Re: Where were all these virtue signallers...
Why is there a down vote on this? Oh shit - my mistake, forgot, it's not an "alt-fact"!
93 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jan 2010
Another bloody useless "standard". After 10 years, got back recently into doing some web thingymagick, and the sheer number of acronyms that have been added to the mess it was back then is janky!
I wish there was a browser that would only load content from a single domain once the page loads - without having to install a gazillion different plugins and play wack-a-mole..
After the ad slingers the biggest blame lies at the feet of trash sites like Buzzfeed and it's kin...
(Side question, does anyone on this site actually follow the register on facepalm/twatter/tumbleweed-plus/rss?)
Have you *seen* the Italians drive? Drove south of Rome towards Naples for the first time a few weeks ago, now that region is special... Indicators are dead weight on their cars...
The only way to get anywhere is to be a complete and total dick on the road, i.e. not Christian driving... (e.g. do not signal, ever, even when pulling on to the motorway; turn onto a main road even if there is on coming traffic - for they will stop; traffic lights are, well, just for information really; pedestrians - bah, meatbags, all fair game; speed limits are for other people, 60, ususally means 100, 130 is about as fast as your ferrari* can go on the road; and finally right of way is governed by size...)
Special place for driving...
* all cars are driven as if they are ferraris...
What has algorithmic trading got to do with any of the listed scandals in your comment? IMHO, this is the general problem, anything wrong in banking/markets is naturally blamed on the least understood of all components.
If you read some of the details surrounding recent flash crashes (say 2010), you'll see that even there, the exchanges have found that it has little to do with HFT, and most likely the result of something done by a meatbag. Typically such an action would ripple across any algorithms (as it did in 2010), but you'll also find that the algorithms also help to stabilize the situation and provide the necessary liquidity.
I call bollocks, the fundamental problem these days is drive-by-parenting. My parents wallopped a good education into me, irrespective of the distractions, and I will ensure the same to mine. The same cannot be said for the rest of the statistics.
Technology can play an important role in development as long as it's closely monitored by parents, it's the lazy fools who treat it as child minding that contribute to the large statistics that weigh against technology.
It's human nature to blame everything (and everyone else) besides one's self.
19-thirtysomethings count as yoof?? I was always under the impression that said yoof were below voting age..
In this new classification, I guess I'm a yoof as well then?? WTF? Frankly I will argue with the research, it's bollocks, I own a hybrid but hanker after something more decidedly environmentally unfriendlier that goes like a bat out of hell, needs to carry my progeny safely though...
What you patently fail to realise is that space exploration requires baby steps. We can't just go into warp drive from day one. It takes time and a measured approach, currently we don't have the technology to get that far in a reasonable amount of time - atleast to keep the population interested.
So little steps, ISS, explore mars using rovers, land on an asteroid or two, may be think about technology for a manned mission to mars, and then who knows what next. It's slow, and requires lots of patience - unless you can indeed develop the next impulse drive or warp drive - in which case, feel free to drop your local space agency a note...
On the contrary, 125 mil is bloody expensive, I'd wager that in reality for the overseas coders, the total costs are probably in the region of 10 mil if that, the rest is for the suite monkeys...
Someone *cough* Accenture *cough* are getting a nice payday at the expense of the UK taxpayers...
People aren't arguing against the said system or concept, there is little argument that such improvements are needed. The problem that folks with a little common sense have is the the implementation farce that normally happens - all we hear is writing off x hundred million or y billion pounds for this or that, and it's delayed by a further z years...
Does not leave much confidence in the folks involved in the whole process... This is what happens when you get a bunch of suite monkeys to design and build a technology solution. They focus on the cornflower blue icons rather than getting the fucking thing to work!
That we are now so used to this type of cock-up, that it is now accepted as the norm rather than the exception.
It still staggers me the amount of money involved in these contracts and how little accountability these fuckwits have. If a private corporation has a department that wrote off a cool 140 mil, heads would roll! Slimey fucking politicians, waste of air...
I'm not talking about the concept, I think there is general agreement (even amongst my Libertarian friends) that the concept is sound, it's the implementation that's been a disaster - I think you have to have deeply rose tinted spectacles to view this as anything but.
However, this is not uncommon as we've seen the UK, where any government IT project costs at least a billion pounds, typically takes a few more years than planned, and eventually ends up writing off half the assets/costs (for example the new benefits system recently wrote off a cool $200 million, which is a third of the cost of the obamacare thing..) For a small country, we're particularly good at wasting a fuckload of money on hot air...
Companies need a good balance of both. Without creative individuals, you don't get sudden jumps in progress, you may get steady evolution, but nothing remarkable.
Conversely, if you had a bunch of creative folks, you won't have anyone interested in just getting things done, as everyone would want to create shit...
So, most progress is made when there is a good mix of both types of folks or if you are really lucky individuals who are creative and don't mind just getting shit done.
@AC, I have to disagree somewhat..
My own opinion on this is that CS practitioners solve what they think is the problem, Engineers really solve the problem at hand in the simplest possible way. Okay, it's not "proper" CS, but does the fucking job...
This I believe explains the difference in cost between Government IT projects (infested with CS practitioners) and projects like CERN (infested with Engineers...) One is pretty successful, the other delivers lots of hot air...
The argument is not against the system, it's required. That's a given.
The debate is about who has access to the data? and wtf they plan to do with it? And importantly how much does it cost? All three are pertinent questions, which don't appear to have clearly defined answers.
I don't like this concept of private companies being given my healthcare data (even if it's anonymised!) It's none of their fucking concern...
I take exception the first paragraph, the name Sri Lanka came in to effect in 1972, even though we had obtained Independence in 1948! Sounds like a daily fail style generalisation of a whole subcontinent - educate thyself!
NOTE: I'm not in favour of the name, but have no opinion on the new language, it's come and, it'll go, inevitably.
Erm, the "hardware" provides a fixed, specific instruction set, it is the job of the compiler/interpreter/virtual machine, whatever, to translate the code which the programmer writes to the above instruction set. Hardware is agnostic to the latest fad sweeping the interwebs, more instructions may be added to fascillitate common tasks that previously took multiple instructions, but that's entirely down to the vendor.
On a side note, slightly miffed at the chosen name, as this was the colonial name given to the country of my birth by the Brits! And I see what you did there with the title, tsk, tsk tsk..
@wolfetone that's utter bollocks! Urban re-generation programmes are exceedingly expensive, especially in impoverished nations. This $75 mil is about 10 rupees per person in a country of 1.2 billion people, wtf is that going to do to the average person's life? Sweet FA!
Small manageable sums like this spent on scientific advancement benefits society as a whole (think of esteem, inspiration [both of which are sorely lacking]) not to mention encouraging some healthy competition. It's amazing how some people have such a short term view... <sigh/>
As for folks moaning about UK aid; seriously - how naive are these folks?
I can definitively say, that it is simply the biggest load of bullshit. For two months of the year, there is intense focus on "reviews", and the number of reviews that one has to do can vary from 10-30 reviews (other people's in addition to your own.)
Most end up being a cut-and-paste job, and really, if you want to stitch someone up, it's the perfect way to do it (I know, I got stitched up* - and by that point, it's too late to do anything about it.) I really see no point in them, if your manager sees what you do day in day out, why is a written essay required to re-highlight your activities throughout the year. It's for this and budgeting that middle management exists because once the reviews are done, the next activity that keeps them busy is budgeting.
It's great if you are a junior though, means those without a clue stay out of your hair for about half of the year.
* - not sour at all about it, got a nice little pay-off when I was made redundant...