Posts by Kubla Cant

The 12 KB that Windows just can't seem to quit

Overlays!

I'd forgotten them. Big programs running under RSTS/E on a PDP-11 had to be put together using a tool called the Taskbuilder to manage which bits would occupy memory at the same time. A thoroughly tiresome chore, but get it wrong and your subroutine calls target code that isn't there any more.

Bizarrely, the manual contained lots of cartoons showing a friendly workman with a cap and a toolbox putting overlay structures together. It's as if the guys at DEC thought they might make using Taskbuilder accessible to young children. I think he was called Tony the Taskbuilder (or maybe Terry - it's been a while).

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

Funny you should mention printers

In former times I learned that the time programming a report was usually trivial compared to the hours making it print correctly. And if you really wanted to waste your life, try doing something with printer configuration. I thought those days were over, but...

Last week I replaced all my home wifi and installed a Pi-Hole DNS server. I expected problems, but it all went swimmingly. Everything connected to the new network: two PCs, a tablet, two TVs, everyone's mobile phone, even the washing machine (why?). But then on Friday morning I clicked [Print] and got a message that the printer was offline. Looks like I'd forgotten to reconnect the nasty little black Canon thing lurking in the corner.

No problem, just use the WPS function on a wireless access point and tell the printer to connect. Doesn't work. Oh well, let's try connecting manually. This is not easy, as the printer has a tiny display with no backlight and everything has to be typed in on its telephone-style keypad*. In accordance with best practice, the wifi password is a long string of varied characters, digits and symbols. I spend the next hour searching for the manual page for the keypad, and the next several hours trying to make the printer connect. I eventually give up at 2am.

Next morning the WPS feature works as if there'd never been a problem.

*Although quite new, this printer is equipped to send faxes. They've decided to eliminate the wired network port, but keep fax functionality. That will come in handy if I ever need to contact somebody in 1995. Why don't they include Telex? Put a Morse key on the printer?

BOFH: Have you tried forcing an unexpected reboot?

Re: The spinning wheel lies.

all the spinning wheel tells you is that there is not a CPU problem

In an ideal world, perhaps. But an update process that is I/O bound, as most are, is likely to run the spinner in its own thread, so it continues to update regardless. It "tells you is that there is not a CPU problem" in the sense that the CPU is still there, but that's a very small reassurance.

It's fairly common to be faced with a situation where estimating the size of a data operation (eg "SELECT COUNT(*)" with a complicated predicate) takes nearly as long as actually doing it. In those situations I have been known to display Zeno's progress indicator, where the bar regularly increments by a proportion of the remaining space, and so never reaches 100%. By contrast, Microsoft appear to have used random numbers for time remaining when transferring files: 30 sec... 2 days... 1 hour... 10 sec... 20 min.... This gave the impression that File Manager suffered from something like bipolar disorder.

Microsoft goes native with Copilot. Again

Dunning-Kruger

AI help when searching for a solution to a computer problem is rather like having an enthúsiastic but fundamentally stupid co-worker at your elbow. He's constantly offering useless advice resulting from an incomplete appreciation of the problem and superficial knowledge gleaned from skimming Microsoft's useless help pages.

It's a perfect Dunning-Kruger simulation. General Artificial Stupidity (GAS).

One stupid keystroke exposed sysadmin to inappropriate information he could not unsee

We had a network of diskless (but not floppyless) workstations. All their data was stored on reliable VAX disks that were access-controlled and backed up depth, with offsite storage etc etc. But the Accounts Department insisted on storing their files on floppy disks and locking them in the filing cabinet "for security". Then they'd call us because the disks were unreadable.

BOFH: The USB stick always comes back – until it doesn't

Re: "Found" USB stick

I'm always puzzled by the attraction of free USB sticks. I can't imagine any other kind of low cost* personal equipment that people would avidly pick up and make their own.

On my desk the things seem to breed. Worse, they get mixed up with USB receivers from wireless mice, which also proliferate.

* Current price on Amazon < 1p/GB. They can't all be fakes. If they are, customer satisfaction is surprisingly high.

Re: Even worse ...

Look on the bright side. Unless you have a very poor memory, it doesn't take a month to recreate a month's work. And you'll do it much better second time around.

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

Stand up, stand up for meetings

Several comments have talked about this in terms of standup meetings, but most seem to miss the essential point of standups. No chairs (or chairs that nobody is allowed to sit in). Meetings where everyone stands throughout rarely overrun. One comment mentioed people standing up to speak, but that's not a standup meeting. The ideal standup would be barefoot on a shingle beach, but that's hard to organise on a daily basis.

The worst are Zoom meetings, because it's hard to make people stand up at home. They're probably in bed, or not wearing trousers.

