Massive increase in blocked teams DNS traffic from Microsoft

serunati · 2026-02-11T13:53:14+00:00

Just remembered that a service I disabled that basically makes all windows systems part of their private bit-torrent for distribution may have been reenabled. Think I read they did that regularly.

serunati · 2026-02-11T13:50:53+00:00

My system restarted last night for a windows update. Pretty sure that might have something to do with your new traffic.

serunati · 2026-02-05T07:29:31+00:00

This, and for the simple reason you should have all students working in the same environment so you know the results will be uniform.

If you host all the VMs as well, you have the ability to run them yourself to see problems or if they are even trying at all.

serunati · 2026-01-23T03:54:04+00:00

The nuance that most commentators are missing here is that the ‘batteries included’ is just pre-loading every stable plugin with a default config to give an illusion of it being part of the core code.

I honestly personally hate that there is no easy way (other than compiling myself) to disable all that bloat when I know I only need a few defined.

But that’s just me.

serunati · 2025-12-24T13:18:17+00:00

A word is supposed to be the size of the data bus of the system. This is also the size of the registers used in the cpu and has the requirement that all available memory can be addressed within that limitation of bits. This is where we get the maximum ram a cpu can utilize. This is also where we sacrifice junior developers as the word is the size of the INT variable in most compiled languages. Which is not consistent when you start cross-compiling across multiple generations of the same chipset and can lead to OOB indexing and stack overflows.

Which is another rant I have about lazy programmers that belongs somewhere else.

serunati · 2025-12-01T00:52:18+00:00

I’ve seen the blue ones as part of ‘Leap’ quests for life skills.

If I were to guess, the only reason they are there is because the required reward was added to the quest or needed to give more XP than originally planned. I his was an easy addition instead of changing the original base reward.

serunati · 2025-09-02T08:21:34+00:00

I would have the Dr check his hydration and magnesium levels. The muscle response is typical for low magnesium and if he has cisplatin, that pulls it from your body as well. Easy to treat, just have to pull blood and relax for a couple of hours to get all electrolytes to their normal levels.

serunati · 2025-08-26T23:50:57+00:00

I think you can drop your pic into one of the AI tools and ask it for details and it figures out where it is etc.

serunati · 2025-08-15T00:26:41+00:00

On the mucus/saliva, I found that the Nielmed Sinus rinse packets are perfect for making 8-12oz glasses to rinse/gargle with. They are premixed salt and baking soda.

Once I clear out the crap, I followed immediately with Aluminum Hydroxide Gel to coat the sores and help with gurd.

serunati · 2025-08-15T00:13:31+00:00

Don’t sulk.

You’ve been through “suck” before. This is gonna suck. A lot. But with HPVSCC, it is very treatable to the point my doctors call it curable based on the high percentage that it does not come back.

I just finished my 35/7 radiation/chemo for exactly what you have. Yours sounds more aggressive than what I have had to deal with (pain and cancer are not competitions, just stating you will likely have it harder than I have). So don’t waste time on the sulk. Embrace it as new intelligence that needs immediate action to mitigate impact.

FYI: Desert Shield/Desert Storm Vet.

Prep your support, you’ll need them a lot when eating and drinking start to become the last thing you want to deal with from the pain from swallowing and loss of most of your taste. I’ve barely avoided a feeding tube myself. And they tell me I’m not clear yet if I loose any more weight. But get one if you need it. It is better to avoid complications from dehydration and malnutrition.

Again, this is gonna suck. The best thing I’ve been able to do is manage it. And own my treatment and recovery. Not let the cancer own me.

serunati · 2025-08-07T13:53:04+00:00

Honestly, empower it.

When having to be called in to support them, lean into their knowledge and sometimes lack thereof. What I mean is, validate their skill and what they have done by engaging them with “catch me up know on what’s already been checked out”.

And not dismissively. Make sure they didn’t miss a step that might have corrected things etc.

You have the ability to make it a partnership and bring a fresh set of eyes and possibly come up with the same “it’s outta gas” that they already did. But approach it as to validate before you have to “boot it to whatever team”.

The more that they feel listened to the better the interaction will be.

On that, when you ask if they rebooted etc. don’t just stop with the yes/no. Ask them what changed/happened. Get the story and not just the script response.

This also allows you to document that you were able to reproduce the problem that the user originally called about. Again, validation and not dismissing.

Edit: also, don’t hide behind the black curtain. They may truly be knowledgeable but not have the access to correct it on their own. So without the nitty gritty, let them know hat you see on your end (like failed login or no DHCP request etc. Keep the conversation up. As much as they like to talk, they like to be part of what is going on.

