The end of the day ended up being busier with more inappropriately complex things on my plate for a Friday. Today was much better in my mind as a slide into the weekend but that was not the case.
1. I was much more surprised to hear that Linux Journal was back from the dead before I read the announcement. Will it actually have new content? It’s alluded to in the announcement but will likely remain preserved remains for a while longer. I’ll admit that the print magazine wasn’t my favorite but it’s also nice to see the resource that it often was preserved and available for the forseeable future.
2. I ended up back in Arch Linux land again via an alternate entrance with Arco Linux. I chose that particular derivative because it’s as close to stock as it can be and still wrapped in a straightforward Calamares installer. That installation isn’t fast and often gives the impression that the installer is stalled or frozen but it’s a lot less fussy than a vanilla Arch install.
I ended up with a ridiculous workstation class laptop with a very new Intel i9, an insane amount of RAM, and not a whole lot to really do with it other than the usual tinkering more than using for anything productive that I typically do with any piece of hardware. I originally threw Debian Testing on it because it’s super easy and straightforward to set up. Unfortunately, Debian isn’t a great distribution for messing around and struggling to get everything working the way you want it.
3. I’d looked at this New Yorker article about the hidden cost of streaming music earlier today and wasn’t astonished by any means but if you think that streamed content just launches of the void then it might be worth your time to read. I can’t really check my work on my initial read since the New Yorker website really, really objects to me not allowing ad tech on my network. Sorry folks but poking holes for something that I was dismissively making fun of isn’t anything I’m budgeting time for today.
4. Because I don’t work at a company that thinks very much about its technology infrastructure like at all, the alleged demolition of knowledge heavy open source solutions in the path of Snowflake doesn’t mean that much to me per se. If the marketing copy sticks to pavement I look forward to another batch of system administrators even more stupid and incapable of troubleshooting further than dialing a toll free that will make me seem comparatively brilliant. Who could argue with the innate craftmanship that accompanies managing platforms that manage things for you. Maybe inexpensive, B string tech bros are the grim future now?
5. I’m not up for throwing cash at preorders these days but this amazingly featureful case for Raspberry Pi has put my wallet on notice once a generation or two has rolled out. They have a bunch of features inexpensively baked into this that are things I want. Damn it.
Here are some clicky things I came across over the past few days and didn’t feel like writing too many words about:
1. PiBakery is a very timely discovery for me since I’m started plunking Raspberry Pis all over the place in my house. It’s an application to build Raspberry Pi OS (a name I can’t take entirely seriously) locally on either a Windows or Apple machine (there is a source package but I can’t seriously imagine myself building an Electron app from source) to preconfigure the install for minimal amount of futzing around afterwards. I kind of enjoy the manual builds but most people aren’t as excited about manually building servers. I plan on at least taking this for a test drive in the future.
2. Here’s an interesting examination of the what and why of VS Code becoming a dominant text editor. I rarely write anything more complex than Powershell and administrative Python scripts these days but I also have found VS Code to be pretty damned good. The me from twelve years ago is resenting this statement and I’m fine with that. I agree completely with their assessment of its growth and generally find simple editors with the ability to customize and add on to as the best outcome. A lot of editors began with this goal in mind but typically fail the can I quickly edit a text file without learning a whole new command set and a bunch of quirkily implemented features before hand test. It’s simple and can be made more complex if that’s your thing. Good stuff from a potentially questionable source. Microsoft is better (relatively) but the relativity of that is worth keeping an eye on.
3. The Blacklight privacy inspector is worth taking a look at even if you, at this crushingly late date operate under the assumption that you have nothing anyone would want to look at, because you routinely hand out information that you might not want to have out there and collated by someone else. It’s pretty creepy. Just try running your top visits through there and you’ll start thinking that it might be time to install a tool like Privacy Badger so you can feel a little less like a mark. A bunch of cash is changing hands and proves that having a complete picture of what people do online is easier to assemble than ever and maybe it’s something you want to protect.
