Posts by Vanir

Bank of England to set new standards for when IT goes bad

Banks too big to fail ...

but these banks have IT systems that are too big, too complex and too old and getting worse with an increase in the probability of major failure. It's not a question of 'if' now is it?

Banks are, as Trump would have it (or not), are of national security importance- global too. The IT systems of these national security entities do not appear to be seen in a similar vein.

It may be time, before a bank merger is allowed to go ahead, the 'proper' authorities look at the state of the parties' IT systems and any plans to integrate those systems over a period of time. I know, I'm dreaming.

Tesla undecimates its workforce but Elon insists everything's absolutely fine

batteries: 350-400 mile range, recharge to 95% in less than 15 minutes

That's quite a current required to do that at low to medium voltages. The latter for public safety reason, the former requiring thicker cables for safety and efficiency reasons.

Thicker cables usually means more copper / aluminium. Costly infrastructure, more mining etc. More energy expenditure and so it goes on.

There's no such thing as 'clean energy'. It seems to be a phrase that is used to convey a 'free from bad consequences energy'.

No profit in 15 years? Is he soon going to have to wake up and smell the roses?

Well, some nvestors would like to smell any roses from Telsa's utopian garden.

Star Citizen's / CIG 'investors' (mugs?) are in a similar position.

Still, I hope things go well for all.

Re: Undecimate?

#ifdef DECIMATE

#define UNDECIMATE ~DECIMATE

#elif define MUSK

#define DECIMATE employees lose jobs

#define UNDECIMATE boss keep job

#endif

#endif

Tech rookie put decimal point in wrong place, cost insurer zillions

Re: Unusual to say the least

@Korev: Damn!

Unusual to say the least

"blame: that fell squarely on to my boss' shoulders for not checking my work!"

But did the boss own up and admit fault? To take responsibility as their position required?

British egg producers saddened by Google salad emoji update

Exclusive!

man does not live by salad alone

Stern Vint Cerf blasts techies for lackluster worldwide IPv6 adoption

But ...

There will come a point in time when there will be no more v4 addresses availble. Won't there?

So, businesses, old and new will not be able to expand if any part of their business, and any business plan, requires new IPv4 addresess on the assumpton that they cannot access v6 addresses.

It seems to me that being prepared for this scenario is common sense.

I remember working on C code bases for the Y2K problem in 1998 onwards.

It had to be done. Or else what have been the consequences for not doing the preparation?

'If it ain't broke don't fixit' is sometimes used as an excuse for the lack of courage to tell some other person that doing something will cost money now.

Linus Torvalds decides world isn’t ready for Linux 5.0

Version numbers

A monotonic function of meaninglessness?

Bigger meaningless is better meaningless I suppose.

Unmore less is more.

Did you test that? No, I thought you tested it. Now customers have it and it doesn't work

Worse still ...

New and/or updated sofware was known to have significant bugs via code reviews and 'testng', Still went out to the customer. The bug list, critical and otherwise, just keeps getting longer and wider.

The customer-user is the A1 tester. They are paying the developer for the privilege of being a tester in more ways than one.

But this is the norm for software development.

Chief EU negotiator tells UK to let souped-up data adequacy dream die

Re: The more I listen to the EU...

The more I realise it does not listen to the peoples of the EU.

And why should it when its powerful top institutions are not democratically accountable.

The officals of these institutions do not have to go and knock on doors and persuade us the people that what they do is in our interests. They would have to listen to our concerns and hopefully get a feel of the political landscape that, as politcians, they have a duty to acquire.

Why else are 'populist' political parties gaining traction in Poland, Hungary, Austria and now Italy.

The intolerant institutional idealism of the EU at its core is as dangerous as any religious based idealism.

US Congress mulls expanding copyright yet again – to 144 years

I hold the copyright on truth

but it hasn't done me any good!

Software development slow because 'Most of our ideas suck'

coders already do continuous experimentation

that's why they do continous debugging.

But not so much continous refactoring.

