Cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/iasip@sh.itjust.works/p/1290323/the-d-n-s-system

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53941877

I work for a company that works for a company that works for a company.
We have clients that are clients of clients, and may be direct clients in some other aspect.
We host services for these entities.
That is all fine until they don't pay us.

When they don't pay us, there are multiple rounds of contacting someone who will contact someone who will contact someone. Someday.

Sometimes, someday does not arrive.
At that point, we conduct the Scream Test.

The essence of the Scream Test is:

• This thing is theoretically not needed.
• Let's turn it off.
• And see who screams?

We shut down some stuff today. Waiting on the cacophony...

.....

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45956682

Bluesky

I like my job, so no screenshots. Sorry.

Notes:

• sbatch is a command for submitting jobs on high performance compute nodes
• the huge-n128-512g node uses 128 cores and has 512GiB of memory
• This is occurring in a medical research nonprofit

User: Hello everyone, this is the first time I'm using GCP. I'm trying to run a job, but it keeps failing. These are the sbatch headers I'm using:

#SBATCH --partition=huge-n128-512g
#SBATCH --nodes=8
#SBATCH --mail-user=user@institute.org
#SBATCH --mail-type=FAIL
#SBATCH --mem-per-cpu=32G

IT: Please make sure you need to use that node, each one costs $4500/month to use. Can you describe the job you're trying to do?

User: I'm doing high-depth genetic sequencing using 3gb bam files.

(additional note: there's usually only 1 bam file per chromosome, so 69gb total. Nice.)

IT: Those bam files are pretty small. I'd recommend starting with the med-n16-64g node and moving up if needed. We're only billed for run time. If the jobs take the same amount of time, it would be 13% of the cost.

The astute among you will notice that an 8 node swarm of 32GiB of memory per core is 32TiB total. The job was failing because the --mem-per-cpu flag was going above the available memory on each node. Even without that flag, the swarm would have used 4TiB memory. Holy overallocation, Batman!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45232943

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/26908785

I was using 3 Firefox browser tabs and it just decided to use 4 gigabytes of memory

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/20596730

Links

• Report;
• Letter to the Norwegian authorities;
• Letter to the European institutions.

Breaking Free.

In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report shows how this phenomenon affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide. Together with more than 70 consumer groups and other actors in Europe and the US, we are sending letter to policymakers in the EU/EEA, UK and the US.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/46242893

In my 25 year career, I have never had to deal with such a garbage software vendor as this one. I don't want to go on a rant since I have other things to do today and could go on for hours, but here are the highlights:

• Application has like 30 modules. Each module has its own config file.
• Config files are not centralized and reside in the directory with each module.
• Vendor ships a zip file of slop code that requires manual assembly.
• Vendor provides no substantial documentation. Every request for technical documentation is met with "Let's setup a meeting to solve your immediate problem".
• Vendor ships dummy config files in every release necessitating manual backup/restore of the config for each of the 30 modules
• Vendor changes config file format every third release. This requires re-configuring the entire application stack and all 30 modules.
• Vendor puts the version info in the goddamned config file instead of building it into the compiled .NET application as a variable like a sane person would do.
• Vendor sends an update every week and gets pissy when we don't deploy it within 3 hours of their "we shat out an update" email.
• Vendor has been asked repeatedly to address this. The only response we've gotten to these complaints is the sound of crickets chirping. 🦗

To answer any questions:

1. Yes, I voiced my concerns long ago. They were ignored.
2. Yes, they are the "lowest bidder" and it goddamned shows.
3. Yes, they know I hate them.
4. Yes, I tried writing scripts to manage the config files. They work once or twice until the vendor changes the config file format every 3rd-4th release.
5. Yes, it is sunk cost fallacy all the way down, but I've been given my orders.

Crossposted from https://sh.itjust.works/post/55233414