* Posts by hoofie2002

40 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Nov 2023

Relocation is a complete success – right up until the last minute

hoofie2002

Re: But when you start them...

Wrong - there is a transformer somewhere and until it saturates and sets up the magnetic field it is a short circuit - electronic theory 101

Swedish authorities probe Oracle Cerner health record rollout

hoofie2002

Re: A cursed project

Same in Australia - US hospital management systems do not translate well at all elsewhere as Europe, Australia use very different care, funding and management approaches.

Mysteries in polar orbit – space's oldest working hardware still keeps its secrets

hoofie2002

Plenty of Power

The comparison of the transmitter power to a charger is meaningless as we are talking about RF power.

Amateurs trying to operate this satellite will be using directional yagi antennas which focus the beam to an extent and since it's in low earth orbit and in the sky there are no obstructions.

You don't need a lot of power to work it; a 5W handheld with a good yagi can get through.

The pain in the backside is you need to track it across the sky as it will whizz across it in about 10-20 mins depending on the pass

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to eject hundreds more workers

hoofie2002

Re: RIF ye not...

From a documentary a few years ago, Voyager is run on a shoestring if you ignore the DSN support aspect. All of the original support engineers and team are either long retired or in the ground. 12 full time people at the moment.

The hunt is on for the scum who stole Britain's largest inflatable planetarium

hoofie2002

I would suggest the police bimble round some of locations where habitual caravan-life aficionados dwell.

They are known to have an affinity for things, especially those things currently in the possession of someone else at the time.

However I suspect they are busy kicking in the doors of those who type hurty words on Twitter or FB.

The horror that is VHS revived for horror movie release

hoofie2002

No idea

Was this written by someone who never owned a VCR ?

PAL was much better than NTSC [never the same colour twice] and I can remember getting videos with full hi-fi FM encoded stereo sound even with dolby pro logic encoding. I had a really good sound system with full surround in 1993 for my video pleasure.

Geico tells El Reg, no, it's not canceling all Cybertruck insurance

hoofie2002

Re: Geico thinks that some CT Owners are Renting the Vehicle Out Under the Table

At one point last year I was running and insuring 5 cars:

Wife's new car

Wife's old car

Daughter's car

My MX5

My beater XR5

Now done to 4 thank god

However 8 for one person if they aren't used by family members is a bit nuts unless you are a collector.

Uncle Sam accuses Aussie AI startup boss of financial fakery that duped investors

hoofie2002

It sounds like he has buggered off back to Melbourne.

Unfortunately that won't protect him and I suspect the Vic police or Feds will be banging on his door very soon.

If he has another citizenship [his surname is Indian] I would imagine he will be off there asap

Capita wins £135M extension on much-delayed UK smart meter rollout

hoofie2002

The thing is - smart metering is not hard. It's been done all over the world and there are multiple technologies available depending on the geography, population density etc.

The logical approach would have been to roll out a common vendor with common technology [the transmission approach either Mesh, 3g etc would be the variable]. You could have hammered the price down this way

No - lets implement different technologies and different vendors across the country creating a mess.

hoofie2002

Valves are still used in some high power RF applications as they are cheaper than silicon replacements and are much tolerant of load impedance variations which would instantly fry silicon amplifiers.

Ancient US air traffic control systems won't get a tech refresh before 2030

hoofie2002

Seems a common issue with US infrastructure

It seems to be a common issue for many, many years in the US, no matter who is in charge, of under-investment in general infrastructure.

Many of its major bridges are overdue for replacement thanks to last of investment on replacement and repair.

US railways because they are privately owned suffer from track quality that is a joke compared to Europe.

US Airports are old and poorly designed compared especially to Asia and the major hubs in the Middle East - again is this due to the localised operational model where no-one wants to spend money rebuilding?

It always disappoints me that such an advanced and wealthy economy puts up with public infrastructure that is seriously sub-par.

Or is it just that the US voters and taxpayers don't see why they should pay for this - an argument which is pretty well moot in other economies, the idea being that in general voters and taxpayers understand that the Government invests in infrastructure [not always wisely though e.g. HS2]

Where the computer industry went wrong – the early hits

hoofie2002

Re: Colour and the PET

I used to lust over images of the Microtan especially when it was all-up in the Vero rack case

I would sell a kidney to get my hands on one now but I have found they are as rare hens teeth on Ebay etc

Telegram founder and CEO arrested in France

hoofie2002

It's France - if you piss off or come onto the radar of the French State it's not going to be pleasant.

Liberte, Egalitie and Fraternite go out the window when you upset the elegantly tailored mandarins at the Elysee Palace

The months and days before and after CrowdStrike's fatal Friday

hoofie2002

Nailed It

Hammer on Nail interface. We did a security exercise a few days before where we asked some business units what they would do if we got hit and they lost some of their compute resources. Cue blank looks and fidgeting. Not encouraging.

Fujitsu to shutter operations in Republic of Ireland

hoofie2002

Not Fair

I appreciate your point but that is unfair.

