The computing stuff rant thread

[Kim]

It's inappropriate tools that are the problem really.  Of course, as the saying goes, the best tool for the job is the one you have to hand.  Hence the popularity of Excel, Comic Sans MS and indeed cars.

The only thing worse than people using Excel as a database is people (well, overenthusiastic and insufficiently cynical geeks) writing bespoke applications for a project that might involve at most a couple of hundred records and no automated systems.

The real rot sets in when the task out-grows the tools you started with.  Hence the abomination that is PHP (which I reckon is a far worse crime against computer science than spreadsheet abuse).

[FifeingEejit]

Depends on how NHS England licences work.

Were on Windows 10 with ancient Office 2007 I think, though you could get an office 2013 licence if you needed it, we are now getting various flavours of office 365.

Which Includes power bi iirc.

We've also got an ie8 emulator with the built in ie6 emulator,  running annoyingly as default browser... That's due to the amount of commercial software that  still needs it. The migration away from ie6 for the in-house bespoke apps was a ballache to do but we did it, the plan for getting off ie8 is to replace the ancient apps because they're running on other ancient platforms like coldfusion and oracle that no sensible person would touch with a barge pole BUT because no one and NSS has worked out a cloud strategy beyond "you should do this" we're targeting sql server and jboss for the replacements... Its at least a step in the right direction...


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[TheLurker]

... using Excel as a database...

There was a job advert. in the Health Service Journal in the very early 1990s, no later than 1992, that I wish I had cut out and kept, but I didn't.  Never mind, it is seared into the area of my brain marked, "Nooooooooooooo!"  It ran (and I both precis and paraphrase), "Wanted: Experienced Excel Database Designer."  It got better.  The salary was a good £10,000 a year less than what the NHS was paying us "proper" Software & Database types at the time.

From time to time I still wonder, with a shiver, what this "database designer" was wanted for.

[L CC]

We have a proper database for our stock management. Someone, before I joined the company, threw their toys out of the pram about the rising costs of implementation and so every single user has to export stuff into excel to do any kind of data manipulation.

And now I write a bunch of un-version controlled spreadsheets for all my team's work processes.

I love excel. No really, I actually do.

[ian]

For quick analyses, it's brilliant. Quick and easy.

Sure, I could write a full set of requirements, drop into the queue, assign to a DBA in the next sprint, go through the refinements, and they could build me something, and in two weeks it might be what I want. Or not.

Or I could put it in Excel do a few pivot tables and some lookups and ten minutes later have results.

I wouldn't use it for a production system, of course, and even I did, I wouldn't admit to it.

[Chris S]

And now I write a bunch of un-version controlled spreadsheets for all my team's work processes.

Is it time for me to introduce you to Github?¹; version control for the masses.

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¹ No, not the local Conservative Association club.

[ian]

Wife. Internet. Windows 10. Monday morning. It's always Monday morning.

Microsoft, how about a message more informative then Windows cannot connect because the settings don't agree with the network? Which setting? Why aren't setting easily visible in the control panel things called network settings (or whatever it's called)? Why is it filled with gumpf about guest networks and other meaningless crap instead of something, I'd don't know, like connect to wifi? Or network settings where perhaps it could list those settings and put a big red cross next to the one that the cause of the disagreement and an explanatory note? Why do I remember right-clicking on the little widget by the clock? Why are the settings not called setting, but instead called properties? Are properties settings? I mean, what the actual fuck, who designed this shit?

Anyway, the solution simply turned out a case of changing TKIP to AES in the encryption. Windows, why not just say this?

I've no idea why it became a pressing issue this very morning. But I could do without before I've had coffee.

[Tim Hall]

I went to register on a supplier website so they can spam me to hell sand back download product data sheets and attend online seminars. Enter password it said, so I did. Confirm poassword it said, so I did.

Click "submit"

Message pops up admonishing me that my password needs to be between x and y characters long and contain a special character. Why couldn't they tell me that before? Gits.

[Mr Larrington]

Fscking notwork switch has gone into cripple mode again.  A pox upon TP-Link notwork switches and the horses they rode in on.

[SoreTween]

Argghhhhh!  Microsoft Turd!
Arrggghhhhhhhhhhh!  Styles!
Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh!  So fsking broken!