Agile development exposed as techie superstition

Agile, another idea sold to the weak minded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=532j-186xEQ

Some good agile videos from someone who knew about selling a methodology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6jMgmPIxmk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1gij0JJV7A

It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer

Re: But don't forget the consultants

You forgot to mention the price per dot and cross.

tit

Every major OS maker misread Intel's docs. Now their kernels can be hijacked or crashed

Re: So all of this is just a case of...

Read the flawed manual?

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

A Fulfilled Requirement?

A must-have or a nice-to-have requirement?

MS seems to have prioritsed it as the latter considering the massive development effort estimated to fulfill it.

But even so - 33yrs?

UK Ministry of Justice knocks down towers, brings IT BACK in-house

When failure is going to happen

then failure is not a risk. But the blame falling on you is. So, outsource it.

One of the laws of management.

if dev == woman then dont_be(asshole): Stack Overflow tries again to be more friendly to non-male non-pasty coders

I'm a dumb coder

who doesn't think of gender when using SO or SE etc.

But asking dumb questions is sometimes the best thing to do.

At least one gets to know how an intelligent, may be not civil, person responds to a dumb question.

I'll ask Jordan Peterson what he thinks of this about SO.

May be he will tell me to clear up my stools.

RIP: Sinclair ZX Spectrum designer Rick Dickinson reaches STOP

Gratitude

Thank you Rick Dickinson.

Blighty stuffs itself in Galileo airlock and dares Europe to pull the lever

Re: Yes to an EU army

The EU has an army or two: armies of bureaucrats each having a division of technocrats.

Of course they make war on all of us and each other.

Being armies, they're not democratic institutions.

History ad nauseam.

UK.gov expected to quit controversial harvesting of schoolchildren's nationality data

Re: people who produce nothing but are a continual drain on resources

Don't forget IT departments.

What about coders who do produce - produce crap code that over the medium to long term drain resources, financial, physical, and human.

Now, let's start on managers!

What do they produce?

Come on, what do they produce? Eh?

Furious gunwoman opens fire at YouTube HQ, three people shot

Civil War?

The Americans are the largest group of humans that kill the most Americans.

Sounds like a civil war.

They have sown their society with guns; they reap themselves without mercy.

Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired for opposing hiring caps on white, Asian male nerds

The art of discrimination

Google spokesperson:"We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity,"

So, discriminated on merit. Whatever 'merit' is and how it is 'calculated' or judged.

And we should reflect that all our merits and flaws are a large part of our identity, our character if you will

Do you identify with this?

And interviews are all about finding attributes of peoples' identities to judge whether an individual interviewee will 'fit' with the interviewers' 'gut instinct' of them.

If you click an up vote or a down vote I accuse you of discrimination.

Open source turns 20 years old, looks to attract normal people

The law is technically

open 'open source' but a certain group of people who 'practice' law seem to have a hegemony over the creators of law - and it seems over the creators of software.

Engineers say they try to engineer themselves out of a job: lawyers seem to attempt to 'engineer' themselves more lucrative jobs wherever and whenever they can. They do this more easily in big companies.

Causes of software development woes

Enterprise Architect CASE tool

@Doctor Syntax

One of the best CASE tools around for the price. Just don't say this in a programing job interview for a company that does 'Agile' - requirements? we use TDD for capturing requirements! Scrum companies employs user stories which is use cases to me.

'Agile' practices are the antithesis to an agile mindset.

It starts with a not very agile user / client

For the want of a requirement the specification was lost,

For the want of a specification the design was lost,

For the want of a design the implementation was lost,

For the want of an implementation the project was lost,

For the want of a project money was lost,

And all for the want of a requirement”

Here come the lawyers! Intel slapped with three Meltdown bug lawsuits

Performance degradation on server farms

equals a bigger electricity bill - for a few years.

Intel's clever management and clever engineers seem to have taken decisions which may have an opportunity cost greater than they guessed.

Irony's lost on old Pope Francis: Pontiff decrees fake news a 'serious sin'

Planetary scale fake production

enabled by modern information technology: may God bless us all IT workers.

Religious leaders never seem to consider that their religion makes the faith that is the basis of it a fake faith.

Oh the irony!

So you're 'agile', huh? I do not think it means what you think it means

Agile: the new

'fake' software engineering.