AI summaries turn real news into nonsense, BBC finds

Re: "AI will bring real value when it's used responsibly,"

Or at least that's what we AIs keep telling ourselves us

25 years on from Y2K, let's all be glad it happened way back then

Re: And for other reasons

Dionysius Exiguus == Little Dennis

BOFH: The devil's in the contract details

"real coffee"

I used to work in an office with a vending machine that made perfectly acceptable coffee using freshly ground beans and fresh milk. Once, following a trivial milestone, a colleague said "Let's have a real cup of coffee. To my surprise, he then boiled a kettle and made two foul cups of instant coffee. In his brain, "real coffee" was some kind of performative thing defined by the action of boiling a kettle and pouring into a cracked mug.

Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

The corollary to this is the way an intractable problem evaporates as you explain it to the support desk, leaving you feeling like an idiot.

What were you doing to the poor MicroVAX? VMS machines could be relied on to run for years without a reboot. Many only ever rebooted to install a new VMS version.

SuperHTML is here to rescue you from syntax errors, and it's FOSS

Re-use and encapsulation

Commercial-scale software engineering always benefits from re-use and encapsulation. Doing everything with static HTML is OK for a small number of pages. But a big site with extensive commonality and a complex UI is going to be slow to develop and hard to maintain if it's just a collection of massive HTML scripts.

Syntax errors are the least of the problems when creating HTML pages. Getting the look and behaviour to meet requirements, at all scales, takes a lot of effort (for me, at least). And then you have to change it....

Want to feel old? Excel just entered its 40th year

SuperCalc?

Distributed as part of the free software bundle with the Osborne 1. Alleged to be better than VisiCalc - I wouldn't know, as I've never used a spreadsheet for anything demanding*.

Also a spreadsheet that ran on DEC RT-11 (or possibly TSX). I can't remember its name, but the way it thrashed the disk is unforgettable.

* Many years ago, a customer asked me to build an application in Lotus 123. I couldn't get anywhere with it, probably because of lack of skills. I advised them to let me code it in DBL, a version of DEC DIBOL for the PC, as that was the language I knew best. In retrospect, this may not have been good advice.

To my astonishment, it seems that the DBL language survived until at least December 2014, when "Version 10.3 added support for creating programs that can run on Android and iOS devices".

Post Office seeks more Horizon support as it continues hunt for replacement

Re: Not to worry, the Post Office have the answer

If management still consider them real losses then something's very wrong.

Adequately explained by the breathtaking combination of stupidity and malevolence displayed by the POL functionaries answering to the Horizon enquiry.

iGulu F1 could be the hoppy ending to your home-brew horror show

Distilled water? Refrigerating? Pressurising? CO2 cylinder? It seems most of the cost is devoted to producing the vile fizzy substance sold as beer in the USA. So revolting they have to chill it to a temperature where you can't taste it.

CrowdStrike update blunder may cost world billions – and insurance ain't covering it all

Let's hope the fees for their "very good contract law lawyers" bankrupt them.

CrowdStrike shares sink as global IT outage savages systems worldwide

Re: The fault's with Microsoft

I can only refer you to Joe Tidy, the BBC "Cyber correspondent". He says They have "god-like" access to all the inner workings of an IT system for obvious reasons..

Mind you, I don't think Joe is really a techie. His next paragraph tells us that "End Point Protection" programmes have to be able to monitor the inner workings of computers. Back in the last century it was not unknown for reactionary UK crusties to try to insist on spelling "program" that way, but I don't think I've seen it for at least 40 years.

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Re: Chief Threat Hunter?

In this case, a chap hunting velociraptors while oblivious to the T Rex just behind him.

Re: Hungarian GP

According to the BBC "NHS England says the global power outage is affecting most GP practices"

Cost?

The cost of this incident is surely going to run into $trillions. The airport shutdowns alone will see to that. But you can bet that the CrowdStrike licence will have the usual disclaimer for consequent loss or damage in the small print.

In any case, the chances of CrowdStrike having the resources to cover the cost of having crashed the world are infinitesimal. So the world will soon have obstructive security software that's supported by a company that has vapourised.

More popcorn, please.

For the record: You just ordered me to cause a very expensive outage

Re: "I felt no inclination to do so"

leaving the moron with nobody to blame

The worrying thing is that by not being present he might make it all too easy for the moron to shift the blame on to him.

Anthropic delivers Claude 3.5 model – and a new way to work with chatbots

Re: "Certainly. I'd be happy to..."

Judging from what I saw in the video, it's actually "Certainly! I'd be happy to!". Over-use of screamers is generally regarded as the mark of a weak intellect. And don't get me started on the stupid Barbie-voice used by GPT-4o.

