Posts by Joseph Haig

Telling an AI model that it’s an expert programmer makes it a worse programmer

Different personae

I am not going to user "You are an expert programmer" any more. I think I will tell it "Answer as if you were Ford Prefect" instead.

AI still doesn't work very well, businesses are faking it, and a reckoning is coming

Re: The next year 2000?

> Surely we can just ask an AI to explain the code?

Have you ever seen an AI running away screaming?

The next year 2000?

In the run up to the year 2000 there were lots of aged COBOL programmers coming out of retirement to receive very high salaries whilst fixing the millennium bug. Are we going to see the same in 5 or 10 years time when companies realise the have built up huge piles of unmaintainable technical debt and there are no software developers anymore to sort it out?

Ruby Central tries to make peace after 'hostile takeover'

Re: Good!

> Ruby Central are still contributing, but ownership of the RubyGems and Bundler repositories has been transferred to Rails core team, where arguably it always belonged.

I think you mean the Ruby core team.

Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative

Copying all the gems from Ruby Gems

Isn't it a bit presumptuous to simply copy all the gems from Ruby Gems? Have they got the agreement of the authors of all the gems? It is far from certain that everyone is in agreement on this and I can well imagine that there are some people who don't want to be involved.

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

???

What new hell is this?

GitHub redesign goes mobile-friendly – to chagrin of devs who shockingly do a lot of work on proper computers

First impression

I don't particularly object to the new layout but I honestly thought that someone had broken the CSS when I first saw it.

From off-prem to just off: IBM Cloud goes down planet-wide so hard even the status page didn't work

Re: Notes down globally

It has also taken out Notes globally for IBM users ...

... and productivity within IBM sky-rocketed?

No REST for the wicked: Ruby gem hacked to siphon passwords, secrets from web devs

Re: Review changes to 3rd party code

https://www.npmjs.com/package/is-even

Thanks! This is just what I've been looking for!

LibreOffice 6.3 hits beta, with built-in redaction tool for sharing those █████ documents

██████

███ █████████ ███ ██ ██████ ███-█████ but ████ ██████████ ███

Can I get a RHEL yeah? Version 8 arrives at last as IBM given go-ahead to wolf down Red Hat

Red + Blue

After the merge will they find themselves marooned?

Microsoft's Edge on Apple's macOS? It's more likely than you think for new browser

IE for UNIX?

I remember seeing IE (version 5, I think) for UNIX years ago. I did wonder if Chromium based Edge could bring it back from the dead. Edge on Linux? Who knows? I still think that Microsoft are going to copy Apple one day and rebuild Windows based on BSD or Linux.

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

This is awful

I have to talk to people face-to-face! The horror!

GitHub.com freezes up as techies race to fix dead data storage gear

Re: Oh go do one Saishav!

If only there were a way to work on a local copy of your repositories when the servers are not available.

Oh, wait ...

Love Microsoft Teams? Love Linux? Then you won't love this

Backlog?

"After talking this over with the engineering team, I confirmed this will remain on the backlog ..."

If it remains on the backlog then it is never going to get worked on, right?

IBM won't grow, says analyst firm while eyeing flatlining share price

Re: This "IBM Cloud" you speak of

Could always rebrand themselves IBC (International Business Cloud).

I realise that you are making a joke but IBM have lasted for 100 years by continually re-inventing themselves as the market changes whilst keeping a name that is sufficiently broad to encompass any type of 'business machine'. At the moment they are surviving because enough people still trust the name but I don't see their reputation lasting for much longer if they cannot sort themselves out soon. A rebrand (which I think is unlikely) would be a sure sign that they are desperate and all else has failed.

Perfect timing for a two-bank TITSUP: Totally Inexcusable They've Stuffed Up Payday

Re: The last friday of the month

TSB had outages on the last Friday of July and August. Both of these were 'planned' but only announced a few hours before and, as mentioned in this article, the last one didn't come back cleanly. I'm predicting this new coming round again on 26th October.

Go Pester someone else: TSB ditches CEO over bank's IT meltdown

Re: On the plus side....

At least this was around a planned 'upgrade' so people had notice of when doom may darken their banking ability.

I am (for the moment) still a customer and I found out about the outage via Twitter on Friday afternoon. I consider this to be less 'notice' and more 'afterthought'. People might be a bit more understanding if they had not done exactly the same last month. It is almost as if there is an end-of-the-month batch job that is broken.

If it were genuinely a 'planned' outage then perhaps they could have not done it on the last day of the month, being pay-day for a lot of people.

IBM wants everyone to marvel at the size of its Strategic Imperatives

Am I allowed to ask ...

... what on earth are 'Strategic Imperatives'?

The line "Strategic Imperatives – the areas that IBM has bet its future on ..." suggests that this is industry recognised term but Google just shows me some companies' marketing bumf.

IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'

When meeting a hippogriff^w^wGinni.

"Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs' move. It's polite, see? Yeh walk towards him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed to touch him. If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt."

Relive your misspent, 8-bit youth on the BBC's reopened Micro archive

BeebEm

For those interested, the BeebEm emulator from 1994 is still kicking around: http://beebem-unix.bbcmicro.com/

Facebook Android app caught seeking 'superuser' clearance

Just don't use the app

You can still use Facebook in the mobile browser and get most of the functionality. It will tell you that you need the app for viewing messages but that is a lie and they are accessible by using a non-standard browser such as Opera.

Google's socially awkward geeks craft socially awkward AI bot that calls people for you

Re: "The software pretends to be you, or act for you"...

Actually, I'm thinking more of this.

NetHack to drop support for floppy disks, Amiga, 16-bit DOS and OS/2

Re: Bastards

Watch out for those ants. They are nasty.

UK 'meltdown' bank TSB's owner: Our IT migration was a 'success'

Where did it go?

