I found Mensa to be full of people who mistook thinking quickly for thinking well, much like a teenage boy who thinks he knows how to drive fast just because he has a car with a big engine.
Posts by Mike Lewis
200 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2009
Ubuntu Linux now on Windows Store (for Insiders)
Zero accidents, all of your data – what The Reg learnt at Bosch's autonomous car bash
Hotheaded Brussels civil servants issued with cool warning: Leak
BA CEO blames messaging and networks for grounding
BOFH: Password HELL. For you, mate, not for me
Programmer finds way to liberate ransomware'd Google Smart TVs
Retiring IETF veteran warns: Stop adding so many damn protocols
That's cold: This is how our boss told us our jobs are at risk, staffers claim
Nokia handled firing and smartphones equally well
When Nokia was closing down its Melbourne Product Development branch, we were never told the branch was being shut down. People just started disappearing, one or two every week. We eventually realised what was going on. It was like being in a horror movie, wondering who was going to vanish next. When my turn came, I was told the bad news then instructed to clean out my desk. My manager stood over me, watching my every move and constantly complaining about how long I was taking to pack.
The Rise, Fall and Return of TomTom
Mobile broadband now cheaper than wired, for 95 per cent of humanity
Microsoft: Give us better staff
BA 'offers' IT bods extra leave, flexible working - unpaid of course
Deploying software every day is... actually... OK – what devs tell their real-life friends
Daily deployments?
I can see a problem doing daily deployments with safety-critical software that must be certified every time it is released. Mission critical could be a problem too. At Telstra's Australian EFTPOS network, we were not allowed to deploy any new software at all in December and January, our busiest time of the year.
Feds raid dental flaws dad
Re: When is a Flaw Not a Flaw
> Are there any rules on data confidentiality in the USA that would allow a customer, or even a worried person with dental issues to sue for worry and anxiety?
There's something called the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) that appears to have been violated. The Privacy Rule covers "any part of an individual's medical record or payment history". The Security Rule states that "Information systems must be protected from intrusion. When information flows over open networks, some form of encryption must be utilised." (quotes are from Wikipedia)
Microsoft boots fake fix-it search ads
Ransomware grifters offer to donate proceeds of crime to charity
MIT boffins' code scans your health claims, tunes plans for bosses
You've seen things people wouldn't believe – so tell us your programming horrors
Near hit
Thirty years ago when I first used Unix, running as root because I didn't know any better, I created a file then decided to delete it "the Unix way" by moving it to /bin and doing rm -rf /bin/*. I thought /bin was the Unix equivalent of the Macintosh's rubbish bin icon. Fortunately, I decided to do ls /bin first in case there were files that other people didn't want deleted. Guess what I found.
Telstra proclaims free data day to make up for epic TITSUP
USA lets visiting Australian tech workers keep toiling while they wait for visa extensions
Great news!
This is great news! I'm an embedded programmer in Melbourne who's looking for work and this will reduce the competition, much the same way as six of my friends working in that area went overseas after Australia's electronics industry died and went to China. I can't do that myself as I'm looking after my mum. If you think finding parts for old hardware is difficult, try keeping someone going who was built in 1932.
At last – Feds crack down on crummy encryption … starting with your dentist
Victorian government teacher-laptop scheme illegal, says judge
'iOS 9 ate my mobile broadband plan'
Re: Only one reason...
Try $2 per MB. That's what Telstra charged me for the data on my new smartphone. I ended up with a $1,300 bill on a phone that had cost me $149. Something went wrong with registering the DataPack I purchased. Trying to get the bill cancelled took me three months of visiting their shop, writing emails and calling them. It was finally resolved when I received a phone call from them saying they were going to shut off all my phones the next day. They said the credit was in the system; they didn't know why it hadn't gone through.
I removed the SIM card from the smartphone and put it back in my old Nokia 3315.
Toyota chucks $50m at AI car tech
Have they given up on natural intelligence then?
I'd feel safer if Toyota spent that money on fixing its existing code and development system. See "Toyota's killer firmware: Bad design and its consequences" at http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/2/Toyota-s-killer-firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences.
