Posts by shazapont 27 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2023
There’s something of the night about this Altman character, that leaves a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. Unlike Michael Howard, Altman is just another of the many excessively immodest people feigning platform confidence, many of whom really need to stop, think, look around, discuss, and so on…
I could go on and on…
"Legacy software" or more generall "Legacy IT" is usually discussed as if it were some anomalous hangover from the bad ol' days, from old, undesirable and badly regarded projects, or from when things "weren't done properly."
Well, that's clearly wrong... Legacy is and always will be a fact of every project. If not now, then sooner or later.
It's unfortunate that Legacy software is most often mentioned in the same statements that tells us about the bright new future ahead, with no more Legacy software to hold us back, to drag down performance and to remove the need for software maintenance.
Let's help inject some realism into these discussions and remind everyone that focussing on the good news and the bright future that lies ahead is no way to run projects that we know will have problems. We know that. That's life...
I hope they don't imagine a problem-free follow-up and then forget any lessons learned... we don't learn from the good news, so relish the bad news...
Great… Saul… ;-D
Does that sound like a positive step in the right direction? Or does it sound like a religious mantra, pleading and hoping, guessing, and ultimately ending with untestable systems that may or may not provide a relevant, correct response, or will it repeat and mashup mistakes and other phenomena with cute names?
I’m really supportive of all this work, but a dose of reality could help.
Or am I a curmudgeonly backward skeptic who has seen similar things come and go, then return, muted but more practical?
This sounds like _The Wild West_.
I’m surprised, no, shocked, no, disappointed that such a necessary check isn’t already provided by the purveyor of this business-critical software, that people, families, institutions, businesses, governments depend on for significant parts of their daily requirements.
Fortunately I don’t have these problems with Lynx.
I won't be recommending that any of the people who call me to ask if they should be responding to that SMS message from Fedox, that inviting email from Amazen, that missed call from the NatWost, and what the hell are Passkeys, if they should change their App Store...
The opaque nature of scams make every deviation and distraction another pain-point for everyone. Don't trust anyone. Not ever the gatekeepers, because everyone wants their cut. And whilst my grandmother is trained to exercise extreme caution and never click that link, it just takes one well-crafted misrepresentation to hook her in...
I hope it's difficult to change the Store and not a simple rose-coloured **Welcome** click.
I support this sentiment, and suggest that driving awareness of issues should begin with an understanding of the consequences and risks associated with actions. CompSci doesn’t sit alone, disconnected in murky pond. Decisions have consequences and those consequences can lead to frustration, error or worse.
Isn’t that worth teaching?
…from the people who brought you regular monetary system collapse, years of misery and excess inflation, worthless mortgages and homelessness.
The only instruments here are the tools that tells us that this is good, when it’s clearly only good for them.
As Nan might say, What a f*kin’ nightmare, and, Where are the f*kin’ regulators, and, Who gave these f*kers permission to f*k things up? Don’t worry, rhetorical.
As Karen might say: https://youtu.be/gM8vOcxatsI
— Shazzam Napalm DuPan —
When the economic value of critical infrastructure approaches negligible, whilst the functional value remains high, often due to the apparent simplicity of the tools, there are no incentives to provide training, investment in fundamental, incrementally small improvements so we’ll continue to languish in this mess of our own making.
Or we could do something about it. gov.uk, time to take the lead?
—Shazza DuPrés —
Trust the sarcasm…
Users aren’t great at decision-making, so as the options increase, the decisions become more random.
Session? Yeah, my non-tech friends know what those are. Just like they know what passkeys, FIDO, SSO (or was that meant to be SSL? Who knows!), SSD, SSM, SAS, SAAS, SOS, etc, are. Some of my tech friends might have a problem with many of these, too.
What a mess.
But Im sure it’s Made with heart-emoji, so that’s great.
— Shaza DuPunk —
What hope do we have to thwart scammers, phising and candlelighting when the gatekeepers are at it too, pushing, squeezing, wringing. They can’t be trusted so we have impotent regulators. We’re alone, unsupported and are being sold and resold.
Complain?
Who remains to listen and act on complaints when any semblance of support has been eroded by years of deceit, shrouded in warm nostalgic advertising drivel that has come to define the cultural backdrop of civilisation.
What an embarrassing mess.
— Shaz Dubois —
“AlphaCode 2 also operates very differently from biological programmers. Given a problem, it generates about a million different code samples, which are then filtered down.”
…so that’ll be the brute-force monkey method?
That isn’t to say it’s a bad idea, but clarity of approach and results shouldn’t be made at the expense of marketing and competitive business requirements, surely. Wool, eyes, pulling over, etc…
I prefer to know what they’re selling.
— Shazelle DuPont —
We’re all for using computers to gain advantage and insight and to offer some guidance and comparison on the suitability of different options, especially when there are limitless possibilities. DeepMind, known internally as WheatAndChaff, does what a computer does, and is no doubt using more or less the same techniques as it does for the protein folding lucky bag. Can’t wait for DeepMind to offer suggestions for press releases regarding the use of computers to do some statistics work.
— Shaza DuPont —
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
