Posts by The Indomitable Gall 1731 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
" It's more worrying that people presumed to be logical ( as in techie minded) don't see that. "
While at a transistor level, computers are about logic, everything above that level is a baffling mess of arbitrary decisions, and any minor variation results in complete failure.
If PEBCAK was an assembler opcode....
Indeed, and that is why they came up with the notion of the generic service desk that logs calls for every IT problem as well as all facilities problems from a broken coffee machine to a crack in a supporting wall.
There are two problems that have crippled the notion of "service desk":
1) A truly generic service desk rarely resolves problems on first call, which irritates some users and looks bad against a key performance metric of the services it replaces: calls resolved on first contact.
2) Many companies create their service desks by simply rebranding the IT helpdesk; giving them extra work and no extra staff. This leads to a longer backlog of calls, and it's the desk staff that get it in the neck, as their performance goes down against key performance metrics... including calls resolved on first contact as while they can reset user passwords online, they can't exactly unblock the third stall on the right in the gents lavs over a phone call....
So yeah... service desk is a dream. I'm sad to live in reality.
" The one true doughnut is an irregular globular shape and filled with jam and covered in sugar. All others are impostors. After all, it's called a doughnut, not a doughring. "
Go grab a metal bolt, and that metal thing that goes on it... what do you call it? A sort of ring thing, with a hole in the middle? Oh yes, a nut.
(I'm well aware that this is false etymology, but then again I'm pretty certain that the original doughnuts were unstuffed fried doughballs not much bigger in size than a modern "doughnut hole".
I think the best way to think about the offence taken by religious people is this:
How would you feel if this was your mother?
I mean, even if there is no god (I'm an atheist myself), religious people genuinely feel filial love for their figures of veneration. Thus, think about whether you would insult someone's mother that way.
Now before anyone says "it's a delusional feeling", well yeah... I personally agree with you, but it makes no difference: they feel it, and making them offended doesn't free them of the belief -- it just offends them. So what is the purpose?
So let's get back to the sausage roll.
If someone replaced my mother with a sausage roll, how offended would I be? Not very. Unless it was presented explicitly as an insult. So I do think it's a bit of a silly overreaction, but guess what...? A handful of Twitter users is nothing. You're talking about the overreaction by a tiny number of people... so aren't we also guilty of overreacting.
@Big John,
There certainly is some quality journalism left, but you can see how quickly it has been forced to move towards clickbait-ism to compete with the fake news crowd.
I suspect most journalists would be very pleased with reductions in clickbait, as right now they're all being forced to dumb down and would like to be able to do more good stuff.
Funny this comment should pop up today, because while I'm not having a server room problem, I discovered last night that the cleaners are storing waste paper in a fire equipment cupboard at my current workplace.
I have logged this with the very top of our "security and safety" department, alongside a lecture theatre with both fire exits blocked during exam sittings.
Not a happy bunny today.
I wish people would stop talking about bacon. I'm living in a country where it's not illegal to eat pork products, but as most of the country doesn't, almost nowhere sells bacon. Certainly nowhere in my town. :-(
Although that said, what I'm missing most at the moment is a toaster and sliced pan bread.
" Also, that's too hot for a good fried egg. "
Erm... no.
The 67 degrees C mentioned on the Guardian article is for sous-vide cooking, and it takes aaaaaaaaaaaages. Sous-vide is a deliberately low-temperature cooking style. I imagine most people actually frying their eggs will be using a notably higher temperature.
(I suspect most folk would say I fry my eggs at too high a temperature anyway...)
It gets worse.
A lot of people don't change the codes very often, and the action behind keys that are used most tends to soften fairly quickly. There have been times where I've forgotten the combination to a room/building and reminded myself by just prodding all the buttons until I find the soggiest ones, which then let me in. Scarily weak security.
As I've just commented elsewhere in this thread, it's more complicated than that.
In the past, Scotland hasn't always done enough to counter the glorification of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland (and a disproportionate amount of what was traditionally done was against pro-republicans, while Rangers fans were still happily waving UVF banners at matches with impunity).
There's good reason to worry about people posing for pictures in "black combat gear", and I don't have a problem with them investigating when an image like that is presented to them. The problem here is that they didn't drop it as soon as they discovered it was someone playing a game of tig.
But the glorification of the Norn Irn situation has been a major societal problem for decades, even if mostly concentrated in Glasgow, and while the law is clearly overbroad, there is still a need to be able to stop genuine glorification of terrorist violence.
Oh, and politics comes into it to, because sectarianism has historically influenced all sorts of things, through HR hiring policies to party candidate nominations.
Don't get me wrong, I do think the law here is a mistake, and that the police officers involved acted like total muppets, but I do recognise that we have to look beyond that and look at the whole thing in context.
In this case, I suspect it all arises from the glorification of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland by a subset of residents of the greater Glasgow area -- it's an issue that hasn't always been tackled as strongly as it should have, but there is always a danger of overcompensating as we can see here.
The description of the picture as "black combat gear" brings it into the realms of possibility that this did look a lot like a republican or unionist paramilitary. But then again, Grangemouth isn't in greater Glasgow.