I enjoyed the Netflix series Altered Carbon more than I enjoyed the books written by Richard Morgan. They numbered among those guilty of my least favorite criminals in the science fiction genre: exciting worlds full of engaging ideas written poorly, presumably at top speed in order to pay the goddamned bills. It’s an unfortunate pattern I’ve been haunted by more than a few times and a hypothetical (following my own assumption that books were issued hastily) situation that I empathize with. I hope that the Netflix money provided the author some more time and resources to invest in his creations. The preceding makes me feel somewhat mean.
The reason for this personal attack on a writer (sorry!) is that I read an overdue explanation of the reasons that Netflix keeps cancelling shows after two seasons from Wired and it really points to how little algorithmic trickery and how much the simple cost of production and the oddball bonus incentive structure tied to attracting creative talent has to do with it. You’d think there were many more data points under consideration and for a longer period than 28 days but apparently it’s watched one and watched all spread over a slightly less than month long period weighed against costs that will rise per additional season after the second:
Netflix tries to make itself more appealing to TV show producers by giving them bonuses and pay bumps as a series carries on. Harrington says that shows on Netflix are more expensive after season two, and even more expensive after season three, with the premiums going up each season. “They have to give [a show] more money per series, and if they decide to recommission it, it becomes more expensive for them to make,” he says. “Because of that, so many more shows are canceled after two series because it costs them more.”
Financially, it makes more sense for Netflix to commission a new show than to renew an underperforming show that is only going to get more expensive the longer the series goes on. Tim Westcott, research and analysis director at Omdia, says that in terms of investment in content, Netflix is still in the growth stage. “In the US, subscriber growth has leveled off a bit, and they’ve now got a lot of competition in the US. But they’re adding many hundreds of thousands of subscribers every quarter around the world. They’re still in a phase where they’re still throwing fuel on the engine to keep that subscriber growth going,” he explains, adding that it’s ultimately looking to increase volume so that it can churn out new shows that it can promote to attract more subscribers.
This strikes me as absurdly since so many intriguing series that have excited me were doomed from the start by their release date or what was going on in the world when they were released (would Tiger King be nearly as successfully as it was had it been released before the Covid-19 quarantine? I have my doubts.) and that part of the algorithmic decision making breaks my fucking heart. I guess it’s marginally better to know than to be clueless but the ruthlessness of this decision making process makes me not want to get too emotionally involved in anything that Netflix produces.
I wrote this long and excruciating post last night about having a bad case of the Mondays and failed to post it because it felt more purgative than like something I should make available for a hypothetical (read:imagined) audience to read. What it did make me realize after venting a godawful amount of venom is that I’ve let the burnout progress too far and I now dread every work day because I can’t succeed. The most I can realistically hope for is to put out most of the fires by the end of the day and, if I’m super lucky, have time to eat lunch.
Obviously this isn’t a sustainable job for me any more and although there are still a few jobs that aren’t paying grossly below pre-pandemic market I still feel a bit stuck after accepting this position (for less money and less responsibility — only one of those two is still true now) and approaching chew my leg off to escape this trap levels of needing to get the fuck out. I’ve walked away from more rewarding (both financially and in terms of what I was working on and learning) positions in the past mostly due to feeling restless. I’m fixating on retroactive regret about that and it doesn’t feel like things are going to improve any time soon.
I don’t take job hunting very seriously and I never have. The process is so drawn out and awful that I barely like to think about it before an actual interview takes place. I think this particularly awful situation and the impending recession that is going to bump salaries down yet again has galvanized me a bit more to actually, you know, try a little bit harder. Typically I don’t have difficulty with the human interaction parts of interviewing. Despite being a pretty introverted person I’m also a social pragmatist that can usually make the best of undesirable social interactions. I feel like I need to put a little more effort in but I’m also having an inordinately rough time caring very much. I recognize the need or the expectation but I can’t summon enough genuine interest in the process to pass for someone invested. That’s sort of the golden litmus for burnout; utterly lacking the energy to fake enthusiasm or the will to tell the lies I know are required for positive outcomes. It isn’t making me happy with either my current situation or my own outlook on the world.