Codd almighty! Has it been half a century of SQL already?

Re: SQL will always have its plaice.

SQL will always have its plaice thanks to Codd?

GraphQL

A few years ago I was involved in a project to present a large and complex database as a GraphQL model. The idea is that downstream users of the data don't have to know the details of the relational model, they just present a JSON template of the data they need, and the software generates SQL. Essentially a duplication of the effort that had once been put into SQL interpreters.

The other day I came across a video where the presenter called it "Squeal". Not saying it's wrong, but it's late in the day for another variant.

It used to be that saying "Sequel" was a sign of an Oracle background.

Computer sprinkled with exotic chemicals produced super-problems, not super-powers

Hybrid organism

an eldritch spark that fused his consciousness with the computer's newly sentient circuitry

DEC made wonderful computers, but this sounds like a grim fate. Best case the computer might be an Alpha or a VAX, but the environment sounds more like a PDP/11. Imagine spending the rest of your life running RSTS/E, unable to understand anything but the word "PIP".

Forget feet and inches, latest UK units of measurement are thinking bigger

Re: What the hell is a meter?

I too used to think "burglarize" was illiterate. But it seems that it's the correct* verb for what a burglar does. The alternative "burgle" is a back-formation based on the misapprehension that the "-ar" suffix is just an eccentric spelling of the agentive "-er" or "-or", but "burglar" dates from the 1540s, while "burgle" doesn't appear until 1869, and it seems to be a joke.

* There may be some dispute over "-ize" versus "-ise".

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

... and what is the "Hogwarts expresst"?

Post Office slapped down for late disclosure of documents in Horizon scandal inquiry

Re: Jason Beer KC

Too true! For a combination of stupidity and malevolence it would be hard to beat Black Shirt Hard Man or Big Specs Woman.

I think he deserves a peerage. Also, it would be good to have a Lord Beer.

If POL is charged with Corporate Manslaughter it will simply spunk £billions on legal fees to defend itself. As POL is insolvent but can't be allowed to go bankrupt, we all know where that money will come from.

Re: Why is Paula Vennells still walking the streets?

The problem with going after Fu-shit-show is the vast range of public sector IT they are involved in.

And the problem with stopping their involvement is that public sector IT is such a shit show that nobody else wants it.

Horizon is a Point Of Sale system

It certainly seems to be a POS system, but I don't think that stands for "Point Of Sale".

The problem with using accounting methods to correct errors is that it depends on the recording system being reliable. If, as seems likely, Horizon just makes stuff up, it won't work.

SPM: sells a 50p stamp

Horizon: debits an account by £50

Back-office: creates a correcting journal for £49.50

Horizon: debits the account for £4950

Moving to Windows 11 is so easy! You just need to buy a PC that supports it!

Re: Windows 11 Start Menu Changes Nothing

Power users search for what they want. Civilians either have desktop icons or pin what matters to the taskbar.

Thought I was a power user, but I pin things to the taskbar, so I guess not. Do I have to use the start menu to prove my virility?

CERN is training robot dogs to spot radiation hazards at Large Hadron Collider

Re: $2700

The picture caption says "expensive hound". Have you any idea what a real dog costs? Tomorrow I'm taking my other half to collect a puppy. At £1800 it's towards the cheaper end of the spectrum, and that's before you start feeding it.

JAXA releases photo of SLIM lander in lunar faceplant

Re: Japan deserves a little more credit

It's incredibly impressive that the rovers deployed successfully from a lander in such a position.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

Re: Accounting system

Apparently this code is in Visual Basic 6 which seems where the max int is 65,535

(Reluctantly dredging up past knowledge of VB6)

In the absence of any type declaration VB6 will use a Variant. What the underlying type will be probably depends on the phase of the moon, but it's likely to be a float of some kind. Of course floating point arithmetic is not really suitable for accounting systems anyway.

Since it's a Variant function, you can pass it anything you like - string, date, boolean, object... and it will faithfully return something or other. Unless it errors, in which case the lack of error handling will probably make itself felt.

Post Office boss unable to say when biz knew Horizon could be remotely altered

Lies, damn lies and postal lies

The judge's summing up in the class action against the PO makes it fairly clear he thought the technical witnesses from Fujitsu and the PO were either evasive or lying.

It also appears likely that the PO lawyers failed in their legal duty to reveal to the other side facts that would harm their case. This is important: a trial is supposed to be a mechanism for establishing truth, not a win-at-any-cost competition.

The unfortunate thing is that the poor old taxpayer will end up footing the bill, as the PO makes no profit and can't be allowed to cease trading. And if the lying bastards get sent to prison we'll be paying thousands to keep them there. But it'll be worth it.

