Neil's News

Moo Lobotomy

23 December 2009

When a computer misbehaves a frequently effective solution is to reboot. In the process the computer will lose the state it was in, which typically solves whatever the root problem was. A Moo is different. Upon shutdown it saves the current state, then restores it perfectly when booting back up again. Rebooting a Moo can solve memory leaks, but very little else. A couple of days ago Moo Canada was attacked by some Windows virus. While the attack was unsuccessful at compromising security, it did manage to somehow wedge almost 400 MB of garbage into one of the state blocks.

I've written a little utility which parses a Moo database, finds the four state blocks and lobotomizes them.

While in a military base in Bavaria last autumn I saw this large "no stopping" sign which had been painted on the paving stones. Sadly after painting the sign they needed to pull up some of the stones (maybe to work on water pipes or to regrade the surface after subsidence). One can imagine what went through the minds of the workers, "Do we spend the rest of the day solving this puzzle or just throw it back together?"

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