Arkady Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 So, we use a new newsletter mailing tool, and dear gods, who even designed that? It looks like a modern WYSIWG interface. It's not, actually, because it doesn't reflect element height/width and paddings accurately, so getting the headline right for one design element was a nightmare that involved mailing myself a dozen or so previews. Anyways, that's not the real issue. The real issue is that while it looks modern, it's like half the things you need to do happen in about three different sidebars you need to switch between, in a system that probably seems very intuitive to an early Noughts code monkey. It took us the better part of two days to figure out how to do all the things we want, and that's mostly because I'm a weirdo who can kind of think like an early Noughts code monkey if he absolutely has to. I took us the rest of the two days to figure out that the system was apparently designed by an early Noughts code monkey on crack, offering up otions that do not even work. Like sure, you can set RGB colors with an alpha channel, but any alpha other than 1 will be treated as 0. 🤦♂️ Seriously. It's like they took what a marketer thought would be a good-looking preview section and what a developer thought sounded like a good feature list, then just kind of winged it with half-baked (or even just half-) implementations to arrive at a web interface I can't even. *** On a completely unrelated note, sure Achilles and Hercules were great, but neither actually had the balls of Testicles! 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnwulf Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) Heh, today's entry on the customer front - had one complaining today that their windows server was running extremly slow, so we checked the database heartbeat ping. The server has not been rebooted since summer of 2020. Which also means that no windows updates have been installed in that time either. but something is obviously wrong with our software that's making the server run slow.... Edited October 20, 2022 by Cygnwulf 4 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serenity Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 RTB Pro-Tips! SKU#04052 Catfolk Mage! 10-20-22. Started at 11:36 AM. https://www.twitch.tv/reaperminiatures 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristof65 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 2 hours ago, Cygnwulf said: Heh, today's entry on the customer front - had one complaining today that their windows server was running extremly slow, so we checked the database heartbeat ping. The server has not been rebooted since summer of 2020. Which also means that no windows updates have been installed in that time either. but something is obviously wrong with our software that's making the server run slow.... Lovely. The new car wash tellers that got introduced this year are now Windows based, and we're starting to see Windows induced problems ourselves. Just got off a call where the guy was complaining that his new teller didn't reboot properly after a power outage, and his old teller would have rebooted fine. It's a legit complaint & valid observation, and yet because it was caused by Windows, I'm not in a position to do anything about it - have to refer it to the programmers. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Eyed Monsty Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 5 hours ago, Cygnwulf said: More bike discussion Hide contents You're right, there are a LOT of dumb cyclists out there. I'll frequently call out other riders for failure to signal, riding in the driving lanes when there is a bike lane, rolling stopsigns, crossing intersections in the crosswalk, and many more. A bicycle is a vehicle, which means you have to obey all the same traffic rules that cars do and be aware that you ARE a slow moving vehicle and you need to allow faster moving traffic to pass you. Some cities will ticket them, but it seems like it's almost always a case of 'wheres the traffic cop when you need them'. I had a buddy who's been ticketed twice, once for riding on the sidewalk and once for rolling a stopsign at a busy 4 way stop. But most of the time there's no enforcment, and there's no organized effort out there (at least in my part of the world) to educate cyclists at all.... I'm a big advocate for SAFE cycling, the problem is, only cyclists want it. People who don't ride will shout you down when the subject of better bike friendly infrastructure is brought up, they don't want their tax dollars going to backward bumpkins who can't be bothered to drive a car to work. And when there is a bike lane, people won't respect it, not looking for a cyclist in the lane, curb parking to block the lane. Bike paths (clearly marked with center stripes, grooved for speed zones, speed limits, the works. Clear signage stating that pedestrians must yield right of way to cyclists because this is a bike path. ) and yet large large groups of pedestrians will stick their earbuds in and ignore your shouted requests to pass on the left... More bike stuff: Spoiler Carson City just spent a large chunk of dollars to upgrade the main north south thoroughfare on the south side of town which is old US 395. The main highway now goes around downtown on a 4 lane bypass [2 each way]. The upgrade includes a roundabout at a main intersection plus bike and pedestrian ways and some nice landscaping. Personally, I'm happy to see clearly delineated bike paths as it removes one road hazard from the driving lanes. I'm also aware of the cost involved, which I think is the major objection most people have as making proper bike lanes involves a lot more than just repainting the roadway and putting up a few signs. The vocal segment of the bicycle advocates usually seems to be the "spandex commando's" who are willing to spend thousands of dollars on bicycles and accessories yet expect the motoring public to pick up the entire cost involved in providing smooth and safe bike lanes for their exclusive use. The sense of entitlement, when combined with the reckless driving of these individuals is IMHO the main stimulus for the public animus. You are on the right track in your advocacy, Keep up the good work And now I will sit back and try to keep my highly opinionated mouth shut as this si what some people would consider far enough into the weeds to be where the poly-tics live. