* Posts by Terry 6

5587 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Jul 2009

Tesla driver blames full-self-driving software for eight-car Thanksgiving Day pile up

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

From a statement quoted off the RAC about the highway code and the law.....

“But the advice it offers can be used as evidence in any court, to establish liability."

Can you be fined for breaking the Highway Code?

Yes, you can be fined for breaking the Highway Code.

My italics.

So, it's not the law, but you can still be fined for breaching it. Which in effect means it is the law - but with a bit of flexibility to allow for circumstances.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

The difference there is between rolling back, in which case, ( unless the driver failed to act on the roll back), the car behind is culpable, and moving backwards under the driver's action, e.g. in reversing. If you reverse into a vehicle behind you it's your fault. If you roll back more than a short, reasonable distance, it's your fault i.e.. by not acting to stop the roll back within a reasonable time.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Capable of driving a car as well as a human?

No. There's a total difference between stopping ahead of a car and pulling in front of it. An issue that gets dodgy if the car driver that pulled in ahead of you claims that he was already there/had been for a certain amount of time first. It's then that the front facing camera is invaluable.

The UK application is that you have to leave enough time and space ahead of you to be able to stop if the car ahead of you stops. For whatever reason. That just doesn't apply if the car ahead cuts in front of you.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Capable of driving a car as well as a human?

Oh yes, the rush and brake drivers. The ones who zoom up to a red light, so that they arrive a few seconds earlier and wait a few seconds longer, expending fuel in the process. Unless they hit something on the way..

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

The automatic brake stopped our car a couple of times. A car cut across in front of me trying to get to a petrol pump that was free ahead of me. And my wife was driving past some bushes on a very narrow curving lane and the sensor disliked a bush that was encroaching into the road.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Whose fault...

Yes, in "crash for cash" cases the victim is not held liable and the insurance claim is invalidated as well as the crooks being prosecuted.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: FSD ≠ Autonomous

Even, indeed if the car ahead rolls back a few inches, like when stopped at a junction on the top of a hill, and it bumps into you, the driver behind is deemed responsible because he was too close to the vehicle ahead, even while stationary. I know, because such an occurrence was the only blemish on my late father's driving record.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Hmmmmmmm

Absolutely.

A car may, even should, slow unexpectedly for a squillion reasons. So we have stopping distances, And if you're* driving too close it's your own damned fault, not the MuskMobile ahead of you.

*In this case half a dozen ijits,

BOFH and the office security access upgrade

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: All I want for Christmas is...

Yeah. I've noticed on Mastodon so many posts that only make sense if you are an American, or at least have a basic knowledge of Americana. They don't seem to realise that anyone else is on there. Because so much is written with that assumption. Temperatures being the most obvious one. They never put degrees F. But they'll complain that the temperature is 26. And we're meant to know that means cold .

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Ah, time management systems

Ach.

We had to do paper mileage claims each week, for travel between school visits and our office base. Because we were "casual users"

The top brass in the council didn't have to do this. They were essential users and got a lump sum payment each month and could claim anything above that simply by saying where they'd been over and above the (not defined) normal travel even though they didn't have to travel for the job like we did

Our claim form needed a list of each trip for each day, then column for milometer reading at the start of each trip and another for the end, and anther for the number of miles. For each and every trip, often 4 or more per day, each day, week in week out with only small variations in journey and nominal variation in distance, it was all within the same borough). So in theory, before driving away from the office we were meant to write down the reading. Then again when we got to our assigned school - and then again at the next one and so on...As if battling the traffic and fighting for parking didn't waste enough time when we were already trying to fit too many visits in in a day, Inevitably most of the form was a fiction ( the actual visit list and mileage totals were correct - because we knew the distances). We just made up the numbers, in the office.

Fraudulent ‘popunder’ Google Ad campaign generated millions of dollars

Terry 6 Silver badge

Knowing nothing about web development

Is this saying that the tech has been developed so that it detects clicks on pages that aren't actually even seen? And that this is considered a legitimate part of the fundamental underlying code that was developed by whoever it is who wrote this technology in the first place. i.e some developers thought "Lets include some code that says a page has been viewed when it hasn't because it's underneath another page?

Or have I misunderstood?

Lawyer mom barred from Rockettes show by facial recognition tech

Terry 6 Silver badge

"This whole scheme is a pretext for doing collective punishment..."

