Well that's good. Fantastic. That gives us 20 minutes to save the world and I've got a post office. And it's shut!
Thursday, December 29
Friday, November 18
Classic Apple Form Over Function
If you can't use your mouse because the battery is flat, you need to plug it in via the Lightning port - which is on the bottom, so you still can't use your mouse.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
01:04 PM
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1
Yep. Been there already and I think I may have even complained about it in a comment on one of your previous posts. Oh, and if you have turned off your computer, guess what you can't use to charge the mouse...gotta find a damn wall-wart.
Posted by: Ken in NH at Friday, November 18 2016 02:40 PM (/w++l)
2
In the words of
Don Norman, "it probably won an award".
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Friday, November 18 2016 03:45 PM (ZlYZd)
3
Oh, there's a new edition! I didn't know. Love that book.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, November 18 2016 05:10 PM (PiXy!)
4
...and some essays about Apple's increasingly-bad design, some co-written with Tog.
-j
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Saturday, October 08
The Fun Never Starts
So, Azusa, my shiny Dell notebook, got unceremoniously murdered by an errant Windows update (as if there were any other kind).
I can get it to boot in safe mode (which is now completely undiscoverable - if you don't know how to reach safe mode, you will never find it).* Windows 10 has apparently lost the network and video drivers, which means that when booting normally I get a black screen and no network access. Booting into safe mode loads the default video drivers, which don't work right on this hardware (it has dual video controllers and a 4K screen) but work enough.
I downloaded the network drivers, put them on a USB drive, and copied them onto the Azusa - because once the network is working again, I can download anything else I need.
And you know what? You can't install drivers while running in safe mode. And since the drivers are broken, I can't run anything when I'm not in safe mode.
Thanks a whole lot, Microsoft.
Apparently the solution is:
REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Network\MSIServer" /VE /T REG_SZ /F /D "Service"
net start msiserver
Which is about as undiscoverable as you can get.
And I have to type that by hand. I can't copy and paste because the drivers are broken.
* Shift-click the power button in the login screen, then reboot.** That will give you a menu where you can choose safe mode, and, you guessed it, reboot again.
I think a mid-level manager at Microsoft asked his team "How can we make things as annoying as possible for someone who is already having a very bad day?" and they then had a very productive brainstorming session.
** How undiscoverable is it? I just did it, and I still didn't know how to do it. You click the power button, and then shift-click the restart option. Shift-clicking the power button itself does you no good at all. And holding down shift gives you no indication that anything has changed.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
10:40 PM
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When my old PC up-chucked and died on me a few months back, I replaced it with a Mac Mini. One of the reasons I chose an Apple was to avoid dealing with Windows 10. I seems I made the right decision.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at Monday, October 10 2016 09:43 AM (jS1F0)
2
Windows 10 itself isn't bad, but the update process is a a colossal mess. I do have a Mac as well, but that has its own problems. Mostly not because things are broken, but because they are working precisely as designed rather than the way I need them to work.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, October 10 2016 07:33 PM (PiXy!)
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BLAARGH
So I finally found a mouse driver that makes using a 27" iMac bearable, and Apple updates their so-called operating system and now it doesn't work any more.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
07:06 PM
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Wednesday, May 06
After Texas Shooting: If Free Speech Is Provocative, Should There Be Limits?
No.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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It's a rather obvious rejoinder, but anyone who wants to gripe about how Gellar "provoked" anyone should be reminded, then, that Piss Christ was equally provocative, and such griping just serves to remind Christians that perhaps they should be a little muscular in their complaints.
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2
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Saturday, March 28
Dear IGN
Please find the twat that reviewed
Pillars of Eternity for you and throw him off a cliff.
Thanks.
Dear everyone not IGN: Never read IGN. They employ twats.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:54 PM
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1
I think you have runaway processes again. Could you please check?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sunday, March 29 2015 05:05 AM (+rSRq)
2
Something similar, yes. Fixed now, and since it's happened twice, looking for the cause.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:13 AM (PiXy!)
3
Sorry about that - please pop me an email if you ever have problems getting to your blog. I check on things pretty often, of course, but an email will get to me right away,.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:14 AM (PiXy!)
4
Ah, found the problem - the page cache was full. That's never happened before.
That probably means that it's not expiring correctly, but I've fixed it quickly by doubling the available memory.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:25 AM (PiXy!)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:26 AM (+rSRq)
6
Found the underlying problem.
The page cache (based on Redis) is working as it should. I *also* have per IP-address statistics tracked in Redis. That's what ran out of room. There's some junk in there from people using fake HTTP headers as an attack vector, but that's actually only about 400 out of 1.5 million. Mostly it's good data.
