Posts by CastorAcer

BA IT systems failure: Uninterruptible Power Supply was interrupted

Looks like no one has done any root cause analysis...

The proximate cause is that some poor chump turned off something that he or she shouldn't.

There are probably several root causes including inadequate training, supervision and planning.

TalkTalk incident management: A timeline

Re: the Dotcom experience.....

@AC

Hopefully you actually know Agile properly and are air-quoting "Agile" because you are referring to all the monkeys who use the term and other people's ignorance to excuse their incompetence.

If not, may I respectfully suggest that you learn what proper Agile is because it is very disciplined indeed when practiced properly...

AMD reveals potent parallel processing breakthrough

Everyone is focussed on the fact that hUMA allows GPU access to DDR3...

What I'm intrigued to know is whether this would support (using virtual addressing) CPU / GPU access to shared GDDR5 and DDR3 memory pools. That capability would get very interesting...

Drilling into 3D printing: Gimmick, revolution or spooks' nightmare?

Re: Part of the process

Hmm... there's no need to go with all that complexity - apparently the US Army were experimenting with a 3D metal printing process using powdered metal and laser sintering back in the 90s to produce tank parts. There are already metal 3d printers that work in a range of metals up to and including stainless steel.

So, just what is the ultimate bacon sarnie?

Re: Location, location, location

Oh my dear god.... Is that van still there? I last ate there over 10 years ago.

It was the highlight of my week as a junior geek in the basement of TV Centre supporting the ungodly pile of cr*p that was P4A to go there and have one of their mighty works of gustatory pleasure. The Bacon and Egg Roll was a joy but you haven't lived (and died) until you had one of their fully loaded burgers with bacon, egg, cheese, mushrooms, onions etc. etc. etc.

As I remember it all the guys that did the real work in the studios used to eat there, the carpenters, technicians, cameramen and so on. Always amusing to rock up in my shiny geek suit and shoes among the guys in jeans and t-shirts.

Chrome hits iPhone and iPad, storms to top of download chart

Re: Moare tabs!

[Sorry to state the bleedin' obvious, if you already know this. But a double-tap on the black bar at the top of the screen, automatically scrolls to the top.]

But then you've lost where you are in the page and have to scroll back down.

Eddie Murphy heading for worst movie ever glory

Re: Ultraviolet

Visually a stunning film, shame that it was let down by everything else: plot, dialogue, acting, direction, etc. etc.

Flash DOOMED to drive itself off a cliff - boffins

NAND Flash Memory Future Not So Bleak After All?

I came across rather an excellent article this morning that gives a slightly different view in reaction the the paper.

http://pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/NAND-Flash-Memory-Future-Not-So-Bleak-After-All

It makes for interesting reading as while it doesn't deny that there are limitations to NAND Flash Memory it does challenge some of the assumptions in the paper and asks some questions of the motivations of the authors.

Apple sells world's most expensive flash drive

The UK copyright law is changing...

It was announced earlier this month by Vince Cable that new legislation is being introduced to allow copying of media between formats...

That wasn't so bad

IT Angle?

I suppose that the IT angle may be that most of the historical IT project management techniques were derived from those developed for building projects and large scale engineering. Of course times have moved on with the introduction of RAD and then the Agile techniques which are more closely allied with motor manufacturing practices. The question I would ask is whether modern IT project management can really learn much from these projects?

Apple, Oracle air-kiss their way to OpenJDK deal for Mac OS X

Not sure how many there were...

...as the majority of the ones I know were smart enough to wait for the other shoe to drop. There's always a vocal minority in any group.

Dell begs ToryDems to keep NHS IT project

Re: @squirrel

I can assure you that there are plenty of IT Architects out there who have worked on successful systems at granularity above and beyond just large commercial organisations who are not part of the large consultancy gravy train.

We're usually the ones called in by large consultancies when they've completely screwed the pooch and need someone whose head is not full of corporate rubbish to dig them out of their hole. The first thing we do is tear up the consultancy rule book and do the job properly. Every now and then we get to do a project right from the beginning but the successful large scale projects never get reported.

Nvidia details GF100 graphics beastie

Re: Supercomputer on a chip?

Worth noting that Fermi will also be supporting OpenCL which is the platform neutral equivalent of DirectCompute - I'm already using it from Java on OS X and Windows platforms with great success.

IBM punts free enterprise language tools

Simple?

I'm sorry but I can't agree that HTML and JavaScript is as simple as development gets - I would agree with the statement that they should be as simple as development gets.

After years of dealing with browser incompatibilities and the like I'd say that coding Java and .Net is far simpler.

Drobo doubles up storage robot capacity

Re: UK Math?

Nope that's Drobo math 2TB x 8 bays x 4 DroboPros in one virtual volume is 64TB.

Google releases serialization scheme

Has no-one read the Bile Blog?

I'd have thought that at least someone would have commented on the similarities between this article and some of Hani Suleiman's more mild outpourings on 'Open Sores' and anything else that ticks him off.

Paris - because she knows an angel dies every time someone uses a bad word.

Dutch boffins clone Oyster card

DDoS

I wonder whether the DDoS attack is something along the lines of the terminals only having a limited memory for blacklisted cards or performance degrading with longer blacklists?

A large number of bad cards could do very bad things to the system.

Online gamer murders rival clan member

Re:@Paul by Phil

I think that you've made an important point. There are two questions here and the 'ologists' investigating this don't understand the differences:

1/Do games/films/comic books etc. influence the forms of violence used? - Based on your experience the answer looks like 'Yes'.

2/Do games/films/comic books etc. cause the inclination to be violent in the first place? - Based on your experience the answer may well be 'No'.

Met's de Menezes photo 'manipulated', says prosecution

Re: Islam a religion of piece

Speaking as a Christian I have to remind you that historically the Christians were not any better. Look at the atrocities committed both against Muslims and other Christians during the Crusades (Acre anyone?). I'd also say that burning other Christians at the stakes as heretics because they didn't practice exactly the same form of Christianity was pretty bad too.

I am reminded of a discussion on the radio a few years ago that made the point that Islam is about 14 - 15 centuries old now - roughly equivalent in age to Christianity in the late middles ages where burning heretics, witch hunting and crusades were still pretty popular.

Yes I know that this is full on flamebait but I couldn't resist.