Hard to disagree.

Words like petty and spiteful come to mind.

Epic payment: Fortnite maker pays record $520m to settle FTC case

Terry 6 Silver badge

Sorry, this is about actions, not decisions. Obeying orders is no defence.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Is it only me...

Can we have a translation please.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Is it only me...

...who wonders how the people in these companies who deliberately create dark patterns and the like, cynically creating software for manipulating and exploiting people, can sleep at night? Who chooses a job in software design or coding that is really just the same as three card trick merchants and Ponzi sellers?

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Terry 6 Silver badge

I think, for many, there's a difference between "your social life" and being social in life. i.e. in work we like to meet people and interact with them. Even go for drinks after hours once a week.

Become friendly and familiar. Not necessarily being actual friends ( though we might).

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: "Hybrid"

Literally ymmv.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: "Hybrid"

My own view, purely based on personal preference and experience, is that there does need to be a fixed anchor - maybe once a week, maybe only for a half day ymmv when everyone needs to be in. Maybe a formal team meeting even. My preference would be one and 1 half days in the office each week. partly so that everyone is working close and meeting each other informally. The half day for more formal stuff,

Terry 6 Silver badge

Meetings

I struggled, over the decades pre-Covid, to see the point of most of the meetings I and people I spoke to had to attend. Beyond making certain individuals feel important ("I have an urgent meeting to attend" etc) Most of it could have been dealt with by memo. In more recent years the main point had been to communicate with the people who don't read emails ( and much of the blame for that is the idiots who send emails about every little thing to everyone).

And except for meetings and chat there's no point being in an office for most roles. When I was working we only all met in the office once or twice a week - being out doing our jobs in schools most days. And that was enough for the chat., there were lots of other times when we'd be in the base and see one another. It makes perfect sense to have staff in an office base, say, once a week together,ideally not starting or ending around rush hour, because there's no point unless you're actually public facing during office hours. and maybe popping in to meet a colleague or collect stuff from time to time. So that you can meet, catch-up, share experiences etc. But otherwise, what's the point unless it's actually better for them to be away from home?

The office should be a resource, not a cell.

Need a video editor, FOSS fans? OpenShot and Kdenlive both refreshed

Terry 6 Silver badge

Openshot has been perfect for me.

The free aspect of Openshot is important for me (as opposed to my normal choice of free software because I'm a cheapskate). Because I can't justify spending a whole lot of cash for a programme I might use twice a year.

By the same token, I need a programme with a learning curve that I can manage readily when I have to start relearning how to do stuff 6-10 months down the line.

Openshot fills that niche perfectly. It's reasonably intuitive to use. Anything I've forgotten how to do I can rediscover. And it's blissfully short on "I can't do that Dave" components. (You know the ones. You know what you need to do. You know how to do it. But there's some invisible other background process or setting that stops you doing it, until you turn it off/on, but that you don't know about and it doesn't show you).

Voice assistants failed because they serve their makers more than they help users

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Yeah, smart appliances are DUMB.

The USA's love of the internal combustion engine might mean that production for local use and a small export market would persist. But at what cost.

Much of the rest of the world will reduce or ban sale of ICE vehicles over time f and manufacturers will mostly be producing electric vehicles

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: The same applies to tv series and games

Compare that to Raymond bloody Feist ( Magician etc). I recently read a really thick volume from one of his more recent output, I hadn't noticed the word "saga" on the cover, ( borrowed from the library). By the time I got to the end of vol 1 not a lot had happened for a book that thick. I looked at the blurb for vol 3 and realised that still not much had happened, despite vol 2 being also rather large. Just thought fuck it and found some proper books.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: "... they serve their makers more than they help users"

When I had a Windows phone it would talk directly to the car's systems. But now I have an Android it has to connect through Google, there's no direct method. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Hands free

"Hi Google"

"---------"

"Message wife"

"-----------------"

"Stuck in traffic, so I'll be late"

etc.

It's the only use I can find for this stuff.

And that's because it's the only way I can speak to my car's hands free system.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: The same applies to tv series and games

Even books. The Great American Novel has been too long, and full of extraneous details, random plot digressions and vast armies of unneeded characters for decades. Because then they can charge more. More recently the fantasy novel ( one volume) is spun out to a "saga" ( at least three volumes) and no book ever resolves anything without a few dangling threads- not even the final volume because there may be a second saga in it.

