Posts by deadlockvictim

Amazon gets its tax excuses in early amid rising UK profits – but leaves El Reg off the press list. Can't think why

The rising tide lifts all boats

Good people of England, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and the supply-side economists have you covered. Didn't you realise that it is a good thing that the money is all going to Amazon and not to the Government? The Government will only waste it on healthcare and the like.

No, the rising tide lifts all boats and as long as you have a boat (better still a yacht), you'll be grand. It's all for the best. Whose best, they didn't say, but I'm sure they meant you and me.

You won't need .NET Standard... except when you do need it: Microsoft sets out latest in ever-changing story

Re: .NET is still a thing?

Our programmers at work are obliged to use it.

The application servers are slow and the Entity Framework queries it generates mean we have to wait 3-4s for each webpage page to load. You won't be surprised to learn that we have about 30 deadlocks per day.

Re: There was an xkcd about competing standards...

https://xkcd.com/927/

You mean this one, don't you?

I thought of it myself while reading the article.

Wow, you guys have so much in common: Oracle hotly tipped to power TikTok’s operations as Microsoft deal rejected

TikTok & Oracle marketing

Well, I, for one, am looking forward to watching teens and pre-teens extol the virtues of Oracle in 15s to some tune from Billie Eilish.

Enterprise-level databases and analytics tools just haven't been that hot a topic with teenagers recently.

IBM repays millions to staff after messing up its own payroll

Incompetence or Evil

El Reg» IBM appears to have erred, rather than to have intended to underpay staff.

Yes. That is what must have happened. Senior management wouldn't have allowed the organisation to develop a culture of wrong-doing, merely just a culture of incompetence.

Apple commits to support human rights - 'We believe in the critical importance of an open society'*

Ireland & Hollyhell

It's now quite common for Apple employees to refer to their workplace in Cork as Hollyhell (instead of Hollyhill). A former employee liked the situation to a digital chicken factory with long well designed bank of cages. That's since they have removed the cubicle floor design at the facility to introduce a more "transparent workplace". Employees were ordered to remove all personal items from their desk spaces during a visit by Tim Cook to the Apple European HQ in 2015.

Taken from: https://politics.ie/threads/hollyhell-whats-it-like-to-work-for-apple-in-ireland.255372/

Amazon spies on staff, fires them by text for not hitting secretive targets, workers 'feel forced to work through pain, injuries' – report

Trump & Bezos

And to think that The Don doesn't like Jeff Bezos.

I'd have thought they'd be bosom-buddies.

Forget Fortnite and FIFA: India wants to develop games based on local legends

Modi

Maybe I'm being cynical, but two thoughts come to mind:

1. In the same way that MAGA translates as 'Make America White Again', my guess is that Modi's comment means, 'Make India Hindi Again'.

2. On that first point, there are many, many traditions & cultures on the Indian subcontinent. I wonder if Mr. Modi would be happy with an epic game that celebrates one of the non-Hindi cultures. The Tamils must surely have a rich mythology. They do have a lot of good programmers and an entrepreneurial culture. So, Tamil Nadu, take Mr. Modi's words seriously and pronounce for us a killer game rich in Tamil culture.

Here's some words we never expected to write: Oracle said to offer $10bn cash, $10bn shares for TikTok US – plus profit share promise

Re: Buy It

My hope is that Oracle will make it as user-friendly as their main product with lots of add-on products as well. TikTok will then become the default video-sharing site of governments and large corporations and have a licence structure as easy to understand as that of Oracle.

Keeping it local

Is the logical follow on from this, that the Chinese government can oblige American multinationals to sell off their profitable Chinese operations to Chinese companies whenever the Chinese government wishes?

Microsoft sides with Epic over Apple developer ban, supports motion for temporary restraining order

Re: Meanwhile, in other news

I don't understand the downvotes.

Go read Andy Hertzfeld's Folklore.org (or 'Revolution in the Valley' if you can find it) for some of the early days of Microsoft. Go watch the 'Pirates of Silicon Valley'. Apple & Microsoft go way back.

Look at all of Apple's OS releases and watch how Microsoft rendered their interpretation of them.

It is no surprise that Microsoft Excel was first released for the Macintosh.

Office too first appeared on the Mac.

That Bill Gates gave his public support to Apple at a time they were written off by most (1997) is no surprise.

Re: Meanwhile, in other news

To be fair to Microsoft, Microsoft has been a fan of Apple for a *very* long time and their histories are entwined. They both had a rich uncle Xerox, for example.

Re: Cupertino getting notions of apotheosis again.

