Posts by OldGeezer

Trump thinks we can make iPhones in the US just like China. Yeah, right

Time Scale Error

onshoring manufacturing becomes feasible in the medium to long term

Ah, see, there is your problem. These days "medium to long term" is less than the time required to get a factory up and running efficiently.

When even Microsoft can’t understand its own Outlook, big tech is stuck in a swamp of its own making

Re: Hand

Or in my case two engineers working on pretty much the same features of the same product managed by the same manager; who simply never told either engineer what the other was doing, or even suggested that the two engineers get together to discuss it. I spat the dummy and quit, permanently.

Genetic data repo OpenSNP to self-destruct before authoritarians weaponize it

Kudos where deserved

Even if as others assert "the government ends up with the data anyway", hats off to the guy for recognizing the risks and being willing to act on those concerns. Pity more people are not so ethical.

UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed in South London

Re: city centre

You beat me to it...

Many years ago the local plod installed a red light camera at a very busy intersection near my office; one whose timing was so bad that almost everyone got a ticket. Late one night, after cramming a deadline, said camera magically got a black facial. To this day "I know nothing!".

TSMC's US builds won't make America great at chips again, says ex-Intel boss Gelsinger

Re: Gelsinger is right, again

Manufacturing LEFT the USA due to free trade deals. Why build in the US when you can make it somewhere with cheaper staff?

Sorry, the first sentence has nothing to do with it - the second sentence is what the US has been doing for 30+ years and now his lordship thinks he can reverse it almost overnight. The biggest problem I see is that Merika outsourced the knowledge of how to make much of anything and has to regain that knowledge before they can even think of competing.

Signalgate storm intensifies as journalist releases full secret Houthi airstrike chat

Re: They're already

5 - Saying that the content of the exchanges didn't really contain any classified information; a misdirection from your previous points.

Revenge of the nerds: Teachers, professors sue to undo Trump science funding cuts

Re: POTUS

It is also a bit rich that for the last 70+ years the US has been telling the rest of the world (at least europe / pacific) "Don't worry about defence capabilities - leave that to us." So we did and now the US is complaining that we did exactly as we were told to do.

Microsoft tastes the unexpected consequences of tariffs on time

Re: Disclosed

Same here - I am doing them a favor. Make it in any way difficult for me and I will stop doing you the favor.

Developer wrote a critical app and forgot where it ran – until it stopped running

Re: Similar thing, but zombie user not laptop

On a lighter note, years ago I wrote an app to fill in deadbeat timesheets (100% allocated to the same job in the same location) and 6 months after I left I got a call asking why I was still submitting them. Ooopppps!

Musk's move fast and break things mantra won't work in US.gov

Real Life Experience

Yep, happened to me about 20 years ago; software company in trouble.

Of a team of 6 developers; fire 1st, 2nd, and 4th top earning developers and make 3rd the 'team leader'. Result was that 3rd had a breakdown, 5th had a kid and left, last did as little as possible and eventually moved on of own accord. That left management, secretary, account manager, and sales people - another round or 2 of capital raising and rewrite the application from scratch.

Funny thing is that the company doesn't exist today, but can't figure out why?

UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog

Re: Qualifications?

Yes, or like current IT manglement that have so called manglement qualifications but absolutely no idea how IT works or is developed/implemented. Just making sure the cattle produce 'somethng' in the timeframe and budget dictated from above.

IT job market is still shrinking but not as quickly as last year

Wasted aspirations

Pity you spent so much time/effort/money on a dead end. I have been telling anyone who would listen since approx Y2K "Why would you start a career in an industry that is doing everything it possibly can to outsource and/or eliminate you?"

Fortunately I got out and no longer care.

American cops are using AI to draft police reports, and the ACLU isn't happy

Re: Minority Report

How about not speeding, not running red lights, not running stop signs, and all the other dimwitted things

Because where I live you will end up with one of those obnoxious 'yank tank' vehicles in your boot (because they didn't think you would stop or they couldn't stop in time since they were already half way inside your boot).

Abstract, theoretical computing qualifications are turning teens off

Re: WYF!

Totally agree with the previous comment; just retired after more than 45 years as a developer. Never went to university, never did any courses, never sat any exams. Taught myself on Apple 2es and Atari 400s and then learnt as I went.

Some people can naturally program and some can't. Teach them the basics of DBs and data management, Interwebs (HTML/CSS/JS), and teach them to learn (teach themselves). That is all they need because anything else will be out of date and/or obsolete before they have finished learning it.

Australia passes law to keep under-16s off social media – good luck with that, mate

Fat Chance

Bet it has been broken/worked around already (and it hasn't even come into existence yet). In my early years half the fun of programming was to get around the latest lame-brained rules/laws.

Note to govt: Don't make rules you can't or won't enforce - just makes you look like idiots.