ChatGPT has mastered the confidence trick, and that's a terrible look for AI

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: I asked it what War and Peace was about.

I just chose a book title, rather than Sir Terry himself.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: A sttrange article in which to find this essential general truth..

Oh, that btw is irrespective of whether Dunning Kruger is valid. I'm not sure the two parts of the paragraph are even related.

Terry 6 Silver badge

I asked it what War and Peace was about.

Wasn't too impressed with its answer.

And it doesn't know about Sir Terry Pratchett's books either.

On the other hand, its explaining how to rotate the screen in Linux was pretty good.- Better than the online resources I'd used previously

Terry 6 Silver badge

A sttrange article in which to find this essential general truth..

If you can persuade people you’re right, they’re very unwilling to accept proof otherwise, and up you go. Old Etonians, populist politicians and Valley tech bros rely on this, with results we are all too familiar with.

One of these things that needs to be shouted from every rooftop. Especially with the likes of TwitMusk to amplify the bollocks.

UK arrests five for selling 'dodgy' point of sale software

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: $60 Steak?

Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Washington DC drags Amazon to court for 'yoinking' driver tips

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Tips?

When I was a kid, almost 60 years ago, my parents would tip the postman, bin men and possibly a few others for a "Christmas Box". They weren't rich, just factory workers. It was the done thing. I can't pinpoint when the custom ended.

Speaking to my USA cousins about tipping, it's a kind of accepted thing - hence all those "tip calculator" apps that used to be on freeware sites. Because the staff are all on minimum wage. In effect the price on a menu was $n+12% with the extra percentage hidden away as if it wasn't effectively built into the cost - ( unless you were mean enough to not pay it).

It's hypocrisy, and it's demeaning to the staff members.

Victims of IT scandal in UK postal service will get fresh compensation

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: What really burns me

Years ago my late father was doing quality control for a factory supplying coats to Marks and Sparks. It was pretty much their only customer. They had very strict quality rules to follow.

Dad would reject stuff that didn't match the M and S criteria. His bosses put him under a lot of pressure to cheat. He wouldn't. So then they started putting reject coats back in the bundles ( at the bottom of course, because M&S' quality inspectors would never think of looking there would they ).

They lost the contract. And went belly up.

Dad had warned them- he didn't want to lose his job after all. But they were greedy and arrogant. They thought they could outsmart their customer.

What makes the Fujitsu/Post Office different is that the PO actually conspired with Fujitsu against their own postmasters to cover up this appalling failure. Maybe, since there have been so many big IT project failures, it's because there's something about the way that big IT contracts work- no one on either side prepared to admit it's gone off the rails?

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Line nicked from the Evening Standard

This is all in line with the general practice of the Great and The Good moving from one disastrous role in the private sector to another in the public Crash a major retailer one month, run a major govt agency the next.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Bring manglement to book

Bloody sight better than impunity IMHO.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Justice

I think that was irony.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Bollocks

and has been subject to a BBC Panorama investigation, From the article.

And also I did say Comp Weekly. In my post.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Bollocks

The Post Office Horizon saga is one of the biggest scandals to hit public-sector IT management in the UK in the last 20 years and has been subject to a BBC Panorama investigation, with journalist Nick Wallis revealing evidence of the extent of the cover-up.

1.) It was Computer Weekly that raised it and Private Eye that chased it for years. Doggedly refusing to let go.

2.) Biggest fucking scandal and miscarriage of justice in modern legal history not just the small pond of the IT world.

Programming error created billion-dollar mistake that made the coder ... a hero?

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

Hmm. I had a bit of that. I am actually genuinely ambidextrous though,

For most tasks I have a preferred hand- just not the same one. But for writing I was forced to fix to my right hand- it would probably have been my left otherwise*. As a general rule I use right for strength and left for dexterity. And sometimes I use both together, great for sorting tasks But often I've just got used to using one, usually right handed - like the mouse- because that's what was available to me when I started.

*My left hand isn't much worse than my right, I just don't use it as much And in Hebrew I found that I wrote better left handed- partly because I learnt that separately as a young adult and it goes right to left.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

Yeah, my mum was a typist. And my handwriting was godawful. 50 odd years ago she taught me to type. I wasn't brilliant, but it was better than handwriting.

I had to wait for the BBC micro to be invented before everything suddenly improved for me.

