Posts by Boris the Cockroach 4077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008
ditching digital ID
Well for a few months until the home office has twisted whoever gets to be minister there to their way of thinking, and then showing him the blackmail details so he/she can goto the PM and say "Digital ID is a great idea, and if you dont think so, well a few well placed leaks will happen..."
robot land, I wrote a simple macro for drilling any number of holes on any diameter of circle (fairly common thing.. think bolts around a porthole).
Get the call a couple of years later... seems there is a problem with said macro... setter has produced a pile of scrap ..... and I noticed his inputs to the macro where way off.
Goto my macro code in the robot.
First line
; ToDo : validate the inputs to catch any stupid values
Blah blah blah
etc etc
Oopsie..... where can I hide the blame for this failure......
That was my experience.
The boffins got a below market rate and us engineering types who turned their demented dreams into a physical item got even less.
The only fun we had was on the jollys involved with making said item fly, float, sink, or explode (or indeed a combination of all 4)
Then I left . My pay rose by 75-80% compared with the previous week. and I did look at a civil service job before the pandemic... they nearly spat out their tea when I said how much I expected to recieve in pay.
But the whole 'outsourcing' thing can be shown to be a big pile of steaming yak shit, as proved when british rail was privatised and the knowledge of why things were done bled away until the Hatfield disaster.
is more about speed
As in how fast are the trains running over that, are we talking 60 mph commuter line or a TGV or Eurostar 200 mph line? or maybe that TGV that can hit 300 mph....... they'll have to be bolted down really hard.
However as running speed in the channel tunnel is lower, maybe that could be a good place for them......................
I dont need my self esteem worked on, what I'd like is that mal- functioning lift so I can stick my least favourite operator in it and force him to listen to lift muzak for the rest of his life, or at least until the lift reaches the top floor where upon the lift maintenance hatch in the floor opens ......
<<wanders of for some medication while cursing said operator for screwing up 6 hours of cell setup AND 1 of the matching pair of swappable fixtures.. our BoTH gonna be even more upset when she sees the wreckage on monday.....
And thats the argument I have with our beancounter.
But I always lose....... partly because the beancounter has a grip on the money but mostly because he drones on so boringly that anyone going against him falls asleep within 3 minutes
MFAs security this and security that.
Next week DNA scans (defeated by a severed finger... that also does the fingerprint scanner)
And now for a little observation.
I'v been down the bank more than once to sort out problems (I dont do phone or on-line bankings due to the identification problem) and have seen the staff serve me in their partitioned off office
"Yes sir Mr Roach, the money has been transferred from retirement fund #1 to retirement fund #2, just sign here " and then the staff have departed back inside the bank via the security door. via a key fob and a passphrase typed into a key panel , I did ask what happens if they typed in the wrong number, and it turns out to be wrong number twice and the bank gets locked down.
Now, if the banks can implement that sort of system for their own staff, why can they not implement it for us plebs who keep money in them? or better yet for us computery types who like on-line banking. a read only USB stick that boots your PC with a custom OS that only lets you log into the bank, and will do new key pairs every session for keeping the communications secure.
And pope to remain head of a branch of Christianity based in Rome, Italy
But the story of Ford dumping AI quality control shows what can go wrong, and the reason they gave was that the humans were let go before the AI managed to learn about quality anything from them.
"hey Joe, we're replacing you with AI to improve profits"
"Well f you, I'm off"
"Hey Joe.. you're supposed to train your AI replacement... Joe..... Joe... come back"
why it was drilled into our little civil servant heads that if you were in a 'secure' area , you let no one in, and you let no one out. and you made sure that you knew who was on the list to be in that area.(usually 6-8 people)
But the number of times home base got breached by shirt and tie wearers holding clipboards... sheesh. bloody MOD plod... more interested in searching our cars on the way out than stopping bad people getting in.
sentence is going to be a strict one, forfeit the gains made, and serve 40 years in prison, I mean .. its rich people's money he stole so he should be punished accordingly.
now if he stole the speaker's desk, and put it on e.bay on Jan 6th, he'd get let off that it was just 'high spirits'
fairly simple.