All in all, while the plods in question can be excused for flagging up the image for further investigation, the fact that their superiors saw fit to push for charges rather than dropping it is just ludicrous.
The problem is that we've spent a heck of a lot of time on natural speech recognition, which overcomplicates matters ridiculously.
With our inefficient GUIs we've trained people out of the idea of learning "commands", and when it boils down to it, every speech recognition interface has some kind of assumptions coded into it that mean we really are dealing with a command set, but a fuzzy one, and one that isn't written down anywhere.
OK, so Google will give you a rough overview of the command structure if you make a mistake, but only if you make a mistake that it recognises (such as it working out that Keiran was trying to make a call) and that it recognises as a mistake (it didn't realise it was phoning the wrong person, for example).
I genuinely think people are open to a formalised compromise.
I mean:
OK Google, Call [[person]] using [[application]]
seems straightforward, and quick. Getting rid of the "I would like to ..." part sets everything up for a straightforward paradigm.
OK Google, Switch on the [[device]] in [[room]]
And sticking with a fairly simple formula, you can get a reasonable degree of sophistication:
OK Google, open The Register in Chrome and display on the TV in the living room.
It's a strict subset of English, so easily learnable, and if you include a few clear variations (e.g. OK Google, use Chrome to open The Register on the living room TV), no-one's really going to notice that they're not able to say it every which way, because they'll get what they want done easily and quickly enough.
You can use Garageband as a simple multitrack, if you want, and given that it's free with any iOS device, if you need a multitrack recorder, why not use it? (In fact, the original Garageband was pretty much just a multitrack with a couple of extra functions!)
Garageband is definitely not mutually incompatible with real instruments.
@wyatt
" To an extent I agree, however when you look at how the cable is comprised there can be a number of differences. Quality of the connectors and the gauge of the wire are all factors which a cheap cable may scrimp on meaning slower charge times and other issues. "
The problem is that many pricey cables in shops are just cheap cables in a nice packet.
The only objective measure of USB cable quality is resistance on the +5V line -- a poor cable will have a higher resistance, meaning slower charging. Funnily enough, even though I own a multimeter, I've never checked my cables for this... must start doing so.
I went into a computer shop to get a USB cable as I had bought a wireless printer, which naturally didn't come with a USB cable (wireless, innit?) but needed one once for the initial setup. I was fully expecting to pay about a quarter again the price of the printer, as I didn't have time to wait for a £1 one from an Amazon trader or fleabay.
So imagine my surprise when instead of pulling out some nicely labelled oversized bag, the guy in the shop pulled a slightly battered cardboard box out from under the counter, shuffled around, pulled out a cable in cheap cellophane and asked "Will that do?"
I can't remember what he charged me for it, but he instantly became my first recommendation for computer repairs.
A) because he was honest enough that I wouldn't expect him to fleece customers
B) because he clearly had a successful enough business that he didn't feel the need to fleece customers on the day-to-day stuff.
" The simulation argument applies Occam's razor. It proposes that one of 3 things must be true, and the other two seem at least as implausible as the simulation hypothesis. "
Nope -- it's just a shoulder shrug. Just like the deity solution, it postulates the unprovable.
Testable theories can be considered secular in the traditional sense in that they only concern themselves with the mechanics of the physical realm -- most of our science originates in the secular philosophy of religious scientists.
While the simulation hypothesis is not "religious" per se, it is certainly not secular, and it's just as impossible to prove or disprove as any deity.
That depends. If they've licensed the FPGA C64 recreation that went into a TV-game joystick unit a while back, then the engineering's all done, and there's really very little work to do.
But if they're doing software emulation, then the whole beast of timing issues and inaccurate emulation raises its ugly head.
@ I ain't Spartacus
" eventually their tech will be beaten by some other system that consumers are happy with. "
Better tech's all well and good, but the problem with competitiveness in a modern data-driven company is that the incumbents all have a backlog of data and an embedded userbase that no-one else does.
YouTube already knows what videos I like to watch, and can hook me for hours with recommendation after recommendation. Any new competitor wouldn't be able to trap me on their site for anywhere near the same amount of time.
Google augments its processing of my words with knowledge of my history, so search results are more relevant to me. No new competitor would be able to provide me with better results than Google, even if their tech was perfect, because they're lacking that data, and short-term convenience wins.
The article points out that Uber's big advantage is this same one -- they know people's habits and they know usage patterns, and new entrants start off on the back foot as they don't have any of that.
@AC:
" When talking about science, it is best to avoid hyperbole and exaggeration. Is python a sometimes convenient tool? Yes. Is it helpful to have iin some situations? Absolutely. Is it a "game changer"? Hell, no. "
That's every bit as strong a statement as the one you're seeking to refute.
In the early days of computer programming, most people were just scheduling batch jobs (hence "programming") using a scripting language.
The problem is, most shell scripting languages are rubbish. Most attempts at more powerful shell scripting languages (e.g. Tcl) were contorted, byzantine affairs. Javascript was clumsy to start off with, and when people tried to put it into the shell, if just felt weird.