If you’re tired of looking at your file system in ways that don’t look completely insane, then please check out Eagle Mode. You’ll be stunned by how much fun it is to play with and, despite the somewhat kooky interface, how useful it can be pretty quickly. I was a little worried about it being an insane resource hog but it coexists happily with all of the other crap I’ve got going on at the same time with top barely noticing its existence. The zooming function on a 37″ monitor is kind of intense.
Watch the video for the full effect and then install your very own mad scientist file manager. There’s even a installer for Windows 10 so you can get nuts across platforms:
I’ve been a pretty steady buyer of both Das Keyboard and Happy Hacking keyboards for a very long time and love both the aforementioned products dearly (and dollar-ly) but when maniac on the internet builds a 450 key keyboard I start thinking bigger and noisier. I don’t think my current desk would reasonably host something that large but the idea of doing something ridiculous has definitely lingered in my mind after reading about this project.
I’m currently waylaid in unplanned emergency project land so my time has, yet again, been short and my reading seemingly only happening in 45 second chunks. I had a moment of terrible deja vu during dinner last night when I learned that my entire company was unable to access any Office 365 applications. It turns out that our accounting department had failed to pay $7K in invoices due to the reseller. I guess that’s the new new normal. I’m feeling more than my usual amount of fried.
Some things I’ve found interesting enough to take note of over the past few days:
1. To the surprise of absolutely no one, folks are getting hit with malware/adtech (is there any real distinction between the two anymore?) when using Internet Explorer to access porn sites. Ugh. This bothers me for a couple of different reasons. The first is that IE has never, ever been the best browser for anything even when it dominated market share. Why would you ruin your viewing experience by using the very worst viewing platform available. You might as well just slink back to your childhood hideout and try to decipher scrambled porn on good old fashioned cable. Why, stupids, why?
2. You should also give this post by a deeply religious but politically liberal person that examines the conservative obsession with child trafficking a read because it’s very well composed and gives you a bit of insight into how an intelligent believer would interpret the current and persistent insistence that a shadowy legion of pedophiles is abducting children and mining adrenochrome for Satan (?). It’s a much more balanced examination that I’m capable of making because I’ve already blazed through a lifetime’s supply of patience with trying my best to respect religious beliefs that I entirely disagree with and would just drop the that-person-is-fucking-insane mic at top speed and move quickly away and onward with my life. I gained an immediate respect for the author. I may not have the faith that he does (or really any belief in the non-concrete) but I respect the amount of thought that went into this piece of writing. It comes from a place that is relatable above and beyond religious beliefs.
3. This is kind of old news at this point but the seizure of ‘counterfeit’ ear buds by Customs and Border Protection is weirdly emblematic of the world we’re living in right now. Did Microsoft
Apple file a legal complaint against OnePlus? Nope. Is CBP actively pursuing sellers of actual knock off Air Pods? Nope. Does this feel like petty and political bullshit? Yep.
4. This is a sensible explanation of the various forces at work behind Oracle’s sudden emergence as the buyer for TikTok. It’s a lot more complex situation than the typical Trumpian defiant corruption scenario that we’ve become so accustomed to wincing at. No surprises at the ickiness of Oracle’s leadership at all. We’ve all known that Larry was human garbage for ages. I wonder how much time in the courtroom these maneuvers are going to consume after this toxic administration is banished back to hell. I look forward to reading about those minus the white knuckled terror of being governed by that toxic cesspool of the most shameless Americans.
