Administered Port Exclusions blocking high ports

We noticed an issue following Windows 10 update 1809 where Windows would reserve a range of ports that included port 50,000. This was an issue for our developers who had long been using this port for test websites.

Whilst we were able to mitigate this, initially by moving the dynamic range from the default, we found that following the next update – I think KB4497934, ‘Administered port exclusions’ were made outside of our specified range resulting in the websites not being able to start.

Lots of other people have seen this too, with a few notable links pasted below:

http://blog.sixthimpulse.com/2019/01/docker-for-windows-port-reservations/

https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/3171

After the updates, we saw the following results from netsh – you can see the asterisk against a range including port 50,000:

After moving the port range we still saw excluded ports in the high range (ie above 50,000) and our sites still failed. Following a support call with Microsoft we were informed of an entirely (at time of writing) undocumented registry key ‘EnableExcludedPortRange’ to disable the excluded port range (in effect the ports marked with an asterisk above. We then see:

In the end we knocked up a quick script to look for Hyper-V being installed (as this is where we saw the issue) and make the changes as described above – this will also undo the changes if Hyper-V is removed. Consider a better detection method as this isn’t the quickest, but we got bored of this issue so it will do for now:


rem Modify Dynamic Port Range for Development Users
dism /online /get-features | find /i "Microsoft-Hyper-V" && (
rem Modify Dynamic Port Range
start /wait "" netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport tcp start=20000 num=16384
start /wait "" netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport udp start=20000 num=16384

rem Add Registry Key
start /wait "" reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hns\State /v EnableExcludedPortRange /d 0 /f

goto :eof

)

rem Set range to default
start /wait "" netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport tcp start=49152 num=16384
start /wait "" netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport udp start=49152 num=16384

rem Remove Registry Key
start /wait "" reg delete HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hns\State /v EnableExcludedPortRange /f

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Wankers not Walkers

Look at this repugnant and cynical, passive aggressive move to make an already very popular crisp sell even more – not on the basis of any virtue it may possess, but rather by the threat of it being withdrawn. As if they’re going to remove this flavour or indeed substantively change any aspect of this top selling product. I particularly dislike the ‘YOU DECIDE!’ emblem in the top right of the packaging – the public has already ‘decided’ by the amount of these bloody things that we buy. There is no chance of ‘losing’ this flavour. I bet my life on it.

In many ways it’s the same fakery that all the phone-in-to-vote-popularity-contest shows such as ‘I’m a celebrity’ use these days. They tell you the votes are close (always VERY close!), typically pitting something or someone you really don’t want to win (some irritating asshole in the case of TV shows, or a shit flavour such as ‘Lime and Black Pepper’ in the case of a food product) against something or someone you really want to win. Those of you who remember shows such as ‘New Faces’ or ‘Opportunity Knocks’, will note that they showed you the vote count, you will also remember that in this kind of situation there is almost always a very clear winner – it’s never the asshole. That doesn’t work well for sales or phone-ins because once you see your favourite is miles ahead, there is no point in spending your money to vote – it lacks drama. They know this, so they lie to us. Thanks, Wankers.

I think I shake too many hands (a poem about piss)

I think I shake too many hands
A conclusion drawn in quiet contemplation
Upon the china throne at work where men walk in unblinking
Decant and leave, unthinking
I think I shake too many hands.

100% vegan

My take on veganism (and I am 100% vegan or as close to 100% as I know how to be at least) is that if you imagine you live for 70 years, then you can do some easy maths about how you live…

7 days a week eating meat you are a meat eater for 70 years
6 days = 60 years
(it’s quite easy from here…)
So 1 day a week and you only eat meat for 10 years and live for 60 as a vegan (or a plant-based eater to avoid technical arguments).

A lot of people ask about being 100% vegan at home but struggling in foreign countries so if you break that down further and it’s more in the order of 4 weeks (solid) per year whilst you’re on holiday then that’s about 5 years in your 70 year life. Now if you manage not to eat meat every day of your holiday, you might be able to bang that down to the equivalent of a couple of years in an entire lifetime.

As a start point, moving towards a more ethical and defensible position that still allowed me to live a full life and experience the wonders of this undoubtedly amazing world – I’d take that.