We'll be fine for months with the change I just made - it took 5 months to get to this point - but I'll those stats off to MongoDB so that it won't happen again.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:36 AM (PiXy!)
7
I'll
move those stats off to MongoDB, that is.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:37 AM (PiXy!)
8
Hm. So this is why I couldn't get to mu/mee.nu sites earlier? Cool cool... it gave me a chance to take a nap, instead of blogging. Fair tradeoff. :-)
Thanks for fixing, Boss.
Regarding IGN: I agree with you, but what's wrong with
the review? He gave it a 9.0, and if anything, that feels maybe a touch high to me but I'm still in the prologue (that wind nearly got me!).
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, March 29 2015 10:45 AM (jGQR+)
9
Yep. Also, DON'T READ THE REVIEW!!!!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 29 2015 11:01 AM (PiXy!)
Posted by: ReallyBored at Thursday, April 02 2015 12:02 AM (ulGxe)
11
Yep. I don't know how much it actually matters to the game, but even telling us that an event doesn't matter is a spoiler.
Really, it's the first thing they teach you in game reviewer school. I guess the only reviews I'll check from now on will be Zero Punctuation.
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Posted by: esssaywriter at Thursday, July 30 2015 03:23 AM (mEpLt)
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Canaryception
This blog service has not yet been charged for offences relating to the "warrant canary" provisions in the Australian government's 2015 data retention legislation.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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Did you need someone to report you to the canary authorities?
Posted by: kurt duncan at Saturday, March 28 2015 05:18 AM (QKmzp)
Posted by: Ken in NH at Saturday, March 28 2015 06:26 AM (MqjGP)
3
New legislation just passed in Australia requiring ISPs (and possibly other internet companies) to retain metadata relating to customer activities so that the government can spy on people.
One new thing is that it specifically forbids "warrant canaries". Other legislation has had gag laws, but the way people got around that was to display text stating that they
hadn't been served with a warrant - and remove that text once they were. The canary in the coal mine.
So if that's forbidden, you need a warrant canary canary.
It's all idiocy anyway.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, March 28 2015 02:31 PM (PiXy!)
4
That's bad, right?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Saturday, March 28 2015 02:38 PM (ohzj1)
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Thursday, March 19
Blarglezarglewargle
TPG is buying iiNet.
Blah.
Not the end of the world, not even close to the end of the world, not even the end of the street, but blah.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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Thursday, February 19
Say No To Lenovo
I was thinking of getting a Lenovo notebook before I settled on the LG, since Lenovo and Apple are the only major manufacturers that still offer any build-to-order options in Australia.
The adware is bad. The self-signed root certificates are downright criminal. They mean that unless you install Firefox (which ignores any existing certificates and installs its own) the certificate owner can do... Basically, whatever the hell they want. You have no security and no privacy at all. Even if you trust the companies involved - and they are obviously untrustworthy for doing this in the first place - it
leaves you open to a third-party attack.
That's it as far as I'm concerned. I'll never look at another Lenovo product, never recommend them, and warn people away if they ask.
Their non-excuses and non-apologies just turn it into a black comedy. It's like being caught substituting ground-up diseased cockroaches for coffee, and putting a stop to the practice until you can find a source of disease-free cockroaches.
Update: The only tiny sliver of protection remaining was that the passphrase for the private key wasn't known. But that was hours ago, and it's now been found. Thanks Lenovo!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:30 PM
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I'm still holding a grudge against Sony. It sounds like Lenovo gets to join them on my list.
Posted by: Ken in NH at Thursday, February 19 2015 11:02 PM (0Y1hO)
2
I've been reading about this Superfish thing, and it's really a trainwreck. It opens the doors wide for anyone who wants to do anything at all to the computer.
And if you follow Lenovo's instructions for uninstalling Superfish, it leaves that damned security certificate in place, which means the doors are still wide open. This is worse than the Sony root-kit...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Friday, February 20 2015 06:04 AM (+rSRq)
3
According to Ars, Superfish could sometimes get its cert installed in the Firefox store as well. It wasn't guaranteed to happen, but there were instances of it occurring.
Posted by: ReallyBored at Saturday, February 21 2015 01:47 AM (ulGxe)
4
I don't use Windows, so neener neeener. Wait, I do use pre-installed Android on tablets, which is just as bad.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Saturday, February 21 2015 06:49 AM (RqRa5)
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Thursday, December 04
Just Pointing It Out
For a company whose primary retail presence is an online store, Dell's online store is bloody awful.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:29 AM
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