[Mr Larrington]

So the new SSD arrives.  Bung in the caddy.  Plug in same.  Fire up Aomei Partition Assistant.  Hurrah!  It is recognised as an actual disk.  Format, label.

System then declines to recognise it.  Unplug.  Replug.  Nix.  Try a different USB 'ole.  Still nowt.  Reboot into safe-ish mode*.  Nihil.  Try yet another USB port.  Ooooh, goodie!  Disk I:  ArjStuffs!  Start copying contents of disk “Stuffs” and repair downstairs for pre-prandial drinkie-poos.  FFS, Windows, how hard can it be?

* Oh and, moreover, yes, Microsith.  It's no good telling you to do arcane things in “Settings” and then select the preferred option using the function keys after the thing restarts iffen the keyboard needs to be plugged into a not-on-the-mobo USB 'ole because the PS2/USB adapter is fat and stout and effectively hogs two of the round-the-back ports if you do.  So it dunt work when you boot into Safe Mode.  Idiots.

[Mr Larrington]

OK, Macrium, WTF have you done to the updated-yesterday version of Reflect Free that makes it run like a dog's breakfast?  A differential backup of this box oughter take about 15 minutes tops at this stage of play since I spent most of yesterday deliberately not writing anything to the about-to-be-replaced spinning rust.  You've been at it an hour for a poxy 16 GB so far and there're still two more disks to go.  sort it out u muppets!!1!

Edit: Look, see!  An update is available!  Pity I can't install it until the running backup has finished.  Well, I could kill the running backup, install the update, reboot the PC because Windows Update demands it and then find the update still runs like a two-legged slof.  Bah!

[SteveC]

Probably more of a grumble than a rant now, but why is moving websites from one server to another provided by the same company so awkward?

[ian]

Another Excel badsmell and everyone's perennial favourite 'Excel found a problem with one or more formula references in this worksheet.'

To be honest, this is work of evil brilliance. There's an error. But we're not going to tell you where. We're not even going to give you a clue. But each and every time you click, we're going to remind you with a dialogue box. It's the dialogue box equivalent of stalking. I expect to wake up at 3.37 am to find it hovering there above the bed. I'll open the fridge and it will be there. And it's basically the FUCK YOU of error messages. Error! Ha! Fuckr! I poke you in the eye!

Trying to fix the error is like wandering through a dark forest of error messages. You go away and get a coffee, it's there, waiting patiently.

Best thing is, Microsoft are never going to fix it. It would divert them from randomly reallocating features between the ribbon and the menu bar, because what everyone really wanted for Christmas was two mutually incompatible user experiences.

You'll notice the theme with my previous post. There's a problem with your wireless internet connection. Ha! I think this is an actual strategy at Microsoft.

[citoyen]

To be honest, this is work of evil brilliance. There's an error. But we're not going to tell you where. We're not even going to give you a clue.

"One or more" - we're not even going to tell you how many... could be 1, could be 3, could be 295...

[Kim]

To be honest, this is work of evil brilliance. There's an error. But we're not going to tell you where. We're not even going to give you a clue.

"One or more" - we're not even going to tell you how many... could be 1, could be 3, could be 295...

To be fair, it's hard for the algorithm to continue with the calculation when something's caused it to barf.

Telling you where it got to when it stopped doesn't seem outside the realms of usefulness, though I suspect the vagary is deliberate attempt to reduce stupid questions from people who don't appreciate that just because it got stuck at point $foo doesn't mean the actual error is anywhere nearby.

Excel: A programming language for people in denial that they're programming computers.

[ian]

It just presents a worksheet in which, it has declared, something, somewhere doesn't work.

It's a bit like attempting to run tens of thousands lines of computer code to get the error: Sorry, there's a problem.

(I did fix it, there was one cell reference in a chart to a worksheet that had been deleted – it was fortunately obvious-ish as the legend on the chart had a REF! in it.)

