haveyoutriedrebootingit

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

As an IT professional, I understand and appreciate why password standards keep evolving, and the need for different passwords for different places rather than one single point of failure.

But I have just been forced to replace two long-standing passwords in the space of a week-- one because of an updated password standard, and one because it was expiring. Worse, they're the two passwords that I don't keep in my password locker.

And now I keep trying to log in to my work computer with my new online banking password, and vice versa.

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

"Ma'am, don't you worry. It looks like a mess on your end, but they've given me the administrative tools that I can solve any problem on this system."

<ten minutes later>

"So, Ma'am, it turns out I'm a filthy liar and I'm going to have to escalate your problem, clock out, and get very drunk."

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

The organization I support overlaps with another organization that uses outlook for their email, and oh, man, am I always glad to transfer those calls to somebody else.

microsoft are you fucking high?????????????

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

My very first tech support job, in 1994, delivered me a call from a woman who reported that her foot pedal had stopped working.

She meant her mouse. And what had happened was that, not being told how to use the thing, she assumed that it was like the foot pedal on her sewing machine. Only problem is that this was back in the days of mechanical mice, and several months of rolling it around on the carpet caused it to gum up.

I explained to her how to clean the innards, then told her that the next person who saw her using her mouse with her foot was going to tell her that she was doing it wrong, and that they would be technically correct, but she should stab them anyway.

me, sitting at the breakfast table, struck by a bolt of inspiration: NO. WAIT. you know what i need to do?

@combat-epistemologist, warily: what?

me: i need to build some sort of chorded keyboard i can actuate with my feet. so that i can play stardew valley while i knit.

@combat-epistemologist, exasperated: for the love of god

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

MY night of the living dead

in interviews folks often ask what got me into horror and i always say FIRST TIME i can remember as a young buckaroo when i truly LOVED the experience of a horror story was NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. what i do not often say is that is was the 1990 remake starring tony todd

yes the 1968 black and white original was classic but MY night of the living dead is the tony todd version, which is controversial opinion but what do i care it is basically my mission to eliminate the idea of a ‘guilty pleasure’. I SAY IT PROUD: I LIKE THE 90S VERSION BETTER

lots of reasons this film resonated with me and the biggest one is that i LOVED tony todd. he was one of the first actors i thought ‘hey its THAT GUY. THAT GUY IS THE BEST THIS MOVIE WILL BE GREAT’. was too young to know many actor names but i remember LOOKING HIM UP specifically

obviously as CANDYMAN he is an icon of horror, and the reason i think he resonated with so many buds is because of the EMPATHY he created with his characters. candyman is VERY complex thanks to his performance, both scary and uniquely sympathetic for a slasher

i think his horror connection made is so he did not play heroes very often after that but while buckaroos mourn the loss of this actor i would recommend horror buckaroos rewatching NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1990 VERSION where he is the hero of the story. that empathy really shines

anyway REST IN PEACE tony todd thank you for bringing me into the world of horror. i know many will remember you as candyman and rightly so, what an honor, but i will remember you as the hero in the farmhouse that everyone shouldve listened to

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

Capitalism!

They'll tell you that it's more secure, and it is. There's even the benefit that apps installed via the MS Store update automatically.

But the actual reason? Microsoft gets a cut when you buy software from the Microsoft Store.

Why is Windows S mode even a thing that computers can come with automatically??? Who wants this on a general use PC? I get why it's useful for school computers or work provided computers, but it shouldn't exist as a default option on regular laptops.

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

Just got asked by a caller if I was an AI. It's important that we were well into the call-- I had actually done everything that needed to be done on my end to solve the problem, and was waiting for him to open an email and click a link. This, I might add, was the SECOND solution to the problem, as he did not receive the text message that was sent before that.

Like, I get it, I'm autistic, and my customer service voice kind of veers into the Uncanny Valley. It's not uncommon for people to hear my greeting and punch zero or say "representative". This is less "how could they think that I was a robot?" and more "How fucking advanced do you think AI is?"

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

This happens to me as well. My favorite was the person who was CLEARLY high who asked me if I was a recording, and when I said no, asked me if I was sure.

Me: Hi, this is Ebony at work; how can I help you today?

Customer: Oh wow

Me: Is everything alright?

Customer: Oh yes, it’s just that you’re so good at this, I thought you were a recording at first

Me, internally: Your, “most people only call me a robot *after* they know I’m Autistic,” joke is an inside thought until you can get to Tumblr; same with the, “script writer,” bit.

Me: Ha, can you tell I’ve been doing this for a while?

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

it's really weird having a first dog be blind and then getting a second who can see...like how was I supposed to be prepared for this.

this creature can perceive when I put the treats up on the high shelf. or when I hide stuff behind my back. I can't fool her!! she's always watching me and she shouldn't have this much knowledge!!!

I walk around at night and I shine my flash light directly into her eyes and I'll just be standing there staring at her weird blue orbs for like 5 seconds until I realize it's probably extremely annoying to her, because she has eyes!! I'll turn on the light in the room and she gruffs and grumbles like ?? oh right!! light wakes you up!! the fuck??