Well, the root- and savage pruning Apple got in 1997 certainly did force them to be fruitful then. I do miss the crop of '98-'99.

However, what do you with a fruit tree that has become so invasive and parasitic that it drains 30% of everything it wraps its branches around. It seems to be more like ivy, if anything.

UK national debt hits 1.46 Apples – and weighs as much as 2 billion adult badgers

Standardisation

El Reg» UK debt is therefore equivalent to 22,441Pb...

Shouldn't this be 22.4 KPbs, that is, 22.4 Kilopogbas?

What with the U.K. leaving Europe and all of that, isn't it time to reject decimalisation and all of its works?

The U.S. has shown that how easy it is to live with Imperial measurement system. You need something truly intuitive like LSD — pound-shillings-pence for those too young to remember. The Sixties, well, the early Seventies really, were a time of experimentation with wacky new ideas.

Ed Snowden has raked in $1m+ from speeches – and Uncle Sam wants its cut, specifically, absolutely all of it

Pardon & safety

Even if president Trump did grant Snowden a pardon and the Security Agencies didn't bump him off, how safe would Snowden be in the States?

My guess is that there are enough sufficiently incensed gun-toting individuals (of both parties, I would think) who feel that he has betrayed their great country that his life would be cut short sooner rather than later.

And how is life in Moscow? Is it worth living if you grew up comfortably in the West? (I honestly have no idea)

US govt proposes elephant showers for every American after Prez Trump says trickles dampen his haircare routine

Re: Why assume he will win?

No, good Republicans as in freedom-loving, foreigner-distrusting, gun-toting, get-the-government-out-of-my-hair, only-the-Republican-Party-can-let-me-be-rich and so on.

I'm saying that they have a choice of Biden now or Ocasio-Cortez in 4 years' time. They distrust one and foam at the mouth at the other.

Re: Why assume he will win?

I put it to good Republicans that a vote for Biden is a better vote than for Trump.

If they vote for Trump, there seems to be a 50-50% chance that he'll be re-elected for a second term.

Which means, by the time that 2024 comes around the portion of swing voters will be so pissed of with him, that they'll be ready for a candidate whom they really despise, namely AOC.

However, if they vote for Sleepy Joe, nothing too politically ground-breaking will happen for 8 years and then the electorate might be ready for another Republican.

So, Republicans, how soon do you want president Ocasio-Cortez? Because Trump is laying the groundwork for her and the longer he is in office, the stronger she grows.

Someone made an AI that predicted gender from email addresses, usernames. It went about as well as expected

Work with facts

Take census data and official data about legal given-name changes, if available

Choose bounds (how far back do you want to go? only results from living people? only results from people within a certain state?)

Return percentage results of given-names per sex [1] as specified in the official data collected above.

Return clusters of results as appropriate, e.g. by cultural regions: a given-name may be mostly a girl's name in Japan but a boy's name in Finland.

Now, it is not guessing the sex of the person based on their e-mail address, merely on the submitted names.

[1] Given names are based on the apparent sex of a baby, not its gender, until the person bearing the name actively chooses to change it. Sex & gender are not the same, despite American prudishness.

Apple was the only Fortune 50 company to foresee COVID-19 pandemic risk and properly insure against it – Forrester

Things we can prevent and things we can't

PS» I also remember for the past decade hearing how Yellowstone Park is over due for it's every-600,000-years-like-clockwork eruption which will kill millions, or that Tenerife is overdue with it's every-10,000-years landslide, which causes a tidal wave travelling at supersonic speeds washing over most of europe with a 1000 foot deep wave.

Well, if that happens, then we are comprehensively fucked. And these are not preventable. We could move away, but to where? Where is safe when are looking out for disasters with such small odds. Where on Earth is safe from 10km asteroids? I suppose I could found a global empire and buy up half of New Zealand.

At least the Mexicans have/will have the Great Wall to protect themselves from American Immigrants when Yellowstone erupts. They'll probably all be rapists too.

Diseases like Covid-19 are expected within a medium-term timeframe (we've already had 3 warnings in the last 20 years). Governments have had time to make contingency plans in the event of one.

FYI Russia is totally hacking the West's labs in search of COVID-19 vaccine files, say UK, US, Canada cyber-spies

Please report to Room 101

Comrade, we have always been at war with Eurasia.

Please report to Room 101.

IBM job ad calls for 12 years’ experience with Kubernetes – which is six years old

Job ad requirements

It seems to me that the job ad is a wishlist of all the things they want to have, regardless of what the position actually requires. Invariably, there are 2 or 3 things on the list that are critical, but the rest is usually head-in-the-clouds thinking. If you have those, you get through to the next round, maybe.

