Posts by eldel

Exec couldn’t identify a photocopier, which made for a fax-inating tech support call

Re: Fax machines bring back some horrible memories

Sigh - uucp. The bane of my life in 1983. Trying to set up a node in the UK that didn't involve JANET. Or surreptitious connections to ARPANet or MilNet. All on a 2400 bps modem.

MPs fear Treasury cold feet could sink Whitehall's £1.15B shared services push

Re: The Matrix

I'd say it's not the effort, more the catastrophic lack of understanding that the civil service have of modern systems. I'm sure if the requirements were to be written in ancient Greek they'd do fine but it seems quite clear that they have to bring in 'consultants' to evaluate the possibilities and all they want to do is add a healthy markup to American rentware while passing their own pockets with 'ongoing maintenance'. Mostly required because they screwed it up on the first place.

Added to which the gnomes will perceive this as giving up control and no mandarin is going to allow that.

Boffins peg narcissistic leadership as the real driver behind 'return to office' demands

Re: Self-Selecting Incompetence

Essentially, measure output not input. Any incompetent can count bums on seats and call it managing. I've worked for a couple. To effectively measure output takes an understanding of what your minions are actually supposed to be doing and having the capability to discern where that deviates from what they are actually producing. That takes effort and brains. Which is why the vast majority of managers don't do it.

Microsoft reaches for olive branch after public dustup with 0-day researcher

Re: Time for a Code of Practice

To be fair they *do* have a reputation for reliable and bug-free software. As in they've never even bothered to try and ship it. Given that they've been really quite consistent for 40+ years in their approach I'd say that their reputation in the matter is well established.

The company's biggest security hole lived in the breakroom

Re: Exactly why!

I'd be interested in the outcome of your search. My TV is 11 years old and at the time it was a search to find a 'none-smart' one. It's starting to show signs of failure and I'm dreading replacing it. If only because of the network messing around.

Just the Browser claims to tame the bloat without forking

I don't get the hatred for Brave. Yeah - so the author is a total shitstain that shouldn't be allowed out in civilised company - but that doesn't make the software bad. As long as you aren't accepting the ads and aren't partaking in the crypto scam what's the problem. I'm not aware of any actual privacy issues with it.

In all honesty I have to admit that I don't always live by that outlook - I wouldn't buy one of the fascist shitstain's cars for instance.

Garmin autopilot lands small aircraft without human assistance

Re: Nice job

Whilst in general I would agree with you - flying through LAX airspace, even IFR, is a far more stressful experience than circumnavigating London or Paris on their renowned enclosing roads.

BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Back in the late Mesozoic era, when I was doing my industrial training on Strowger telephone exchanges, the battery 'packs' - which typically took up at least one ground floor and often a basement or two as well, were rumoured to be either sourced from, or be identical to, the batteries in submarines. They did indeed require a fork lift to move them and being anywhere in their presence was kinda scary. Let's just say that falling across those terminals would, indeed, be terminal.

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: I touch it and it breaks!

As the primary carer for a wheelchair bound SWMBO I can assure you that your experience is the norm. Most facilities that are 'accessible' seem to have been built from designs generated by LLMs that have ingested the mandatory requirements but have no insight into actual real world situations.

Admin brought his drill to work, destroyed disks and crashed a datacenter

Look for the bombproof follow on to that. It's a lot more fun. I'm on it. Making it was a hoot.

The Reg translates the letter in which Oracle kinda-sorta tells customers it was pwned

Re: With the plummeting stock markets...

Only if they keep their heads down and avoid irritating the mango moron or the racist rapist.

Beta of Unix version 2 restored to life

Re: Just blows me away...

Errm - if you mean the local telco exchange .. unless things have changed since I worked in the industry the ground floor (or basement) of the exchange building is basically one f-off big battery pack. In the day it was supposed to be enough to power the exchange for 24 hours under normal usage.

Our world faces 'unprecedented' spike in electricity demand

Re: On the upside.

I looked but can't find the reference for this ....

In Texas farmers are actively trying to install solar farms as long as they don't lose too much money on the generated power. Why? Because they've noticed that the reduction in evaporation is saving them an absolute fortune in expensive water.

Boeing warns SLS staff that job cuts could be on the way

Whilst I am on record as loathing the MuskRat it's hard to dispute his take on this. Artemis is a standard "use taxpayer money to bribe the voters" ploy. Even by NASA cost plus boondoggle standards it's a huge one.

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Re: If only my HP printer would fully work

That may well be so but it doesn't rule out the fact that HPLIP support sucks big time.

Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did

Re: Should Not Have Happened But Did......

You mean they made the crook president. Yeah - I see what you mean.