The workplace has become a surveillance state

Re: Motion detection

Yes, once worked for a big 3 letter international that had an online time recording system. It was slower than a wet week. Amazing what a bit of creative coding did for the productivity.

And then some time later I was told that I was still submitting timesheets - 5 months after I left. Ooops.

Whomp-whomp: AI PCs make users less productive

Bypassing IT rules

Ok, now multiply your 'bypass' by 10, 20, 100 employees - now bypassing IT Dept rules for critical departmental functions and you have a company wide maintenance and IP nightmare.

With 45+ years development experience I go back to the days where "it takes too long for the programmers to write the application so I whipped it up in Excel". Then found rounding errors etc made the result wrong by a significant error of margin. Then found the person who 'whipped it up' had since resigned and the programmers were asked to modify it - answer was "NO, get whoever wrote it to modify it".

Happened then and still happens today; the bane of IT management.

Billionaire food app CEO wants you to pay for the privilege of working with him

Re: Learning Experience

Yes, but the idea is to force the idjit to spend more employing the minions than it would cost to pay the candidate in the first place.

Learning Experience

1. Get an AI to generate an application letter for you.

2. Use an anonymous email service to send said application letter to the dude.

3. He learns what an idjit idea this is.

Not that I am advocating DOSing the very busy important man or his minions.

Classic Outlook explodes when opening more than 60 emails

Re: Users...

A lot of people suffer with this problem, an assumption that everyone knows how to use product x.

Not just users; as a long career dev several of the industries I worked in assumed that the devs knew how to use the product and what the industry involved. People speak in code and acronyms and abbreviations without realising that not everybody is in the same club. I once pointed out to a QA/Tester that given a list of bugs/defects most devs will fix the easily understood ones before bothering to check the priority list.

And it gets even worse when people use multiple terms for the same item/process - the uninitiated then have to figure out that they are in fact talking about A whether they say X or Y or Z. Then some industries appropriate terms from other industries but change the definition slightly; so you are never quite sure which definition applies.

If you want people to work well, ...

Back in the "good ol days" (< 2010) the UI (be it app or web) was designed to lead the user through the workflow in the simplest, most logical path. These days it seems to be to jam as much (relatively) unrelated stuff on the screen as possible and make the user figure out what goes where. The number of forms I have submitted only to be told that something is wrong/missing - give me a hint as I go so that I only have to submit it once! Don't block me (as some do) as I may genuinely need to look something up and come back to that field.

Congress to Commerce: Sanction more Chinese chip firms to stop Huawei's evasion

Rinse and Repeat

Just like all the 'Asian' countries in the period since WW2 - learn from the Yanks by building cheap copies, then teach yourself how to do it better, then teach yourself how to build a better product. What is different this time around?

And if you want to accelerate the process outsource manufacturing to a lower cost country.

'Consent' LinkedIn used for data processing was not freely given, says Ireland

Not enough

The problem is that this only addresses the outcome - even when sites like LinkedIn do legitimately ask for user consent what choice does the user have (realistically)?

When you are the only (or at least a major player) game in town and failure to consent results in no service, what choice do you have? The rules need to be expanded to specify that the base level of service must be provided even when the end user does not consent to whatever it is they are being coerced^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H asked to consent to.

Invert the "if you don't like our terms and conditions don't use the service" to "if you don't want to provide a service without screwing the user then don't provide the service at all".

Disclosure: haven't used LI for years and now don't need to.

TSMC blows whistle on potential sanctions-busting shenanigans from Huawei

History repeats?

Look at what the Japanese did in the 1970s, then the Koreans in the 1980s, the Taiwanese in the 1990s, etc.

Copy to learn, improve manufacturing, improve quality, improve performance. Then outsource to the next in line because of cheaper labour costs - rinse and repeat.

In the 2000s the Chinese followed the pattern and now some western economies are complaining about it?!?! I think the only way to slow the pattern is to NOT outsource to the cheapest labour - won't stop the eventual industrial knowledge leakage it should slow it down.

And what will happen with the BRICS mob?

Woman stuck upside down under rock for hours after trying to retrieve dropped phone

Expensive exercise

Bet the cost of recovering the person is far more than the cost of a new phone; about time these idjits started getting the full bill for the time, effort, and expense of saving their arses (yep - hard nosed grumpy old geezer so let the condemnation begin).

Compression? What's that? And why is the network congested and the PCs frozen?

Re: "Shared Cloudy Thing"

Anyone remember ZModem? Still the best file transfer program/protocol ever developed.

We used to sit around randomly tapping teaspoons on exposed RS232 connectors just to see how slow we could get it :)

As IBM pushes for more automation, its AI simply not up to the job of replacing staff

Re: IBM can teach a "master class" on this.

Having had the misfortune to have worked for them in the 90s, IBM is the one company I will never ever work for again - even if hell freezes over!