And since so much of the job ad is hyperbole, I work backwards. Unless the job title is as 'Kubernetes Engineer' or explicitly mentions that, 'You will be responsible for..', I treat a requirement of 9 years' experience in kubernetes as 'I have worked with it'.

But then the purpose of the CV is to get past HR and has to be designed that way.

And then there is this strange obsession with degrees. We're not paying what a graduate in Computer Science would earn elsewhere, we are using Microsoft technologies which you know about theoretically and you will be more knowledgeable and qualified than your boss and the board of management, but you will still have to follow their rules, regardless of whether it is the best way to do the thing, or regardless of whether it can be done well in the timeframe they have given you. We want to be able to say that our technical staff are CS graduates.

Things can't go on like this. You need to get fit for the sake of your health. I'm going to write you a prescription for... an e-bike

eBikes

eBikes are great for those whose body needs some exercise but not too much. eBikes make the world essentially flat and a steady pace of 20Kh/h is grand.

I lowered my cholesterol level (without having to resort to medication) over the course of 18 months when I took to cycling to work (15 Kms in 45 mins). I am a fair weather cyclist, so 18 months wasn't as impressive as it sounds (4 months were winter). One of the benefits of eBikes is that you don't need to take a shower once you get to work.

I was screwed over by Cisco managers who enforced India's caste hierarchy on me in US HQ, claims engineer

Re: Nonsense

AC» Human beinfs beckme tribal and clannish intimes of distress.

I beg your pardon? Has your iPhone gone ga-ga?

My understanding of castes is that they are anything but fluid (except down). Am I correct in surmising that you are someone who wouldn't marry a Dalit?

AC» In the working world with Educated people no one cares what caste someone is.

The whole point of this court case is that this seems to be the case.$

AC» Your comments Reek of Brahmin bigotry...

The problem is that Brahmins have not been exemplary in setting standards of fairness. There is probably a good reason why Brahmins are hated so.

AC» Waiting to see if the moderators believe inFOE or are Hinduphobic wit an axe to grind

I think that you'll find that the moderators are more interested in maintaining the laws of what can be published. Or can we expect a suit from you against El Reg on the grounds of anti-Brahmin hatred and suppression of free speech?

What's FOE btw?

Re: Cisco's holes in their HR policies...

Not really.

The purpose of HR is to protect the company from the employees and since this isn't really the case, then HR is uninterested. I won't be surprised, however, if the lower caste guy is eventually pushed out and the upper caste guy gets promoted.

It's now safe to turn off your computer shop: Microsoft to shutter its bricks-and-mortar retail locations worldwide

Microsoft don't really what end-users want

As someone who uses Microsoft daily (SQL Server DBA), Microsoft doesn't really seem get what users want.

There are so many little things that Microsoft wants us to do online that I wouldn't mind going into a Microsoft shop and doing.

For example, I try to do one MCP exam per year. I have to order the books online and then inevitably go down to the post office to collect them. I have to order the exams online. Microsoft could easily have a test centre and the materials in their store.

Many of the books that I'd like to read have to be ordered and it would be nice if they were available there.

There are a couple of SQL Server events (not necessarily organised by Microsoft) on in various places. The Microsoft shop would again make a great venue for presentations if they wanted to do it. The Genius Bar concept from Apple could be replicated a couple of days per year with a sponsored tour from some of the MVPs. All of this costs money, to be sure, but having a central physical location that serves as the nexus of Microsoft is great for reinforcing interest in the products.

I'm thinking primarily of my parents here: courses on Excel, Word, scripting could all be offered.

They could have people there full-time who could fix, optimise, clean your Windows machine. I want to break my machine before I have to get someone to fix it and even then I I'll just wipe it and re-install everything.

In short, Microsoft could be very pro-active in help people who use their products daily to use them better.

Also, I like Microsoft keyboards and mice, more so than Logitech and especially more than Apple mice. The mice have a nice feel in the hand. Not to mention the number of xbox fans out there.

After 84 years, Japan's Olympus shutters its camera biz, flogs it to private equity – smartphones are just too good

Re: Sorry to see them go...

I agree wholeheartedly. I went with Nikon myself in the end. It is shame to see that one of consequences of our collective actions is the end of a company that makes really good stuff that brings pleasure to many.

Windows fails to reach the Finnish line as Helsinki signage pleads for help

Windows as a Service

Whom exactly does it serve?