Next-gen Wi-Fi to trade ludicrous speed for the boring art of actually working

Meh - 10gb HBAs and CAT6 backbone with WiFi6 mesh for non intensive devices here and I can rarely see the router or switch break a sweat. We're far outstripping the capability of the (SSD) NAS to ship the data out as it is. Without some new bandwidth hog device/application coming on the scene I don't think even WiFi7 is going to be of any importance to the home user.

Fresh releases of Xfce, Mint, Cinnamon desktops out in time for the holidays

Foobar 2k will run under wine. Alternatively Strawberry is a reasonable player.

Thanks, Linus. Torvalds patch improves Linux performance by 2.6%

Re: Fractional Gains

Tense error

That the Borg were/was are/is right, all along?

There FTFY

Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

Now that Brave has lost it's aversion to pi-hole it seems to be an acceptable alternative.

Opening up the WinAmp source to all goes badly as owners delete entire repo

Re: Damn Shame

I've started using Strawberry for Linux. Not perfect and it's distressingly easy to get SQL errors but it does work and copes with large libraries. At least, as you say, foobar2000 is available for Android.

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

Re: At 38, I am too young for this thread

That thud you heard was my knees hitting the floor. Thank you kind person. I've been looking for that archive since Illiad called it quits

.

Microsoft decides it's a good time for bad UI to die

Re: MS has history of fixing what is not broke

T'was explained to me many eons ago that the whole 'this page intentionally left blank' was due to government references which specified a page number for the information and they would get huffy if you changed the numbering.

Seems plausible but I have no confirming data.

Starliner's not-so-grand finale is a thump in the desert next week

Gwen Shotwell runs SpaceX. Elon just gets his ego fix from it. He's as much a rocket engineer as I'm a brain surgeon.

Microsoft PC accessories rise from the grave just in time for Christmas

My last 4000 series keyboard died earlier this year and the best price I could find for one was like $500. Insane. I eventually ended up with a Periboard 835 which I absolutely adore. It's got actual keys on it.

Sweet 16 and making mistakes: More of the computing industry's biggest fails

Re: Honourable mention

From the mouth of someone (not me) who claimed to have been involved in it - BSD was basically a collection of masters theses compiled into as OS. As I was spending much time trying to get inter-process communication to run reliably at the time I could well believe it.

Re: Sinclair QL wasn't 16 bit

You forgot the iAPX 432. Intel's first 32 bit processor. I was trying to write software for that in 1982. No actual compilers were available other than assembler. A complete and total dog.

Boom Supersonic takes baby steps toward breaking the sound barrier

Re: rose tinted glasses

IIRC they put a version into Destroyers and also into fluid pumping stations !!

Would you rather buy space broadband from a billionaire, or Communist China?

Re: Question the premise

I take your point - but I suspect the Chinese Government calculates 'profit' in a rather different way.

Yes, I am being intolerably smug – because I ignored you and saved the project

Filey / Primrose Valley perchance? As a teenager with the normal hormonal overload I regarded that park as an endless opportunity. Not, I should admit, with any notable success.

SpaceX's Falcon anomaly could have serious implications for the space industry

Re: FAA?

Of course they are - they just have a more realistic idea of what needs to be done to do that. Boeing (and ULA) are fixed in a mindset of cost plus contracts where finding issues and fixing them was a profit center. Now it's a cost center and the companies are run by MBAs and their magic spreadsheets. SpaceX on the other hand have more skin in the game - a lot of those launches are 'internal' so they have a real interest in them being as reliable as possible.

BOFH: Why's the network so slow?

Re: Mornington Crescent?

My dear (chap/lady/being of unspecified type) we lost them all the way back at Mornington Crescent

Texan construction workers put a rocket up Team SpaceX over 'unpaid bills'

Re: This opinion will not be liked.

Incoming executive order promise from the mango moron to change that. Oh - and get rid of the 2 term limit. Might as well scrap the elections at the same time then. Just a waste of money getting Russia to generate all that misinformation for us.

I told Halle Berry where to go during a programming gig in LA

In the last century I was doing a short notice customer call in Stockholm. In February. Customer had arranged the hotel, I got in at about 9pm. Dining room had closed and I'm not a fan of hotel food anyway so I went out to look for a pizza or something. Clearly I wasn't going to hang around in those temps and once round the block, even having failed to locate any food, was enough.

Next morning I'm on site and some of the locals, who I knew quite well, were asking me if I'd been out the previous evening. When I said yes they were asking me if I'd seen anything interesting and seemed disappointed when I answered in the negative. Apparently I'd walked around the red light district. Either the local "suppliers" aren't venturing out in those conditions or I really really don't pay attention to my surroundings when it's food I'm looking for.

