• (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler

    This

    Mason Wheeler:
    TRWTF is the patches themselves.

    Some quick back-of-a-napkin math puts the size of this patch somewhere on the order of half a gigabyte. More, if there's compression involved.

    THAT IS NOT A PATCH!

    I don't care how big or complex the program they're patching is; it doesn't take 500 MB to create a patch for it, or even a series of patches. That sounds to me like some idiot doesn't know how to create a patch, and so he just distributed a full installer filled with hundreds of MB of stuff the user already has, completely unchanged.

  • (cs) in reply to Bananas
    Bananas:
    someone:
    Would love to know when this story is supposed to have happened. Satellite uplinks at 128 and 256 kbps but a 2.4 GBps ship-to-ship network? Something smells fishy here.
    Okay, I got it.

    Bananas slaps someone around a bit with a large trout.

    /trout Bananas

  • Yazeran (unregistered) in reply to someone
    someone:
    Would love to know when this story is supposed to have happened. Satellite uplinks at 128 and 256 kbps but a 2.4 GBps ship-to-ship network? Something smells fishy here.

    Well one explanation (consistent with the naming of the ships: USS something) could be that ship to ship gear was state of the art as beeing installed as parts of the exploratory gear whereas the ship to air/ground was old and based on old navy systems on old ships now relegated to oil exploration duty.

    Just a thought though...

    Yazeran.

    Plan: To go to mars one day with a hammer

  • AOLer (unregistered) in reply to Soviut

    Me too!

  • Kristian (unregistered)

    Submitter, here... just wanted to clear up some things.

    1. Happened around summer 2009

    2. Not sure where the editor get VHS player from. May have misread my mentions of a VHF radio.

    3. Ship-to-ship link is indeed 2.4GHz. It's regular 802.11g over a set of antennas and amplifiers that extends the range to ~5Km and probably heats any nearby coffee.

    4. It was slow, but i think the uplink got "editored" a bit as well. 0.5mbit on our red boat, 1mbit on the other. Still slow, for two reasons: 4a: We needed a sattellite service that was reliable anywhere in the world 4b: Cheap employer 4c: It was rare that we got the full bandwidth, as the link was used for a lot of other things too

    5. I cannot remember the patch site exactly, but they were normally somewhere between 50 and 200 megs.

    Disclaimer: At least that's how it was when i still worked there. I left about a year ago.

  • Thanatos Complex (unregistered) in reply to Kristian
    Kristian:
    4. It was slow, but i think the uplink got "editored" a bit as well. 0.5mbit on our red boat, 1mbit on the other. Still slow, for two reasons: 4a: We needed a sattellite service that was reliable anywhere in the world 4b: Cheap employer 4c: It was rare that we got the full bandwidth, as the link was used for a lot of other things too

    That's three reasons.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    is Gutenberg the guy who printed the bible first, before jesus christ?
    Yes, Gutenberg printed a Bible before Jesus Christ ever did.
  • (cs) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    Nagesh:
    is Gutenberg the guy who printed the bible first, before jesus christ?
    Yes, Gutenberg printed a Bible before Jesus Christ ever did.

    It's technically true.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to xaade
    xaade:
    Wait.... 40km? How did they even test that? Wouldn't you start to hit earth curvature at that point?
    It all depends on altitude. On the open sea, you're probably right. But if you pick your locations properly, you can go 120 miles.
  • (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    TRWTF is the patches themselves.

    Some quick back-of-a-napkin math puts the size of this patch somewhere on the order of half a gigabyte. More, if there's compression involved.

    THAT IS NOT A PATCH!

    I don't care how big or complex the program they're patching is; it doesn't take 500 MB to create a patch for it, or even a series of patches. That sounds to me like some idiot doesn't know how to create a patch, and so he just distributed a full installer filled with hundreds of MB of stuff the user already has, completely unchanged.

    The story said "all those patches" and "It’ll take hours just to download them all". The implication is that there were a lot of patches that needed to be downloaded. If it had been several months since the last round of updating, I can imagine updates just for Windows and Java being on the order of 100s of MB.