US starts sniffing around UK spaceports – though none capable of vertical launches actually exist right now

Tunisia

What about the wretched hive of scum and villainy in Tunisia?

That's got to be a lot cheaper than the UK although Trump had better first pay Jabba back first.

The incumbent President of the United States of America ran now-banned Facebook ads loaded with Nazi references

Re: Incumbency

disgruntled yank» As for AOC, she needs a few years before she is eligible for the office.

Does she? She was born in Oct. 1989. She will be 35 years' of age in Oct. 2024. The elections for president are in Nov. 2024 and the new president assumes office in Jan. 2025. Or have I got my sums wrong?

Re: Recumbency

There will be elections well into the future. Even Trump voters would be upset if the elections in 2024 were cancelled. Bear in mind that Trump only reigns because he is protected by the Senate Republicans. The System is too important.

A virus/war killing tens of millions of people might postpone it though.

Incumbency

The incumbent president is almost always elected. Only Bush 41 and Carter spring to mind of presidents not re-elected for a second term in the last 40 years. I expect that Trump will be narrowly re-elected for a second term. A weak Democratic candidate helps his chances. The election is Trump's to lose, as far as I can make out.

What interests me more is the 2024 election. Who will run then on either side? It will be a much more open contest with an electorate possibly tired of 8 years of Republican government and 8 years of geriatric nominations.

If a firebrand like AOC [1] takes the Democratic nomination, will the Republications match her with someone old & grey or someone more youthful, possibly even not white and possibly even female?

[1] I like the TLAs that American politicians get: FDR, JFK, MLK and so on. Is it only a Democratic thing?

Gulp! Irish Water outsources contact centres to Capita for up to €27m over 7 years

constitutional arrangements

CoN» according to its constitutional arrangements...

The U.K. has several bodies of law that is its constitution (for want of a better word).

Wales was conquered by the English king Edward I in the 1280s. Wikipedia informs me that it was legally incorporated into England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542.

The kingdoms of Scotland & England (along with Wales) formed the United Kingdom Of Great Britain in 1707 with the Acts of Union (they had one each), although England had been ruled by a Scottish family for much of the time since 1606.

The union of kingdom of Ireland with the kingdom of Great Britain came in 1800 and a good deal of money changed hands (as is often the case). The new kingdom was the kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland and was legally brought about by the Acts of Union 1800 (one per parliament). The old parliament building in Dublin is now a bank branch.

The next significant pieces of legislation is the Home Rule Act of 1914 which turned into the Goverment of ireland Act 1920, which created Northern Ireland and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. This treaty created the kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.

I still don't know the difference between a country and a state. A state is a legal entity, sovereign within itself and recognised by other states around the world. And a country: a part of a state that is allowed to call itself a country?

Re: "new software and digital capabilities"

One of the official names of the Republic of Ireland is Éire. It is written in the Irish Constitution. using it to refer to the Republic of Ireland is perfectly fine. Let us all remember the goddess Ériu.

However, back to the point at hand, how often do we use official names?

Most people in the U.K., when referring to the state within which they live, say 'England' (ahem) and not, 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' [1].

And to the original poster, would you not feel it strange and perhaps a tad pedantic whenever others kept referring to 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' rather than the U.K.?

[1] I know, I know, England is a country and the U.K. is a state, although what exactly the difference between a country and a state is here is anyway moot. Is Catalonia a country? My point is that in everyday discourse in England, this distinction is not made.

Facebook's cool with sharing the President's nonsense on its mega-platform – but don't you dare mention 'unionize' in its Workplace app

Re: Simple fix

I agree, use the spelling as it used in the other English-speaking countries. I'm fairly sure that the software won't recognise it.

After IBM axed its face-recog tech, the rest of the dominoes fell like a house of cards: Amazon and now Microsoft. Checkmate

Re: Re:FR for the 'Chelsea Flower Show'

I had assumed that if there was FR at the Chelsea Flower Show, that it would be there to protect the attendees and their womenfolk from the flowers.

There have been accounts of particularly vicious ones over the decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnJkmGW8FYQ

Headline

Headline: After IBM axed its face-recog tech, the rest of the dominoes fell like a house of cards: Amazon and now Microsoft. Checkmate

I'm surprised that no-one has commented on the headline.

Do El Reg staff have a competition as how many metaphors can be mixed in one headline?

It did make me smile though.

You can't have it both ways: Anti-coronavirus masks may thwart our creepy face-recog cameras, London cops admit

Why bother?

London Police, why bother?

