totm nov 2023 Thread to discuss negative things in a very general way, just see where it goes y'know?

[AlamoVampire]

9-22-24/03-22-25. It has been six months since the passing of my Mom. It has been both the shortest and longest 6 months of my life. I have not gotten over losing her. I still cry for her from time to time. I miss her. I miss my Momma. 232603222025 /sigh new page

Edited March 23 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Its monday and the first spam call hit.

901…  101203242025

902…  104303242025

903…  125803242025

904…  153503242025

905…  154403242025

Edited March 24 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Tuesday starts with 2 spam calls.

907…  103103252025

908...  114803252025

909…  125103252025

910…  130703252025

911…  135803252025

912…  141403252025

913…  142003252025 thats 8…

914… 16470325252025

Edited March 25 by AlamoVampire

[Lisias]

I procrastinated some small things too much, to focus my attention on some other more immediate subjects. It looked as a good idea at that time, and whatever I had to do was somewhat important, so "why not?".

But then something happened in ReaLife™ (MUUUUUUURPHYYYYY!!!!!! - on the voice of Captain Kirk yelling to Khan), it completely screwed DayJob© by splash damage and now I'm burning some midnight oil on infra crunching time that, by its turn, is also backfiring unexpectedly because last time I dealt with it, nothing fishy was happening as it's happening nowadays.

Spoiler

 

TL;DR: I'm completely screwed for the rest of the week.

 

[AlamoVampire]

Wednesday starts with 2 more spam…

916…  110403262025

917…  125003262925

918…  134903262025

920…  151203262025 a twofer

921…  151203262025 a third

922…  180603262025

Edited March 26 by AlamoVampire

[Nuke]

14 hours ago, Lisias said:

I procrastinated some small things too much, to focus my attention on some other more immediate subjects. It looked as a good idea at that time, and whatever I had to do was somewhat important, so "why not?".

But then something happened in ReaLife™ (MUUUUUUURPHYYYYY!!!!!! - on the voice of Captain Kirk yelling to Khan), it completely screwed DayJob© by splash damage and now I'm burning some midnight oil on infra crunching time that, by its turn, is also backfiring unexpectedly because last time I dealt with it, nothing fishy was happening as it's happening nowadays.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

TL;DR: I'm completely screwed for the rest of the week.

 

i recently got behind on my usual tasks due to building an automatic brewing machine in minecraft. seems like a lot of work for a machine i will probibly never use in game.

[AlamoVampire]

New day starts with two spam…

924…  091303272025

925…  092803272025

926…  115503272025

927…  125903272025

928…  134503272025

929…  155103272025

930…  175803272025 8…

Edited March 27 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Friday starts with two spam calls…

932…  101703282025

933…  115203282025

934…  142603282025

935…  144403282025

936…  160703282025 6…

938…  162803282025 2 more…

Edited March 28 by AlamoVampire

[Nuke]

had email or cell phones existed in dickens' time, the saying would have been death, taxes, and spam.

[AlamoVampire]

34 minutes ago, Nuke said:

had email or cell phones existed in dickens' time, the saying would have been death, taxes, and spam.

Lol that or BURN THE WITCH! Spam the food is just as bad. I think the horrid nature of the can shaped “meat” lent its name to spam calls, texts, emails, and the like. 215203282025

[Nuke]

it was the 19th century, witch trials had fallen out of favor by that time.

i used to carve space ships out of cans of spam. it also solves the starving artist problem.

Edited March 29 by Nuke

[Lisias]

On 3/26/2025 at 12:27 PM, Lisias said:

I procrastinated some small things too much, to focus my attention on some other more immediate subjects. It looked as a good idea at that time, and whatever I had to do was somewhat important, so "why not?".

But then something happened in ReaLife™ (MUUUUUUURPHYYYYY!!!!!! - on the voice of Captain Kirk yelling to Khan), it completely screwed DayJob© by splash damage and now I'm burning some midnight oil on infra crunching time that, by its turn, is also backfiring unexpectedly because last time I dealt with it, nothing fishy was happening as it's happening nowadays.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

TL;DR: I'm completely screwed for the rest of the week.

I'm screwed for the rest of the month.

Since I'm screwed beyound salvation at this time, I took some time to sleep, do some side tasks and relax a bit before going back to grinding.

And I decide to vent the reason I got really screwed: KEA. What a marvelous piece of crap, really.

We are using pfSense on DayJob©, as it's the tool the Infra Dude is used to use and, frankly, until not too much time ago it was up to the job without reserves. But then someone there decided they were leaving money on the table and started the.. hum... crapfication of the damned thing - because, really, I just can't think of any other reason someone would do such a major blunder as replacing ISC with KEA - really really, why???

