On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:28:12 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
  anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
  was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
  did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
  kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
  once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

Drag and drop is perhaps a mistake for people with shaky fingers or
glitchy mice/touchpads.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote at 09:28 this Tuesday (GMT):

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
  anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
  was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
  did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
  kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
  once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

I can do one better:
I somehow messed up so bad once that it created 30 layers of EFI folders
within itself

The path was: /boot/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI....
Holding down tab to get through all of them, there wasn't anything in
the bottom folder..
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/27/24 12:00 PM, candycanearter07 wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote at 09:28 this Tuesday (GMT):

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
  anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
  was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
  did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
  kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
  once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

I can do one better:
I somehow messed up so bad once that it created 30 layers of EFI folders within itself

The path was: /boot/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI....
Holding down tab to get through all of them, there wasn't anything in
the bottom folder..

Once saw something much like that, but after a few layers
it was CIRCULAR ... /boot/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/boot/EFI/(and so
forth). The GUI file manager could not cope - something
about the way it parsed paths - had to dig in using
terminal utils, one 'cd' at a time.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/27/24 5:28 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
   anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
   was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
   did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
   kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
   once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

For all my years doing corp work, it was just *amazing*
how *many* ways users could figure out how to screw
things up :-)

The unsteady-mouse lady was actually highly intelligent
and organized - valuable. However she constantly drank
HUGE coffees all day. I think this got her nerves
over-active and, when in a hurry or distracted, she'd
just make overly-large cut-n-pastes. Anyway, DID have
to revise wastebasket-retention policy JUST to make
sure she couldn't do permanent mass damage. A mere
few days wasn't good enough - she might not need a
particular dir tree for a week or two depending and
then it's "Where did it GO ???!!!".

Similar frustrations with DBs - I'd say up to HALF the
code associated with any prompt was crude 'AI' intended
to detect/flag/fix user errors. SAYS "Date" and they'd
want to put a SS number in there or a date WAY out of
bounds. We had one euro native and she'd unthinkingly
do dates in the euro day-month format instead of the
US month-day. A lot of dates have numbers that are
within bounds either way ... "5/10/" vs "10/5/" so
this was a real pain in the ass and other context
clues had to be examined during the save phase.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote at 01:29 this Wednesday (GMT):

On 8/27/24 12:00 PM, candycanearter07 wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote at 09:28 this Tuesday (GMT):

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
  anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
  was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
  did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
  kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
  once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

I can do one better:
I somehow messed up so bad once that it created 30 layers of EFI folders
within itself

The path was: /boot/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI....
Holding down tab to get through all of them, there wasn't anything in
the bottom folder..

Once saw something much like that, but after a few layers
it was CIRCULAR ... /boot/EFI/EFI/EFI/EFI/boot/EFI/(and so
forth). The GUI file manager could not cope - something
about the way it parsed paths - had to dig in using
terminal utils, one 'cd' at a time.

Yeah, same with nautilus. Had to use the terminal bc it kept slowing
down on the GUI.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:28:12 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

ldo@theon:~> mv Desktop/ Desktop/
mv: cannot move 'Desktop/' to a subdirectory of itself, 'Desktop/Desktop'

In other words, your friend can’t have moved a directory into itself
(that would create infinite recursion anyway), he somehow managed to
point the “desktop folder” at ~/Desktop/Desktop instead of just
~/Desktop. That is certainly doable.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself.

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things
that fool the kernel's logic. The flakier the user the more
likely they'd do something totally off the wall, something
no savvy developer would imagine. Sometimes, the more you
know a system, well, it creates certain *assumptions* that
others do as well.

There's a great old cartoon of a prof with a board
full of exotic math equations. He turns to the audience
and says "So, OBVIOUSLY ..." :-)

I've seen that joke echoed in a few films, usually
when the protagonists invite the 'scientific advisor'
into a big meeting. One of the 'Pacific Rim' films ?

Ah, just did an experiment. Copy Desktop to an NFS/SAMBA
share - a 'backup'. THEN you can copy/paste that into your
real Desktop dir and get /Desktop/Desktop/ ! Used pcmanfm.
Might also work if you backup into some other local dir
and then back again. The source/dest paths are a little
different so it doesn't trigger the kernel logic.

Real world, users may copy stuff to shares or such all
the time, then drag 'em back As Needed - but not
necessarily EXACTLY to the right place.