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

#do not store important OC documents on your school account#don't use that email for shit like google drive

Yeah, this too.

Friendly neighborhood tech support cryptid here with today's advice:

Do not use your school or work email to sign up for things, unless they are specifically school or work related.

This is not a "they are watching you" thing, although with your work email there's an element of that, it's a "you might not have access to this email later" thing.

Your best bet is to open two gmail (or any other long-standing free email) accounts. One, you use to sign up for stuff. The other you use to talk to people. You may occasionally use the first to talk to companies, but it's going to fill up with spam soooo goddamn fast-- even just from the people you signed up for.

But the point is that this email address will be available if you drop out/quit, get kicked out/fired, or graduate. Yes, I know a lot of colleges give free email for life to alumni. That can change, especially as most of those colleges haven't thought about the server/storage costs of such a promise in perpetuity. If you do have such an email, you'll want to sign into it regularly, if only too see if the school has sent you a notice explaining what you need to do to keep this email, and what date you need to do it by, and how apathetic they're going to be if you didn't read it and lost the email.

You can't reset the password for an email you can't access, so don't provide an email that can be taken away from you with little or no notice. (When I got laid off from my job at a fortune 500 company, I had twenty minutes before they shut off my email.)

I would say 5% of the calls I take are people who desperately need access to an email that no longer exists, because they signed up for something important with it, and now they can't reset their password.

(And don't use your phone number if someone else is paying for the phone. Maaaaybe if it's your parents, and you're really cool with them, and you know they're going to let you take the number if you get your own plan.)

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

Friendly neighborhood tech support cryptid here with today's advice:

Do not use your school or work email to sign up for things, unless they are specifically school or work related.

This is not a "they are watching you" thing, although with your work email there's an element of that, it's a "you might not have access to this email later" thing.

Your best bet is to open two gmail (or any other long-standing free email) accounts. One, you use to sign up for stuff. The other you use to talk to people. You may occasionally use the first to talk to companies, but it's going to fill up with spam soooo goddamn fast-- even just from the people you signed up for.

But the point is that this email address will be available if you drop out/quit, get kicked out/fired, or graduate. Yes, I know a lot of colleges give free email for life to alumni. That can change, especially as most of those colleges haven't thought about the server/storage costs of such a promise in perpetuity. If you do have such an email, you'll want to sign into it regularly, if only too see if the school has sent you a notice explaining what you need to do to keep this email, and what date you need to do it by, and how apathetic they're going to be if you didn't read it and lost the email.

You can't reset the password for an email you can't access, so don't provide an email that can be taken away from you with little or no notice. (When I got laid off from my job at a fortune 500 company, I had twenty minutes before they shut off my email.)

I would say 5% of the calls I take are people who desperately need access to an email that no longer exists, because they signed up for something important with it, and now they can't reset their password.

(And don't use your phone number if someone else is paying for the phone. Maaaaybe if it's your parents, and you're really cool with them, and you know they're going to let you take the number if you get your own plan.)

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

How not to call tech support, part 746259562101B

Look, I get it. When there's a system outage, it impacts your ability to do things, and often, those things are important. And I truly sympathize.

But.

I cannot put too fine a point on this.

If I tell you that there is a system outage and that I have no further information, that means that there is a system outage and that I have no further information.

No amount of repeating how important it is that you be able to Do The Thing will make the system come up faster.

If I tell you that I don't know when it is expected to be back up, that means that I can't tell you if it will be back up in the next ten minutes, and rephrasing the question with different time intervals will not be productive.

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

Given the number of Q-Anon folks who've gone down for possession of and/or making CSAM, it would not surprise me at all to learn that this is deliberate.

the word "pedophile" doesn't alarm me anymore.

sounds very bad I know, but it's not like I don't find that in itself alarming!

pedophile is the new "freak" or "loser', it's not taken seriously anymore, it has become just a new word to call people you don't like even when they didn't do anything

yknow the story of the boy who kept yelling "wolf!" to prank the rest of the village, so when an actual wolf came no one listened and he was mauled? that's what that is.

by reducing such a serious issue to "erhm i dont like this person or their content so they must like kids!", you're actually harming victims and making it harder for them to be taken seriously

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

Recognizing that those fucking snot-nosed brats are.... actually right about the things they're complaining about.

That post about 30 year old coming of age stories?

I’ve been thinking about it all morning. What would the plot points be for that? What makes a 30 year old coming of age story?

Old folks sound off in the comments

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

This is basically the setup of the pilot to the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Nearly every flight in the U.S. is grounded right now following a CrowdStrike system update error … but not Southwest Airlines flights. Southwest is still flying high, unaffected by the outage that’s plaguing the world today, and that’s apparently because it’s using Windows 3.1.

Good lord. I don't know if I should laugh or cry over this.

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

The Bitlocker thing is fucking EVERYONE up trying to fix this.

I love being in IT

[haveyoutriedrebootingit]

So I've had three callers so far tell me that they got an email specifically telling them to call us to report the issue that we know about and that is affecting fucking everyone. I tell my manager, and it turns out they are not reading their email correctly.

I almost said to my manager "Ah, so they're pissing on the poor."