Posts by J.G.Harston

It's your Loki day: The Reg takes Elementary OS Jólnir for a quick test drive

The article doesn't seem to be reviewing an OS, it seems to be reviewing a desktop.

Newly discovered millipede earns its name by being the first to walk on one thousand legs

Re: 1,306 legs

They can't start with 8 legs, as the legs always count at 4*n+2, four legs per segment and two legs on the neck segment. I think they start with six legs.

Re: Clearly it should be millepedes or millepeda

No, that's one of our paces, two of our steps. One pace = Two steps.

£42k for a top-class software engineer? It's no wonder uni research teams can't recruit

Re: "decimate"

Yes, 42K may be the base for an IT guy, but for 42K you won't get a software developer.

Do you want chauffer, or do you want an automotive engineer? If you want an automotive engineer they cost more than a chauffer, and if you try to attract them with chauffer wages you'll fail.

Salmon, mackeral, it's all fish. How *DARE* you insist I pay more for salmon than I'm prepare to pay for mackeral.

Re: broken

I wish I could upvote you more than once. The additional dispair is why "we" think we need to send people to university for three years in order to change printer cartridges and reset passwords. And how we've got to the point where the students mindlessly accept it as well.

Re: broken

"IT" is to "driving" as "development" is to "automotive engineering".

Yes, it's all "cars" but "development" is *NOT* "IT". IT is *use*. Development is *creation*. This is the same conflation/confusion that gets decision-makers declaring "the future is IT, we need schools to train coders!" No. Yes, the future is IT, which means that schools need to teach *TYPING* just as 150 years ago they needed to teach reading&writing. Ooooo, houses have electic lights, that means we need to teach kiddies to be electricians. No, we need to teach 'em how to use a light switch. Those that have the interest and aptitude in being electricians will be already picking it up for themselves, and if they aren't then trying to cram it into them won't work.

It's like saying "what are you complaining about, you always said you wanted to work in education, you're cleaning the toilets in the the local school, you're working in education".

Re: It's all about the banding

Agree with that assessment. I do field support, actual roll-up sleeve pop the hood replace the carbarettor stuff. I can't do helpdesk, I was forced to do it for a week, I just could not do it. However, so much of the "structure" bars you from being field tech unless you've worked your way up from being telephone monkey. Which means that if you simply do not have the aptitude for being telephone monkey the employer is throwing away field engineers.

Re: "In IT" != software development

I was on £7K *and* my mortgage rate was 15%. And kids today.... :)

Re: broken

"DEVELOPER" IS NOT IT!!!!!!

No wonder the system is broken.

"Architectural engineer, ah, that means you're a bricklayer doesn't it."

Re: broken

"We set a low bar and people still failed to meet it."

And people are spending £30,000 getting a bit of paper in mis-named "Computing Science" courses to become these applicants. I've dropped my head in my hands at the quality of some applicants coming through and wonder if any of them are intelligent enough to sue the universities they went through.

Re: "In IT" != software development

I was on £7000 when I started in Hong Kong in 1990. ;)

The thing is, Coward, as pointed out in the article, you are IT. As the article points out, IT is not programming, and the problem is the perception that programming is IT and the expectation that you hire and pay programmers as IT.

However, it's a breath of fresh air to see somebody who does actually realise that IT is not programming. Unsurprising that it's Ben Goldacre.

Windows Terminal to be the default for command line applications in Windows 11

"In the past, it was tricky to change the default console host in Windows"

My AntiVirus used to aggressively unlink my prefered console host and halfway through a job I'd have to go back and relink it.

Return of the Mac (mechanical): Vissles keyboard for fans of keeping a low profile

Re: No point in buying a mechanical keyboard if it's low profile

Fewer keys. But in this case "less keys" is also correct. Waaaayyyy too thin, they need to be at least half an inch tall to be a proper keyboard for proper typing.

Surely they can't be mechanic keyboards, they're all flat. A mechnical keyboard needs proper keycaps at least half of your proper inches tall and at least a quarter of an inch of travel.

UK government has 'no clear plan' for replacing ageing legacy IT estate, MPs report

It's not the ancient mainframe causing mispayments of pensions, it's the data and processing on the mainframe. Transfer it wholesale to a newer system and it will make exactly the same mispayments - just faster and more efficiently.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a coding puzzle and it's a doozy

Re: Legislation is like bad code....

