• not nobody (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    pegr:
    "unlike switches, which intelligently route packets to the appropriate destination"

    No. Switches direct frames. Routers route packets. Yes, people who don't know any better use the terms incorrectly, but we know better, right?

    Succinctly:

    You are a loser.

    Less so:

    Your standard is that one should not even make reference to function if you cannot correctly and completely describe the underlying machinations. You're not a mechanic, right, so how do you get your car repaired? You're not CIA trained, right? So, how do you cook food? You might be an electrical engineer, so perhaps you can insert electrical plugs because you can cite Ohm's law and drawing a system diagram?

    I'm willing to bet you don't act like this off the intergoogles and cyberwebs, because if you did you would most certainly have your teeth knocked in.

    Wha you haying awout my eef?

    (and did I miss te reference about needing to be CIA trained to cook food???????

  • (cs) in reply to Lars Vargas
    Lars Vargas:
    Who thinks IBM is an acronym? Obviously it isn't. Not sure why that takes a page and a half.

    I thought IBM was a company. :)

    BNC connectors cause me nightmares. In the early 90's, in Central Florida, in the middle of summer I was tasked to install network cable in a house trailer used as an office. The only way to easily do this, avoiding going through walls, was to crawl under the trailer and use holes drilled through the floor.

    Knowing the cables would be outside and that they had metal connectors, the owner exercised his right of paranoia and wanted all external connectors sealed. His solution was to use expanding foam in a bag with the connector stuck in the in the middle. (Don't ask.)

    I pointed out the problem with this, mainly inaccessibility to the connectors if anything went wrong, but he insisted. Whatever. I just wanted to get it done and get out of there.

    I did my best, but that expanding foam was nasty, sticky stuff. I got it all over me. Including stuck in the hair on my arms (I hadn't thought about wearing long sleeves). After the 2nd or 3rd cable, the burning started. I realized that I had rolled over a nest of red fire ants. And they were getting into the foam, which pissed them off considerably. Instinctively, I tried to brush them away, but that only spread the sticky foam and angered the ants further. It also cemented them to me, most within biting distance.

    Oh and did I mention the crawl space was big enough for me lie down, but not sit up, much less crawl? Yeah, it was a tight fit, which didn't help my claustrophobia much. So here I am, in a crawlspace under a trailer on my back, foam in my arm hairs, angry biting ants glued to me, trying to figure out where the drilled holes are for this cable I've got to install. It was easily a five-minute "scoot" to the edge of the trailer to get out.

    Which I did, as quickly as I could.

    I got about half done with the "external" wiring and told the owner that he'd have to get someone else to do the rest, but I could direct them. And he did.

    Oddly enough the "sealed bag" topology worked for a number of years without issue and was used until the old 386 workstations were replaced with newer machines that had RJ-45 connectors and used a switch. This time the trailer was wired from the inside.

    Okay, this brought back some nightmares. Not to do with coax . . . I was running phone wire. I was doing this in the rain and there was a rottweiler mutt that preferred under the warm trailer to being in his doghouse in the rain. When I took the old wiring out, I attached a string and pulled, then reattached it to the new wire and pulled it back through. Probably one of the wiser things I've done, since I'm not a wiring technician. I tucked the wiring into the skirt-siding rather than having to spend more time underneath the trailer with the dog than I had to. I'd say fire ants and foam would've been worse.

  • dsh (unregistered) in reply to not nobody
    not nobody:
    (and did I miss te reference about needing to be CIA trained to cook food???????

    Culinary Institute of America

  • (cs) in reply to pegr
    pegr:
    "unlike switches, which intelligently route packets to the appropriate destination"

    No. Switches direct frames. Routers route packets. Yes, people who don't know any better use the terms incorrectly, but we know better, right?

    If they direct frames, then they also direct packets.

    This would be like saying "The pizza delivery service doesn't deliver pizza. It delivers a car. (which contains a driver and a pizza)".

  • (cs)
  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    You've never worked with Token Ring, then, have you?

