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>> Bob was reading through a local Linux User Group (LUG) mailing list and he saw a name he recognised: mine. I had the opposite happen. I took a job doing so

>> Bob was reading through a local Linux User Group (LUG) mailing list and he saw a name he recognised: mine. I had the opposite happen. I took a job doing some programming, some Linux administration, some helpdesk. I came across a convoluted database setup, nobody in their right mind would run multiple servers on the same machine this way... After researching the issue, I found that it was totally unnecessary, and likely a holdover from an earlier (like 15 years earlier) version of the software, because now it was natively support. During my searching, on a mailing list I found a message from my now-boss. Asking how to do the exact thing they were still doing. And a couple messages from developers of the software basically saying, "If you did it this way, it would in theory work, but it won't ever be supported"

yabones 5y ago
When I was younger, I inherited a lot of old PC hardware from my father. One particular motherboard had a massive gouge through the heatsink for the southbridge, and I could never figure out why. One day, I was trying to get Mac OSX to run on this particular system, and on page six of google search I finally found a guide to configuring the BIOS for this board that actually worked! It was one of the very first boards that supported UEFI (iirc, before the spec was fully ratified), and the documentation was very incomplete. I dug a few pages deeper in the thread, and the same poster was describing the poor design of the heatsinks and how they interfered with the full length PCI cards that were used in pro audio at the time. The same poster described how they carefully prized the aluminum heatsink off, screwed it to a board and used a dremel tool to make a slot just wide enough for the card to safely fit. That was strange... I had exactly the same groove cut in my heatsink...
- bluedino 5y ago
  Sounds right up there with filed-down cards or connectors that had longer grooves cut in them!
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I had a parking light burn out on my car. Went to the car store, and a replacement bulb was $$. Perused the lamps on tags in the aisles, and found one that looked the same but had different "ears" on the side. Bought it, and filed off the ears so it would fit in my car's socket. Worked perfectly, for a small fraction of the price. Of course, my car is full of aftermarket parts, so I am used to making "adjustments" to get them to fit.
    - jimmaswell 5y ago
      I had to look up what a parking light is. It sounds totally unnecessary to me, but I'd say that about a lot of things put in cars after the 90s. Probably not important in this case since it's just a light for parking, but lights for cars cost more due to having to meet exacting DOT standards/testing. I wouldn't do this with a brake light or real headlight.
      - dhosek 5y ago
        Parking lights are a lot older than the 90s. In Riverside, IL, they have "historical" streetlights that inadequately illuminate the streets (or at least did in the 70s). As a result, it was required if you were parking on the street in Riverside after dark that you left your parking lights on.
        jimmaswell 5y ago
        Apparently the light setting I always skip past is parking lights and I never knew. I always found the headlights/reverse lamps adequate in the dark though.
      - fho 5y ago
        > a lot of things put in cars after the 90s True ... we just moved on from a car build in 1999 to one build in 2011 ... got the "non-extra" version which was half the price. We still got an AC and bluetooth connectivity. What we did not get was a multimedia center, a panorama roof, seat heaters and fancy front lights. I can see that you quickly get used to that ... but tbh I think that most of these are just to justify a higher price because the actual service, getting you from A to B, has not changed in 30 years.
- therein 5y ago
  And the OP was your father? That would have been a nice coincidence.
Symbiote 5y ago
About every 6-9 months, I'm searching through error logs looking at odd messages, or trying to see why we have some obscure configuration parameters set, when I start reading something relevant-looking on a Blogspot blog. It becomes uncannily relevant, even to the point of familiar IP addresses or pathnames in the blog, at which point I realize it was written by my predecessor. The obscure parameters are usually obsolete, and were required because they were running the very latest versions of the software before the defaults matured. The blog was something like documentation at the time.
atoav 5y ago
It once happened to me that I had a really hairy issue with a sound card driver. After half an hour of web search I found a conclusive answer, written by none other than myself, but four years prior.
- dolmen 5y ago
  The best answers on StackOverflow are those I wrote myself, because they match exactly my own question.

yabones 5y ago

When I was younger, I inherited a lot of old PC hardware from my father. One particular motherboard had a massive gouge through the heatsink for the southbridge, and I could never figure out why. One day, I was trying to get Mac OSX to run on this particular system, and on page six of google search I finally found a guide to configuring the BIOS for this board that actually worked! It was one of the very first boards that supported UEFI (iirc, before the spec was fully ratified), and the documentation was very incomplete. I dug a few pages deeper in the thread, and the same poster was describing the poor design of the heatsinks and how they interfered with the full length PCI cards that were used in pro audio at the time. The same poster described how they carefully prized the aluminum heatsink off, screwed it to a board and used a dremel tool to make a slot just wide enough for the card to safely fit. That was strange... I had exactly the same groove cut in my heatsink...

bluedino 5y ago
Sounds right up there with filed-down cards or connectors that had longer grooves cut in them!
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I had a parking light burn out on my car. Went to the car store, and a replacement bulb was $$. Perused the lamps on tags in the aisles, and found one that looked the same but had different "ears" on the side. Bought it, and filed off the ears so it would fit in my car's socket. Worked perfectly, for a small fraction of the price. Of course, my car is full of aftermarket parts, so I am used to making "adjustments" to get them to fit.
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    I had to look up what a parking light is. It sounds totally unnecessary to me, but I'd say that about a lot of things put in cars after the 90s. Probably not important in this case since it's just a light for parking, but lights for cars cost more due to having to meet exacting DOT standards/testing. I wouldn't do this with a brake light or real headlight.
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Parking lights are a lot older than the 90s. In Riverside, IL, they have "historical" streetlights that inadequately illuminate the streets (or at least did in the 70s). As a result, it was required if you were parking on the street in Riverside after dark that you left your parking lights on.
      - jimmaswell 5y ago
        Apparently the light setting I always skip past is parking lights and I never knew. I always found the headlights/reverse lamps adequate in the dark though.
    - fho 5y ago
      > a lot of things put in cars after the 90s True ... we just moved on from a car build in 1999 to one build in 2011 ... got the "non-extra" version which was half the price. We still got an AC and bluetooth connectivity. What we did not get was a multimedia center, a panorama roof, seat heaters and fancy front lights. I can see that you quickly get used to that ... but tbh I think that most of these are just to justify a higher price because the actual service, getting you from A to B, has not changed in 30 years.
therein 5y ago
And the OP was your father? That would have been a nice coincidence.

Symbiote 5y ago

About every 6-9 months, I'm searching through error logs looking at odd messages, or trying to see why we have some obscure configuration parameters set, when I start reading something relevant-looking on a Blogspot blog. It becomes uncannily relevant, even to the point of familiar IP addresses or pathnames in the blog, at which point I realize it was written by my predecessor. The obscure parameters are usually obsolete, and were required because they were running the very latest versions of the software before the defaults matured. The blog was something like documentation at the time.

atoav 5y ago

It once happened to me that I had a really hairy issue with a sound card driver. After half an hour of web search I found a conclusive answer, written by none other than myself, but four years prior.

dolmen 5y ago
The best answers on StackOverflow are those I wrote myself, because they match exactly my own question.