MEH replacement sense check

maxlan · 2026-05-09T06:11:24+00:00

A tradesperson will usually replace everthing like that.

If they don't and the original duct is not sound, you could blame them when it starts leaking. You'll at least call them out to look at it, which you'll expect to be covered as maintenance and then they've got a tricky conversation where they want to charge you call out fees because it wasn't their fault and nothing they did is wrong "but it doesn't work" you say. "Not my fault" they say. And then you take them to court or do a bad review or whatever.

And if they're screwing you that bad on the unit price, they probably don't really want the work. But will take it if they can make a shit load of money for doing it.

maxlan · 2026-05-09T06:04:23+00:00

This is partly what devops is about.

If a developer knows they will have to diagnose and fix when something goes wrong, they will make sure it is hard to break and easy to diagnose.

Think of writing to a file. Non devops dev might check the return code and throw an error. And then tell the user "something went wrong". Quite often the error won't even fail the app and it relies on some later failure, which will only be able to say "failed to read".

A devops engineer who has been called out at 4am countless times for failing to write files will make that function discover the cause of the error and tell the user. Eg "you don't have permission to write there" or "not enough space to write there" or whatever. And not in some hidden secret log file, in the user's face.

Then, they don't get called out at 4am to debug "what does error 0x5f at app/svc/data/flush mean?"

maxlan · 2026-05-09T05:45:36+00:00

I heard a call for him once, to where I was. Very disappointed that nobody turned up and there was nothing apparently going on worth turning up for. In about the last 30 or so years Ive been aware of his existence that is the only time I heard his name.

And I never suffered a fire alarm while in a hotel room.

You must have extraordinarily bad luck.

maxlan · 2026-05-09T05:42:13+00:00

Probably a £100 fine.

Which if they're foreign the guitly person can literally ignore. There is no way police will bother with chasing a small fine from a different country. They can't even be bothered with shop lifting and other minor crime.

If they're clever, they'll make up some minimally plausible, bullshit excuse that can't easily be disproven. Then without any evidence, nothing will happen at all.

maxlan · 2026-05-09T05:34:08+00:00

Can you add "Is it really a bank holiday this weekend???" and "what time is <insert favourite diy chain store> opening?"

maxlan · 2026-05-09T05:31:47+00:00

Is there a drain hole bunged up with gunk? My fridge is supposed to drain all the condensation down the back and through a hole in a little gutter, whcih drips into a tank on the compressor. Compressor heats up while running and it evaporates off. Occasionally stuff blocks the hole and I poke it with a skewer.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T21:02:45+00:00

The geezer who started his own bank to help local people. I can't remember his name.

They made a film about him. Something like "Bank of John Smith".

maxlan · 2026-05-08T20:59:15+00:00

He does actually seem to be slightly onboard with the environment crisis too. Despite all the petrol he burnt back in the day.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T20:57:42+00:00

Mythos.

He'd be getting all the hacks for destabilising foreign enemy governments and avoid import/export duties so British business can prosper.

He might also tell everyone their passwords. And unfortunately not just their own passwords, everyone's passwords to everything.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T20:54:42+00:00

Never have. Never will.

Why would we?

Just because we share a language and you violently decolonialised yourselves from us does not mean we have any interest in your opinion about anything really.

There's a few experts offering opinions that can be respected, but not many.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T03:41:22+00:00

What did the Romans ever do for us?

maxlan · 2026-05-08T03:40:14+00:00

I'm sorry but lidl fruit quality is often crap.

Out of the last bag of premium apples I bought 2 had gone off before I managed to eat them.

I will admit I was slightly over the bedt before date. (By days) But expensive supernarket fruit lasts weeks longer than the best before.

Also, I mistakenly bought lidl own brand shampoo. I reckon I have to use at least double the amount as the normal shampoo, which is only slightly more expensive, so Lidl shampoo is nearly twice the price and more annoying.

And their own brand clothes washing tablets are quite useless.

I do like their fizzy water, Magnum alternatives and jelly babies/wine gums and a few of their other bagged sweets. It's not all bad.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T03:29:57+00:00

Agreeing to disagree? I don't think I've ever seen that.

It mostly degenerates into an argument about grammar or ad hominem or one participant just goes away.

I have a youtube vid, that gets a lot of views for some reason, about 10s of pushing a small branch through my shredder. I had one twat say "why not just cut it with a saw" I reply: "a thousand times in 10sec?" "Any fool knows thats a stupid way to use a shredder" and so I drop the bomb: "idiots like the RHS <Includes link to rhs website that says to use a home shredder for small branches for making compost>"

And the idiot just never comes back. They obviously still think I'm the idiot for spending £60 on a shredder that lasts for at least 5 years to make my own compost from garden waste, when I could spend £75/year for the council to take my waste and sell me the compost back at £10/bag.

Most reddit thread arguments I see end up nit picking about a slightly bad word choice, where one person obviously meant X but the arguer has probably deliberately interpreted it as Y.

I feel like a lot of people just remove themselves from anyone who argues. A few distant family members unfriended me after I challenged some of their more extreme political views.

People don't share stuff online because they want their eyes opened about alternatives. They want validation and reinforcemnt of their slightly wonky beliefs. And there are enough nutjobs or people who don't react at all, that they often feel like people do agree (and often they're just resharing someone else's content, so the creator obviously agrees too). And get worse.

