And so the world loses a hero

And so the world loses a hero.

And so the world loses a hero

The new depiction of Lance Armstrong as a serial drug pusher and no longer great of sport is a real shame for those mere mortals who are seeking some form of inspiration.  Who could not have been inspired by the story of the man who fought one of the most insidious conditions of our time, and not only beat it, but was able to then conquer one of the worlds most gruelling and toughest sporting events and win another Tour De France?

Who could not be inspired by the man who since beating cancer has managed to raise $400 Million US to help in the fight against cancer?  I really hope that no matter what happens to the man, the Livestrong brand does not get collateral damage.

Lance Armstrong was one person I used as inspiration when I was recovering from my operation, if he can recover from something far worse, in such a positive way, then surely I can do it as well.  I would rather remember that Lance rather than the one the US Anti doping agency has uncovered.  Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle, and that is such a shame for the world, as now we have lost one of the greatest stories of overcoming adversity to performance enhancing drugs.

Must get motivated

Well the pools nice and clean and the kids have started going in, bloody mad things.  It’s getting near time that I start trying to lose the weight that stopping smoking has put on.  Now to get the mind into gear and start the excercise program once more.  The spiders that have made their homes in the multigym and rowing machine won’t be happy but they’ll just have to deal with it

Problems with problems

Why is it that people still confuse what role a Problem Manager should perform within an ITIL based service provision?

Problem management has it’s fingers in lots of pies when it comes to IT service provision, but most organisations I’ve seen seem to think that it’s either Enhanced incident management, or major incident management.

Problem management is neither.  Firstly Incident management is all about restoring service to the client in the shortest time possible.  BSOD – Restart.  Service restored, incident closed.  Problem management should only come into this scenario when there is a pattern to these incidents.  The service desk still resolves the incidents via the reboot workaround, while in the background the PM team is working away with whatever tech resources to identify the cause, and implement the fix to stop the incidents.  As my TL used to say, Service Desk fight the battles, we fight the wars.

Major incidents is another area where, in my view Service Desk managers mistakenly see value from Problem Management.  PM absolutley has a role in the MI process, but it should not be the first port of call for co-ordination of the incident.  To do so removes the effectiveness of the PM function, by pulling them away from managing problems, possibly including the ones which lie at the cause of the current MI.  This is counter productive, but most organisations will not have budgeted to have the capacity to have a dedicated Major Incident team / Manager, and removing staff from the front line service desk to perform the co-ordination and communication work is often not feasable.  This is why in most cases, Major incidents end up in the remit of the problem management function.  1 long running MI can in effect take 1 team member out for the entire lifecycle of the incident, meaning that all that Problem management work has now exceeded timelines / SLA.  And all the while the MI is going on and the comms have gone out to manage the flow of inbound calls regarding it, the Service desk are still dealing with incidents which probably would have had a resolution had the PM team not been diverted.

I have no idea where I was going with this post, really was a stream of conciousness thing.  I’ve probably failed to make any point successfully, and if you’ve read this far, well done.

Source Code – The movie

Well sat down and watched Source code last night, expecting a fairly mindless Hollywood flick, and to that end it didn’t disappoint. However there are a couple of things about that film that are really bugging me

1. What happened to the teachers personality? If the captain is in his body where did he disappear to?

2. Why on earth didn’t they end the film at the freeze frame. I think that would have made for a much better and thought provoking ending than the vomit inducing saccharine that the director served up to us

All I can say is thank god I don’t have to watch that again

Moving the SCCM PKGSRC folder on secondary sites

Well we had an issue where the Package share was fine, but the pkgsrg folder was on a drive that was trying to be all things to all men, and started filling up when we started sending packages down to the secondary sites.  Even though there had been the NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS file placed on the drives, and the actual package share was correctly configured, SCCM was still sending the compressed packages to this drive.  Unfortunately these Secondary site servers also provided print, domain controller, SQL, and Backups as well as having the Windows page file on this exact drive, so as can be expected, people were less than happy, and it was one of the few times where there was a system issue that was caused by SCCM.

The fix was very straightforward.

Firstly In each site, open Computer Configuration, and change the software deployment settings to point at the drive you want to. (Note the drive has to be specified complete with colon and slash e.g. C:\, D:\)

Check the site messages – you should see one for SMS_SITE_CONTROL_Manager submitted a copy nnnn of the actual site control file .

Test with a small deployment package.

Doing this not only means that new packages will use the specified drive, when older packages have their DP’s  updated they will now have their compressed files moved to the new drive, so be careful when updating large older packages across slow links.

Depending on the number of secondaries / packages you could update the DP’s on all the packages, and let SCCM move them, then delete the contents of the old PKGSRC folder.  That all depends on how practical it is in the particular environment.

Note this is from my own experience, and is in no way guaranteed.

Geekiness to the fore

Got this from one of the mailing lists I subscribe to.  Geeky, yes, nerdy, oh hell yes.  But I like it

Make your computer speak using Powershell

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Speech

$synthesizer = New-Object -TypeName System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer
$synthesizer.Speak(‘Hey dingus, What the hell did you press that key for!’)

