Posts by Diogenes

The Y2K bug delayed my honeymoon … by 17 years!

Penalised for not spending budget

I was then working as a PM for a large IT outsourcer. I had a portfolio of 35 small systems that had been developed by users to solve particular problems they had, and which were while not corporate mission critical, were section mission critical .

My team of 3 had the task of reverse engineering them, documenting and then making them maintainable. As part of that process we had started changing dates to 4 digits from 1995, so come the great panic of 1999 we had already done 9

9% of the work.

1999 roles around, I request a 150k budget for Y2K, mainly so I could charge the meetings and travel to meetings, and to pay my team time to prepare information for the numerous audits. To my surprise I was given $5 million solely for Y2K remediation. Some beancounter saw I was managing n klocs of code and his formula said X $ per kloc and I ended up with $5million, which was twice my normal annual budget.

We passed every audit, turning around requests for information usually same day , but always within 24 hours instead of 5 working days that was rwquested, we were ready and could easily prove it, and didn't have a single issue.

Come to my performance review at the end of January, every millstone and performance objectives hit, except that pesky budget +- 10%. My team only billed $148 K for Y2K remediation, and I had only spent 95% of my normal budget, so spot on what I had estimated, but no I had underspent by 4.8million Arguing that I never requested 5 million, and only requested 150k , with documentation, fell on deaf ears. So I missed out out on quite a substantial bonus.

I spent the rollover in a "war room" , ran the tests I had to run, and left for home at 1am. Was up at 4am to take favourite no1 son to to where his choir was performing I still call Australia home to greet the dawn on tv.

IT team forced to camp in the office for days after Y2K bug found in boss's side project

Re: Y1999 Problem

Or using 99 as a guard condition

'PromptQuest' is the worst game of 2025. You play it when trying to make chatbots work

Old enough to have played Star Trek on an IBM Mainframe in the 80s. Also remember the Hobbit on the C64.

I am having a great time with Chatgpt at the moment. Now that I have retired I am trying to get my scanned model rail magazine collection under control and decided I was going to build a plex/jellyfin type application to do it. I have never built a server type app for windows , nor have I written anything using react. It has taken a week interuppted by festive week activities and I am 90% there. I have learnt do one small thing at a time and ask it to explian its answer. I wouldn't trust myself to write a react app from scratch , but I know enough to work out the code I am being given.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: "I found that a strange concept of 'nothing,'"

I often found that with kids at school. It became a thing where I would "lay hands" on the computer, and tell it it was healed, and got the kid to do it again, amazingly 9/10 it worked.

When I was doing my first practicum ( career change after 30 years developing software) , at a country school which wasnt big enough for a qualified ICT teacher, I showed staff how to identify when kids were running a JavaScript script that popped up a message saying access was forbidden or the more enterprising kids that used VB to create professional looking error messages that they cycled through

Australia sues Microsoft for misleading M365 users about Copilot subscription options

Re: Microsoft

I had no problem finding the classic plan. It was offered when I started cancelling my subscription.

Company that made power systems for servers didn’t know why its own machines ran out of juice

More accurate indicator of trust , how much are you allowed to write-off?

I remember a commander of a Light Horse Regiment ( mounted in M113A1 APC), complaining he could only write off AUD500, he could requisition for new tracks valued in 100s of K.

Australia to let Big Tech choose its own adventure to enact kids social media ban

Re: Smokescreen

Have you forgotten the Mis/Disinformation bill?

Hack to school: Parents told to keep their little script kiddies in line

When I was doing my first teaching practicum, one of the students at the school got out of lessons because his shiny federal govt provided laptop ( the so called Rudd laptops) kept throwing errors. I took one look pretended it was a kosher error, but passed the word to his teachers that it was a script he was running and just press the ESC key to fix his machine( javascript prompt() )

BOFH: These office thefts really take the biscuit

Re: VAT

In mediaeval times swans were classified as fish and thus able to eaten on Fridays and during Lent.

Word to autosave new docs to the cloud before you can even hit Ctrl+S

What was even more fun was even if you were religiously saving, every 2nd or 3rd crash would delete the document as if it had never been.

Microsoft eventually realized the world isn't just the Northern Hemisphere

Indigenous deasons

In parts of Australia the indigenous have 6 seasons, in others, 8. These are very much related to nature, eg when this species begins to flower, when this insect appears. Try computer using that!

