Have you ever spent an entire day working on an important problem, 
finally thought you had it solved, and then discovered that actually it 
wasn't solved at all?

I hate days like that...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> Have you ever spent an entire day working on an important problem, 
> finally thought you had it solved, and then discovered that actually it 
> wasn't solved at all?
> 
> I hate days like that...
> 

Don't you mean:
"I hate days like this"

John

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On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:12:21 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Have you ever spent an entire day working on an important problem,
> finally thought you had it solved, and then discovered that actually it
> wasn't solved at all?

Many, many times.  Had a network bridged loop problem a few years ago 
caused (we think - never did find the root cause) by a failure in STP 
between two redundant routers.  The vendor's solution was "unplug the 
cable between the two routers for 20 seconds, wait for the software to re-
route, and then plug it back in".

We "fixed" it the first day (we thought) and at 6 AM the next morning, it 
happened again.

Just you try and do a sniffer trace of a billion packets and find the 
cause.  <sigh>

That was one of the nastiest we had.  We ended up having to redesign the 
system because the vendor couldn't figure it out.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> Many, many times.  Had a network bridged loop problem a few years ago 
> caused (we think - never did find the root cause) by a failure in STP 
> between two redundant routers.  The vendor's solution was "unplug the 
> cable between the two routers for 20 seconds, wait for the software to re-
> route, and then plug it back in".
> 
> We "fixed" it the first day (we thought) and at 6 AM the next morning, it 
> happened again.
> 
> Just you try and do a sniffer trace of a billion packets and find the 
> cause.  <sigh>
> 
> That was one of the nastiest we had.  We ended up having to redesign the 
> system because the vendor couldn't figure it out.

Interesting. The network in our old building one day started being 
clogged with STP packets. I never did find out why. It just *stayed* 
clogged. At least, until we got our new building a few months ago.

Gee, 4 years. That's one hell of a long broadcast storm!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> Have you ever spent an entire day working on an important problem, 
> finally thought you had it solved, and then discovered that actually it 
> wasn't solved at all?
> 
> I hate days like that...
> 

Yesterday, actually.

I've spent the last month working on the code for a large art piece, the 
design of which called for some motion detection which caused the 
creatures in the piece to migrate towards the viewer. Can't actually do 
mo-cap, and the critter's movements would get picked up, can't move the 
camera because it would get flooded by the other projectors in the room. 
So, we put it right over the screen, which is parallel to the floor and 
on a little stand. Hand moves over the screen, the dark shadow moves the 
little buggers.

Then someone gets the bright idea to make the back ground of the screen 
dark.

I've 'fixed' the problem with detecting dark shadows against a black 
background with so many different kludges the past few days. All of them 
worked for a few minutes, until several people got near the display, or 
stray light entered the room, or the other displays in the room got 
turned on.

Finally, someone listened and made the background lighter again. The 
first solution works again.

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On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:20:30 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Many, many times.  Had a network bridged loop problem a few years ago
>> caused (we think - never did find the root cause) by a failure in STP
>> between two redundant routers.  The vendor's solution was "unplug the
>> cable between the two routers for 20 seconds, wait for the software to
>> re- route, and then plug it back in".
>> 
>> We "fixed" it the first day (we thought) and at 6 AM the next morning,
>> it happened again.
>> 
>> Just you try and do a sniffer trace of a billion packets and find the
>> cause.  <sigh>
>> 
>> That was one of the nastiest we had.  We ended up having to redesign
>> the system because the vendor couldn't figure it out.
> 
> Interesting. The network in our old building one day started being
> clogged with STP packets. I never did find out why. It just *stayed*
> clogged. At least, until we got our new building a few months ago.
> 
> Gee, 4 years. That's one hell of a long broadcast storm!

That it is....

Jim

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> first solution works again.

Let me suggest Rule of Start-Ups #27:
Do not go into a start-up that depends on results from several other 
companies that are also all start-ups and have never done something like 
this before.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

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Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> first solution works again.
> 
> Let me suggest Rule of Start-Ups #27:
> Do not go into a start-up that depends on results from several other 
> companies that are also all start-ups and have never done something like 
> this before.
> 

I wish it was a start-up, then I could quit or demand to be heard. 
Instead, I'm interning with the School of Visual Arts. They've done the 
"Let's build something for a display" part before, just never the "Hey, 
bright idea, let's use Flash CS 3 to do some 3D".

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> I wish it was a start-up, then I could quit or demand to be heard. 

I hadn't meant to imply this was *your* problem. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

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>> I hate days like that...
> 
> Don't you mean:
> "I hate days like this"

Well, yeah.

I spent an *entire day* reimaging a laptop, and it still has exactly the 
same problem.

Specifically, when you plug in a USB device, it detects that the device 
has been plugged in, but it doesn't make any attempt to find drivers for 
it. If you manually tell it to look for drivers, it finds them and the 
device works. But it WILL NOT search for them automatically.

I cannot begin to describe how frustrated I am with trying to fix this 
problem...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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