I swear

Swearing is such a useful release of pent up frustrations, but why is it so that an otherwise meaningless collection of letters and sounds has been agreed upon by our society to mean what it does?

 

Fuck, cunt, bastard all in and of themselves are inoffensive.  When was it decided that the meanings attributed to these sounds would mean what it does, and then determined that the meaning would be classed as offensive?

 

Google, Microsoft, heaven, cider – arbitrarily these collections of letters and sounds could be substituted.  If swearing was offensive to all people, why don’t we have standard swear words that require no translation.

 

Swearing, like god and healthy McDonalds, is just a small figment on the human psyche, and I think it’s time to invent some new swear words.

 

PS – May be biased (not may about it really) but a Scottish accent really is the best accent for getting real feeling and invective when swearing.  I never feel that a person believes it when they call me a fucking cunt unless  they have a Scottish accent.  Perfect match really.

Is television depriving the youth of today the true drama of following a team?

With the advent of the new Fox Footy channel, I got to thinking about footy, and Australian top tier sports, and my belief that there are 2 main flaws with every top tier sporting commission in Australia, which is depriving todays supporters of something fundamental to the sport.  Indeed the sports are lessened considerably by these omissions.

The first flaw is the lack of promotion and relegation to and from the top leagues in Australia.  What is the cost of finishing last in the league in top tier Australian sport?  Not a lot really, a bit of embarrassment, a ribbing from your mates, but not a lot else.  In fact it can be argued that due to the draft system in sports like AFL, much like the NFL in the USA, that finishing bottom is better for your team than finishing higher, the Melbourne Demons for some reason spring to mind when the thought of tanking occurs.

But the main flaw with selling your sports soul to broadcasters, is that when you go all in like top tier Australian sports have, the drama of the final day is lost.  With all the matches being scheduled so that one broadcaster can show ‘every match, every round, siren to siren’ there is no room for the drama of a final day kick off where all matches start at the same time, and any permutation can be played out, and us fans can go from anguish to heartbreak to elation despite what occurs on the field of battle our team is fighting on.

Admittedly the way that the competitions are set up means that no matter what, the major prize is never given out on the final day of the league season, what with the finals knockout still format, culminating in the Grand Final.  And that is etched on the psyche of every Australian sports follower, and should not be changed, as it brings a drama all of it’s own which enriches the experience as a fan.

Take this scenario – Essendon and Hawthorn are in 8th and 9th going into the final round of the home and away season of the NFL.  Both are level on points and Hawthorn need to win by 3 more goals than Essendon do to overtake them on differential.  In as it stands today, Essendon would probably have played on Friday night, won their match.  The fans would have returned from the ground.  and assuming the Hawks play on the Saturday afternoon, and win but come up short by by 1 goal, although there is drama there, at least to my mind it is lessened as the 2 facets of the outcome are not together.  The Essendon fans did not get a chance to celebrate making the finals, and both sets of fans missed out on the drama of splitting attention between what’s happening on the ground in front of you, and what’s going on in the other game.

Well that’s my 2c on it.

Prologue – Lessons in stopping suddenly

Tantocs was pacing around the interior of the asteroid.  If he’d had any nails, he would have chewed them to the quick.  How was he going to tell Yrot, how could he possibly face the others?

As he rounded the corner he spotted Yrot looking through the observation window, over his shoulder the scene through the opening was dominated by that big blue rock they were heading towards at a considerable clip.  Tantocs took a deep breath, puffed out his chest and bit the bullet

‘Hello Yrot, how are you today?’

‘Fine, fine.  I’m just a little pensive’, Yrot sighed, ‘were we right to come here really?  I suppose that it’s a bit late for that kind of soul searching now that we have our destination in sight isn’t it?’

‘Well about that Yrot’

‘Yes?’

Tantocs took a deep breath, looked down at his feet and mumbled

‘It’s a bit late for a lot of things really.’

‘I didn’t quite catch that Tantocs, did you say it’s a bit late for things?  What are you trying to say, speak up won’t you.’

‘I said it’s a bit late for a lot of things sir’  Tantocs decided the formal approach  would be best

‘Hmm formality, that’s never a good sign when you use it Tantocs.  You better spit it out, whatever it is.’

‘Well I was going through the planetfall checks and I discovered quite a major flaw in the ships design sir.  It looks as though the end of the journey was assumed to take care of itself’

‘Enough mumbo jumbo young Snaicitilops, speak plainly for K’s sake’

Ok Tantocs he said to himself, you better just blurt it out.  What’s the worst that can happen?

‘Well Sir, it seems that whoever designed this craft neglected to think about how we were going to slow down at the end of the journey’

‘What are you trying to say’ Yrot growled.

‘What I’m trying to say sir is that we are on a laser guided asteroid hurtling through space aimed at the planet out there with no brakes.  I quadruple checked and we have nothing.  Nada, zip zilch.  No means of deceleration.’

‘Right you, come with me.’