Tech support team won pay rise for teaching customers how to RTFM

Re: Manuals...

I remember when we got our first IBM 3800-3 laser printer. Got the obligatory shelf of manuals for that Was tasked with creating some graphs for manglement, so was issued the shelf of GDDM manuals.

They all cross referenced each other across both products and multiple volumes in the set, but no clear starting point, and I ended up in a loop. I photocopied the relevant pages and put them in order, then rotating the point I started until it worked.

Then, our SE gave us a copy of the super secret red book which listed all the commands that the AFP generated, and I coded the graphs using those commands. Much simpler

If you're forced to use Windows 11, here's how to steal some of your time back

Re: Nonsense!

While technically not operating system updates:

Every Edge updates it turns on copilot.

Every time I update office copilot gets turned on

Every time I update vs code copilot gets turned on again

Fired US govt workers, Uncle Xi wants you! – to apply for this fake consulting gig

Re: "How to spot a fake"

Kyndryl anyone?

Techie pointed out meetings are pointless, and was punished for it

Re: "Blackcurrants" or "Currants, Black"?

I had a similar experience, but with the design of a a new invoice. I printed a sample invoice , with every message that could possibly be printed on it so that the prioritisation could be checked, and they could see how each message appeared Spent the rest of the day being told why a residential customer could not possibly get message 123 because that was for university customers only, and message 124 was only for bulk users and ...

James Webb Space Telescope to size up asteroid 2024 YR4 before it rocks our world

Doomed!

Clint Eastwood is in his 90s and Bruce Willis has dementia - who will save us from this deadly peril?

Microsoft coughs up yet more Windows 11 24H2 headaches

Re: Windows 11 Bluetooth...

I gave up on my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard ages ago.

24h2 broke my sound, I am using an ordinary headphones jack. Unplugging it and plugging it back in got it working again.

iFixit to the rescue: McDonald's workers can rescue their own ice cream machines

Re: For sale - Strange Electronic Device

Sell from OS and don't allow orders from the US.

The clever know how to work around it.

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: Finance dept. are at the root of this issue

I had a female student try the same. She had very well developed Bulgarian Funbags for a 15 year old. Every time I roused on her, magically another butoon on he shirt would pop open. Luckily I had a female aide in teh room with me and asked her to have a chat with the young lady - had I said something it would have been "whey are you even looking at my funbags you dirty old pervert"

China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means

According to Mentour Pilot, they have been able to track MH370 using WSPR, references in the description

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5K9HBiJpuk&ab_channel=MentourPilot

Techie's enthusiasm for decluttering fails to spark joy

Re: A good manager

I was used as the troubleshooting Project Manager. You know the one who gets called in after project has turned to manure and the original PM has been sacrificed to appease the customer.

Account manager "I want twice daily status updates" Me "Give me 3 days to work out where we are at and come up with a plan to finish as soon as possible, if I am doing twice daily updates all I will be doing is status updates.

Every single firetrucking time for 5 years.

Enterprise browser maker Island says it's now worth $3B

Re: At least one of us is confused by this

As a teacher, I can see a use case for this in schools. On the plus side, students will actually read the text and reproduce in their own words rather than cutnpaste. On the other hand, the amount of gibberish we have to read will increase.

Workday abandons new-build Dublin office project

There are the substantial changeover costs which need to factored in. In Australia you pay the government a large tax ( stamp duty) when you purchase your new home, eg for a 1 million house (median price in much of Brisbane), you give the government over 30k. Add 20 k for real estate commission and moving expense and you are looking at a 50k changeover cost.

Australia secures takedown order for terror videos, which Elon Musk wants to fight

Re: Australian jurisdiction, Australian rules

Twitter geoblocked the video so Australians could not watch it, which is fair, Australia's circus, Australia's monkeys. He is objecting to a world wide takedown order, Aussie law says that the Ministry of Truth can request such an order, but then again according to a former PM Aussie Law also overrides the laws of Mathematics :-)

I get that people don't like Musk. Try this for a mind exercise - a Russian court ordered a world wide takedown of all videos of the Ukrainian conflict or any video that praise/mentions the Ukrainian President as they are illegal under Russian law. Twitter needs to comply?