Some things:
1. If you’re familiar with the Right to Repair movement (is it a movement, even or just a group of people tired of not actually owning things that they buy?) then you’ve likely heard that John Deere is not friendly to those who prefer to keep their own machines running. This is noxious as fuck on many levels but much less despicable than what JD has followed up with: that passage of laws to protect consumers ability to repair their stuff without the use of typically more expensive ‘official’ repair options dictated by the asshole company in question make people more vulnerable to sexual predators and other scary people. This, of course, is alarmist bullshit of the very worst kind and should be met in response with torches and pitchforks especially companies that make farm equipment.
2. This is a look at how badly reporting security vulnerabilities can go. This hole was eventually rectified and the involved parties talked things out but the initial report and response were about as terrible as you could ever hope for.
It is kind of a bummer that Giggle uses AI to validate robotically gender instead of just allowing people to identify the way they feel. I both get the motivation and don’t simultaneously. It’s a tough thing but I dislike it anyway.
3. This is somewhat click-bait-y but interesting nonetheless: Mark Shuttleworth commenting about being the less visible face of Ubuntu these days and the uncertainty it’s causing within that community. I keep thinking that Ubuntu shouldn’t even be a thing that people really concern themselves with given that an above average number of their users are actually using derivatives anyway. I’m still bitter about the abuse of Debian upstream but mostly I’m just bitter.
The long holiday weekend didn’t end up yielding many spare hours for me so I switched back from one firefighting mode to the other with not a whole lot of that time awake and doing anything interesting. I did throw one pretty interesting link on my Pinboard for later reading though
A rundown of how each fast charging technology works doesn’t sound particularly interesting at first glance. I started reading mainly because I wanted to see how the Warp Charge I use on a daily basis (you really don’t want to know how many of these chargers I’ve purchased since I got my OnePlus 7 Pro) differed from the other fast charging specifications. The article is interesting since it also provides a bit of context in some cases for what the author thought was the thinking behind the differing specs. It’s far more entertaining and insightful than I assumed it would be when quickly scanning the opening paragraph and marking it for later consumption. I genuinely appreciate efforts like this that not only answer a question but are entertaining in the process.
I’ve tried to write out my thoughts about this a few times but I always end up being overwhelmed by the ever widening scope of related things that end up being pulled in. What I’m hoping to do, and this may never be read by another human and/or web robot, is use my cane to tap around the perimeter of this vexing problem that I’ve faced at nearly every place I’ve worked: Active Fucking Directory.
At the moment I’m completely mired in the weird middle space between wanting to switch completely over to something that functions less like a needlessly complicated wrapper around LDAP and more like a secure-ish authentication method that performs a bunch of single sign on functions. It would also be nice if maintaining this shiny new solution didn’t become my full time job as well. The short answer, in my situation at least, is that an answer that simple and comforting doesn’t exist at all.
Here are the problems:
1. This needs to meet all of the requirements of the eleventy billion master service agreements that we’re supposed to hit. These are constantly changing and some of them we just sign off and ignore until one of our customers proposes an audit. Some of these requirements would be better left to a capable MDM solution but …
2. My budget for such a solutions is, well, um, if you could just cut checks to my company for using your solution that is about the only that would make it through our finance department. The finance folks are not looking to invest money in anything ever so that becomes a rabbit hole I’m not going to willingly crawl into.
3. To make things absolutely and utterly disaster-tastic we also just hired a CTO who seems like a cool enough guy but wants to have more input into the infrastructure we’re implementing. The real rub here is that he really just wants to implement a SaaS solution that is the namesake of the company he just jumped ship from and I have heard nothing but gnashing teeth and the sound of hope anally escaping the human body from other folks I know that still do infrastructure work. So, I’m in a holding pattern right now while I fervently hope that one of the interviews I’ve had recently bears fruit and I can hit the ejector seat button thus escaping with a few tatters of my sanity intact. Maybe I’ll get budget approval for something more expensive than anything I’m proposing and doesn’t work either? Splendid.