Shut down the tax havens. Give them the choice to become part of British overseas territory with an MP or 2 at westminister , or independence(as they choose).
And hammer the likes of Amazon et al with a serious turnover tax if they decide to do clever shit with the profits generated here
Will either of these come to pass? nope, too many MPs will lose out on work or brown envelopes.
But we can always get the small local guy by doing a full audit because he declared everything he earned in 1 yr(he always got audited because he was honest and refused cash in hand work)
Oh and as a post script. howto annoy my boss in one easy lesson... mention multi-national tax evasion.. the foam that appears along with the throbbing vein is most entertaining..........
Yeah I've seen that too.
Supplied a part to a casting company for their continuous casting process. it failed.
However when it failed it released 7 tons of liquid unobtainium all over the machinery and casting floor. and the workforce didnt like having to play "The floor is lava"
Our manager was called to the customer and given a dressing down..... and he came back and let everyone know what a filthy mood he was in and wanted to know why the accident happened
Seemed that one of our techs had overcut a slot, and rather than throwing the part in the bin and starting again, the junior manager told him to cut out the wrong bit, glue in a replacement and cut that to the right size. which failed under load.
The sad thing was, if we'd told the customer about the fubar, they could have installed and used the part with the flawed bit against the flow of liquid metal, which would have pushed the insert into its housing harder... instead it was pushed out and the entire die failed.....
forget, if you are against this ban, that means you support exploiting children, abusing social media and being a downright evil person upto no good by corrupting impressible minds.
And most likely a terrorist too.
Oh and I bet any el-reg reader will be able to bypass such control in about 30 seconds
jimmy and jenny , both 15 and in the throws of puberty and access to booze decide "lets do it while mom is at bingo/pub/work"
So they take a photo together as momento BING the thought police bash the door down and they are both dragged off to the ministry of love
Unreasonable? unrealistic? with client side scanning of your phone , entirely likely.
Of course , nobody innocent will be targetted until Mr Jones , fresh out of the shower and keen to impress his missus sends her a picture... and shes forgotton to enable over 18 mode on the phone... well guess hes off to the ministry of love to sit next to jimmy and jenny.
And then theres dear old Aunt dotty... took the neices and nephews to the beach and takes photos... yupp client side scanning does her in too
What needs to be said is that your phone will be scanned for matches by persons unknown whether you want it to be scanned or not and if a few false positives sweep up the innocent, well thats a price well worth paying for getting so many guilty pleas
Meanwhile the kids are using a browser VPN to get a closer view than many doctors ever do
was the question posed by the recent new recruit to the government department of doing very funny stuff for not much money
"Get down you bleeping* idiot!!" yelled the sailor dragging said recruit to the deck while another one went overhead
Beer because there was a subsidised bar on board. hic.
* bleeping was not the word used
this thing was called "Polly" or "Emma" or "Susan" or "Walter" and came with a pleasent personality, and would helpfully answer the phone and cheerfully lie about your whereabouts, and if you were really lucky... well lets not go down that route.....
They had a technical name for their roles called "Personal assistant" and they were a lot cheaper to hire than a m$ chatbot, and far less likely to blab your entire company secrets to m$ too.
Like to see any other in service rocket try that out, Apollo 13 2nd stage and the initial Apollo 6 launch 2nd stage managed it (damn the POGOing)
But it achived an on target splash down and landed right next to the drone cameras waiting for it in spite of the engine trouble going uphill and the aforementioned aggressive flight profile coming down.
As for the booster.... that has to wait until spacex say what went wrong (my bet would be a fire caused by the downed engine)
But another test flight looms.... personally I'd like to see how it performs when loaded to the maximum flight weight and elon muskrat to STFU
that the boss in a panic going "wheres those 3000 XXYYZ castings?" because the customer has phoned up and said that tooo....... along with dire threats if the assembly line stops with various mutterings about JIT and kanban.