I work for a mob that has been in the press a fair bit getting lots of flak and pissing off customers because of a COVID and supply chain collapse but also the decision to take on too much work.

It's a large company yet colleagues have been verbally abused and even spat on in public because of it. They had absolutely nothing to do with any of that decision or its implementation so why should they cop the abuse?

Boeing's Starliner finds yet another way to not reach space

hoofie2002

Re: What was the fault?

Read the article - they required ALL 3 redundant supplies to be running at a certain point in the countdown. One failed so they aborted.

I presume if they go past a certain point they will continue even if one fails.

Samsung workers treated for exposure to radiation in South Korea

hoofie2002

Nasty Places

I worked in a wafer fab in the mid 80s. Some seriously nasty acids and gases that would kill you if you got a whiff of them. And that is before I mention the diffusion furnaces where the hydrogen and oxygen used to grow oxides would sometimes go 'pop' blasting the quartz endcap across the bay at high speed.

hoofie2002

Nasty Places

I worked in a wafer fab in the mid 80s - some seriously nasty acids and gases knocking around. And that's before we include the diffusion furnaces where sometimes the hydrogen and oxygen in the quartz tubes would go 'pop' and send the end cap hurtling across the bay at high speed.

Leicester streetlights take ransomware attack personally, shine on 24/7

hoofie2002

I've had a bit of experience with Smart Streetlights. You put a smart controller into the standard photocell socket on the top of the light unit which then communicates on top of the electricity radio metering network back to base. It allows you to time schedule on/off, scheduled dimming [dimming lights at 3am etc saves money] and tells you how long the lamp has illuminated, its power use [useful for billing and energy management] and if something is wrong. Note this is designed for LED lights.

Now you can do it properly with the big industry players like Itron. It is not cheap but they very, very focussed on security.

Or you can do it cheap with some chinese junk and get owned.

A cheeky intern nearly turned MS-DOS into NSFW-DOS

hoofie2002

Re: This is fairly common...

The company I worked for in Perth in the 2000s employed an individual in an IT Support role - I knew him when he worked there.

Said individual had some bother later on with the Feds after finding religion: https://thewest.com.au/news/perth-mans-journey-from-druggie-to-tinnie-terrorist-ng-ya-298722

Starlink clashes with Telecom Italia over frequency data sharing

hoofie2002

National Governments have form for screwing around when it comes to Frequencies.

A few years ago Thales tried to muscle their way into the 2m band for drone communication use which is heavily used by Radio Amateurs for VHF Communication, satellites and lots of other uses. The French Government needless to say backed them to the hilt and tried to get the ITU to roll over and give them access to it which would have severely buggered amateur use.

In this case the ITU told them to do one and go away thanks to Amateurs getting themselves organised and fighting back.

I do suspect thought as usual Starlink don't give tuppence for national or regional frequency allocations and are trying their luck.

London Clinic probes claim staffer tried to peek at Princess Kate's records

hoofie2002

Re: Hard to fight the feeling that had this been a regular person

No they do check - I know of one Patient System which runs regular Audit checks on the access audit logs especially around notable names or people involved in incidents in the news.

It's made clear to staff who have access that it's a sackable offence to look at information that is not relevant to your job or the care you are providing. Go the media with it and you will be breaking the law also

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

hoofie2002

Hardware is the cheapest

One thing I have learned over many years is that hardware, even if you buy top class equipment, is still the absolutely cheapest thing you will every buy in IT.

The most expensive is people's time

Lenovo to offer certified refurbished PCs and servers

hoofie2002

Dell ahead of the pack

Dell are already ahead of the pack. The sell brand-new laptops with shite battery life to give you that "refurbished" feeling.

YouTube workers laid off mid-plea at city hall meeting

hoofie2002

Reality

Whilst I despair at US employment law and the way corporates treat their staff, they should have perhaps read their terms and conditions of employment.

They aren't slaves they signed an employment contract. No-one made them take that job on. They can walk away and find a better paying job with better conditions.

In the US suddenly agitating for Union Recognition and targeting Google was only ever going to end one way especially if they are sub-contractors [and yes I am aware they definition is being challenged and rulings have been made]

It does smack of snowflakes finding out the world is a nasty place after all.

Australian supercomputer 'Taingiwilta' comes online this year with [REDACTED] inside

hoofie2002

Re: What can be inferred?

This is Australia - just about EVERY building has buckets of aircon around or on it. There are lots of Defence Buildings in very out of the way places [out of the way in Australia means hundreds of kms from the nearest town never mind city] covered in air con and power generation where you could hide it.

Self-taught-techie slept on the datacenter floor, survived communism, ended a marriage

hoofie2002

Re: Daily!?! RFC begs to differ

Same from my wife nurse of decades. CPR on a person of advanced years is often pointless. Even if you do get them back they often have broken ribs as a result due to their age and the vast majority will pass away within a few days anyway no matter what.

DNR is not an excuse to do nothing it's about being realistic about dying.

