Posts by Tigger in Amsterdam

Capita UK offshoring plan killed by customer backlash - insiders

Outsourcing ... based on a false premise

I always assumed it was due to the eejits upstairs thinking that they could play jiggery-pokery with the accounting and claim a cost saving because the outsource appeared somewhere else (eg P&L rather than Balance Sheet or some such).

Much along the lines of the Hospital Administrator in The Meaning Of Life...

"Ah, I see you have the machine that goes ping. This is my favourite. You see, we lease it back from the company we sold it to and that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account."

Missing the part where they (often as not) have to put in a whole load of infrastructure (one company I worked for had to set the Indians' damned Call Centre up for them, FFS!) and hand your business over on a plate.

Dredd movie review

That ain't Cassandra!!!

They've seriously fcked up on the casting of Judge Anderson ; her snotty little brat sister possibly, but that is NOT the Cassandra Anderson from the comics. Not even close.

The Lawmasters look wrong too, all fairings - another example of the film trying too hard to relate to us in the here and now?

Still, at least he keeps his 'at on!

</gripe>

Border Agency comes out with another e-Borders deadline

I came in through "nah, lewt'n airport" 2 weeks ago with my brand new UK passport (**) and had to place it on a scanner machine just before the Passport Control desks. Not one person with the new style UK Passport had it understood by the machine and we all had to troop through to have the human beings check it.

Schiphol (Amsterdam) airport's Privium card system, however, hasn't given me a problem in the years that I've had one ; a simple eye scan and hello Mr Queuejumper.

(**) Had renewed it 'cos it had less than 6 full months remaining ; should've waited a few more weeks eh?

Linux talent shortage drives up salaries

@Vic - well said!

"Employment Agencies. The reptiles that are entirely incapable of matching skill to requirements - yet corprat HR departments *still* insist on using them exclusively for finding candidates..."

Yep, the entire IT industry problem summed up in one neat little nutshell. I'm still getting phone calls from the useless eejits every week quoting an email address I haven't used for 6 years 'cos the CV they're using (invariably purchased cheap from some scamming outfit that realises there's cash to be made from these fools) is also 6 years out of date - but do they realise that until I point it out? No, of course not.

First up against the wall come my personal revolution, along with the Human Remains prats that insist on using them.

Dizzy: the Ultimate Cartoon Adventure

Oddly enough...

...I was looking for Dizzy offerings last night for the JesusPhone/FondleSlab.

There was also a version based loosely on The Crystal Maze which featured a cartoon Richard O'Brien guiding our little eggy bloke through the levels ; I remember at one time someone had put a version to play online.

(was also a massive fan of the Bitmap Brothers' Chaos Engine - want that one again as well)

5 SECONDS to bypass an iPad 2 password

"Proof positive that Apple care about your security."

Hmm - I was in a US iStore yesterday asking about CyberSecurity software they were selling on the shelf ; the bloke basically told me not to bother with it as "nothing we sell here needs it".

So it's official, all us FanBoi's are safe from viruses, hackers, malware, trojans, etc etc - REJOICE!!!!!!

(Bootnote - I didn't get an answer to my question "well why don't you take it off the shelf then?")

Ellison slams former Sun CEO for blogginess

Jonathan 'Soapbox' Schwartz...

...was a loudmouthed "Listen To The World According To Me And Up-To-Date With Technology I Think I Am" prat from the day he joined Sun. Every day on the internal sites there'd be yet another of his pathetic spoutings of claptrap. Never understood why Scott McNealy (himself no stranger to verbosity) humoured him so much.

Funny how those with nothing to say always seem to say it the most, eh?

(megaphone icon 'cos......oh come on, do I really need to go there?)

Royal Society of Chemistry requests 'Italian Job' ending

Michael Caine has already told everyone

Michael Caine already blurted it out on a previous Jonathon Ross talkshow.

The engine kept running, reducing the weight in the petrol tank at the back and allowing someone to crawl along and tie something to the gold-carrying pallets. They drag it forward, get the coach going again and carry on.

Then the Mob turn up again, chase them, grab the gold and so begins the sequel......

Stick health warnings on gays, says Stock Exchange chaplain

Dear Pot,

Found your comments hilarious. Perhaps you should go away and say three male hairies.

Love, Kettle.

To quote the T shirt, "Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers".

(which bothers you more, gay-on-gay adults or kiddie-fiddling clergy arseholes?)

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

Sarah Palin - post turtle

Best description for the brain-dead cow I've yet seen......

A doctor was stitching up a U.S farmer's hand when the farmer referred to Sarah Palin as a post turtle. The doc asked what he meant.

"Well, you're driving along a country road and you sometimes see a turtle balanced on a fence post. You know it don't belong up there, you dunno how it came to be there, it sure as hell ain't got a clue what to do whilst it's up there and you really gotta wonder about the kinda dumbass that put it up there in the first place".

Reg hack insults the Parachute Regiment

Will El Reg be renaming itself the Vulture Squadron?

"...exit the aircraft from 3000 ft build a try by side downplane fly it vertically at the ground..."

"Think I know what there answer will be"

One for the Twat-O-Tron?

"well done in pissing off 20 paratroopers"

Actually, I'd like to second that sentiment - well done indeed El Reg!

I remember we had some paras do an abseil demo from a helicopter at some event or other when I was a kid - as a laugh they first threw out a dummy which plummeted straight to the ground. Later when they were doing their hero worship in front of the proles routine, I asked which of them it was that missed the rope.