  • (cs) in reply to Thanatos Complex
    Thanatos Complex:
    Kristian:
    4. It was slow, but i think the uplink got "editored" a bit as well. 0.5mbit on our red boat, 1mbit on the other. Still slow, for two reasons: 4a: We needed a sattellite service that was reliable anywhere in the world 4b: Cheap employer 4c: It was rare that we got the full bandwidth, as the link was used for a lot of other things too

    That's three reasons.

    Three! THREE! Our three reasons for slow download speed...

  • matt (unregistered) in reply to Kristian
    Kristian:
    Submitter, here... just wanted to clear up some things.

    1. Happened around summer 2009

    2. Not sure where the editor get VHS player from. May have misread my mentions of a VHF radio.

    3. Ship-to-ship link is indeed 2.4GHz. It's regular 802.11g over a set of antennas and amplifiers that extends the range to ~5Km and probably heats any nearby coffee.

    4. It was slow, but i think the uplink got "editored" a bit as well. 0.5mbit on our red boat, 1mbit on the other. Still slow, for two reasons: 4a: We needed a sattellite service that was reliable anywhere in the world 4b: Cheap employer 4c: It was rare that we got the full bandwidth, as the link was used for a lot of other things too

    5. I cannot remember the patch site exactly, but they were normally somewhere between 50 and 200 megs.

    Disclaimer: At least that's how it was when i still worked there. I left about a year ago.

    I work for a software company that makes software for drilling rigs. Are you able to say what software you used?

  • matt (unregistered) in reply to matt

    We use loads of different software for different purposes....but if you mean the drilling stuuf, it's something like "Can Rig"

  • (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    TRWTF is the patches themselves.

    Some quick back-of-a-napkin math puts the size of this patch somewhere on the order of half a gigabyte. More, if there's compression involved.

    THAT IS NOT A PATCH!

    I don't care how big or complex the program they're patching is; it doesn't take 500 MB to create a patch for it, or even a series of patches. That sounds to me like some idiot doesn't know how to create a patch, and so he just distributed a full installer filled with hundreds of MB of stuff the user already has, completely unchanged.

    It was just some HP Printer drivers.

  • Kristian (unregistered) in reply to matt

    [quote user="matt"][quote user="Kristian"]

    ..snip..

    I work for a software company that makes software for drilling rigs. Are you able to say what software you used?[/quote]

    Not drilling rig, but seismic survey. The seftware suite referred to here is named Gator

  • (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    TRWTF is the patches themselves.

    Some quick back-of-a-napkin math puts the size of this patch somewhere on the order of half a gigabyte. More, if there's compression involved.

    THAT IS NOT A PATCH!

    I don't care how big or complex the program they're patching is; it doesn't take 500 MB to create a patch for it, or even a series of patches. That sounds to me like some idiot doesn't know how to create a patch, and so he just distributed a full installer filled with hundreds of MB of stuff the user already has, completely unchanged.

    Come on, haven't you ever seen the Windows update process in action?

  • Zev Eisenberg (unregistered)

    Hah, loved the "Abyss" movie references. Subtle, too: Harris? Nice :)

  • (cs) in reply to someone
    someone:
    Would love to know when this story is supposed to have happened. Satellite uplinks at 128 and 256 kbps but a 2.4 GBps ship-to-ship network? Something smells fishy here.
    I found an amusing coincidence with some of the numbers in an almost identical SNAFU I had myself (http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/325172.aspx); I'm thinking the original story probably had it as 2.4 gigahertz, not 2.4 gigabits, considering its a very common frequency but not a common bandwidth. The latter fits much better into the titular pun though.
  • wernsey (unregistered)

    I misread the title as "Killbots and Drillbits"

    I am dissapoint.

  • (cs) in reply to SamC
    SamC:
    someone:
    Would love to know when this story is supposed to have happened. Satellite uplinks at 128 and 256 kbps but a 2.4 GBps ship-to-ship network? Something smells fishy here.
    I found an amusing coincidence with some of the numbers in an almost identical SNAFU I had myself (http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/325172.aspx); I'm thinking the original story probably had it as 2.4 gigahertz, not 2.4 gigabits, considering its a very common frequency but not a common bandwidth. The latter fits much better into the titular pun though.

    As mentioned above, you are correct. Regular 802.11g beefed up a bit for extended range.