NOT sure how to create the 'circular' deep-paths
thing I'd seen a couple of times. I *think* it
was Kerio Connect mailserver that did 'em but
not 100% sure.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-08-28, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:

Similar frustrations with DBs - I'd say up to HALF the
code associated with any prompt was crude 'AI' intended
to detect/flag/fix user errors. SAYS "Date" and they'd
want to put a SS number in there or a date WAY out of
bounds. We had one euro native and she'd unthinkingly
do dates in the euro day-month format instead of the
US month-day. A lot of dates have numbers that are
within bounds either way ... "5/10/" vs "10/5/" so
this was a real pain in the ass and other context
clues had to be examined during the save phase.

It's time all user interfaces insisted on ISO 8601 dates.
I first realized over 50 years ago that year-month-day
is the only reasonable date format. It sorts better,
and it's less likely to trigger the month/day vs. day/month
confusion.

I agree that all data entry code should incorporate
brutally thorough validation routines.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-08-27, Joe Beanfish <joebeanfish@nospam.duh> wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:28:12 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/08/2024 09:36, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

As for the Linux distro - not all THAT much diff
  anymore as to where 'Desktop' is located. If this
  was a real prob, well, and I had a Win user who
  did this too often, had to increase the time SAMBA
  kept backups because of her bad mouse-skills. She
  once dragged an ENTIRE share into the Win trash.

I bui8lt a linux system for an ageing friend. He managed to drag the
*entire* desktop folder into the desktop folder.

So the file tree was /home/usr/Desktop/Desktop/****

I take my hat off to him. Sheer genius

Drag and drop is perhaps a mistake for people with shaky fingers or
glitchy mice/touchpads.

IMHO drag and drop is a mistake for anyone. It's too risky.
Even for the most experienced users, shit happens.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 30/08/2024 21:32, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I agree that all data entry code should incorporate
brutally thorough validation routines.

The sort that allows you to crate a username and password with special characters that you cannot then log in with.

--
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered...
...than to have answers that cannot be questioned

Richard Feynman

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 20:32:13 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

It's time all user interfaces insisted on ISO 8601 dates.
I first realized over 50 years ago that year-month-day
is the only reasonable date format. It sorts better,
and it's less likely to trigger the month/day vs. day/month
confusion.

The entire nation of Japan agrees with you.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself.

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things
that fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself.

--

No Matter Who You Vote For The Government Always Gets In.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-08-30, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

It's time all user interfaces insisted on ISO 8601 dates.
I first realized over 50 years ago that year-month-day
is the only reasonable date format. It sorts better,
and it's less likely to trigger the month/day vs. day/month
confusion.

I agree that all data entry code should incorporate
brutally thorough validation routines.

There's now apparently a trend in UIs to go with morphing different
formats, based on how recently something happened.

My 2c are: either make that a note next to the proper timestamp (that
one in a consistent format), or show only the proper timestamp. I rarely
want the "how many seconds/minutes ago was this" information in a
time-of-event field, and when I want it, I'll have much less trouble
computing it from, say, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS in UTC.

Even if you put the proper timestamp as a tooltip, my 2c are that it
should be the other way around. Make "X minutes ago" the tooltip.

--
Nuno Silva

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 2024-08-30, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

It's time all user interfaces insisted on ISO 8601 dates.
I first realized over 50 years ago that year-month-day
is the only reasonable date format. It sorts better,
and it's less likely to trigger the month/day vs. day/month
confusion.

I agree that all data entry code should incorporate
brutally thorough validation routines.

There's now apparently a trend in UIs to go with morphing different
formats, based on how recently something happened.

My 2c are: either make that a note next to the proper timestamp (that
one in a consistent format), or show only the proper timestamp. I rarely
want the "how many seconds/minutes ago was this" information in a time-of-event field, and when I want it, I'll have much less trouble computing it from, say, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS in UTC.

Even if you put the proper timestamp as a tooltip, my 2c are that it
should be the other way around. Make "X minutes ago" the tooltip.

Yes, this groupie /trend/ is horrible. eBay did this for auction end
times somewhere around 1.5 or so years ago. All auctions were shown
as:

Ends in 47 minutes

And, worse, for auctions that ended a few days away, it 'rounded up' to
just "Ends in 5 days" -- with no idea /when/ on the 5th day it ended.