    Token Ring is what you'll find interconnecting the Devil's computers in the seventh level of Hell. It is an abomination. And 16 megabit, twisted pair Token Ring, is the nightmare of nightmares.

    Thanks for letting me vent. Shared media sucks, but Token Ring sucks and is 3x more expensive than its 10/100BASE-T counterpart.

    My favorite is when you plug in a card configured to 4m on a 16m network - it doesn't isolate the card, it crashes the network :) Also, those things got warm.

  • Spanky McMuffin (unregistered) in reply to fourchan
    fourchan:
    pegr:
    "unlike switches, which intelligently route packets to the appropriate destination"

    No. Switches direct frames. Routers route packets. Yes, people who don't know any better use the terms incorrectly, but we know better, right?

    If they direct frames, then they also direct packets.

    This would be like saying "The pizza delivery service doesn't deliver pizza. It delivers a car. (which contains a driver and a pizza)".

    Y'all do realize this pegr fallow couldn't be righter if the king of all right things personally knighted him with his big sword of rightness, right? I mean, it's fun making fun of him for being a pedant and all, but pretty soon it begins to look suspiciously like belligerent ignorance on your part.

    clue: media headers ain't protocol headers.

  • Benedict (unregistered)

    He should have just used C-Pound instead of Java.

  • (cs) in reply to Spanky McMuffin
    Spanky McMuffin:
    fourchan:
    pegr:
    "unlike switches, which intelligently route packets to the appropriate destination"

    No. Switches direct frames. Routers route packets. Yes, people who don't know any better use the terms incorrectly, but we know better, right?

    If they direct frames, then they also direct packets.

    This would be like saying "The pizza delivery service doesn't deliver pizza. It delivers a car. (which contains a driver and a pizza)".

    Y'all do realize this pegr fallow couldn't be righter if the king of all right things personally knighted him with his big sword of rightness, right? I mean, it's fun making fun of him for being a pedant and all, but pretty soon it begins to look suspiciously like belligerent ignorance on your part.

    clue: media headers ain't protocol headers.

    Pizzas don't have headers. They have toppings!

  • SurturZ (unregistered)

    Brilliant red herring heading today

  • iToad (unregistered)

    Mentioning 10base2 thinwire still causes bad flashbacks. I once traced a network problem down to a defective 50 Ohm terminator. It had exactly one electronic part in it (a 51 Ohm resistor to be exact), and that one part decided to fail open.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Spanky McMuffin
    Spanky McMuffin:
    Y'all do realize this pegr fallow couldn't be righter if the king of all right things personally knighted him with his big sword of rightness, right? I mean, it's fun making fun of him for being a pedant and all, but pretty soon it begins to look suspiciously like belligerent ignorance on your part.

    clue: media headers ain't protocol headers.

    So what? The whole point of pedantry is that you're technically right, but you're correcting something that isn't actually a point of confusion for anyone. So what if switches direct frames and not packets? They don't change media, and this is ethernet, so frame == packet + headers and 1 insertion crap, which basically means that 'switches switch packets' is just fine for most uses.

  • (cs) in reply to Lars Vargas
    Lars Vargas:
    BNC connectors cause me nightmares.

    Oh God - I though I had banished my painful memories of this, too... I'm getting flashbacks... The horror... One bad connector and BAM no one's working.

    Can I sue the manufacturers for PTSD?

  • (cs) in reply to Cappuccino wins every time
    Cappuccino wins every time:
    He's the coffee connoisseur, and he drinks percolated coffee? I think they have bigger problems than BNC connectors!
    You're thinking of percolation as in made in a percolator (one of the worst ways to prepare coffee), however most coffee brewing methods including espresso and drip preparations also involve percolation. A coffee expert would know this.
  • Draco (unregistered) in reply to some noob
    some noob:
    actually the originaly statement is correct in the context used. in comparisson to hubs, switches are intelligent.

    also, in comparisson to the ON (original nitpicker), I am intelligent.