I seem to remember that British Summer Time was similarly not in legislation but declared as an order in council or somesuch. I remember a couple of years having a desk diary with a note at the begining saying something like "BST dates as marked are provisional as the Government have not published the dates yet". Even though everybody *knows* it's last-Sun-in-Oct and last-Sun-in-Mar. HMG still had to publish a notice declaring it, just like the Roman Calends.

Microsoft's Teams Essential tier seems designed to coax people on to Business Basic

Re: I have kicked my chatting addiction in '97

Don't you mean it cost *her* over E1,000? Or is "me" one of the new thrid-person pronouns?

I was supposed to be watching an online presentation last night. I followed the link and it demanded to run in Teams.

I selected the 'use my browser' option. After a couple of minutes it just came to a halt. So much of a halt that I had to reset the entire computer with extreme paperclip.

So I downloaded the Teams Client - which is calls an 'app', what is it about people thinking everybody uses a smartphone?

On running the installer Windows complained it wasn't a legitimate executable file.

I've been holding meetings with Zoom for almost two years, even with the crap-fest that is Zoom. If Microsoft wants to steal that market they need to make their product actually work.

Google sued for firing staff who claim they tried to follow 'Don't be evil' motto

Re: Google is a US corporation.. "Right To Work"..

None of that sounds like "right to work" more like restriction of employment contracts.

How does Right To Work work? If I'm unemployed who do I sue for my rights being infringed? Who's the employer of last resort that ensures that right is enforced?

Re: Google is a US corporation

Like the recent one: "I want to screw around, but my girlfriend won't agree". All dressed up in identitarian pass phrases.

Slavery was abolished in the USA more than 150 years ago. If these people don't want to work for Google they are completely free to not work for Google.

A tiny typo in an automated email to thousands of customers turns out to be a big problem for legal

Re: Not is such a tiny word

"There may have been a warning beforeehand but I missed the start."

I listen to "classic" series on Radio 4 Extra, and there's often a cultural sensativity warning before programs.... that are barely ten years old!

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should: Install Linux on NTFS – on the same partition as Windows

Re: What have you been drinking?

"All your files are available in both OSes, without syncing or transferring or anything."

Hold on, isn't that what I've already been doing for the last ten years or so? Write code, compile it in Windows, test it, switch to Linux, compile *exactly* *the* *same* *files*, test it. Update files, switch back to Windows, compile *those* *exact* *same* *files*....

A lightbulb moment comes too late to save a mainframe engineer's blushes

Re: Surgical Safety Checklist

I also asked *them* to confirm what I'm in for. If *they* answer correctly I let them put me under.

Almost every contract I've been on I've spent the first couple of days rewriting the scribbled incomprehensible nonsense that passes for documentation into a checklist, aiming for a single A4 max. Forcing youself to actually write down on a sheet of paper and tick off Asset Tag Number, Machine ID, User ID, User email, Join Domain, Run Office Install, Map R: to \\etc, Map S to \\etc gets things done so much more effectively, and documents where you might have missed something, or have been forced to skip a step and come back later.

The two rules of firearms:

A gun is always loaded, even when it's unloaded

Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill

There's only one cure for passive-aggressive Space Invader bosses, and that's more passive aggression

Re: Working to Rule

A bit similiar to a job I had 10 20 30 years ago. My boss always arrived spot on 9:00:00.0000. My ferry either got me to work at 9:05 or at 8:05. Arriving at 8:05 resulting in a 55-minute wait for the doors to be unlocked. Consequently my boss always saw me "arrving late".

He always left at 5:00:00.0000. He never saw that I typically left at 6.

Earth's wobbly companion is probably the result of a lunar impact, reckon space boffins

I'm now picturing setting up base on a Trojan asteroid and jumping off to other asteroids, tying a rope to them, and pulling them in to gather them together.

The Ministry of Silly Printing: But I don't want my golf club correspondence to say 'UNCLASSIFIED' at the bottom

Re: Shared printers

"In terms of characteristics of the writer they weren't even prepared to say what the gender might be."

Well of course they can't, because that is what is inside somebody's head. You have to physically interact with them to determine somebody's gender.

Re: Shared printers

I've had interviews like that.

But...... I need the money! Food. Costs. Money.

It resulted in 7 years on the dole. There was a non-existent window between "you're not qualified, bugger off" and "you're too qualified, bugger off". Eventually wrangled my way into local government for ten years. Which of course adds additional crippling to the "you're not qualified" front.

Re: Way Back...

"????

The middle part of that process seems entirely redundant!"

Ah, you're new to the Public Sector, aren't you?

That was exactly my experience in local government in 1999.