I complained at them via their feedback links (and I suspect lots of
others did too) because very soon after leaving feedback the auctions
changed to:

Ends in 5 days Sunday 11:23pm

So whatever designer had made the change to "ends in 5 days" got to
take credit on their yearly accomplishments for the "relative times"
(although, preferably, they should have been fired instead) and
everyone who wanted to know the exact point in time (i.e., everyone
actually using ebay) got to know when to set their own alarm reminders
(outside ebay) to check on the current bid price.

With how soon the exact point display returned, either they were
already making the change, or more likely there were thousands if not
millions of feedback items saying "bring back the exact end time".


This of course is exactly the problem with companies that employ
"designers" who don't also "dog-food". They must make changes lest the
finance folks start asking why we are paying their salaries and not
receiving anything in return, and as nearly all don't ever use the item
they are designing for, they don't see the idiot mistakes they make
with their changes.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/31/24 4:10 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all
the easier. Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself.

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things
that fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

I did go on to describe how you can get /Desktop/Desktop/
via 'indirect' replication.

Easy.

Did it myself, just then, to see if it would work.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:41:49 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/31/24 4:10 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all the easier. Cut
tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself. >>>

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things that
fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

I did go on to describe how you can get /Desktop/Desktop/
via 'indirect' replication.

All you’ve done is create one directory called “Desktop” inside another directory called “Desktop”.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 9/1/24 3:05 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:41:49 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/31/24 4:10 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all the easier. Cut >>>>>> tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into itself. >>>>

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things that
fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

I did go on to describe how you can get /Desktop/Desktop/
via 'indirect' replication.

All you’ve done is create one directory called “Desktop” inside another directory called “Desktop”.

That was the original subject under discussion ...

Can't do it directly with 'cp', but can do it
indirectly.

Now, scarier, would be to tweak the inode entries
so that /Desktop and /Desktop/Desktop both point
to /Desktop ... which would have the effect of
a 'circular' reference. I think you can kinda fake
that with symlinks, but deliberately corrupting
the inode entries would be more, well, fun.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 1 Sep 2024 17:54:28 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 9/1/24 3:05 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:41:49 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/31/24 4:10 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all the easier.
Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into
itself.

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things that
fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

I did go on to describe how you can get /Desktop/Desktop/
via 'indirect' replication.

All you’ve done is create one directory called “Desktop” inside another
directory called “Desktop”.

That was the original subject under discussion ...

Which is not possible using standard kernel APIs, GUI tool or no GUI tool.

Now, scarier, would be to tweak the inode entries so that /Desktop
and /Desktop/Desktop both point to /Desktop

You’re not trying to suggest your user managed to do that, are you?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

e
On 9/1/24 7:41 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 1 Sep 2024 17:54:28 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 9/1/24 3:05 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:41:49 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/31/24 4:10 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 02:16:14 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 8/29/24 11:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:21:09 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

Indeed pure genius. GUI file-managers make this all the easier. >>>>>>>> Cut tree, paste tree into the same dir.

GUI or no GUI, the kernel won’t let you move a directory into
itself.

Yet SOMEHOW it gets done - seen it ... must be certain things that >>>>>> fool the kernel's logic.

Not a chance.

I did go on to describe how you can get /Desktop/Desktop/
via 'indirect' replication.

All you’ve done is create one directory called “Desktop” inside another
directory called “Desktop”.

That was the original subject under discussion ...

Which is not possible using standard kernel APIs, GUI tool or no GUI tool.

As demonstrated, not DIRECTLY ... but INDIRECTLY.

Now, scarier, would be to tweak the inode entries so that /Desktop
and /Desktop/Desktop both point to /Desktop

You’re not trying to suggest your user managed to do that, are you?

Not sure if it was a "user" per-se, or a rogue application.

Inodes CAN be corrupted - deliberately or perhaps by
screwing up lower-level file system stuff. That's not
how it is *supposed* to work, but, hey ..... I've seen
messed-up inodes from ill-timed crashes/power-downs.
fsck or friends start spitting out tons of messages.

Some rude 'C' run with just enough privs ... or bang
around with 'dd' just a bit ... some stuff uses
RAMdisks or whatever too so anything messing with
that space ........

Never be TOO surprised at really weird behavior from
any complex system .

Anyway, reporting what I saw. I know it CAN happen.
Consider that for the future. Alas I did not have
time to analyze in fine detail, had to get it all
up and running again quick to earn the paycheck.
I wonder how much other "that's weird" stuff goes
unreported for the same reason ?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)