  • Popeye (unregistered)

    As a fellow sailor I can relate to this fucked up snafus you see on these bloating barges. I yams what I yams!

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to dpm

    But your outgoing mail server will.

    Although that might have been a later addition

  • Bleh (unregistered)

    Seems like one of those jokes that take forever to tell and have no punchline.

  • jkupski (unregistered) in reply to D-Coder
    D-Coder:
    Thanatos Complex:
    Kristian:
    4. It was slow, but i think the uplink got "editored" a bit as well. 0.5mbit on our red boat, 1mbit on the other. Still slow, for two reasons: 4a: We needed a sattellite service that was reliable anywhere in the world 4b: Cheap employer 4c: It was rare that we got the full bandwidth, as the link was used for a lot of other things too

    That's three reasons.

    Three! THREE! Our three reasons for slow download speed...
    C'mon, it's not like he was expecting the spanish inquisition.

  • (cs) in reply to jkupski

    NOBODY, etc.

  • DerpyHooves (unregistered)

    He should have used our service to mail with.

    We are much faster...even if we confuse north and south sometimes.

  • (cs) in reply to Ded

    TRWTF is that they didn't bring the patches with them.

  • (cs) in reply to fa2k
    fa2k:
    Coyne:
    Pah. Wifi is a toy for commercial and home use.

    Take a gander at these (PDF) 6 Gb/second transceivers.

    That's an optical interface. Quite ridiculous marketing, which seems to be intentionally confusing. There exist microwave links with gigabit speeds though.

    I overlooked that, yes, though I think they might still be used, even on a ship.

    But, of course, these would do it.

  • Cordova (unregistered) in reply to That Guy

    [quote user="That Guy"]He should've installed bittorrent to get a faster download.[/quote

    [quote user="Ded"]*boattorrent[/quote]

    If only they had docked at the Pirate Bay.

  • Jesus (unregistered) in reply to xaade

    [quote user="xaade"][quote user="fa2k"] Wait.... 40km? How did they even test that? Wouldn't you start to hit earth curvature at that point?

    I mean, you could put it between two towers on opposite sides of downtown, but if like a blimp passes between you, you lose connection?

    _<

    Oh, I know, just make it redundant. Have one on every floor where you have a clear LOS.

    But then, some foreign company plops their international building between your two access points and....

    What the crap?[/quote] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber_cable

    Because it's no wire when theres no metal in it.

  • SoleReasonForVisit (unregistered)

    I may well have missed this, but didn't it occur to the poster to start his own download at 128Kb anyhow?

    One simple phone call when the other ship completes, and you cancel your own efforts.

    That's the glorious thing about network protocols: both backups and handshakes are your friends!

  • CodeBeater (unregistered) in reply to hikari

    Still, you could rent a earth station somewhere in Russia and then rebroadcast some "internet goodness" to some polar satellite couldn't you?

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to CodeBeater

    Not really, I have the comms of ~ 40 large vessels and the main satellite connection is 128 (with a Thrane Sailor FB 250 unit).

  • ChaosDave (unregistered)

    "Kristian stood on the deck of the USS Marianas, the sun in his face. The Marianas and her sister ship, the USS Abyssal Explorer, were a two-boat exploration team, scouring the Atlantic for oil deposits not yet tapped by offshore rigs. The sea rolled beneath him, far calmer than it had been the day before. It was a perfect day off the coast of Brazil in the south Atlantic. "

    So these were military ships or civilian? The mission seems civilian but the USS means they are owned by the Military. Are you sure you didn't mean SS Marianas?

  • Casey (unregistered)

    Kristian was just being lazy. He could have downloaded some patches on his 128 connection while the other ship downloaded the rest on their 256 connection and traded. But noooooo, make someone else do all the work.

  • voyager (unregistered)

    "The Marianas and her sister ship, the USS Abyssal Explorer, were a two-boat exploration team, scouring the Atlantic for oil deposits not yet tapped by offshore rigs.[...]It was a perfect day off the coast of Brazil in the south Atlantic."

    I believe the ship's names were faked so they´re not really US navy ships... but looking for oil off the coast of Brazil without upsetting the brazilian navy doesnt looks as a realistic scenario.

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