Wing Commander III changed how the copy hotkey works in Windows 95

C,X,V Predates computing

I still rember editing hand typewriter produced documents with my mum, an EA, bracket around text put a C or X then an arrow to a v where you want that text to go instead. She was taught this in 1948 when she went to school.

Qt Ubuntu 24.04 betas show that there's room to innovate

Re: You're not alone, Mr. McMurtrie.

adjectives and conjunctions and then spit out all the verbs right at the end.

I am classed as a native German speaker, and I still have nightmares about reading Kleist short stories... 10 paperback

pages of clauses, sub clauses, sub sub sub sub sub sub clauses, then the verb.

IBM accused of cheating its own executive assistants out of overtime pay

Forgot one of the golden rules of business

Never, ever, ever annoy the PA/EA

Roku makes 2FA mandatory for all after nearly 600K accounts pwned

Re: Credential stuffing and password spraying

I saw a cartoon that I can no longer find...

Imagine an office with 2people standing looking over a programmers shoulder. The code they are looking at is a function called something like stopBruteForceAttacks...

The code is

if (correct password && first attempt) then

display message "Incorrect Password - please try again"

One of the 2 exclaims "you cunning bastard!"

Support contract required techie to lounge around in a $5,000/night hotel room

Re: And I thought I had it good.

This is before Covid.

There used to be several senior lawyers who lived on the Gold Coast, and flew to work in Sydney (1 hour) or Melbourne(1.5 hours) and return every day. Business class natch. A stewardess friend told us settlement terms for some massive lawsuits were hammered out on these flights.

SoftIron rolls its own server virt stack to join the 'let's get VMware' crowd

they make sure that it is vegan, organic, and has low food miles

Australian techie jailed for accessing museum's accounting system and buying himself stuff

Re: Circular reasoning

However it is illegal to prefer a candidate on this basis, they must simply be eligible for clearance. But we all know what happens in the real world.

I didn't mention the fact the fact that I had a clearance when applying for an IT job, but they knew anyway as I was then still an officer in the ARES which they knew from my resume. Still had to apply for a new clearance, but it only took a few days not months like the initial one did when I was commissioned.

Yes, I did just crash that critical app. And you should thank me for having done so

Re: The ultimate test

Or the English or Humanities faculties in a High School.

Don't ask how I know this.

McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles

Re: My last meal at McDs

There is a special place in hell reserved for those who invented the bamboo cutlery and the inventors of the paper straws that become unusable before you have finished half your drink that Maccas uses.

Nissan to let 100,000 Aussies and Kiwis know their data was stolen in cyberattack

The more pertinent question is, why would they need to retain this information after the loan approval process has been completed?

When the inevitable " you shouldn't have given me this loan which I can obviously can't afford" lawsuit, Financial ombudsma, Royal Commissionn etc complaints come in

Health system network turned out to be a house of cards – Cisco cards, that is

Re: Heading off after completion of a task

I teach ICT. Its amazing how many 'faults' are solved by me just laying hands on the machine.

Australian spy chief fears sabotage of critical infrastructure

There are a few contenders, 2 ex-PMs and an ex Foreign Minister being among them.

A visa to fill Australia's empty tech jobs is getting more expensive, but maybe better value

ACS - was once part of the solution

In the early 80s they were part of the solution, I got my start in the ACS run "Computer Industry Training Program". My then employer paid my ACS dues, but, being neither a golfer or "yachtie" I got little for value.

Microsoft posts another set of bumper results. Market's response? Meh

Re: "In 2025, it will be the year to execute."

Anybody else remember the Japanese reaction to IBM's "Win Execute Team"?

Dems and Repubs agree on something – a law to tackle unauthorized NSFW deepfakes

Libel/Slander?

Given the damages order made against "orange man - bad!" for slander/libel, surely this already exists as a potential remedy.

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Re: Torn

I worked for company that used IBM 3090s, AS400s and PC-ATs all at the same time. We adopted CUA for new projects and started working at changing older systems on an "as time allows*" basis.

Usually the tertiary project we were working on, to help fill in the time while waiting for our 1 or 2 compiles/tests a day because the machine was (the 3090 - they ended up buying a second one for all the non "billing" stuff

CLIs are simply wizard at character building. Let’s not keep them to ourselves

I am still fond of IBMs common user access (CUA). The manuals for which are still around

CompSci teachers panic as Replit pulls the plug on educational IDE

Re: Where have all the grown ups gone ?