    Only that part of the statement is correct. It would have been 100% right if it only said switches are more intelligent.

    The part that makes it wrong is when he says "route packets to the appropriate destination."

    Switches don't route, switches forward according to an algorithm.

    This would be forgivable if the subject of the discussion weren't the network itself.

    Usually when you make an article specifically about a subject, it's a good idea to get the details of that subject correct.

    It's not a minor nit, it's something completely wrong like saying...

    Unlike a bicycle which is manually powered by pedals, a motorcycle is automatically driven by an engine, and has four doors.

  • asifyoucare (unregistered)

    The problem was not the coffee drinker. The problem was the positioning of connectors where people's feet were - yet it doesn't read like that.

  • Real-modo (unregistered) in reply to Benedict
    Benedict:
    He should have just used C-Pound instead of Java.
    DeCaf?? The horror!
  • (cs) in reply to Someone Important
    Someone Important:
    And that's why coffee should be banned!
    Coffee drinkers should be arrested, no less! Farters too!

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/24/13-year-old-student-arres_n_146222.html

    Cheers!

  • mickeyding (unregistered)

    I struck something very similar a number of years ago. Every morning a secretary would boot her machine and play a round of solitaire during her coffee break and then shut down the machine again. The trouble was it was using a static IP address that was the same as the unix server. She was so darned quick at solitaire that the outage would only last a couple of minutes and it would be right for the rest of the day. We eventually noticed her powering up the offending PC and then turning it off again after a few minutes and we put two and two together. For her normal day to day work she would be using a dumb terminal via a serial cable into the server.

  • Theo (unregistered) in reply to Pedantic Pedant Peda Pe

    Is it like you know so difficult to consult a dictionary, made by, like, the people who studied this stuff and shit? Let Merriam-Webster enlighten you:

    Main Entry: ac·ro·nym Pronunciation: \ˈa-krə-ˌnim\ Function: noun Etymology: acr- + -onym Date: 1943 A word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term ; also : an abbreviation

    So: an acronym is also an abbreviation according to the lexicographers (Oxford concurs, BTW). EOD.

  • blunder (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    pegr:
    "unlike switches, which intelligently route packets to the appropriate destination"

    No. Switches direct frames. Routers route packets. Yes, people who don't know any better use the terms incorrectly, but we know better, right?

    Succinctly:

    You are a loser.

    Less so:

    Your standard is that one should not even make reference to function if you cannot correctly and completely describe the underlying machinations. You're not a mechanic, right, so how do you get your car repaired? You're not CIA trained, right? So, how do you cook food? You might be an electrical engineer, so perhaps you can insert electrical plugs because you can cite Ohm's law and drawing a system diagram?

    I'm willing to bet you don't act like this off the intergoogles and cyberwebs, because if you did you would most certainly have your teeth knocked in.

    Wow, are you guys done jumping down his or her throat? Switches don't route, they switch. Routers route. Seems like it would be obvious. And mildly on-topic, given the site's (and the article's) focus.

    I don't understand why that, of all things, is what brought out all the poptart-fueled rage. Is it because of all the coders here that hate their IT guys?

  • captain obvious (unregistered)

    Did anyone else think that the problem was someone going at it near some network equipment, particularly after the thump thump noises?

  • (cs) in reply to Theo
    Theo:
    Is it like you know so difficult to consult a dictionary, made by, like, the people who studied this stuff and shit? Let Merriam-Webster enlighten you:

    Main Entry: ac·ro·nym Pronunciation: \ˈa-krə-ˌnim\ Function: noun Etymology: acr- + -onym Date: 1943 A word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term ; also : an abbreviation

    So: an acronym is also an abbreviation according to the lexicographers (Oxford concurs, BTW). EOD.

    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

  • Alenx (unregistered)

    impendence -> impedance

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Theo
    Theo:
    ...EOD.
    You wish. So do I but we're both going to be out of luck.
  • (cs)

    On a completely pointless and unrelated note, if you get your hands on a lot of the connectors like the ones in the picture, you can use them as makeshift lego bricks when things are slow. I speak from experience.