Sense of humour on the part of our brave lads? Oh I think not.......

Rabbit murderer stalks Ruhr Valley

Is Glenn Close in Germany filming at the moment?

Maybe she's moved on from simply boiling them......

Ex-Logica boss to teach UK.gov how to identify crap IT

I wonder how that pitch will go?

"Let Illogica / Crap Gemini / Accidenture / Couldn'tGiveATossOrigin send in their big guns to get the contract signed, then whilst the ink is still drying farm out all the work to Mexico and India, whilst locally letting their recent student intake try and run things. Badly.

Then when (not if, but when) it all goes tits up, threaten to kick them out and watch them return with the people you thought would be doing the work in the first place and sending a suitably enlarged invoice for the privilege.

If all this happens, you've got crap IT."

(Stop icon 'cos companies need to learn to stop paying good money to these arsehole consultancies)

Ticked-off former Motorola 'insider' gives his two cents

Enter Zandman

"Ed Zander, the then CEO of the company, whom Faraz accuses of working Frost to death in 2005 while worrying more about golf scores than company profitability."

Well no surprise there! While he was No. 2 at Sun Microsystems he never listened to anyone either, except the Wall Street analysts whose arses he always seemed to be crawling up and asking "how many people would you like us to RIF this Christmas to keep the shareholders happy?".

And as for the golf, well he learnt from the best! The then-CEO of Sun Scott McNealy could hardly ever get his damned backside off the links and into his office......I saw him for 35 minutes once in 8 years in all his European visits.

(on the other hand, if only they could have shut Jonathan 'Soapbox' Schwartz up now and again......)

Autothrottle problems suspected in Heathrow 777 crash

Die-by-wire?

Many moons ago I did a training course and the guy teaching said he'd worked on the software that controlled the wing flaps on the (then new) Airbus. The alarming part was that he resolutely refused ever to fly on one, "because of the caliber of the tw4ts who were programming other parts of the systems".

Another thought to comfort those of you about to fly......

It's all well and good that fly-by-wire planes are physically able to loop the loop and fly upside down, but did anyone ever tell the programmers that it's really not a good idea?

GPS is killing children

Re. The Solution....

"what happened to the Green Cross road ad's, you never see them on TV any more and i bet schools are not teaching kids it either"

If only that were the case!

My sister is a UK schoolteacher (for 6-7 year olds). Her main complaint is that it IS the schools these days who are expected to teach the kids road safety ; parents somehow see it as something else the education system has to provide. Many of her intake each year have absolutely no concept of kerb drill (showing my age there).

Perhaps wikipedia can do it for them......it seems to be education's panacea for everything else these days :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tufty_Club#Tufty

@ Golverd

"I do like to speed on highways; my car does about 240 km/h and I regularly meet that limit"

Yes, no doubt whilst travelling 10cm behind another vehicle, on the mobile and reading a newspaper - like most of your damned compatriots on the roads here.

(I live in NL as well)

Will be interested to see your reaction when you get your article 5 ('crazy/dangerous driving') ticket of 500 Euros when you get stopped. Do Holland & Belgium still impound and crush cars caught speeding above a certain threshold? I do hope so......

CES moots move from expensive Las Vegas

No great surprise there then......

The septics are specialists at bumping up the prices if they think they have a captive audience.

A few years ago 4 of us went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. In the final five days leading up to Fat Tuesday itself the room rates essentially doubled each day. Along with beer prices, club entry, etc etc.

We stood for 2 days of sharing a single room between us, then told them to stuff it, put their money where their mouth was and find those other people that would happily pay those rates for the room (as they'd been bending our ears about all week).

Judging by the looks on their faces as we left, I think we'd successfully called their bluff. Oh what a shame!

(Got our coats. Left. Never went back. Never will again)

Former beauty queen cuffed for torturing ex

She's a former beauty queen?

Beauty really is in the eye of the beerholder.

I can hear the men in Arizona now...... "Ah ain't gay but ah'll sure consider learnin' "

Skills shortage: it's mind over matter

Perhaps if IT companies handled their own recruitment...

...instead of farming it out to a bunch of buzzword-searching children working for recruitment agencies.

A scenario I'm totally sick of : little Mr/Miss 20 year old calls me regarding some role or other but first "just wants to walk through my CV. I see you worked for XYZ company, who was your manager there?"

Paraphrased, this means "I've just started My First Little Career in recruitment and therefore I've been given the job of trawling through the database trying to get everyone to add to our contacts for us. I'll call them next as soon as I'm done with you".

I'm fortunate in that my last 3 roles have been direct through word-of-mouth, but the thought of having to deal with these cretins next time around brings me out in a cold sweat.

Besides, if a company wants to recruit IT'ers why ask people who don't work directly in IT to do the searching? All they end up doing is playing a glorified game of buzzword bingo through the CV's database. I've personally been sat next to recruiters at their PC who are unable to save my CV from my website or a memory stick...

"(panic stricken look on face) Could you please just email your CV to me?"

"No, I'd rather spend 5 seconds showing you how to do something this simple - or bat you around the head, of course. I expect more IT literacy from a so-called IT recruiter in this day and age".

(and don't even get me started on the subject of useless Human Remains depts who don't like to dirty their hands getting involved in the hiring loop......)