Amen & Hallelujah!

I have been teaching IT for 13 years, after 30 years as a software dev. Since moving interstate, I have been working as a contract or day relief teacher in 10 different schools over the last 2 and a bit years, and over the last year I have been teaching a bit of manual arts/shop, Industrial Technology as well. I see this everywhere.

In one school we had AUD 100k+ in gear, CAD/CAM, 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl cutters etc that we could not use because of out-of-date software (either on the connected PC, or machine firmware). The IT support guys did not understand the machines, and the Manual Arts/Shop guys didn't understand computers (they knew the CAD software), and the business manager did not want to pay for software licences. I managed to get half the devices usable but was stymied because we could not ventilate the laser cutters to outside, and the only space available for some of the other machines in the workshop, or anywhere was too far from a power point and for good reasons we were not allowed to use extension cords. The faculty head put in a budget request to move thing around/get new power points/new software/ventilation, around 3k worth of work. I will give you three guesses what the answer from admin was, even though they were proudly touting - "we have all this tech". This school also mandated BYOD iPads for students in years 7-9 and closed all the computer rooms while insisting we use the technology.

Microsoft dials back Bing after users manage to recreate Disney logo in fake AI-generated images

Re: Teens can also get Bard to help them learn skills or complete homework

My years 10s have just handed in assignments on famous rockets.

They are unusually literate - spider senses are tingling.

Feed a para to ChatGPT and I can find out where it has been copied from. The source website has white text on a black background ... amazing coincidence, so does the work the student submitted.

I have also had a "Sure I can help you with that" cut and paste into the assignment.

Don't fear the Thread Reaper, a Windows ghost of bugs past

Re: It should never happen, hence the bug check

Looks like ancient code is the best . . .

For whatever value you choose as ancient. There must have been a golden age.

In the 80s I had to rewrite a Pl/1program written in the 70s that used gotos, and not even semi structured gotos.(Manglement ran some sort of program over our entire codebase looking fror files with gotos in them - everybody was given a program to structure properly as a side project for when we were waiting for jobs to run, walkthroughs etc). Code was jumping everywhere.

Judge bins AI copyright lawsuit against DeviantArt, Midjourney – Stability still in the mix

Re: copy and distribute

How is that any different from a human copying a book in a public library giving the copy to a teacher who makes copies as teaching material for their students.

Can't speak for any other jurisdiction, but copyright law in Oz allows teachers to copy a single chapter or 10% of a book (whichever is greater) for use in the classroom.

Clippy-like AI at forefront of Windows update previews

Re: Rectify11 and OOSU10 (works on 11 too)

I just did the today update and haven't seen any of the new "Want to be Clippy of Today" shit.

At least the windows version seems to stay dead after updates. The Edge version - I have to kill it and that dopey right hand side taskbar after every single update. -

Work computer , no admin rights Chrome/Firefox/Opera etc etc not allowed.

Word turns 40: From 'new kid on the block' to 'I can't believe it's not bloatware'

Re: That sounds about right...

WordPerfect et al was late.

I was a WP fan, and still think 5.2 was the best word processor I ever used. WP for Windows was great big steaming pile of expletive deleted. My son's godfather was a sales droid for WP in Sydney at the time and gave me a copy a few weeks before release. He was not happy to get my feedback, but his wife, who was using it as well, confirmed everything I said.

Re: Ah yes, Word for Windows 2.0

And "disappeared" the document, and occasionally the whole folder it was in, as if it never existed, no matter how many times you saved it while working on it. Word was the big reason I learnt to backup in multiple places.

Got used to hitting ctrl+s at the end of every sentence or 2 and stopping word and taking a copy of the file every page. Still do the ctrl+s thing, but only take a copy when I am done for that session.

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

Re: He's right, and it is his fault...

The 950XL was my favourite smart phone. At the time the specs hit the sweet spot and I actually liked the OS. I bought the 950 for SWMBO (a real technophobe - she still hasn't realised the difference between the facebook 'ping', and the different bing bongs we have set up for email and SMS notifications) and she loved it, I got very few requests for help. She replaced it with an iPhone, which hated, and since then has had Samsungs, her current for 2 years. I am still being asked "how do I".