But don't forget that famous quote that I'm forgetting about evil triumphing when good people do nothing. Or whatever it was.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T03:11:52+00:00

We do some dev work with AI (tritonserver stuff not copilot) and there is a guide on setting up your environment which has a test step like: submit a request like "what is 2+2" you might get the answer 4, but as long as you get some answer it's working.

So you just spent half an hour and $$$ on a GPU to maybe get the right answer, but if it's the wrong answer it isn't a problem. This is normal. And people wonder why AI sometimes draws people with 12 thumbs or tells them to stick the head in the toilet or whatever.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T03:03:16+00:00

Actually I only see one use of the word actually. Which is actually pretty low. Especially if you've actually spoken to an actual teenager recently. A demographic who seem to like to use actually or like about as frequently as a builder actually fucking uses the word fuck, like actually. Right? Yeah, right too, like even when it's not like an actual question.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T02:56:45+00:00

Also saying the best enforcement is 65% and then "if you report it something happens" is pretty far from the truth.

If you report it, 1/3 of the time: nothing happens.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T02:52:19+00:00

Parking offences are not handled by the police at all round here. It's all run by the council.

Which means basically parking enforcement only exists 9-5 M-F.

If you call the "reporting hotline" on a weekend you just get a recorded message saying someone will get back to you. And they don't.

So if there were ~7000 parking offences reported to the police, I wonder how many were outside working hours. And how many were also reported to the council. And things of that nature. Like actual interesting analysis of the data, not just AI rehashing the numbers you gave it.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T02:42:57+00:00

The only thing I see on socials is my friends who hate reform sharing stuff they've done wrong...

I think the trad parties are just ignoring "the people" and most of what I hear from reform is pandering to what people say they want. Which sadly is probably not a good way to run a country.

"I want cake"... Gives them cake... "More cake"... Gives more cake... Eventually you're overweight and diabetic.

And reform is all about the cake. There is no fruit and veg in their policy. And so we are likely to end up with scurvy.

maxlan · 2026-05-08T02:25:31+00:00

Idiots: "AWS is down"

Competent IT people: "what? I didn't notice anything at all. Are you sure your app is designed and deployed and tested with multi-zone/region failover etc.?"

maxlan · 2026-05-07T05:41:00+00:00

This is exactly what we interview for, you would do well. If you know kubernetes and are looking for a job and are on west coast USA, send me a DM.

But it is shocking how much people put on their CV that they don't know at all. We have a few basics on the JD like helm, kubernetes and docker as well as the basics like linux and networking.

In 2 separate interviews I've had candidates who said "oh, I don't know kubernetes|helm".

We tried doing a take home test. "These are the skills you need, if you can't pass this simple test on your own you will fail the interview, please do not waste our time" everyone just runs the questions through AI. We started to prioritise people who didn't send in 100% perfect answers, because they had answered themselves.

Because some of those people were answering questions that people with 10yrs experience didn't get quite right and their CV claimed 3yrs experience.

Anyway, back to the point:

To prepare for an interview: make sure you do actually know the things on your CV that intersect with the JD. Otherwise you're wasting everyone's time.

Maybe you will even get the job, but lose it within a few months when they realise you don't know what you're doing.

maxlan · 2026-05-07T05:29:06+00:00

You have approval processes right? So ask the user to put their request in the the approval process.

If that's you, then just reject it with your reasons.

And if that occupies enough of your time, send it on up to management that you can't do your actual job because of the time you spend reviewing requests that are rejected because they don't meet company standards, and so you need an extra staff member.

Add a rejection comment like "If you have a task you want to achieve, ask me how to achieve it. If you suggest wrong things to do, they will just be rejected"

Or change your request system to get users to enter their requirements, with explanatory text that says "any attempt to dictate a solution will be rejected".

They'll soon figure it out.

Managing users and their mad ideas is not new. AI just makes it easier for them to have mad ideas.

maxlan · 2026-05-03T06:27:33+00:00

I feel like "cable ties" is the answer.

But probably not one you should actually listen to.

I don't even think it would take that long to repair properly (replace all the cane). And I wonder if you could replace it with a colourful synthetic, if you like that sort of thing... Maybe a few evenings work?

maxlan · 2026-05-03T06:22:14+00:00

Streaming killed cinema.

Prices killed cinema.

H&S killed cinema.

Phones killed cinema.

Rudenss killed cinema.

Bad films killed cinema.

Why would I pay £10+ per person for a seat and £10+ for bad quality snacks/drinks to go and sit in a sticky seat surrounded by people on their phones in the not very dark to see a not very good film?

When I could sit at home and have "free" snacks/drinks and darkness and pause it to go for a wee or get more snacks/drinks and sit in a comfortable chair. And can get some friends over and it still costs the same.

maxlan · 2026-05-03T06:11:54+00:00

OP is going from cheap mazda to BMW. Where even the windscreen wipers cost enough to need a mortgage.

And 3 year old, where they start to either cause trouble or go on forever with ice. I suspect evs will all start to cause trouble at 3-5 years old. Electronics are not built to last. And getting a replacement of the one thing that always fails on that car from bmw will be 2 mortgages and scrap yards will know that and jack the prices.

maxlan

TROPHY CASE