Re: Back in the early 90's

Didn't Samantha's husband Derwood/Dilwood/Derrin work there?

Shhhhhhchop!

Nobody thought to offer them a guillotine?

System at the heart of scaled-back £30m Sheffield University project runs on end-of-life Oracle database

I hope this includes replacing their online job application system which actively fights against any attempt to actually complete any application.

Pulling down a partition or knocking through a door does not necessarily make for a properly connected workspace

"(or three-way, etc.) lighting"

So, on, off, and...... something else?

Say what you see: Four-letter fun on a late-night support call

Eye Pee See Oh

Last week ago I needed a remote user's IP address so I could remote in. I tried to walk him through getting a command line and running ipconfig. God, it was the most frustrating ten minutes of my recent life. I thought I'd got him to a command line, but trying to walk him through typing i p c o n f i g return seemed beyond him. Go the the start button. The bottom left. The button at the bottom left. Down there. Down! Down! No, the other down. Left. That's it keep going, left. That's it! That's the Windows start button. Clock on it. No, just clock, not double... no! just. Gah. Look, press the WIndows key on the keyboard. Just left of the spacebar, is there a key with a Windows picture on it? Left. LEFT! That's it, now just type cmd, that's short for command, and press return. Have you got a black box that says Windows Command at the top? "Yes". If there a flashing underline? "Yes" Ok, I need you to enter the ipconfig command by typing eye pee see oh en eff eye gee and pressing return. "Ok, done that". What does it say? "Nothing".

We were connected via a Zoom call so I was trying to show him by showing him the actions on my machine, warning him that his would look slightly different. I think at one point he was trying to put the focus in *my* command window. I ended up frustratingly telling him to bring his laptop into the office.

This is why I don't "do" remote support, if I can't see the machine with my eyeballs I can't see what happening. I can't understand this belief that I can see through other people's eyeballs.

Remember when you thought fax machines were dead-matter teleporters? Ah, just me, then

Did anybody else use ThePhoneCompany's email-to-fax service? [e-mail]

Re: Happy Memories of a first time faxer

Yes, if you ever watch an oldey-timey Wild West movie where they're nailing up a Wanted poster with the but of their gun - that was often a fax transmission. See link.

Crank-operated letterpress fax machine

Needs to use Banda fluid in an unventilated room for best effect.

kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk.....

Singaporean minister touts internet 'kill switch' that finds kids reading net nasties and cuts 'em off ASAP

He seems to be fighting against basic physics. To monitor X messages you need at least X monitors, to monitor all of Singapore's population's messages in real time with human classification requires an additional population of Singapore to do it.

Orders wrong, resellers receiving wrong items? Must be a programming error and certainly not a rushing techie

Lift floors....

Oh dear, I saw that coming a mile off.

In 2013 I was on a project upgrading our local authority to the sparkling new Windows 7. Part of the process was testing existing equipment and swapping out kit that wouldn't take the upgrade. With new kit brought upstairs from the the build room.

Colleague and I were scheduled to bring the latest batch of 20 up to floor six (or where-ever). Using those mini-trolly things stacked with almost a dozen desktops. Out of long-formed habit I pushed mine down the corridor with one hand on the top of the pile for stability even though it was harder to steer. My youthful colleague had both hands on the handle confidently striding towards the open lift doors. Time slowed down.... I could see into the future.... the wheels caught on the slight miss-match of floor levels and a dozen PCs chose to very briefly sample the delights of flight.

(Apologies to him if he's reading here, I hope it's sufficiently anonymous)

Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'

What tha lookin's at, thee?

Ok, it's decided. Klingon it is.

'a'Setbur wants to pass a message to B'Qotmagh without tIquvma' interfering....

English language fail

There's somebody at the door.

What do they want?

They have to go all the way in expunging evil Western influences and stop using English.

Scoot on over for a wheely tricky mystery with an electrifying solution

Re: And again, SNAP

Most likely the suit yelled "Ow! *your* rubbish equipment has shocked me, you;re fired!"

Config cockup leaves Reg reader reaching for the phone

Re: e er what's the difference

If you're going for command aliases, surely you'd make them unambiguious.

e for edit

d for delete

b for browse

Chiptune to brighten your afternoon: Winning 8-bit throwback music revealed

Golden Brown is disk JJR1 here.

Fatal Attraction: Lovely collection, really, but it does not belong anywhere near magnetic storage media

"I found it a trifle worrying that two 'engineers' hadn't made the mental connection between magnets and magnetic media."

Possibly because they weren't engineers, but actually technicians? Or even, fitters.