Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Ryan Booz

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Points: 320
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July 20, 2024 at 6:55 pm

#4438566

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

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szeitzp SSC Enthusiast Points: 137 More actions · Answer 1

I hope you have happily arrived home in the meantime. Some thirty years ago, I saw my last connection passing next to our bus, and I had to walk 10 miles to my freshly bought new village home on a chilly winter night on a snowy country road. So I can understand you.

I wonder how this and similar errors have happened repeatedly in the past few decades. Testing and validation? If something came from THE Microsoft, it would be reliable and solid. We have got used to trusting the big companies despite the repeating experience. Let there be no mistake; it's not only about Microsoft. Before the fight flares up again over Windows vs. Linux vs. Mac - or SQL, Postgres, MySQL, NoSQL, etc. - this problem is ubiquitous. Even not just with informatics. I ordered something on Amazon just a few weeks ago. I rarely experienced any mistakes with them, but now I run into an outrageously bad merchant who has been seemingly there for long years without any retorsion from Amazon, despite many negative critiques. It was my fault that I did not read the ratings, which I usually do.

Our lives have become simply too quick. There is no time for thorough consideration, no time for proper work. A scientist wrote several articles and a few monographs a hundred years ago. No one asked Darvin, "How many impact factors have you collected this year?". No one had set the minimum number of articles per year for Einstein. Is this speed of life good or wrong? I don't know. I'm not getting on well with this.

szeitzp SSC Enthusiast Points: 137 More actions · Answer 2

I hope you have happily arrived home in the meantime. Some thirty years ago, I saw my last connection passing next to our bus, and I had to walk 10 miles to my freshly bought new village home on a chilly winter night on a snowy country road. So I can understand you.

I wonder how this and similar errors have happened repeatedly in the past few decades. Testing and validation? Yes, we suppose that if something came from THE Microsoft, it would be reliable and solid. We have got used to trusting the big companies despite the repeating experience. Let there be no mistake; it's not only about Microsoft. Before the fight flares up again over Windows vs. Linux vs. Mac - or SQL, Postgres, MySQL, NoSQL, etc. - this problem is ubiquitous. Even not just with informatics. I ordered something on Amazon just a few weeks ago. I rarely experienced any mistakes with them, but now I run into an outrageously bad merchant who has been seemingly there for long years without any retorsion from Amazon, despite many negative critiques. It was my fault that I did not read the ratings, which I usually do.

Our lives have become simply too quick. There is no time for thorough consideration, no time for proper work. A hundred years ago, a scientist wrote a handful of articles and a few monographs. No one asked Darvin, "How many impact factors have you collected this year?". No one had set the minimum number of articles per year for Einstein. Is this speed of life good or wrong? I don't know. I'm not getting on well with this.

Rod at work SSC-Dedicated Points: 34007 More actions · Answer 3

Good points, Ryan. And I'll say it's a bit of a stinging indictment. On Friday I was supposed to be working on some SQL scripts to manage some data in a few lookup tables. Nothing special and very routine. Instead, like many of us I spent Friday working on the impact of CrowdStrike's failed update, as most of our systems weren't working. I hope that we take note of this and try to verify routine updates by more than just the person working on it.

Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Thomas Franz Hall of Fame Points: 3893 More actions · Answer 4

I just wonder how this even could happen. Did all the companies not install the patches on the testing / dev environment before? And do they not have a cluster for their production environment and applied the patches to the inactive server first and on the other only after a successful failover?

Or was it just a "minor", automatical patch as updating the antivirus definition for you security solution?

God is real, unless declared integer.

Tom Uellner SSCrazy Points: 2995 More actions · Answer 5

Dave Plummer, a retired Microsoft engineer has a good explanation of how CrowdStrike could take down 8.5 million computers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAzEJxOo1ts

Ryan Booz Old Hand Points: 320 More actions · Answer 6

Thank you so much for adding to the conversation @szeitzp! Things do continue to move at a quicker and quicker pace, and I'm sure expectations to meet deadlines or get to the next project contribute often.

Ryan Booz Old Hand Points: 320 More actions · Answer 7

Ouch @rod-at-work! Sorry to hear it! I think it will take some time to really understand the impact this particular outage had, even as many of us experienced it first-hand in some way.

Ryan Booz Old Hand Points: 320 More actions · Answer 8

You and me both @thomas_franz. I think all of us have at least one of those moments in our tech careers that open our eyes to how easily something can go wrong. I'm hopeful (maybe not quite certain... based on my own laziness at times) that this team will carry new and better practices into their future work!

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 9

".. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just rent a car and drive 4.5 hours.” Nope, the rental car companies were having nothing of the one-way rental game this weekend. .."

Next time consider a one-way rental on a U-Haul pickup truck.

That's how a friend of mine got back home from NYC - the day of 9/11 when all the flights, trains, and car rental companies were grounded.

https://www.uhaul.com/Tips/Loading/Best-One-Way-Rental-Truck-Options-17786/

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736172 More actions · Answer 10

Crazy, I was lightly worried Fri as I was traveling as well. No reported issues until we got to the airport (about 90 minutes before the flight) and got a delayed message. We were delayed about 3 hours in total, but easy flight to Denver.

Was slightly worried as I travel tomorrow, but looks like UAL is back on track.

I've had your issues in the past, though I never had to rent a car. I have had to take a plane, train, and car to get somewhere.

I've also learned that anything under a 90 minute connection these days is gambling.

below86 SSChampion Points: 11532 More actions · Answer 11

Steve Jones - SSC Editor wrote:

I've also learned that anything under a 90 minute connection these days is gambling.

I agree, we were looking at booking a trip recently, the connection time was only 45 minutes, in Atlanta. We went with another airline and everything worked out fine, I believe it was a 90 minute connection time.

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we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
Don't fear failure, fear regret.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736172 More actions · Answer 12

I had 65 minutes yesterday in Houston. A 35 minute delay in Denver had me running through the airport to make a flight in another terminal before the doors closed. I have not run that far in 5 years.

Doors close from 10-15 minutes before flight time. It can vary from flight to flight and from gate agent to gate agent. So leave time to get to the gate 20 minutes before, not the least of which is because they might give your seat to a standby passenger 5 minutes before door close.