  • Theo (unregistered) in reply to Mr B
    Mr B:
    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

    I used "is" as in: a cow is an animal, the way normal people use it. So that implies that not all abbreviations have to be acronyms.

    Exercise for the reader: find an abbreviation that is not an acronym and post it to /dev/null.

  • (cs) in reply to Theo
    Theo:
    Mr B:
    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

    I used "is" as in: a cow is an animal, the way normal people use it. So that implies that not all abbreviations have to be acronyms.

    Exercise for the reader: find an abbreviation that is not an acronym and post it to /dev/null.

    In that case you've missed the point of the argument, congratulations!

  • (cs) in reply to Voodoo Coder
    Voodoo Coder:
    Mr. Spock:
    We also don't need to prop up our fragile egos by pedantically harping on the contextually-trivial difference. How's that for a WTF?

    Pedantic harping makes up at least 1/3rd of the posting here, on a slow day. Heck, just look at the thread from a few days ago that takes a page and a half to discuss whether "IBM" qualifies as an acronym, or it is just a meager abbreviation.

    And people wonder why us nerds get picked on...

    And judging by the conversation that has ensued since this post...well, I just have one thing to say:

    Q.E.D.

  • Charles (unregistered)

    Java doesn't take down networks... people do.

    CAPTCHA- saepius: The oozing genital sore discovered after a drunken night in Tijuana.

  • (cs) in reply to not nobody
    not nobody:
    (and did I miss te reference about needing to be CIA trained to cook food???????

    Culinary Institute of America.

  • Spoe (unregistered)

    Had a manager once that managed to bring down our thinnet twice.

    The first time, when he left for the day he took his laptop with him with his network adapter and the t-connector. And, of course, he was the first on the line.

    The second was when he decided to tidy his office and to organize the coax he stuck thumbtacks through them. Yep, Coax really likes that.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:

    I smell BS. A coffee expert would NEVER percolate their Joe. Percolation requires boiling water and steam which is WAY too hot for proper bean extraction. Plus the liquid repeatedly cycles between the burner and the grounds, over-extruding the beans and burning the coffee. Sheesh, though you could pull one over on us, nice try.

    I guess that's just a figure of speech. Those office coffee machines with filters don't percolate. Water in them is far from boiling, either, I'd guess not higher 80C. It takes like a 40 seconds in microwave to bring a cup of their hot water to boil.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Lars Vargas

    LOL Beautiful story :)

    I have managed to bury my BNC-traumas under layers of alcohol-induced fog, but stories like this still cause involuntary tears.

  • Ricky Fine (unregistered) in reply to Lars Vargas

    CRAWLSPACES!!! AAAAHHH!!!! I tapped into the main water supply line under my house in one of those crawl spaces but couldn't finish the job. My wife was okay without water until the next afternoon when I got home from work to finish the job, but not longer with kids in the house. That was all okay except the next day was the Loma Prieta earthquake and it was somewhat disturbing when the aftershocks made the beam my chest was squeezed under tremble! I almost made my own water supply.

  • Ricky Fine (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward

    You're right. That was added by the editor. They were 1 cup cones with filters. The company was run by doctors who kept the sick time rate down by making everything single use.

  • Lafcadio (unregistered)

    Apropos of the picture accompanying this article, I used to work for a school district in the upper Midwestern US, and a small portion of our network was still using BNC connectors like the ones pictured. We all had to carry a few around with us, and I chained mine together and hung them off a loop on my jacket.

    I got hauled before a review board--A REVIEW BOARD!--because a teacher in one of my schools complained that I was carrying around a crack pipe on my jacket.

  • Derek (unregistered)

    In the mid to late 90's I did lot of peer-to-peer networking with LanTastic. All sorts of freaky stuff would happen like this... Make me glad to be a programmer now... at least I can sit in my chair and find the bugs...