What is often overlooked is that Python is a shell scripting language, and it manages to maintain a pretty high level of flexibility and power while still being more learner-friendly than most languages.
When people complain about its lack of speed, they're kind of missing the point, because in applications like data science, all the heavy lifting is done by libraries, which are generally compiled C code.
Python with Pandas is a bit like a massively updated version of using calling grep from a bash script.
It has changed the game.
@CrazyOldCatMan
"Service Desk" really shouldn't be used as a synonym for "helpdesk".
The idea of a service desk is supposed to be that you don't need to know which number you've got to call to get someone to fix your computer/the photocopier/the coffee machine/the toilet that doesn't flush. From a business perspective, it makes a whole load of sense to have one group of people who know where to direct all calls to, because it stops the employees from wasting an entire morning trying to find out how the hell you get a particular problem resolved.
I say that as someone who's been on both sides of the phone. The last thing you want as an IT guy is to be called "service desk" (as the number of irrelevant calls goes up) and when something goes wrong in an IT company, there's more chance you'll be needing non-IT services than IT (because it's quicker to just fix an IT problem yourself than wait for a ticket to get through the call handling system).
It may seem pedantic, but I genuinely like the idea of a proper service desk, and it irritates me to know that abuse of the term leads to lack of awareness of the concept, and me having to do the constant runaround to find out who the hell deals with X, Y or Z.
@DropBear
" Hey, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Don't blame the tool, blame the corporate culture full of tools who think meetings are how work gets done... "
The problem is (as Professor Emeritus Edward Tufte argues -- https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp) that PowerPoint encourages through it layout options, workflow and template structure, a certain way of working that doesn't mesh with how the human brain works. And then you get style guides and corporate templates that compound that problem.
Meetings do get work done, but the word "meeting" implies some reciprocity. The single biggest problem with PowerPoint is its fixed, linear nature. A presentation given using PowerPoint is so rigid that it removes any opportunity for anything other than superficial interaction between the presenter and the audience. It also disempowers the presenter, making him or her a slave to the slides... even if they were his or her slides in the first place.
I don't think they were ever going to get away with calling themselves a riding-sharing service in the UK -- there was already too much regulation in place for them to skip it.
That regulation made Blablacar very cautious when they moved into the UK market, and they used the HMRC's mileage allowance as a benchmark for what is considered driving for profit or not, which was entirely sensible and ensured that Blablacar would never be profitable for drivers, and would only offset and mitigate costs.
I know a guy who makes a good living writing software and doesn't have a CS degree. He does, however, have an astrophysics degree, and what he programs is code for space missions. I also know a woman who retired early after programming financial models and doesn't have a CS degree. She does, however, have a degree in stats and actuarial maths.
" you get a good code monkey, but without the knowledge of fundamentals like functional analysis, fsms, graph theory, probability and stats, etc. Not that the recent crop of "industry oriented" CS degrees do that anyway. "
AKA mortgaging the future for short-term profit.
Why did we give in to the companies and turn a degree into a 3 or 4 year training course for the first few years of employment, at the cost that now our grads don't have the skills to innovate?
A CS grad should be able to innovate and apply principles -- the goal of CS isn't to create infinite code monkeys.
" Despite the currency fluctuatiion et al, I still can't help thinking Apple, M$, Samsung etc have just used this as a bloody good excuse to increase margins and shaft UK punters at the same time. "
Well that would be a legitimate claim if it wasn't cheaper to buy Apple products in the UK that in Europe. This is particularly surprising given that they've just launched a new product range.
The base iPhone 8 costs £699 (€788) at UK RRP or €829 (£735) in Ireland. It's not a huge difference, but it's in our favour... so it seems a tiny bit paranoid to cry "price gouging"...
I think you mean what you skipped over, because the article I read specifically made a point of comparing the prices rises on continental Europe over the same period to identify the part of the UK price rise that can be attributed to currency differences.
" Fuck over millions of sick people, that's capitalism. Threaten to pull the hair of one of the sociopaths that be*? Go in guns blazing "
Calling in bomb threats is highly disruptive, and therefore a crime even where there is no actual bomb.
The tweets in question were very similar. Any credible threat against a public figure becomes a massive cost and inconvenience to the security services. Her security detail will have to be increased as attempts to pull a hair cannot be readily distinguished from attempts to do more serious harm until it's too late; and anyone who genuinely wants to get close enough to do real harm might see the hair-grab thing as a useful smokescreen for a serious attack.
" Funny how nobody complained when the Chaos Computer Club were asking for DNA samples of prominent politicians. "
Were the members of the Chaos Computer Club up for bail hearings on felony charges?
This didn't happen because he was some kind of special case -- we heard about it because he's some kind of special case.
" Hey! Calling him Pharma Bro is a slap in the face to all bros everywhere. The proper term is pharmadouche. "
I find that people who refer to themselves/each other as "bros" are likely to be referred to by others as "douches" anyway.
And to localise that into en_GB, people who refer to themselves/each other as "lads" are likely to be referred to by others as "twats".