The various police forces in the U.S. don't.

They just find the first non-White person and shoot him.

It is cheaper than getting it wrong with facial recognition and, if you follow the U.S. model, there isn't any accountability either.

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

Re: I'll give it a go...

Since SatNad's ascent to the top, Microsoft has been pushing anything and everything into their big data-centres around the world.

My suggestion is: «Purveyors of Head-in-the-Clouds Thinking».

The Rise of The (Coffee) Machines: I need assistance. I think I'm running Windows. Send help

GPP

Douglas Adams and a paranoid android came to mind, not Davros.

You can blame the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation for making androids with GPP…

Snapchat domain squatter loses comedy £1m URL sellback attempt

Re: There is scum, and there are idiots

I would have taken the domain name catsnap.co.uk (snapcat.co.uk brings me to Y-Combinator), put up pictures of cats and see what happens. There may even be a market for pictures of cats in some surreal universe.

Apollo 13 set off into space 50 years ago today. An ignored change order ensured it did not make it to the Moon...

Re: Lucky 13

If you look hard enough, there are spoilers online. But without the Hans Zimmer background music.

Web pages a little too style over substance? Behold the Windows 98 CSS file

Re: Bring back win98 UI

Win2k had an agreeable interface. The interface that I found easiest to use, though, was from Macintosh System 7.1. Clear and not too complicated.

Rewriting the checklists: 50 years since Apollo 13 reported it 'had a problem' – and boffins saved the day

13 Minutes To The Moon podcast

It is very informative and goes into quite a fair amount of detail. It can also be repetitive too. Many of the people in mission control or in space have given interviews for the podcast.

It is amazing how much can be done with so little although NASA did have rooms filled with engineers and limitless supplies of money. That the astronauts survived Apollo 13 seems like nothing short of miracle.

I also recommend both seasons 1 & 2 of the '13 Minutes To The Moon' podcast. Season 1 (Apollo 11) can be listened to straight through. Season 2 (Apollo 13) is almost finished.

Amazon says it fired a guy for breaking pandemic rules. Same guy who organized a staff protest over a lack of coronavirus protection

Re: Catch C19

Danny 2» Don't mourn, organise.

And maintain social distancing regulations while you do so, so that the management don't have a stick to beat you with.

Stob's vital message to Britain's IT nation: And no, it's not about that

Re: Inspirational message

Have you considered plundering the works of P.G. Wodehouse for inspiring and uplifting messages? He is one of the uplifting authors I know of.

Furthermore, in the spirit of Stiffy, Chuffy et al, you can suggest nicknames in the style of Wodehouse.

I thought just the same thing.

Have an upvote.

London court tells Julian Assange: No, coronavirus is not a good reason for you to be let out of prison

Re: @DougS

MtFR» Trump is Trump. At the end of the day, he's showing he's a better POTUS than Clinton could have ever hoped to be and has reversed a lot of Obama's mistakes.

I know that I'm not supposed to feed trolls but I shall anyway.

Define 'better'. What metrics are you using? One has to be good at something. Clinton & Trump were both impeached and let off by a partisan Senate. They both have brought shame upon the office of president, lowered trust among US voters and been detrimental to the US political system. They both should have been forced to leave office and let their VPs take over.

Clinton & Obama are Democrats and Trump is nominally a Republican and one side will never, ever admit that the other is competent.

Where Clinton and Trump are polar opposites is the topic of international trade. Clinton greatly encouraged while Trump is far more protectionist.

Bad news: Coronavirus is spreading rapidly across the world. Good news: Nitrogen dioxide levels are decreasing and the air on Earth is cleaner

Two comments:

1. I had thought that Greta had been very silent on the matter. Damn, these 17-year-old Swedes are very good at concocting environmentally-friendly plagues. She must have spent months in that lab of hers [1]. And I reckon that she is a Scandy version of Batman complete with whatever her batcave is called [2]. If that doesn't get me on to Fox News (Fair and balanced), then I don't know what will;

2. This Corona virus malarkey seems to have a hint of the Black Death about it. Good for those who survive, less good for those who don't.

[1] Of course she has a lab. And an English butler from the east end of London. If she can summon a yacht out of thin air, then obviously she has a lab.

[2] Wuhan?

US prez Donald Trump declares America closed to those flying in from Schengen zone over coronavirus woes

Re: Trump should just....?

Nihongo ga muzukashii ne!

Apple bans COVID-19 games and restricts virus-related apps to authoritative souces

Going Viral

Are apps in iOS still allowed to go viral though?