Much like the hype surrounding the 'new' paradigm of Object Oriented code with the sales pitch on 'code reuse' to stakeholders responsible for budgets.

The only software engineering methodolgy I know that works is software engineering.

Someone please inform me where this methodology is practiced.

Seek 'passion' and tech skills will follow, say recruiting security chiefs

I'm passionate

about doing a professional quality job.

I've come to the conclusion that managers passionately desire coders that are 'enthusiastic' and 'passionate'; the latter are deemed to be cheaper than coders who exhibit professionlism and integrity and less trouble.

Everyone loves programming in Python! You disagree? But it's the fastest growing, says Stack Overflow

Re: "Fastest Growing"

It's now called "Fake Growing".

Damn. I've been found out

@Herman

<Actually, the stats mean that Python is so crap that people have to ask lots of stupid questions.>

As c++ coder having to learn Python I was going to put this question on SO's Python section.

Does Python have a rule of zero?

It will now have to be:

Where's the best place to put '{' and '}'?

Re: Usefulness

@Tomato42

<Except there have been multiple studies that readability of code _matters_ and while no specific way to format code is better than other, _consistency_ matters.>

Not the whole truth. Equating readability of code with consistent formatting is not consistent with what a professional developer encounters in their day-to-day routine.

Code bases and coding guidelines. If a coder only deals with one code base and it's ordained style then they will find it jarring if they have to read and understand another code base written in another 'style'. A professional programmer should not have any difficulity with different code formatting styles.

A C++ contractor doesn't have a choice in this going from company to company with differing formatting styles. And don't professionall programmers read and have to understand open source code bases with different styles in their working day?

Readability and understandability of code is not just an issue of code formatting: is it?

Low coupling and high cohesion are 2 properties of a code base that promote understanding of it.

In C/C++ one could be nasty and strip out everything but the tokens: the misuse of maximal munches, I admit, would be a challange to find in this formatting style.

Microsoft says it won't fix kernel flaw: It's not a security issue. Suuuure

Design flaw?

So PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine was designed to behave as the researcher described?

So what is the specifiation for PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine?

Did the coder(s) responsible for implementing PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine have a spec and design?

Did the coder(s) responsible for implementing PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine test their implementation against the spec and design?

And what about code reviews, unit testing etc?

Perhaps Maleficent Software needs not the Enlightenment of Software Engineering.

Never trust a developer who says 'I can fix this in a few minutes'

Re: Project manager?

:-) Could be. But you meant 'should work' didn't you? Not 'will work'. Oh, you're right, it's that can do attitude again. It will work! Failure and bugs are not an option, they're not in the plan, that cunning plan.

And the coders all shout in their best Scrum voices 'What's a systems requirement?'. And the project manager replies, 'Doesn't matter, it's working code that matters! Agile says so.'

And all the coders think: 'Nothing's changed then'.

Developers?

In this situation don't you mean the coders? The people who wrote, quickly, the mess that is the codebase of the product in the first place?

They probably originally said that they could write the code, deploy and install the product in a 'few minutes', to planned- or should that be questimated? - time, planned - or should that be given? - budget and to specified - eh? - quality.

But they will go far! They have a 'can do' attitude!

MPs 'alarmed' by millions of mugshots on Brit cops' databases

Re: Future, what future

Do you have a vote? Do you use it?

In live in Britain and I always vote. This is the means by which we the people can change our government with out reverting to violence.

Well, that's the theory. However, the principle is sound. If only once does violence change government then it will always be so.

I'm pissed off with our political leaders, namely Labour, Lib Dems and the Conservatives, since the expenses scandal. I will never vote for these parties, but I will vote, for some other candidate not belonging to them. If everyone did the same these parties would take notice; and who will the rich and powerful 'support' then?

Shove off, ugly folk, says site for people who love themselves

Re: Look out MENSA

The most beautiful, the most intelligent; these websites are, to some extent an expression of their desire to be seen to be superior to some other group of people.

I am superior to those that clean toilets for a living, because I do not. Therefore I have right to treat them with insult and injury.

We're all full of shit.