Back to the story: middle 2024 I was working on a plan to ditch our last VMWare machine (also the first, and the only too.. hehe) and migrate the last VMs on it to ProxMox on a beautiful new Host, 4 times the size of our old one - and since we were using pfSense on it before, why change it? A newer version of pfSense was installed on the new Host too.

But then something very important happened and I was diverted to a new task that took almost 6 months to complete (we are Cybervadis certified now! #hurray). Now I finally took time (and courage) to face that VMWare dragon again, but since them a lot of infrastructure was already migrated to the new Host, and I wasn't there to see what was happening.

Essentially, we replicated what we were used to use on VMWare on ProxMox, as pfSense, to save the work of retraining and relearning and what else. It appeared to work fine for Windows and SAP machines, and this is the key that leaded me to conclude about the crapfitication - the new pfSense version replaced ISC with KEA and once I finally started to install our new QAS infrastructure on the new host, KEA decided it was a good time to bite my cheeks. Badly.

KEA has a very nasty "antifeature": it think MACs are useless, and if any other meaning of identify a host is possible, it silently uses it and screw the consequences - it's up to you to guess what's happening. After 2 days of battling against it, I finally understood I wasn't the point of failure, started to probe the problem beyound my NIC and found KEA's hands still on the candy pot. Ok, after reading some tickets opened and cavalierly dismissed and closed by both pfSense support and KEA's developers ("it's working for most people, so you are the problem"), I found ONE ticked on pfSense now last Xmas where someone finally acknowledge that prioritizing MACs may be a better idea after all, and implemented a configuration option to tell KEA to do it.

Problem solved. right?

Uhh. Nope.

Since I'm the sole administrator for the subnets I'm migrating, I do not need to care about any other systems than mine on it and so I don't need to coexist with SAP, Windows or anything else on that network, so I could coerce KEA to use only MACs by filtering out any other possible means to identify the NIC on both sides (KEA's and client's configuration). This would save us from the downtime needed to update pfSense (not to mention the risk of the new version is being even worse...).

And now I found another bug, this one a functional one. And yet nastier... Sometimes, KEA fails to identify a client with address reservation is offline, and if the poor stand-up guy tries to lease the IP again, KEA's will think the IP as still busy, WILL IGNORE THE MAC of the requesting host and will give it a IP from the dynamic pool instead. So the poor stand-up guy will suddenly get a new IP if the NIC is downed and upped again, and everything will go down in flames because KEA's DDNS is another piece of crap (and isn't available on our pfSense - and I doubt it would work anyway since the damned thing can't detect when a host crashes and reboots. How we would trust our DNS to such <piiiiii> anyway?).

And no matter what I do, once KEA gets a grudge with a host, it will screw its life forever no matter what you restart, from the victim host to the KEA's service itself, the problem is probably on its persistent database - and it just can't be worked around, the best I managed to accomplish was to convince KEA to switch victims: by completely wiping out all the configurations and starting again from scratch, the problem appeared to be fixed on the first host getting the heat just to another be selected to take its place and be thrown under the bus instead.

And now I'm back to doing static configurations on the requesting host, with all the problems it causes and that made my life miserable a few years ago.

(sigh)

Talking about the problem with the dude responsible for the other subnets, he said that everything just works for him - but using VMs with Windows, and using static allocations for the SAP boxes (DHCP appears to be a bad idea when handling SAP boxes). And then something clicked inside my skull and I remembered the "you are the problem" answer I found on the pfSense and KEA bug trackings and forums. These guys are trying to sell services to the Windows ecosystem, I think. This single dimensioned thinking is common on Software, and being absolutely frank, it's also flagellating our KSP scene for some years already.

I checked that OPNSense is still using ISC (besides implementing KEA support in parallel), so I will try it on the next Server we commission - or just ditch this whole crap is migrate to something else, as PowerDNS (never touched this thing, though).

Heck, I hacked a freaking TP-Link router to use OpenWRT and I'm using DNSMasq for years already on a very chaotic network lab, and I never had one single problem with it. My freaking home lab is 200% more stable and reliable than my DayJob©, believe it of not.

And now that I had vented, I have a backlog of a whole week to tackle down until Saturday's night unless I would want to work on Sunday (heck! I wanna play KSP, damnit!) because next week we have some interesting events scheduled and I need to have these tasks tackled down or I will be fighting a multiple front war.

Bom, de volta pro tronco...