Is it just me or has the press release just vanished?

Lost in translation?

Their logo adequately sums up the contents of that press release.

Really, companies need to consider their branding when they start operating in foreign countries.

Fleeing Facebook app users realise what they agreed to in apps years ago – total slurpage

Re: well

"It works, it's just disabled on cellphones."

Quite. When I said it no longer worked I meant it was blocked. There was a period when you got the annoying message asking you to install the app but it would still let you through to the messages but that option disappeared eventually.

And your suggestion to try m.facebook.com gave me the idea to try using a non-default browser. It turns out that with the Opera Mini browser I can now access messages again via the web app.

Re: well

"You didn't install the Messenger app, but did you install the Facebook app or was it included with the phone and not uninstallable?"

If you uninstall the Facebook app (as I did when it made my phone too unresponsive) you find that the mobile web site is almost fully functional so there is really no need for an app.

The one thing that doesn't work is private messages. It used to work, so there is no technical reason why it shouldn't any more, but if you try to view messages you now get automatically directed to the Google Play store. It is almost as if Facebook needs the app to do more than just display some text and pictures on your screen.

I, too, am glad I never gave in to the nagging although my reason is that I want a phone that I can actually use.

Your code is RUBBISH, says GitHub. Good thing we're here to save you

Re: Rubbish is everywhere

Yes, but I am free to contribute my own rubbish to open source software!

Ambiguous headline

"Your code is RUBBISH, says GitHub"?

No, more like "your code uses a particular version of a library that has a security vulnerability which is fixed in a later version."

Personally, I think that what GitHub has done is fantastic.

Slack cuts ties to IRC and XMPP, cos they don't speak Emoji

Accessibility

I have a former colleague who is blind and so uses IRC to access Slack. I understand that Slack have a team working on accessibility but unfortunately it is still not quite there yet so by cutting support they are unnecessarily introducing a barrier to blind and partially sighted people.

Sysadmin left finger on power button for an hour to avert SAP outage

Going Dutch?

Is this what the Little Dutch Boy is doing now?

Uber quits GitHub for in-house code after 2016 data breach

Uber's business model

Hey, they aren't a security company so the rules around security shouldn't apply to them.

'No evidence' UK.gov has done much to break up IT outsourcing

NHoS

Meanwhile, they have gone out of their way to shut down an attempt to provide a viable solution to the mess that is the NHS IT:

https://nhos.openhealthhub.org/nhsbuntu/2018/01/17/the-final-straw/

YouTuber cements head inside microwave oven

Darwin denied

... unless, of course, the five firefighters then took it in turns to kick him in the balls.

Used iPhone Safari in 2011-12? You might qualify for Google bucks

Just wondering

Is that about the same time they stopped using the "Don't be Evil" slogan?

Uber says 2.7 MEEELLION(ish) UK users affected by hack

But Uber isn't a security company so these security regulations shouldn't apply to them, right?

IBM does what IBM does best: Raises the chopper again

IBMers have until this Friday, 1 December, to nominate colleagues to represent them.

... and may the odds be ever in your favour.

The Independent 'live streamed' space vid recorded in 2015

It wasn't fake, it was just old.

This isn't the first time a news article has used archive footage to say "this is happening now", typically with alarmist headlines. These instances have rightly been judged as fake even if the photographs are legitimate records of another event.

Yes, the video is genuine but using it to attract an audience by claiming that it is 'live' is deceitful.

Hipsterverse horror as Slack takes Halloween hiatus

Re: During the meanwhile ...

I learned IRC nearly 30 years ago, and it hasn't gone down since.

... until you get a netsplit.

For the record, I also would be happy with IRC, which does the vast majority of what people need (apart from some essential features such as giphy), but Slack is where all the cool kids are these days.

Bill Gates says he'd do CTRL-ALT-DEL with one key if given the chance to go back through time

Re: BREAK

On Acorn computers you only had to press 'Break' by itself and it was incredibly frustrating to accidentally touch it after spending hours at some important work*. Requiring two or three keys in combination is a much better idea.

* OK I admit it, games.

Slack re-invents the extranet and shared Notes databases with cross-company teams

Notes productivity

I'm sorry but I have difficulty reading any further after you have put 'Lotus Notes' and 'more productive' in the same sentence.

Boffin rediscovers 1960s attempt to write fiction with computers

The Lion

Still a better story than Twilight.

UK.gov is hiring IT bods with skills in ... Windows Vista?!

Are they looking for someone to upgrade the new aircraft carrier? (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/27/hms_queen_elizabeth_running_windows_xp/)

Facebook pulls plug on language-inventing chatbots? THE TRUTH

Alice & Bob

Presumably they were caught by Eve.

Facebook users pwnd by phone with account recovery vulnerability

Nothing like good security!

I'm so glad I never succumbed to adding my phone number for extra security (allegedly).

Set your alarms for 2.40am UTC – so you can watch Unix time hit 1,500,000,000

Damn right. GMT and UTC can be up to 500ms different.

I need that extra time in bed in the morning!

€100 'typewriter' turns out to be €45,000 Enigma machine

Reason for sale

"I'm getting rid of it because all the keys are messed up. Every time I type something it shows complete gibberish!"

Trump's CNN tantrum could delay $85bn AT&T-Time Warner merger

Re: Wrong - it's pure blackmail accroding to US statutes

Except in the real world, no they didn't.

I presume you are referring to CNN threatening to dox the individual - correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know about what the amendments do or do not say but how do you explain:

"CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change."

(Ref: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-user-trump-tweet/index.html)

Whose tantrum?

Trump posts an infantile video and then CNN spend the next day talking about nothing else. Who is having a tantrum?

This pretty much sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgB8z5OOVjQ