Jeep Cherokee 2.2: Capable, comfortable ... but just not very Jeep
BOFH: My diary is MINE and mine alone, you petty HR gimps
CRTs and Backups
Fun times were had when a team of software engineers kept getting corrupted backups on a Sony DAT (remember those?) so off to the repair shop it went. The shop couldn't find anything wrong but the team's backups were still being corrupted so the DAT, cable and controller card were bundled up and sent off. No errors detected. Then they asked me to have a look at it and I spotted the problem right away. They had laid the cable connecting the controller card to the DAT across the top of a 21" CRT. Cable moved, problem solved.
Now car hackers can bust in through your motor's DAB RADIO
Insurer tells hospitals: You let hackers in, we're not bailing you out
Windows 10 MURDERED your Lumia? Microsoft says it may have a fix
'One day, YOU won't be able to SENSE the INTERNET,' vows Schmidt
Mixed feelings
I have mixed feelings about the IoT.
On the one hand, I write device drivers for a living so I'm looking forward to the greatly increased job opportunities with every Thing needing a device driver.
On the other hand, I'm not really into home automation, let alone IoT. I prefer to keep it simple.
World, face Palm: PDA brand to RISE FROM THE GRAVE
Re: Hmmm...
I still use a Palm Pilot Tungsten E2 every day. I call it my "information engine" as I listen to podcasts and read ebooks and Internet articles (captured by Sunrise XP) on it. I had to buy a new one on eBay for $60 several months ago as the old one just wore out after eight years. When I changed to a smartphone, I got a data bill for $1,300 (eventually cancelled) thanks to something called "automatic update" so it's back to my Nokia 3315 and Palm Pilot for me. I now use the smartphone for what I had bought it for originally, which was an MP3 player.
GCHQ recruits spotty teens – for upcoming Hack Idol
Top ten car gadgets: Get your motor running with new shiny-shiny
FTC calls for Congress to crack down on consumer data harvesting
Rap chap tapped for $3 BEELLION: Apple buys Dr Dre's Beats
95 floors in 43 SECONDS: Hitachi's new ultra-high-speed lift
Google's Drive SLASH, secret 'big upgrade': Coincidence? Hardly
Australian bureaucrats to journalist: 'Give us back our bits'
Is modern life possible without a smartphone?
Bill Shock
I asked the local (Australian) telco to set up data and calling plans for my new smartphone then transferred the SIM card from my ancient Nokia. I got a bill for $1,300 (about £585) thanks to automatic update and the plans not being set up correctly. When my hands stopped shaking, I moved the SIM card back. It took three months with many phone calls, emails and visits to their shop to get them to cancel the charge. The SIM card is still in my Nokia.
Windows 8.1: Read this BEFORE updating - especially you, IT admins
I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working
It happens with other industries too. I recall being at a motorbike club party when one of the attendees foolishly admitted to being a motorcycle mechanic. He was swamped.
I read a story on the Internet, so it must be true, about a university student who went home for the holidays, taking his usual rescue CD to clean up his mother's computer. To his horror, he found that she had told all her friends he was coming so he spent the entire time fixing their computers as well.
Guinness World Records pulls beards off online Secret Santas
Acer dishing out 16,400 cheap OLYMPIC laptops to schools
Telstra gets mail with Microsoft
Microwaved hard disc, run-over PC and other data disasters
Inside Windows Phone 7: ghost of Zune
Consumer tech pollutes enterprise IT
Cisco DisConnect
Oh god! Not Cisco VPN everywhere! I had enormous problems with their VPN client for XP. It scrambled the TCP/IP stack so badly that nothing worked. Utilities to repair the stack didn't fix the problem and the VPN client couldn't be removed so I had to reinstall the whole operating system.
Colleagues said a later version of the software worked but wasn't available from corporate IT as it hadn't been tested yet so they downloaded a cracked version from one of the warez sites. Probably not the best source for security software.
IT managers are spoil sports
Soccer with the IT Department
Ideally, IT departments should not be oligarchs but they often are, Along with the person in charge of the stationery cupboard, they are people you do NOT want to make enemies. What works for me is to treat them as if they have done me a personal favour when they fix something, which is the attitude of the worst ones. That gets me to the front of the queue the next time something goes wrong. It also works when getting help from a member of another team, even to the extent that they will neglect their own team's work in favour of helping me. A little appreciation can go a long way.
The best thing one of the companies I worked for did, come to think of it the only good thing they did, was to set up a projector in an empty room while the Olympics were on. People were free to wander in and out as they pleased. Perhaps the same could be done for the soccer.