[SoreTween]

Dear Microsoft or <company>,

WTAF have you done to this laptop? It used to be fast and silent, now it is neither. It has 8gb of ram of which 95% is used as soon as I log in.  It has 4 awesomely fast cpu cores that keep hitting 50% used as the memory compression kicks in. It has the very latest in SSD tech that hits 100% utilisation when the paging gets up a head of steam. And that's with just Lookout and a couple of chrome/shitpoint tabs open.  I can have a slow, satisfying dump in the time it takes to open a 500 page test spec in Turd.  PDFing said spec is a 20 minute wait.
Is it the 1909 update whose install status only Heisenberg would grok?¹
Is it the yet another security suite that has appeared recently arguing with the others?

Don't know. Don't care. Just FFS do something about this bloody hovercraft that's in danger of setting light to my wooden desk.

¹If you look for signs the installation worked, it did. If you look for signs the installation failed, it failed.

[FifeingEejit]

I'm on 1909 here , our corporate shit has made no difference to the level of crockedness*.

I'm on a newer build at home and it's worked as well as ever.


* well except for WSL2 and the docker images we've built not playing nice (that's An action we need to take) and the    surupticious VM that I use to support ancient apps that need such an old version of VS and the active IE plugin due to 3rd party PDF tools that had completely died and therefore windows xp, just waiting for the excrement and fan to meet on that one.

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[ian]

The last shiny new Windows Dell I had from the mothership was slow as mud, far slower than a several year old Macbook Air with half the memory and a CPU that got excited about two cores. I got two, mum, TWO!

I assumed it was mostly corporate grok, but really I could make a pot of coffee in the time between pressing on and things stopping pinning. Then go for breakfast while Outlook did its prestidigitations.

Even my aging mothership Macbook Pro does a lot better. Though corporate grokmonkeys got their hands on it and did the usual. So now Safari randomly closes once a day, usually within the first hour. No error message or anything, it seems something in the corporate management framework just shuts it down for no reason whatsoever. That's convenient if you're doing anything that involves Safari (it doesn't affect Chrome though).

And they've overridden the Apple updater, so instead of a cosy 'we'll update your computer while you sleep' from Apple I get the YOUR COMPUTER WILL RESTART IN 5 MINUTES with no option to nudge it back to a time when you're not doing a presentation to 500 people.

Your computer will restart in 23 minutes is not a message you want to see at this point.

At least it's not locked down, as I have developer privileges.

[SoreTween]

FifeingEejit,

Was yours updated to 1909 or installed at that?  If updated what does it show if you run winver.exe?

I think the update failed, winver still shows 1803 build 17134.1667. I think that should have changed if the update was successful.

[Mr Larrington]

AMD, your graphics driver software's user interface is a bucket of wank.  I don't want to launch a game, or browse games, or “turbocharge” my games, because I don’t have any on that PC.  I just want to update the driver.  Why is that so difficult to understand?

[Feanor]

Hugin! Behave!

Yes, you are a GUI on top of some fantastically high-powered maths.
To the point you are an almost non-deterministic system.

I have fed you with 10 1-colour 8-bit greyscale scans of BW photos which have perfectly good photometric consistency.
Plz to be dealing with only the geometry and not messing with the photometry.

You seem to have picked out one image of the 10 to perform horrendous adjustments on which look like a posterised image. Plz to be leaving it alone.

Digging deeper, I've found photometric factors for each image, EV, and Red and Blue Multipliers.
These had been fucked with, and have been forced back to 0,1,1.
But wait, what?
R & B multipliers? Like white balance corrections for a *greyscale image*?
WTF?
Has it not figured out this is a monochrome image we're dealing with?

Anyways, forcing the photometric corrections off has fixed the problem.

[grams]

Shouting "Hey Siri, where are you?" into a room when you can't find your phone should result in

BING BING BING BZZZZZZZ BRRRRRRRRRRRRAPAPAPA BIING BING BING WUP WUP WUP BAZING BAZING BAZING

And so on.

What it actually results in is:

*whispers* Here I am.

[Afasoas]

Why do OEMs have to use proprietary connectors when there are STANDARDS?
Please desist.

The cunning plan for turning my old Lenovo IdeaCentre into a slient PC has faltered because there are almost 4 USB style connectors that attach the case to the motherboard with very non-USB-esq pin outs and get this, a ribbon cable that connects into what resembles a PCIe x1 connector.  Discovering the pin out for the power button etc looks a destructive process in smashing off the top of the case and examining the PCB.