These days my handwriting is still godawful and sadly my touch typing has deteriorated too.So that I end up looking at the keyboard more and more. For me touch typing only works if the position of the keyboard is consistent. And over the last few years this has just not been the case.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

I have a similar gripe about keyboard skills. Nobody seems to teach "touch typing", despite the fact that most (all?) school leavers will be going in to jobs where typing is a major part of their daily lives.

I was saying this in 1982

Two signs in the comms cabinet said 'Do not unplug'. Guess what happened

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: Physical Methods Trump Signs in Any Language

I just hate "auto run".

Partly because I hate auto anything. I don't want stuff happening until I press a "go" button. I'm a firm believer in the power of Sod's Law so I like to check everything is right and ready first.

But also, because I was setting up people with computers and coming back to resolve problems in the era of the floppy, and saw stuff go wrong because of discs left or placed in machines far too often- it's stayed with me as a visceral sense of worry ever since. Particularly Autorun+floppy+virus once we had HDDs..

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: and still can't quite believe they turned off a network to charge a device.

As noted, that isn't stupid, other than incidentally. It's entitled self-centredness.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Self-centred

This is not ( except incidentally) stupidity. This is self-centredness. No different from the idiots who think the queue is for all the other people and that the left filter lane exists for them to turn right from without waiting in line. And so on.

Just 22% of techies in UK aged 50 or older, says Chartered Institute for IT

Terry 6 Silver badge

People who sit in higher tax brackets always say they're paying 40% tax. In reality that's only relevant if a massive proportion of their earnings is over that threshold. So they have nothing to whine about.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Sadly in schools we adopt "new" management and such like ideas about 2 years after the outside word has dropped them for being unsustainable, ineffective etc. I never found out why this was when I was in the bear pit.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Other factors may include

"can't earn more unless you become a manager syndrome".

No good post made available after the latest reorganisation - always tempting to eliminate senior posts rather than junior ones to save money

I don't know about corporate IT. But in education that holds true, definitely.

And we also have a truly diabolical combination of Peter Principle (good teachers and departmental heads being promoted out of the classroom to managerial jobs they're useless at) and ambitious young climbers who plot their way to the top asap by jumping on every initiative and new programme that comes in, and adroitly moving on and up before it flops ( they all flop)

Which means there are a lot of experienced, effective, good, jaded, frustrated middle aged teachers who can't wait to get out and retire as early as they can. And managers who want them to, to save money and appoint cheaper staff that will be amenable to whatever new best thing bollocks they're being asked to take on.

Terry 6 Silver badge

Re: hmmmm

Two roots possibly showing from this post and the article.

1) The median hourly wage for older techies is £25, which is 14 percent higher than for IT specialists as a whole. and

2) As says 42656e.... says Oldies tend know how it all works behind the scenes

IOW older employees cost a bit more and can't be manipulated. I'd also hazard a guess that this== not being too ready to jump unquestioningly into the latest new fad. The last thing managements ( in any field or profession) want is the old hand who can say "Yes but.." and shoot down a dumb idea. Especially in areas like IT and education where promotion comes from launching something new then buggering off before the waste matter impacts on the air moving device.

Twenty years on, command-line virus scanner ClamAV puts out version 1

Terry 6 Silver badge

"The check's in the post"

What would you check in the post? Envelope sizes?

Man wins court case against employer that fired him for not liking boozy, forced 'fun' culture

Terry 6 Silver badge

had to tolerate all that 'jolly' nonsense from those who thought that getting people to 'work together' meant having them get drunk together ! I HATE, HATE, HATE fake jollity & cannot stand people who think happiness is a rip roaring party. My happiness is far more likely to be watching the trees blowing in the wind

Some, I suspect most, come between these extremes ( bell curve). Yes to a nice Xmas party. Yes to a trip to the pub after work from time to time. Yes to a bit of a do when it's Mavis from accounts' engagement or Fred's leaving to go to a new job etc. i.e when there's a specific reason- and it's not enforced jollity and you don't have to stay all night/get pissed if you don't wish to.

JAXA: Research simulating life onboard ISS contained fabrications

Terry 6 Silver badge

Wider problem

Even in that summary there are signs of a bigger issue. It reads like the researchers were given an impossible brief, in terms of time scales, with inadequate supervision. In other words, research done on the impossibly cheap on an industry that normally thinks in billions. So priorities?.