A visa to fill Australia's empty tech jobs is getting more expensive, but maybe better value

hoofie2002

Re: Mandatory BS Bingo

It's rampant amongst Tier 1 companies - reduce local staff and replace with temp visas - the usual US Model.

Ironically though the Tier 2 companies are snapping up all the talent let go that they normally wouldn't get and then chasing down and winning business the Tier 1's used to get because they have the right talent so it's a bonanza for them.

hoofie2002

Employment Fiddle

Believe me I have direct experience of one large IT organisation who over the last year has absolutely culled staff and replaced them with offshore workers on temp visas.

Note I don't have an issue with new immigrants to Oz - I am one and I hire them and work alongside them.

However this is blatant to cut the employment cost as the new people are not being paid the Australian equivalent.

Customers have voted with their feet because of this.

Don't get me started on ACS - a nice income stream for them.

Microsoft signals expansion of APAC datacenter fleet with 'land acquisition' hire

hoofie2002

Maybe they will finally pull their finger out and put something in Perth. Buckets of mining IT and workloads but everything is still across the Nullaboor as far as Microsoft is concerned.

Microsoft's HoloLens goes galactic in $19.8M augmented reality adventure

hoofie2002

It's crap

We tried and tried to make the Hololens work but it was too problematic.

There was an absolutely screaming use of it outdoors in Mining and in maintenance of things like outdoor plant and electrical infrastructure but the headsets were heavy, battery life terrible and useless in anything other than a dark room. If they had GPS capability and a compass just the ability to look at an object, detect what you might be looking at and overlay some information would have resulted in customers kicking the door in with money.

Let's add in crap software and terrible performance and it's always been a money sink in search of gullible punters.

Post Office boss unable to say when biz knew Horizon could be remotely altered

hoofie2002

Re: As a Non Legal Opinion

It's all good - "Lessons will be learned"

hoofie2002

Re: As a Non Legal Opinion

The lawyers will argue that the Post Office told them the information they were giving them was true.

If you think ANY lawyer will be so much as spoken to in a stern manner over this I have a bridge to sell you. One thing the legal profession is outstandingly good at is making sure mud doesn't stick to them.

hoofie2002

One of the absolute shittiest things about all of this is it has been clear for a while now that the Post Office have been running down the clock as much as possible on paying out the compensation hoping that some of the claimants die, give up or accept less money.

I've been reading about this whole scandal for donkey's years and it's become depressingly obvious that not one person from Fujitsu [where some individuals in their Development Team have clearly lied on oath] or the Post Office will ever the inside of a courtroom dock. That would require the Establishment to admit they were asleep at the wheel for decades and that does not happen in the UK.

I worked for the Royal Mail [yes I know it's not the Post Office] in the 90s in their Head Office in Edinburgh. The investigators were all ex-coppers from CID sitting on fat pensions and were described to me as "utter bastards".

Let's wait for the phrase "lessons will be learned" which as we know is Civil Service/Government speak for "we got away with it scot-free"

The 'nothing-happened' Y2K bug – how the IT industry worked overtime to save world's computers

hoofie2002

Annoying arguments

I've lost count of the amount of arguments I've had with people over this who say it was a damp squib and a complete hype.

The reason it was a damp squib was the sheer amount of work done to fix it. I worked for a relatively small publisher in London at the time and we still found a number of things that needed fixed.

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

hoofie2002

Re: Corruption

To steal from someone else, the tenders are structured in a way that only very large organisations can qualify and respond. The insurance and indemnity requirements along can be very, very large which rules about absolutely anyone other than a Tier 1. I worked for an ambitious Tier 2 but we were still shut out of contracts as the bond requirements could be a few million quid which we just could not afford to fund and have in escrow.

New year, new bug – rivalry between devs led to a deep-code disaster

hoofie2002

Happy Birthday

Many Years ago I was working on some C code in Oracle on Unix that did a lot of data analysis and reporting on pharmacy dispensing scripts which was then sent back to the drug companies.

The previous developer, who was f&&&ing useless but his mother was a Director...., had put in code to print "Happy Birthday" everywhere when it was his Birthday.

In a Production System.

Across all the printed reports.

Which were sent out to Customers.

Twat.

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

hoofie2002

Re: Ah, the 80's...

Previous poster has alluded to doing work in Northern Ireland with armed escort during the troubles. Even the bloke from the Post Office/BT fixing the phones would be considered an IRA target.

I was in Damman/Dharan working in IT during the Gulf War with bits of Scud missile dropping on the roof. It's more common than you think.

Half a kilo of cosmic nuclear fuel reignites NASA's deep space dreams

hoofie2002

Re: Wrong question being asked?

The core of a nuclear weapon will steadily decay over time until at some point it won't go pop but just "fizzle" - the term for a nuclear detonation that really doesn't no nuclear.

The US is going through a process of recycling the warhead material and refurbishing warheads with new material from reactors hence the reason plutonium manufacturing is increasing. The UK, France, Russia, China etc will all have the same problem.