I’m not a big traveller (or eater really) and I’ve been vegetarian prior to vegan for over 30 years so got used to being laughed at and hungry in the 80’s. I wouldn’t advocate this as a route to go down though for most. I just got used to it. Portugal recently was great in Aldi and so on, but not so good in most places where they make the food for you. It’s something we all have to see how we feel about as time goes on. I would say though that if you’re vegan say for 9 months, you probably won’t even want the meat when it comes along and it may make you feel a bit sick or bloated to eat it, so going to a very meat-heavy place might become tough for that reason alone. I have friends who’ve lived on paprika Pringles and alcohol for a few weeks in China and so on. My guess is the hard places would be where even Pringles can’t be found…

I would add that (in my opinion) the very binary and strict nature of veganism is helpful because it removes willpower from the equation. There isn’t a frequency or amount of cheese I can eat, I just don’t eat it so it’s actually very easy. That suits my brain. When I did decide to be a bit ‘flexitarian’ I ended up flexing all the way and ate all the cheese. So, as with many aspects of life and abstinence (think Religion) I am of the opinion that the strict rules are there to remove willpower from the equation. It’s too woolly and subjective otherwise and if religion allowed any latitude we’d all be coveting our neighbour’s wife, ox and donkey before we knew it.

Brought up on Porn

There are a few ‘interesting’ programmes on the BBC at the moment about pornography. Whilst they’re worth listening to for some reasons it’s desperately disappointing to hear how naively the topics are dealt with by both the interviewers and the participants. They don’t appear able to think critically about what they are saying, often confusing totally normal relationship matters such as ‘what should one person do for another as part of healthy compromise and what constitutes an abuse’ with genuine pornography related issues such as ‘my other half spends two hours a night w*nking to porn on their own and as a consequence we never have any physical contact’.

An example might be the fixation with bodily hair I note in the broadcasts – seemingly viewed as a safe tea-time porn related topic. Now, head, face and pubic hair configuration has been a matter of fashion since time began, it doesn’t have to be about porn anymore than a particular body type or size being popularised. Of course you’ll see more exposed genitalia in porn than anywhere else and if it’s mostly shaved these days then you can easily assume that’s all there is to it, but be very careful before assuming links based on that kind of thing – it certainly wouldn’t stand up in a study. People always make demands on their partners (whether implicit or explicit) – they may include not wanting their bloke to get a big fat gut or fart whilst eating or be clean shaven or someone else not wanting their girl to have a short hair cut or pick their nose or get a piercing. I’m not defending porn but I do not like lite-touch thinking when it comes to complex matters such as the psychology of sexuality, attraction, love, self expression and so on.

I also object to a programme claiming to be frank and then constantly reminding the contributors of their needs to self-censor. The risk is that the uninitiated will believe what they are hearing is frank when in fact it’s hideously euphemistic. Therein lies the risk that a netherworld is allowed to exist right under the noses of parents and so on who have responsibility for children and a genuine need to know what’s what out there.

For the record I absolutely believe that porn can be unhealthy, but if you’re a broadcaster or politician or teacher or whatever and you’re gonna say this, you need to be able to say why and how and for whom.

See in particular the ‘Brought up on porn’ item here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=porn

And from about half way through this programme
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07nn87c

My Prayer

I don’t believe in God, but you sure as shit have to believe in something so it seems like yourself is a good place to start. Anyhoo, with that in mind, I rewrote the Lord’s Prayer…

And in text form…

Me, who art on Earth
My name is handy to narrow down who you’re talking about
My ‘kingdom’ is already here
What I do on Earth
Probably matters a bit
I’ll buy my own bread, or make some
Friends forgive my trespasses (thanks!)
And I try to forgive those who trespass against me
I think it’s OK to indulge in a bit of temptation
But I try not to be a total shit
This blue and green ball belongs to everything that lives
Power and glory isn’t real
Most of us get about 70 years, the good ones a bit less
Barmaids

These are the boxes I use to move

At first sealed, shiny, perfect, full of promise
Persuaded from their shelf through fair exchange; a drive home
Taped up seams at first resisting, now broken, treasure revealed
Contentment through contents new, superseding all that came before

And so the box, now folded, finds a new home for months or years
In time it is awakened, unfolded, resealed, filled, marked
The marks remain and the box reused through many, many moves
So it is now that I find these boxes, corners damaged, scribbles faded

The writing of a once loved-one’s child, now unknown to me, yet about me
The love of a child is easy though it has no aim, a driverless train
The quiet, unthinking legacy of the broken family has or pays no mind
As we ride a carriage on the line between fate and blame