Re: Who got paid?
You're not going to believe this, but when you say "crap project management":
There was no Project Manager for this one. The Uni spent years trying to hire one and no-one wanted the job.
Posts by AH
13 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Uni staff fall back on Excel to work around mis-coded transactions in Oracle system
Latest NHS IT revolution is failing to learn lessons from the last £10bn car crash
Tuesday 19th May 2020 16:25 GMT
Re: Meanwhile in Wales...
Interesting, that's the second time I've encountered someone saying that NHS Wales does IT right.
Spoken to several people involved with NHS Data Safe Havens for patient data, and it seems every NHS region has its own, and all of them have essentially forbidden the install any tools or libraries as they are paranoid about a breach, and even getting access takes months and months for even the most urgent research cases (COVID-19). As a result many millions have been spent housing the data, and noone can look at it or understand it. The few data scientists who do have access code up individual queries for data out of raw python. For my local health board, the DS in question said he was the only person ever logged in. And it was like that for all the other boards too.
Apart from in Wales. Apparently they have a governance process that let people actually get access and use tools, and are becoming the default destination for researchers. I'm guessing NWIS understand firewalls, DMZs and other basic tools of managing the risk of a breach, and so do their governance board.
Egg on North Face: Wikipedia furious after glamp-wear giant swaps article pics for sneaky ad shots – and even brags about it in a video
Thursday 30th May 2019 14:10 GMT
In Honour of Douglas Adams
They sound a lot like the Marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation. It would be a real shame if someone were to change the Wiki entry for Leo Burnett Tailor Made to:
"A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
HMRC contractor scores IR35 payout after yet another taxman blunder
Arthur C. Clarke dead at 90
El Reg decimates English language
Tuesday 4th March 2008 15:01 GMT
Hate to Bring up History in an Amusing Thread
Decimation has a literal meaning and an emotive attachment. Those who criticise the use of the word to mean "destruction" are ignoring its emotive power in the historical context it was used.
Decimation derives from the punishment meted out to a Roman cohort (not a legion). Each group of ten men would draw lots. The loser would then be beaten or stoned to death by his nine comrades. The punishment was rarely administered as the cohort would be fairly useless thereafter: its morale was destroyed. The punishment appears to have been rarely used, only at times of dire emergency "pour encourager les autres". The cohort was effectively destroyed by the "decimation".
The word's use to denote destruction derives from its impact on Roman legionnaries - if they ever performed so badly as to merit decimation, it would be the end for them as career soldiers, even if they survived the decimation itself.
So it's not just a case of adaption in modern useage: it's always meant the destruction of a "unit" by the infliction of casualties.
Cable cutter nutters chase underwater conspiracies
Former top brass call for first-strike nuke option
Tuesday 22nd January 2008 17:06 GMT 
Calm down, calm down ....
... or you'll miss the point of the PR/mass psychology exercise.
1. <first strike utter madness>
2. "to ward off the use of weapons of mass destruction by its enemies"
The intention here is two fold, and the important one is second:
1. is just a bit of sabre-rattling that may make the Iranians nervous, if they were really dumb
2. WMDs have taken a bit of a credibility knock of late. So tuck this phrase in after the <first strike insanity> and everyone is so busy screaming blue murder at that bit, there's a tendency to just take "ward off use of WMD" as fairly reasonable. The WMD thing is so useful as a vague threat there's no way "They" are going to give up on it. And I'm not talking tinfoil hat territory here : that vague threat keeps politicians, the military-industrial complex, Halliburton, "They" in business. (Careful nod in Adam Curtis's direction).
Computer system suspected in Heathrow 777 crash
Met used 'dum-dum' ammo on de Menezes
Tuesday 16th October 2007 14:03 GMT
Couple of Additional Points
The FBI have been using Glaser Safety Rounds (a variety of hollow point - shot suspended in teflon) for many years. The 'Safety' part of the name is partly PR, but partly valid: when used in densely populated urban circumstances a hollow point tends to disintegrate when it hits brick, whereas a FMJ round will tend to go straight through. Cuts down on innocent bystanders getting hit by missed or through-and-through rounds.
So bad nasty hollow points are actually good for a) taking out hostage takers/terrorists with a single shot (98% disabled with a single shot with a Glaser) b) doing so while minimising risk to anyone standing behind the target.
The only detail is that if you're hit with a dum-dum/Glaser you're not just disabled, you're dead. Which is where differentiating between suicide bombers and Brazilian electricians becomes fairly important.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
