91–100 of 157 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't investigated the issue, but I've heard that it was indeed a bug with the Nexus 4 drivers that caused the crash. Still, I've got to wonder, what are they doing that's so different than other camera apps that seem to work fine?
Not using the Camera API for starters, last I checked they still took a screenshot of the viewfinder on Android.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sort of stuff fucks me off. I got into trouble at university when I was running a CAD session on X (Cadence VLSI design FTW, not). Some asshat had telnetted in and was trying to brute force root because it was a faster machine than the crappy sun4's dotted around. It was spewing all over the framebuffer. So I logged into another box and sent him an email saying pack it in and that I was trying to work and that I…
I sent a complaint to my boss and HR about IT recently that was around 30,000 words. It was basically 500 words describing the level of incompetence of the IT director, the remaining 29,000 words were just supporting evidence. I'd say it was a massive waste of time, but the IT director has basically made his expertise unassailable, and the only higher authority he recognizes is Microsoft. I basically went through all…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could just use their own canonical time (from their server) instead of hammering NTP. It doesn't say anything about synchronisation between phone and server. EDIT: In fact it is easier to implement it this way than using NTP. I've implemented something similar and I found it easier to add an API endpoint that returns time() than to ship an NTP client...
But then you need to manage a server and ensure that the time is running accurately. Why add such a large level of responsibility for little to no gain?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can apps cause iOS to reboot ? That's a bit shocking. I don't own an iPhone.
It's not isolated to iOS. Snapchat does something funky in userland. I think on the Nexus 4, Snapchat still ships with a warning that it doesn't work properly. Mine would reboot about every second time I took a picture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you thought about getting a new job, for someone who is not a nutcase?
Currently looking. I finally came to my last straw recently. A coworker sent me an email because some data I was in charge of adding to the system was missing. I looked, and somehow data in our database had gone missing. I use the data to add information to another database, and that database had the information in it. So somehow he managed to lose information in SQL Server. A few weeks later, my boss brought me in t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sort of stuff fucks me off. I got into trouble at university when I was running a CAD session on X (Cadence VLSI design FTW, not). Some asshat had telnetted in and was trying to brute force root because it was a faster machine than the crappy sun4's dotted around. It was spewing all over the framebuffer. So I logged into another box and sent him an email saying pack it in and that I was trying to work and that I…
I sent a complaint to my boss and HR about IT recently that was around 30,000 words. It was basically 500 words describing the level of incompetence of the IT director, the remaining 29,000 words were just supporting evidence. I'd say it was a massive waste of time, but the IT director has basically made his expertise unassailable, and the only higher authority he recognizes is Microsoft. I basically went through all…
The important people often see those things, assume it's an incoherent screed from a disgruntled piece of crap, and delete it without reading (I know from personal experience; such completely accurate and valid diatribes have gotten me fired on the 3rd day of my 2-week notice and, on a separate occasion, a running joke among the big shots for months after my departure, where one would specifically talk about how the email came in while he was on the toilet, at which point he cackled and promptly deleted it without reading).
To anyone non-technical, that letter is all mumbo jumbo. It seriously might as well be in a foreign language. They are not going to check a few of the cross-references and see that you're obviously right. Even though you might hope they'll do this just one or two times, they won't.
They are not going to ask the people called out in your letter to account for your accusations.
They are going to write you off as an unhinged, angry, and worthless nothing-tier employee/student/whatever, make fun of you for a long time, and then forget all about it.
Humans base their decisions on personal trust/credibility. The way to win against an evil IT director is to obtain far more trust/credibility in the eyes of his bosses than he has, and then to use that credibility to your advantage.
That's a lengthy and difficult process, especially when you start out as a subordinate and the boss has a lot more access and ability to frame your efforts to his advantage.
I personally have never had the patience to undertake such political subterfuge seriously and I find such undertakings both incredibly frustrating and soul-crushingly phony and hypocritical, but I am now convinced it is the only reliable way to get real career success and mobility. Thus I accept that any career success I enjoy will be lucky/accidental.
Employment and career IS a popularity contest. Good software is somewhere between the 10th and 20th most important career concern for a developer. The number one concern for anyone trying to make it in white-collar America is to be as well-liked and popular as possible. Most of the time, love of colleagues and love of bosses are symbiotic and they feed off of each other (as long as you're sycophantic efforts aren't TOO obvious), but to the extent that a situation arises wherein someone's love has to be preferred, prefer to get the love of the bosses.
This is the sure path to career success. Disregard truth, objectivity, and practicality. No one cares about you or what you think, they don't care about what you judge to be practical or wise. They didn't really hire you for your experience or insight even though they want to pretend they did. They hired you because they thought you would make them feel and look good.
Not only bosses, but people in general, care only that your presence and actions are generating pleasant feelings for them. Do this reliably, disregard everything that is not this, put only as much energy into the tasks required by your actual job description as you must to be passable in the unlikely event of a performance audit, and pour the rest of your energy into social development. If you're going to make it as a company man, that's the only reliable path.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sent a complaint to my boss and HR about IT recently that was around 30,000 words. It was basically 500 words describing the level of incompetence of the IT director, the remaining 29,000 words were just supporting evidence. I'd say it was a massive waste of time, but the IT director has basically made his expertise unassailable, and the only higher authority he recognizes is Microsoft. I basically went through all…
As unfortunate as it is, most people, especially us engineering-types, are not good at seeing what drives peoples' decision making. That means we do things like this that only make us look worse under the belief that they will help (including the belief that if it doesn't help now, perhaps it will later; this is slightly more likely, but still extremely unlikely). The important people often see those things, assume i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't have to use ntp.org pool at all. They obviously wanted to check if somebody changed the time on the phone and to still use "the internet time." And for that contacting one Apple's server (time.apple.com) were enough. It seems that the iOS library author "helpfully" provided the default of contacting 30 servers from the ntp.org pool.
I'm guessing of cause, but it's entirely possible that they used the ntp.org pool, because that's what a quick Google search would tell you to do. Getting a vendor zone require that you know it exists.
You're wrong, see my upper comment in this very thread, I've wrote already: they used the third-party library which has as default in the call without any arguments the huge number of the ntp.org servers. The servers hit and the servers in the library sources match exactly. They used that default, resulting in 30 servers being hit at once from a single app (and the app is probably used by tens of millions of people).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
where do you work, and more importantly, why do you still work there?
I work in non-profit fundraising. I'm currently looking for a role, but I've worked here for 3 years because I have been able to basically do whatever I want. I'm a combination of analyst, data scientist, and marketer. I'm in charge of our appeals, from strategy all the way to the money coming back in house. We have over half a million constituents. It's really great if you are interested in testing. I've sent out ma…
For whatever reason, ntppool.org is blocked at my work. And of course, you don't get the page that states why when the website is served via https. Not that I need to see the page to know it was either blocked for "hacking" or "entertainment", and I'm guessing it's not entertainment. Edit: This probably explains why our clocks have been off by 45 minutes since Monday. I guess it will be entertaining to see how long i…
AD and a few other systems get very snippy if the time various servers have isn't in sync, although they don't have much of a problem if every server has the wrong time (within reason).