Edited March 29 by Lisias
Better phrasing.

[AlamoVampire]

Its saturday… do the spam calls need to be a thing?

939…  095203292025

940…  125903292025

941…  145103292025

Edited March 29 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Its monday and i wake to find four spam calls.

945…  103003312025

946…  110503312025

947…  114503312025 6 so far…

948…  130603312025

949…  134103312025 8…

950…  141803312025

951…  144903312025 10… <incoherent rage scream>

952…  152703312025 11… gyahh

953…  153703312025

954…  161203312025 13… WHY

955…  170503312025 <weeps inconsolably>

Edited March 31 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Im sick of playstation making me scan a stupid QR code to see what the update is. This update added 16 useless emojis to further degrade the collective ability to type coherent words and the ever ephemeral “updated system stability and performance”…. Just spell this bs out with a stupid qr code for crying out-loud…. we do not need qr codes for everything… smh

050104012025

[AlamoVampire]

tuesday finds the day starting with three spam calls. What a joke…

958…  113704012025

959…  132404012025

960…  133304912025

961…  140604012025 6…

962…  151404012025 this one earns a $50k fine from do not call. Telemarketer.

963…  154504012025

964…  162304012025

965…  164204012025 10…

966…  173004012025

Edited April 1 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

Wednesday starts with three spam calls.

969…  105804022025

970…  115304022025

971…  121204022025 …5

972…  123504022025….

973…  124904022025

974…  141504022025 8…

975…  143204022025

976..,  155804022025 10…

977…  162904022025

Edited April 2 by AlamoVampire

[Nuke]

sleep. its a thing i either have too much of or not enough. currently in not enough mode. went to bed at close to 2am, early for me, and slept 5 hours. when i got up to pee i looked outside and saw the recycling bins out, having gotten my pick up day mixed up, i had to go run my bin out, got dressed put my shoes on and get it out to the curb. the cat escaped and i had to get the treats to get her back in. which was a mistake because when i went back to bed the cat followed me and proceeded to steel my pillow and purr loudly. while pawing at the curtains letting the sunlight in. i booted her out and then she started scratching and meowing at the door. after not sleeping for the next two hours i got up. now im thinking about taking a nap, and its only about 10:30. not to mention i have an eye doctor appointment at 2ish. too much sleep i can deal with but not enough sucks.

[Iapetus7342]

On 3/29/2025 at 2:52 AM, AlamoVampire said:

I think the horrid nature of the can shaped “meat” lent its name to spam calls, texts, emails, and the like

The term "spam" actually originated from a Monty Python sketch

[AlamoVampire]

@Iapetus7342 leave it to python to shape the future. I still find the “meat” spam to be repugnant and unworthy of consumption. 160504022025

[tater]

Have you considered blocking them? My phone doesn't even ring for most spam, and should I get any (or messages), I delete and mark as spam. Same with text spam.

5 hours ago, Iapetus7342 said:

The term "spam" actually originated from a Monty Python sketch

This.

Spam, spam, spam , spam...

(I'm old, I was there when the word first started getting used wrt spammed communications)

Edited April 3 by tater

[AlamoVampire]

43 minutes ago, tater said:

Have you considered blocking them? My phone doesn't even ring for most spam, and should I get any (or messages), I delete and mark as spam. Same with text spam.

I report them to the us national do not call list externally. On my phone i hit a button on unknown callers that lets me report the call itself to my carrier as junk and blocks it on my phones blocked list. But that much like a law is reactionary and cant stop the numbers i do not yet know. Its beyond frustrating. 212504022025

[tater]

55 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

I report them to the us national do not call list externally. On my phone i hit a button on unknown callers that lets me report the call itself to my carrier as junk and blocks it on my phones blocked list. But that much like a law is reactionary and cant stop the numbers i do not yet know. Its beyond frustrating. 212504022025

Huh. I get virtually no spam calls on my iPhone, but probably a majority of landline calls are spam at this point.

[AlamoVampire]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Huh. I get virtually no spam calls on my iPhone, but probably a majority of landline calls are spam at this point.

Im not sure brand makes a difference. I think im just unlucky. 223804022025

[Nuke]

18 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Iapetus7342 leave it to python to shape the future. I still find the “meat” spam to be repugnant and unworthy of consumption. 160504022025

there was a time when i lived almost entirely on spam. i hold it with the same reverence as some do with ramen (college survival food). though these days i refuse to eat either one. ironically the good cuts of pork are, pound for pound, cheaper. spam is only useful for its shelf stability.

Edited April 3 by Nuke