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristof65 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Ugh. Looks like one of my distributors is fighting a wiring impedance problem. The car wash wasn't always getting the wash arming signal from the teller, so as a temporary fix, the wash arming pulse was increased from 2 seconds to 20 seconds. But then the customer started complaining that it was taking 10-15 seconds for the wash to arm and turn on the drive forward light. When we set the pulse length back down to 2, it started occasionally failing to arm a wash again. So what that means is that the pulse that should look like this: _____ ___| |____ Actually looks like this: _____ ____/ \_____ only with a shallower slope. The voltage isn't climbing fast enough to reach the threshold it needs to be considered "ON", thus causing the delay or missed signal, depending on how much time we give it. The usual cause of that is extra resistance or impedance in the wiring that are slowing the voltage change And that probably means pulling all new wires between the teller and the wash, something that everyone is going to fight about, because no one wants to pay for it. Glad all I have to do here is prove it's an impedance problem, which is pretty easy when dealing with a competent tech and the right tools. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serenity Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 The Crafty Creative with Josh Foreman! Working on a Ruins Diorama! Start screen up at 1:48 PM. https://www.twitch.tv/reaperminiatures 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Eyed Monsty Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 26 minutes ago, kristof65 said: Ugh. Looks like one of my distributors is fighting a wiring impedance problem. The car wash wasn't always getting the wash arming signal from the teller, so as a temporary fix, the wash arming pulse was increased from 2 seconds to 20 seconds. But then the customer started complaining that it was taking 10-15 seconds for the wash to arm and turn on the drive forward light. When we set the pulse length back down to 2, it started occasionally failing to arm a wash again. So what that means is that the pulse that should look like this: _____ ___| |____ Actually looks like this: _____ ____/ \_____ only with a shallower slope. The voltage isn't climbing fast enough to reach the threshold it needs to be considered "ON", thus causing the delay or missed signal, depending on how much time we give it. The usual cause of that is extra resistance or impedance in the wiring that are slowing the voltage change And that probably means pulling all new wires between the teller and the wash, something that everyone is going to fight about, because no one wants to pay for it. Glad all I have to do here is prove it's an impedance problem, which is pretty easy when dealing with a competent tech and the right tools. Is this a problem since the installation was new or is it something that has developed recently? If it's something new in a formerly reliable system I would be checking all the connections for corrosion. It might be a corrosion problem not even visible to the naked eye but that will clear up if all the connections are thoroughly cleaned and burnished. Good Luck GEM 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristof65 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 12 minutes ago, Green Eyed Monsty said: Is this a problem since the installation was new or is it something that has developed recently? If it's something new in a formerly reliable system I would be checking all the connections for corrosion. It might be a corrosion problem not even visible to the naked eye but that will clear up if all the connections are thoroughly cleaned and burnished. Good Luck GEM A 25 year old location with 10 year old wash equipment where a brand new teller and bay credit card equipment were just installed. Supposedly brand new wiring was pulled between the teller and wash. According to the tech, there have already been several snafus with the wiring at this site, including a brand new ethernet cable that was damaged while being pulled, and another old wire run that was supposed to have been replaced, but was not because "it was too difficult" according to the electrician. He strongly suspects that one of those two situations now applies to the wiring between the teller and wash as well. I helped him prove it, so he's happy. Now it's up to his boss to fight it out with the site owner and their electrician. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnwulf Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 4 minutes ago, kristof65 said: According to the tech, there have already been several snafus with the wiring at this site, including a brand new ethernet cable that was damaged while being pulled, and another old wire run that was supposed to have been replaced, but was not because "it was too difficult" according to the electrician. He strongly suspects that one of those two situations now applies to the wiring between the teller and wash as well. Sounds like he was trying to pad his bill... "Oh this part of the job is too hard, so I won't do it and then I get to charge you again when you call me back out to fix it later" 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Guindyloo Posted October 20, 2022 Moderator Share Posted October 20, 2022 No Reaper Live tonight, y'all! Per Jon: 🎃 Hey everyone! No Reaper Live tonight, we kind of forgot about our Reaper Ghost tour tonight that is happening at the same time. 👻 - it's spooky season. 3 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegazus Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 It’s Thursday. Yeah. Got nothing. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ratsmitglied Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 6 hours ago, Arkady said: Seriously. It's like they took what a marketer thought would be a good-looking preview section and what a developer thought sounded like a good feature list, then just kind of winged it with half-baked (or even just half-) implementations to arrive at a web interface I can't even. That's about normal for my world...(Library/Humanities) 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnwulf Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 couldn't help but think of @TGP's "free pizza saga" 1 1 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Chaoswolf Posted October 20, 2022 Moderator Share Posted October 20, 2022 Conversation overheard at work today: " The movie The Rock came out in 1996, I think. I was like 5 years old. " Yes, it was 1996, and I was 24. Yew kids git offa mah lawn! 8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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