Yrot marched away from the window through the caverns inside the asteroid gathering up Tantocs in his wake.  He barged past other Snaicitilops , ignoring outraged shouts from those he scattered.  Soon he was at the room of the chief engineer.

‘Right Ruobal, what’s this young Tantocs here tells me about the brakes on this tub hmm?’

Dr Ruobal looked up from the schematic he was looking at straight at Yrot, eyes meeting in a fierce clash of wills that had obviously been simmering for a while.

‘I don’t know Yrot, you tell me.’

‘Tantocs here claims that we have no brakes.’  Yrot was trying to speak calmly, but there was still an edge of anger in his voice.

‘That’s correct Yrot.  We have no brakes’ Dr Ruobal replied

‘WHAT IN BLAZES WERE YOU THINKING YOU GLORIFIED TRASH CAN MAKER?’ Yrot slammed his fist down on the desk, sending pencils flying.

‘It was your bloody edict oh glorified leader’ Ruobal snarled, ‘You set the budget so bloody low that it was impossible to build this vessel to my designs.  You were so busy allocating funding to new buildings and roadworks on a planet we were all going to leave anyway because it could no longer support us’

‘Those things were necessary at the time, and I’ll stand by those decisions.  Now stop trying to change the subject, what possessed you to think that we could do without brakes?’

‘It was your idea Yrot’ Dr Ruobal snapped the pencil he was holding as his knuckles turned white.

‘What the hell are you talking about?  I’m not an engineer, I believe that’s what we paid you rather a lot to be.  Even I would not have built a ship to travel at 75000 kilometers a second WITHOUT BRAKES YOU IMBECILE’ Yrot was leaning across the table, spittle flicking to Ruobal as he shouted.

‘Oh contraire mon capitan’ Ruobal leaned back into his chair, ‘I came to you explaining that we could not build as designed when you cut the budget to build that opera house.  Your response was, and I quote, We don’t need brakes, we’re immortal.’

‘I don’t recall saying any such thing Ruobal, why would I say that?’

‘To jog your memory it’s lucky I recorded all our conversations at that time, I’m sure I can dig out the recording if you want’ Ruobal smiled as he said that, knowing he’d won this particular confrontation.

‘No that won’t be necessary Doctor.  Okay so now what?  Can we fit some brakes now?’

‘Bloody hell Yrot, I knew you were stupid but that really takes the biscuit.  There’s no way we can fit brakes now, especially not in the time we have available, which by my calculations is about three minutes’

‘Don’t ever call me stupid again.  I’m still the president around these parts and when I ask my specialists for technical advice, I do not expect to be insulted so.  Comprende?’  Yrot’s spoke deliberately low.

‘Whatever you say el presidente.’ Dr Ruobal couldn’t hide the small smile of satisfaction.  ‘These bodies we currently have will perish when we hit that planet, but we should be OK if a little groggy.  Oh and ‘ Ruobal was interrupted before finishing.

‘No more Ruobal.  We’ll have words after we’ve set up below.  Until then I better prepare the people.  Speak later Doctor, Tantocs.’  Yrot turned on his heel and marched out the office

‘What were you going to tell him Dr?’

‘Oh just that things have changed on the target and we may not have such an ideal host ready for us on arrival now.’ The doctor said.

‘What do you mean Dr?’

‘Oh you’ll see Tantocs, you’ll see.  If I were you I would see about getting braced for impact.’

Sensing he was dismissed, Tantocs left Dr Ruobals study.  While he was on his way back to his own rooms the tannoy crackled into life.

‘Good afternoon everybody, this is a message from President Yrot.’  A female voice announced.  People in the hallway groaned in preparation for one of Yrots long winded insomnia cures he called a speech.

‘My friends,  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for all your hard work in getting us to our target over the past seventy five thousand cycles.  As you are no doubt aware we will be reaching our destination very shortly to begin our new life on the planet we have called Thera.  Unfortunately however, due to a minor technical glitch we will be unable to slow down enough for the smooth landing we had all anticipated.  I have it on good authority however, that although our craft will be gone we will survive, but will have to make the transition to our new hosts sooner than expected due to the small odds of our current bodies surviving the impact.  I would now urge you all to calmly find yourself a suitable place to brace for Impact and I look forward to leading you on the planet below.  Your friend and leader, Yrot Brga.’

Dr Ruobal looked up from the schematic as the tannoy crackled and shook his head, always one for the show he thought to himself and settled himself back into his chair to await the impact.

On the planet below a massive lizard was struggle to breath.  The volcanic activity was filling the air with poisonous chemicals and wheezing, the lizard looked up to the sky.  Behind the clouds an orange glow was getting brighter and larger, until it  was visible as far as the eye could see.  After a while the glow started to form into a huge fireball that grew brighter, hotter and larger as it plummetted towards the ground.

The fireball fell rapidly until it hit the sea with a crashing boom.  A huge Tsunami erupted from the crash site and swept everything in it’s path, finally putting the giant lizard out of it’s misery, along with all the others.

A lone voice shouted

‘Oh bugger, what are we going to do now ?’