm going to be able to convince a third sector business to invest in MX keyboards for 10 hot desks.

I will be resigning myself to using membrane keyboards or X switch ones for the rest of my typing life sadly... Even if I got a place in some super dooper swish swoosh firm I bet my desire for good keyboards would be ignored.

This is a nice segue to my faithful Ducky Blue being on the market. Hoping one of you warriors might like it, it deserves a good home. https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=114900.msg2466803#msg2466803