    Derek

  • Wyrd (unregistered)

    And that, kiddies, is why we don't use networks with physical_topology = "bus".

    -- Furry cows moo and decompress.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Some Random Sign in Name

    WHAT?!? Who does this moron troll think he is!? We'll just see what dictionary dot cooo... ...well damn...I....Learned something...

  • csm (unregistered) in reply to Mr B
    Mr B:
    Theo:
    Mr B:
    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

    I used "is" as in: a cow is an animal, the way normal people use it. So that implies that not all abbreviations have to be acronyms.

    Exercise for the reader: find an abbreviation that is not an acronym and post it to /dev/null.

    In that case you've missed the point of the argument, congratulations!

    And apparently you don't understand that (If A then B) != (If B then A). Congratulations!

  • (cs) in reply to Voodoo Coder
    Voodoo Coder:
    (Sorry, you set that one up way to pretty to leave be)

    I think you forgot an 'o' somewhere, Vodo Coder. I'm sorry, too. :->

  • Textrix (unregistered) in reply to some noob

    Intelligent people know that 'comparison' has ONE 'S', dude......

  • Monzo (unregistered)

    Oh man, coax brings back memories...

    Right before it was replaced by UTP at our universitey, the whole network was a very brittle piece of work. Good thing was that if there was a problem only one segment was offline (end good news)..

    I distinctly remember trying to solve a network problem one day in an offline segment; knocking on a professor's door, explaining what I was doing and immediately taking her offline. Her response: "Hey, I didn't save that yet! How rude..." I tried to explain but left it alone after 3 minutes because she definitely wasn't going to listen to a mere helpdesker!

    Ignorance like that still brings a smile to my face; take away the thumbs and her kind would have probably been extinct by now...

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to blunder

    I totally agree. Given this was largely an exercise in troubleshooting network connections (HINT : The packet sniffer couldn't find any problems - hence it was either frames or electrical signals) then this deliniation is completely justified.

    Given my limited knowledge of programming wouldn't it be like me saying a class is the same as a method.

    Captcha - Quibus - A bus full of quibbles (justified or not)

  • (cs) in reply to csm
    csm:
    Mr B:
    Theo:
    Mr B:
    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

    I used "is" as in: a cow is an animal, the way normal people use it. So that implies that not all abbreviations have to be acronyms.

    Exercise for the reader: find an abbreviation that is not an acronym and post it to /dev/null.

    In that case you've missed the point of the argument, congratulations!

    And apparently you don't understand that (If A then B) != (If B then A). Congratulations!

    I understand commutative logic, thank you - seeing as I raised it in the first place.

    Another one who has just missed the point of the discussion.

    Tip: If you're going to wade in and try and be clever, it helps if you are actually clever, otherwise you just end up looking like an idiot.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Mr B
    Mr B:
    csm:
    Mr B:
    Theo:
    Mr B:
    Erm, yes an acronym is a type of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. Acronyms are a sub-set of abbreviations.

    Perhaps you should have looked up "commutative logic" whilst studying the dictionary.

    :)

    I used "is" as in: a cow is an animal, the way normal people use it. So that implies that not all abbreviations have to be acronyms.

    Exercise for the reader: find an abbreviation that is not an acronym and post it to /dev/null.

    In that case you've missed the point of the argument, congratulations!

    And apparently you don't understand that (If A then B) != (If B then A). Congratulations!

    I understand commutative logic, thank you - seeing as I raised it in the first place.

    Another one who has just missed the point of the discussion.

    Tip: If you're going to wade in and try and be clever, it helps if you are actually clever, otherwise you just end up looking like an idiot.

    God I hate you people.

  • ME (unregistered)

    Our NOC had a problem like that. At 6pm every day. It turned out that the janitor plugged in his vacuum cleaner every evening into an outlet our router was on.

    Also I know of a BMV that had a degraded connection when it rained. Telco wiring at its best!

    p.s. I love coffee.

  • test tester (unregistered)

    testes

  • test tester (unregistered)

    testes

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