4. Another thing that happened in the midst of all of this was an office move, a company rebrand, a phone system replacement, and a few other ball crushing tasks that I might be defensively forgetting. Just a few minor things that need to happen all at once and posthaste. Our IT department, at least for anything that doesn’t live in AWS or Salesforce, is poor old me and I report up through 2 levels of managers. The usual song and dance occurred after the move was sprung on us/me; we’ll just have an MSP come in and do some of that work for us because that is always painless. I got a few things out of that: some new networking hardware (Meraki because the techs were either morons or thought we/me were morons) and a new server to host the software used to manage badging and security cameras. Like most security and monitoring software it requires me to install components from Windows Server 2000 to get it successfully running so I’m completely okay with isolated that garbage onto its own server and away from any infrastructure that actually matters. It did not get me any new server hardware that I could because there’s much money to be made reselling software licensing, of course. The MSP folks built us a sort of functioning Active Directory server in AWS but didn’t do most of the grunt work before their contract budget was consumed. Thanks guys! I was hoping to spend a couple weeks running hastily written Powershell scripts on a production machine. This also sounds amazing!
5. Here’s the punchline to all this: The server that really, really needs to be replaced is a 7-8 year old Dell PowerEdge that has been outside of a service contract for several years and spent most of its life in a switch closet/sauna basically the size of a closet with no real cooling. It is obviously a ticking time bomb despite having a backup domain controller even older that takes more than 15 minutes to reboot when I do something terrifying like rebooting it. Oh, yeah, and this is hosted on a Windows Server 2008 SBS box. Yeah, it really is that grim. The message from on high is that I need to somehow keep this incredibly robust and reliable machine running for a unspecified period of time until there is a decision and budget available for a cloud solution that will likely do measurably worse job of handling authentication and won’t serve any policy at all. Maybe that means I’ll finally get some budget for MDM? Probably not.
We are an Office 365 shop (this is what that service is called no matter what stupid renaming convention they try to employ) so everyone in the company that has absolutely no fucking idea what they’re talking about immediately tells me how we should just migrate on over to Azure Active Directory. This, of course, is more telling of how much coverage Microsoft pays for in trade magazines than anything else and has caused me to explain far too many times that (cue the theme music) Azure Active Directory is not fucking Active Directory in any meaningful sense.
At the end of this highly purgative post, I’m left with some questions that mostly should be posed at the huge corporations that create the software I’m supposed to keep things up and running with because cruel and unusual is industry standard. One very, very important question is: why the fuck isn’t Azure Active Directory analogous to Active Directory? That’s the most painful question. Look, I know it’s blindfolded brain surgery dangerous to expose an AD server to the internet, right? That’s been pounded into our heads since Active Directory was a relatively new thing. Don’t ever allow your AD server out into the world without galoshes and a rainsuit. That’s IT canon. BUUUUUT, the other Microsoft product that was absolutely, positively unsafe to expose to anything but a RADIUS-backed VPN was Exchange and now Exchange or at least a distant cousin of it is out there on the web eating apples full of razor blades and taking Tylenol from open packages all willy nilly. Obviously O365 isn’t the most secure platform in the world but it only seems to roll over dead a couple of times a week. Why can’t Microsoft spend a few cycles on that sort of work for AD? Oh, because all the data transmitted between a client and the AD server is full of delicious data that isn’t well protected. Extra fabulous!
The other non-option would be something like Direct Access which is already deprecated, requires the very most expensive edition of both the client and server pieces that it would run on, and only runs on Windows which is not real world useful unless you’ve landed a sweet gig at Contoso or Margie’s Travel. That leads me back, all the way back, to the always on/pre-logon VPN issue which means more expensive software seats and more moving parts that I can absolutely guarantee will break each and every time the wind picks up because I’ve foolishly made decisions like that in the past. In the end, I have no fucking answers and I’m feeling like one of those sad photo-op polar bears stranded on a melting mass of ice with nothing to do but wait until the sea eventually consumes me bringing on the sweet oblivion that erases all of this fuckery.