And I'm like "we delivered them yesterday and got the paperwork to prove it"
Lets call said customer................ and it seems no one at their end booked them on the computer... but did deliver them to the line and the lines nots going to stop.
And I've lost 1/2 an hour of surfing el-reg time(among other things that dont relate to doing my job) to chase up a non existant problem.
Icon.... for how I feel most of the day.... if only el-reg had an icon for banging your head against a wall, that would cover the rest of my day too
far more tolerant that I am
I would have got about 1/2 way through that conservesation with the boss before reaching for the window catch and a swift running jump into oblivion (well that we'd tell the police anyway) he was very depressed we'd say, especially after all those death threats. no we dont know who sent them or why they seemed to be timed stamped 5 minutes after he jumped....... it was a good tuck and 1/2 pike before impact though
Its always been that way.
Why train as an engineer when the pay is 50%(or less) than you'd get in finance plus training is expensive.. so we'll just import what we need.
But its ok, AI software will make up the gap ... jeez I cant believe I said that.
Leaving poor old tommy with a gun that does'nt work, an APC that makes him sick and a CAS aircraft that does'nt fly. but the companies supplying such kit get very rich........
And people like me trying to fix the stuff for pennies while the boss fought the MOD beancounters
Quote
"its a futile exercise and waste of tax payer money."
No its not.. it shows politician A cares about the local voters concerns and one of the concerns is pr0n... so we make it harder for little johnny or jenny to access pr0n job done and better yet if you dont support me and my law then it means you're in favour of kiddies getting their hands on filthy ideas about sex... and worse yet... freedom....
I'd go along with this, especially since stories like this appear https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgpyn30dp3o
And they do have the ability to control and identify it since I post my stuff(cat pics, silly jokes etc) from my home ISP or my mobile, however the time we were on holiday in the lake district i tried posting using the hotel wi-fi, FB flagged up an alert saying "Who are you and why you trying to login far outside your normal location?" and then blocked it.
So FB can (and does sometimes) block things, so why they are not blocking "Save the UK" (example) that was originally "Karachi number 1 motorcycle sales and repair" (also example) posted from somewhere in indo-china.........
of yore when I was a mere PFY (yeah it was a loong time ago) our customer had a bit of a problem of exploding electrical panels when certain equipment was started, given there was a live body in front doing the switching did'nt help either.
So it was decided to replicate the problem at a safe place, however , even the PFY objected to standing in front of a live panel under test.
So we rigged a remote switch to said panel to a test booth 100 yrds away.... however it was the PFY's job to run said cable through the underfloor cable duct( its amazing how clean and tidy duct work is when shown in holly wood movies.... its not like that in real life).
But I did get the reward of pushing the button....... and destroying a perfectly good electrical box in a shower of sparks and bangs.
My BoFH at the time liked people who shared his love of dangling 40 feet in the air while trying to feed a 200A armored 3 phase cable under, then through an experimental platform......"look on the bright side" he said "you'll only fall to your death once"
Its worse when you are trying to learn howto remove the di-lithium chamber on your warp capable drone , and the guy doing the u-tub video spends the first 15 minutes waffling about how much better Picard is over Kirk*, then spends 5 minutes waffling over every little thing hes doing until finally you notice he's using the wrong tool.... arrgh new video time
*we all know the best captain was John Sheridan... And if you dont agree , my friend Bester will change your mind
Quote
"Execs get golden parachutes for being ejected, workers get nothing. That seems grossly unfair."
That always the thing that gets me, I screw up and trash a production cell costing 500K ... hello dole queue and no money, get hired as CEO , screw up and burn the company to the ground... walk away with 2 million quid.
The cause is the contracts, as employee , you are employed on a weekly/monthly basis and can be terminated for $reasons, as CEO you are hired on a 2 year fixed term contract with optional extensions AND payment in case of early termination. hence the screw ups getting a shed load of cash while I dont