Probably both.

NASA plasma propulsion project promises Mars in a flash

Re: outside Earth's protective dome

I give it less than 5 hours before this appears on Reddit as a proof of flat earth.

A small Alaska town wants a big bronze Riker

Re: Don't tell Paramount...

"Inflatable statue" - there's an interesting euphemism.

Trident missile test a damp squib after rocket goes 'plop,' fails to ignite

Glad it's compressed air now. Apparently the first underwater launches were started by steam. Let a load of seawater into the bottom of the firing tube, point a small solid fuel rocket engine at said liquid and the resulting vapour is at high enough pressure to eject the missile.

I mean - what could possibly go wrong?

Dell staff not alone in being squeezed to reduce remote work

Re: Saying you'll quit isn't the same as quitting

More specifically Gwen Shotwell has succeeded at Space-X. If she leaves I rather suspect the company will be taken over by the US government as it fails.

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

Re: 3 experiences with Concorde

A couple of summers ago I was visiting the museum at Ellsworth AFB. Didn't know it at the time but that's where they do all the flight training for the B1B. The day I was there they were doing scramble practice. When that sucker goes off with full after burners it makes one hell of a noise. The docent I was talking to assured me that it's the loudest plane that's ever been in the USAF inventory. I have no reason to doubt her.

As an aside - if you're ever in South Dakota - they have a trip round an old Titan missile silo as well. That's "different" to say the least.

Tweaked Space Shuttle Main Engine gets ready for final testing

Re: A similar option for HS2?

Problem with that is that you could only use the whippets "oop north". You're not getting south of Derby with them. You could always have whippet resource centers either side of the Pennines just to get over the top.

Re: A similar option for HS2?

Ah - the government technical advisor finally reveals (him/her)self. We were wondering where you were hiding.

IBM Software tells workers: Get back to the office three days a week

Re: I can see good reasons for being together as a team...

Yeah. My closest colleague is 1 time zone (albeit 1200 miles) away, the others are all between 3 and 11 time zones away. There's an office only 15 minutes away. The conversation normally goes

Why aren't you working from the office

What for?

To cooperate closely with your colleagues

Sure, which one?

Well, all of them

Great, a round the world trip, there goes your travel budget for the year.

Ah, hmmm, well then, we might make an exception. But you really should be there

Sigh

PEBCAK problem transformed young techie into grizzled cynical sysadmin

Re: Assumption

Pardon? What's that? Oh, it's you. Yeah, me too

Musk's mighty missile is ready for launch once FAA says OK

Re: No

Which is provably incorrect. The development costs for space-x in total is less than that of the SLS. Systematic simulation is great, as long as it's accurate. How do you get that accuracy with no actual testing.

Sure, you can spend 13 years and huge amounts of money if you are the recipient of the bottomless pork barrel. On the other hand you can test to destruction with lots of instrumentation and know where it went wrong then fix and try again.

The orbital launch totals for space-x this year stands at 62 out of the global total of 144. Pretty damn good for the result of a process that does not work well anywhere.

BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!

Re: I remember well...

I used those a couple of times when I had a CRT screen that would catch sunlight (or other bright light source) - it really cut down on the reflections. Of course - a decent matt glass screen would do the same.

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Re: Outlook...

Indeed. I call it the geologic filing system. Every 6 months you just lift off the top inch and throw everything below it away. With a reasonable amount of care it actually works.

Cage match: Zuck finally realizes Elon is full of twit

Re: Pathetic

To be fair - he did manage to get Gwynne Shotwell to run SpaceX. Granted it was probably anomalous but it was a good move.

Linux Mint cuts slice of 'Victoria' as 21.2 beta lands with dash of fresh Cinnamon

As a grumpy old git I fully support the disdain for UI 'improvements' which add nothing apart from giving the vapids something to chatter about.

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Re: Proof if needed

In my last job we had a director who was an ex naval aviator. Nice guy but with a zero tolerance for bullshit. We were starting up a new project team and all the techie types agreed that the perfect person to be the tech lead was a guy who had left to join a startup the previous year but was now available. HR objected on the grounds of "we don't re-employ people with X months" (I don't remember the actual number). The response from the director was along the lines of "You seem to be under a misapprehension. You work for me not the other way around. Either you send the offer this afternoon or your replacement will do so in the morning".

The guy took the job. Never saw that HR flunky again.

BOFH: Cough up half a grand and we'll protect you from AI

Re: Its a cunning wheeze

Though it should be said that if you've been hit almost anywhere by a 50 cal round any subsequent damage is somewhat superfluous.