• The main server is up and running again, but not live yet because I'm taking the opportunity to do software maintenance while no-one is using it.
  
  One of the things that worried me was that I didn't have a recent, complete off-site backup of the system; the most recent one was over a month old. That's because the server is configured with LXD virtualisation, which has two backup methods
  
  
• Snapshots which are fast and efficient and generally wonderful, but are stored on the main system disk (in our case, a large SSD).
• Exports which are none of that, but turn your virtual server into a single portable backup file that you can restore onto any other LXD system.
  
  
So we had plenty of on-site snapshots, and manual off-site backups, but not automated exports because it's something of a pain.

With the server back but not in use I have configured exports, and discovered they are much more of a pain than I had ever suspected. If you have a container with mixed applications and databases and a bunch of snapshots and you try to export it, expect it to flatten the system for hours and use massive amounts of storage.

And there's no progress bar, not even a Microsoft one that sometimes goes into reverse.

And you can't cancel it.

So back to the drawing board on that one; I'll need to write a custom backup script.

Update: I managed to bludgeon the export facility into behaving itself.  Onwards and upwards-ish!

• Thanks for the bonus, I quit. (Substack)
  
  Ill-considered incentive schemes can be more destructive than not having any incentives at all. In this case causing delays and bugs and increasing stress to the point that engineers resigned despite being paid a bonus.
  
  Engineers care about making good products. They'll work unpaid overtime to make good products. But they'll quit en mass if you ask them to come in on weekends to help meet the quarterly target.
  
  
  
• Twitter was suffering from a worldwide outage. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I missed this, apparently. I was busy teaching anteaters to play Bach.
  
  
  
• Microsoft has fixed that bug that would irreparably trash your entire filesystem if you simply opened a certain magic folder. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  And 107 other bugs. Update time!
  
  
  
• There's a tiny problem lurking in Sony's PlayStation 5. And PlayStation 4. And PlayStation 3.
  
  If the CMOS battery goes flat, all your games stop working. Including the ones you own on physical media.
  
  
  
  
  If you have a PlayStation 5, you can replace the battery, connect it to the internet, resync to the PlayStation Network, and your games start working again.
  
  But Sony is going to stop supporting the PlayStation 3 on PSN, and then the PlayStation 4, and eventually the PlayStation 5. And then it's only a matter of time before all your games including the ones you own on physical media can no longer be played.
  
  
  
• Compressed backup has just passed 600GB - for a 70GB container. Ugh.
  
  
  
• Comparing Intel's 11600K with AMD's 5600X. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Intel's high-end 11th generation parts are, in the words of Hardware Unboxed, shit, and in the words of Gamer's Nexus, a waste of sand. And AMD's high-end 5th generation parts are simply out of stock.
  
  But what about their mid-range six-core parts?
  
  They're readily available and relatively affordable. Intel is actually cheaper than AMD, and although not quite as fast, it's a matter of percentage points. In single-threaded tasks the Intel chip can actually pull ahead.
  
  The big difference is in power consumption. The AMD part is rated at 65W and sticks to that pretty closely; the Intel part is rated at 125W but can go well above that. That means more noise and heat; you might want to spend the money you save on an after-market cooler.
  
  On the third hand, the Intel chip has an integrated GPU - not a very fast one, but it's there - so if you can't get your hands on a graphics card you can at least use your system to watch YouTube videos of other people playing games. None of the AMD 5000-series parts currently available at retail have built-in graphics.
  
  Intel also offers the 11400 and 11500 if you want to shave off a few more dollars; in fact, the 11500 looks like the best price-performance point out of the three. The 11400 CPU is only slightly slower, but the on-chip GPU is cut down by 25%.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's RTX 3080 Ti is headed to a retailer near you. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  We don't mean the product range here. We mean one card. Which will mysteriously disappear in shipping.
  
  
  
• Hard drives and SSDs are next. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  There's a new cryptocurrency called Chia whose sole aim is apparently to prevent you from buying storage. GPUs are gone, CPUs are in short supply, so they needed to figure out what to target next to ruin everyone else's lives.
  
  
  
• On the other hand, Bitcoin mining rates have crashed due to rolling blackouts in China for a "comprehensive power outage safety inspection" in Xinjiang province. (Nasdaq)
  
  Xinjiang is where the Uyghurs live, so "comprehensive power outage safety inspection" is quite possibly code for something unspeakable.
  
  
  
• Lenovo also offers a tiny 10 core 35W system. (Serve the Home)
  
  Or rather, a Tiny 10 core 35W system - the ThinkCenter M90q Tiny.
  
  This one is not passively cooled though.
  
  
  
• Maybe Instagram for kids is not such a great idea. (CCFC)
  
  And maybe hippos make poor housepets.
  
  Buzzfeed had an earlier, idiocy-filled announcement of the project.
  
  
  
• Facebook, bucking five thousand years of human history, is letting governments lie to and manipulate their citizens. (The Guardian)
  
  This has never happened before and something must be done.
  
  
  
• A 21-year-old Australian physics student accidentally solved a key problem in quantum computing. (ABC - the Australian one)
  
  This happens from time to time. A student in mathematics or physics is assigned a tough homework question and answers it, not knowing that people have been trying and failing to solve the problem for twenty years.
  
  I suspect this is being oversold, though; I'll have to read the paper and see if it's really all that groundbreaking.
  
  
  
• Nobody ever got fined for filing bullshit DMCA takedowns. (TorrentFreak)
  
  It is technically a felony*  but I don't think it has ever been pursued as such, and rarely even followed up in civil action. In this case, RightsHero (who?) filed the bullshit notices on behalf of VuClip (who?) and targeted pages owned by actual real organisations including NASA and the BBC.
  
  Thousands of pages and even entire websites were listed in the notice. Google rejected many of the takedowns but even so the list of affected sites from this one takedown notice runs to twelve pages.
  
  * After feedback in the comments I looked this up, and it's only potentially a felony if you send a takedown notice for somebody else's work, not if your notice is just plain bullshit.
  
  
  
• Compressed backup has passed 720GB of temporary storage. If it goes much further it won't have room to copy to the backup directory. I can't cancel it, but I'm going to anyway.

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