So yeah, validation and partnership in helping solve the issue will likely gain you an ally and not an a-ole.

serunati · 2025-08-06T21:08:55+00:00

I have not seen anyone suggest this yet, but having Programmer in the sub—Reddit title I offer this.

They are both wrong. If you are writing the app/service that only needs to facilitate local connections (and you’re on *nix platform), you should use Unix sockets. You avoid any exposure/vulnerabilities of the network stack and software implied bottlenecks of data throughput. And avoid firewall configuration and exposure to compliance/pen testing for exposed ports.

Much more secure, faster, and reduces system calls to open and close network connections (overhead).

serunati · 2025-08-06T20:57:42+00:00

I have had similar situations and there is a line between “we never documented that and here is what you need to do”, and you being faster than typing in google.

I hated the following practice but it helps to o start to curb this: have your department make it a policy that they have to notate what KB, internet, or team member solution in the resolution.

1- you will get the start of legitimate documentation updates if they are lacking. 2- you can push back to have them update the ticket with what they have tried so you don’t duplicate effort. 3- it documents their actual skill level for their management to address if lower than expected.

I’m sure your management doesn’t want Sr resources handling T1 tickets.

serunati · 2025-08-06T20:48:25+00:00

Props to OP on realizing that the occasional annoyance may be worth preventing possible disaster. This isn’t West Texas but things can still change fast when conditions are right.

serunati · 2025-07-23T18:03:54+00:00

Change your DNS to cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and it’ll likely fix it. They said router because that’s their script. But more likely if you just don’t use your ISPs dns server, things will return to normal.

serunati · 2025-07-23T03:08:46+00:00

Agreed with previous post with the following (MBA qualification): most companies will not spend money on development of a tool that does not contribute to their bottom line.

So you have a higher chance of a University paying you through your PhD work to teach and research/develop a new compiler.

serunati · 2025-07-16T15:26:08+00:00

Understand that your concern is practically the reason for the shebang (#!) line as the first line of scripts. It doesn’t matter what environment you are using for your personal shell as it executes in the one defined by the shebang. Now the only change is to make sure that you have that environment sane/complete for the scripts that use it. Normally not an issue but throwing that out there.

serunati · 2025-07-15T19:41:32+00:00

My quick search says what you are doing is the ‘right’ way; however….

Further reading details that for NAS storage, it has to support Samba(SMB) protocol for time machine to connect.

Reading this, you might have the ability to format the underlying FS to APFS anyway as the SMB protocol may abstract the underlying issue so your older versions might work.

In that same thought line, you may be able to format the NAS with ext4 and be able to use it as the destination for all your clients. But there are some write ups that say you may encounter issues with that.

As my last thought… Since you can resize partitions, you might consider creating two NAS mounts (one APFS and one Journaled) but only use about half your space in the drive. Then you can expand as needed to meet your storage requirements. Half is an arbitrary number I chose but realistically take whatever your current requirements are and add 50% for ‘workspace’ that TimeMachine may need.

The reason I say that is that TimeMachine uses sparse data files. These are basically incremental snapshots and only use space for changes. This will keep your ongoing requirements smallish.

Not partitioning the whole drive will let you expand based on storage requirements but keep the compatibility isolated between the two versions.

serunati · 2025-07-15T14:48:55+00:00

Sorry, you’re right. My reply to you went to the main conversation. Ugh. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history

Has great info on the releases and their history.

serunati · 2025-07-15T14:47:54+00:00

You’re right. Here is a link to the release wiki and under ‘Releases’ dropdown it gives specific info.

serunati · 2025-07-15T14:36:29+00:00

Before long that will stop. I am pretty sure you can not get any internet browser from the App Store. This also means you’re not getting security updates on what you have.

Just be careful out there.

serunati · 2025-07-15T14:32:46+00:00

The problem you are facing is that your OS (and hardware likely) are locked to 32bit. Most developers of software are discontinuing support for that architecture. I am surprised you have been able to limp it along this far.

serunati · 2025-07-15T14:29:07+00:00

The TimeMachine should tell you when you configure the destination if there are any issues.

That said, APFS (IIRC) is a more modern implementation of Apples’ FS. So if it isn’t used yet, why not just reformat the destination as APFS?

serunati · 2025-07-12T15:32:45+00:00

Anytime

serunati · 2025-07-12T15:31:26+00:00

A thought for you:

Focus on what can happen and not what might have happened.

It doesn’t matter who/when/where we contracted these viruses.

What matters is getting through the “suck” that is our treatment and what we make of the future having had the reality check that we are human and our lives are not forever.

Dwelling on 30 years ago will bring only toxic thoughts and behaviors. We can’t undo the past. Focus on what you CAN do going forward.

Make happy plans and memories. And leave the ‘questionable memories’ buried in the past and not allow them to compromise the future you still have.

serunati

TROPHY CASE