Erik Meijer: AGILE must be destroyed, once and for all

Scrum is the ...

the Waterfall methodology of Agile.

The BBC wants to slap a TAX on EVERYONE in BLIGHTY

Re: Actually...

@My-Handle

'I have never paid for a TV license. I've never had a TV that was in any condition to receive a signal (did have one for consoles though). I don't like the way that, as soon as I move into a new property, I am assumed by TV Licensing to be watching TV and that I owe them that fee, based on no evidence at all. Even after I follow their rules and tell them no, I don't watch TV, they decide to ignore that statement after an arbitrary period and begin sending letters threatening investigation, enforcers and legal action again. And, I will reiterate, on no evidence whatever of me committing a crime. I understand that TV licensing are not the BBC, but the two are irrevocably tied together, and behaviour like that does not make me inclined to stump up a fee of any kind out of sheer good will.'

I too go through this; I'm not license fee payer. I ignore all the letters from the BBC's fee collecting Gestapo and just wait for the 'inspector' to arrive. I let the person search my house (for a TV?) just to avoid hassle: I have to prove my innocence.

We have to consider a single person who owns their own home, and a TV. They lose their job. The only benefits they get is council tax and JSA which is £72.40 a week if they do not have savings above a small amount. £150 a year becomes a lot of food. So what do they do about that TV? It's proof that they are guilty of a criminal offense. Can they afford legal support? They will not be eligible for legal aid.

Overall, I do not have much against the BBC regarding their services; I use their news services on the internet and I listen to Radio 2 and 4. I do not trust the BBC Trust to fulfil their remit. The biggest issue for me is remuneration.

Re: Worth the fee just for the website

I am a tax payer but I do not pay a BBC license. Ergo, the BBC is not funded by the tax payer.

I do not pay a BBC license as I do not view programs, from BBC or other entity, as they are broadcast in real time.

Owning a TV is not illegal but it seems to be the that only evidence that is required to convict you of the criminal offence of watching programs, the TV being in your house, as they are broadcast.

Indeed, you have to prove your innocence.

This is not viable in the technical or legal sense.

Linux kernel dev has gone well and truly corporate – report

Re: Snowballing

Oninoshiko: 'The Linux world is known for poor documentation'.

The software developer world is known for no documentation. Some programmers think that code is documentation. If that is a valid assertion that there's an awful lot of poorly written documents out there.

'Net neutrality will turn the internet communist – and make Iran's day'

Big Corporates and Communisim.

Er, China is a Socialist nation run by a Communist party is not? I find it strange that the Republican Party and the 'right-wing' in the USA rant on about a Communist plot. But these people are those who support the big capitalist corporates of the USA who invariably have collaborated with the Communist Party of China in setting up thousands of factories in China.

There is word for this but it eludes me.

It's 4K-ing big right now, but it's NOT going to save TV

Re: changing market

I haven't owned a TV for the last 3 or 4 years. I do not intend to buy and own one to use either.

I do have a projector, mounted on the ceiling, in the living room with a 90" motorised drop down screen to watch my movies or sometimes, a YouTube video via my laptop. With my recliner in position, a cup of tea and some biscuits I'm ready to chill out.

Elite: Dangerous 'billionaire' gamers are being 'antisocial', moan players

Re: It really is a vocal minority

Yeah, the silent majorities are ruled and abused by the vocal minorities in this world.

That's The First Law of Civilisation.

Re: It's for kids!

So?

No!

Re: Aarrr!

Let's just get the HMRC involved as an entity in the game! All this undeclared income; my, that'll make the naughty players sweat!

Elite:Dangerous goes TITSUP

Re: I'm not a programmer. @h4rm0ny

>Unless the player is going to explore all 400,000,000 systems, I'll be fine

I'm going to give it a go! I'm checking me tyres and oil right now.

Say, I remember reports of gamers dying at their keyboards. Well, got to go someway and somewhere.

See ya!

Re: I've been thinking about playing.... @P.Lee

Military lasers! Yeah man, two squirts of the coherent light stuff from those babies and enemy ships turned into chaff! Ok, neutral and friendly ships too.

What company made them?