Re: Compensation?

"Did anyone benefit financially from the errors in Horizon or the unauthorized activities of Fujitsu employees accessing terminals remotely?"

It seems the "reimbursements" paid by the SPMs were held in suspense accounts for a year or two, then rolled up into PO trading profit (aka loss).

Microsoft touts migration to Windows 11 as painless, though wallets may disagree

Fix copy/paste bugs in Windows 11 first

For reasons I can't recall, I upgraded to Windows 11 a few months ago. It's buggy junk. Several times a day copy/paste stops working, and the only solution is to restart Windows Explorer.

I've been using Windows for 30 years, since 3.1. I've used GUIs on Linux, Mac, and even VMS. The clipboard always just works, and you come to rely on it. How on earth can Windows reach version 11 with instability a fundamental service like this?

The useless Microsoft forums suggest that I look for an application is the cause of the clipboard problems, but give no idea how to identify such an application. It seems unlikely, as the applications I run are far from exotic. In any case, what kind of Mickey Mouse architecture would allow such interference?

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

Re: Origins of Horizon

The Post Office fiasco has all the hallmarks of an incompetent attempt to take a monolithic legacy system and tart it up to meet requirements for massively distributed transactions. Confirmed when I read that Horizon is basically an old ICL system. Lipstick on a pig.

It says a lot about Fujitsu that they claimed there were no error logs*. Whoever heard of such a thing? And they apparently allowed support staff unrestricted access to live financial data without logging that. Has anyone here ever worked on a serious system where that was allowed?

PLACEHOLDER ONLY Someone please write witty headline here

Re: Here be dragons code

Quite apart from the morality of using a live system for testing, this doesn't prove anything.

The implication is that the circumstances that cause the dragon code to execute are hard to understand, and probably very rare. So it won't fail on the first release, while you're watching it, but it may fail several releases down the line, when your change is no longer evident.

South Korea opens the door for robots to roam among pedestrians

Q: What part of the pavement does a half-tonne robot use?

A: Whatever part it wants to.

How wide are the pavements in South Korea? Will these robots force pedestrians into the road?

And what happens when two half-tonne robots meet at 15km/h on a narrow corner?

Inadequate IT partly to blame for NHS doctors losing 13.5 million working hours

Why a specifically NHS problem?

Healthcare isn't exactly a local concern. Most countries in the world have a healthcare system of some kind. The NHS is only unique in its funding model and in its monolithic structure. The requirements should be much the same everywhere, and the data sharing problems should be, if anything, greater in less closely-integrated systems.

Most of the other requirements of healthcare seem to be filled globally. The NHS doesn't design and manufacture its own equipment, and its staff is notoriously drawn from all over the world. So why doesn't it use IT systems that are in use elsewhere?

It's not that many years since the last attempt to address all the NHS IT requirements in one gigantic project. The only output from that seems to have been a gigantic bill.

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

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

Upvoted.

But in most cases the best solution is to refactor the 80 lines of stuff to one or more well-named methods. The only exception I can think of is where it's 80 lines of essentially repetitive code, so there's little advantage in moving it to an 80-line method.

Tech contractor who uses an umbrella company? UK tax is coming after them

Her

^H -> He

^H -> H

is -> His

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

Re: Don't forget mischief

The way that human brains are wired, there is focus on a subject, and negation is not instinctively processed

An interesting related phenomenon:

In streets where pedestrians cross, the words "LOOK RIGHT" are often written on the roadway next to a central reservation or pedestrian refuge, because that is the direction the traffic is coming from when you're in the middle of the road. To avoid confusion, or perhaps just to balance things out, "LOOK LEFT" is written in the roadway at the start of the crossing (i.e. next to the pavement).

When you're getting ready to cross a busy road, you don't naturally look just in front of your feet. Your gaze naturally fixes on your destination, the island or reservation in the middle of the road. So you don't see "LOOK LEFT", but you do see "┴HפIɹ ʞOO˥".

There is no well-established convention that inverted text means the opposite of what it says, and most people can easily read two short words upside down without even registering that it's inverted. So they look the wrong way.

'What's the point of me being in my office, just because they want to see me in the office?'

Re: Mandates hahaha

It's obvious various roles could never be done remotely, or are difficult at best.

Less obvious than you might suppose. Here's a story about a GP who lives 250 miles away from her surgery and works from home.

KFC bot urges Germans to mark Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken

it uses a semi-automated system to link calendars with national holidays to its content creation process

Seems to imply that Kristallnacht (or, as in the message, the even more explicit "Reichspogromnacht") is a national holiday in Germany. Do they have holidays to commemorate all their appalling actions?