* Posts by Dagg

691 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jul 2010

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Juno fly-by detects lower levels of oxygen on Europa than expected

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Joke

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it,

not as we know it,

not as we know it.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it,

not as we know it, Captain.

It's that most wonderful time of the year when tech cannot handle the date

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Re: 1999 cause I can't spell Millenium

The millennium bug wasn't nothing. I worked my butt off replacing a banking package that wasn't Y2K compliant. Got a shit load of frequent flier points enough for a round the world with accommodation for two people.

It didn't happen because a load of people did a load of work.

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Re: So much new code?

but interfaces between disparate systems

You could be on to something! The EFTPOS interface ISO8583 or equivalent should not be a problem as other things would have stopped as well. But I'm interested in the firmware in the actual pump. Strange that it just happened this leap year and not last leap year...

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Re: Just one of those thing /s

Just who the f~1 are they getting to write their software?

Exactly! When I did my compsci degree I remember one of the first year assignments was a date calculator and it had to manage leap years. Pay peanuts get monkeys...

I'm just gobsmaked as to how anyone could make this mistake!

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Re: You caught me on the isostatic rebound

why not have spring in July

This type of dating actually depends on governments. Here is Australia the government defines that the season start at the being of a month regardless of nature. Other places define the start of a season as starting on the equinox or solstice. To me nature defines when they start,

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Happy

Re: Is it Friday yet

WRONG! Typical brit or septic, you need to consider time zones. NZ is 12 hours ahead of the UK and around 19 hours ahead of the US so you poor buggers can be a day behind. <G>

Swarms of laser-flown bots visiting a planet light years away – and more NASA-funded projects revealed

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Trollface

Re: A couple of issues to be sorted?

I just love that down vote as it means I made my point.

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Re: A couple of issues to be sorted?

As per standard, the septics don't understand sarcasm!

Google throws $1M at Rust Foundation to build C++ bridges

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I still suffer the PTSD from when I HAD to get C++ to integrate with COBOL...

Oh the pain!

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There is a shit load of legacy code that has kept people like me in work for a long time. It will not go away and while it just does what it does it will not be replaced.

Rust will need to integrate and interface with this existing code to provide the level of functionality that needs to remain. It is all well and good taking the moral high ground and saying that it should all be rewritten in Rust, but the issue is time, cost and in some cases no one actually knows how the old legacy code works...

Aircraft rivet hole issues cause delays to Boeing 737 Max deliveries

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Re: >but the problem may also exist in 737s already being used by airlines

One of the architectural principles the company I used to work for was along the lines of only use the N-1 latest version of the software...

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Joke

Re: >but the problem may also exist in 737s already being used by airlines

Actually the best idea would be to buy the older 737s as these haven't fallen out of the sky means they must have been put together properly!

Rocket Lab is a David among Goliaths in the space race

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Re: Which rocket?

Oceans can be national reserve and nature reserves...

HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten

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My Brother laser has been quite happy with its aftermarket cartridges.

Yea, right! Until they leak toner and destroy the photo roller!

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Re: Nothing wrong with Brother printers.

The issue I had with the brother HL-2150N laser was it was sold with a near empty cartridge and the replacement cost almost has much as the original printer.

I ended up buying a non brother toner cartridge and that ended up leaking toner and stuffing up the photo roller.

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Mushroom

Yep, brother lasers are exactly the same! Bastards!!!

Ransomware payment ban: Wrong idea at the wrong time

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Re: Wrong

If I wanted to drive a forklift, I have to take a course and get a cert to ensure I don't accidentally drop a crate on someone and ruin (or even end) their life. Well, Barb's desktop computer can destroy the lives of everyone in the business if she clicks a dodgy attachment...I'd sooner have her drive a forklift without a qualification than a PC.

The big difference is if the forklift driver kills someone and it was determined that they were at fault then they and possibly their manager could end up in prison.

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Re: Wrong

One other possible take on this is about the information that is taken.

The concept of privacy becomes important. Why the hell does company X require all this personal details about a person? If they need credit card details, for example for a bill payment. Then why the hell should they keep them after the payment is complete.

It appears that there also need to be laws around what information can be held and for how long. These should be CRIMINAL laws and come with jail time as well.

RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

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Re: Semicolon Wars

The one issue with the use of semicolons in Algol was the classic dangling else problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_else

Windows boss takes on taskbar turmoil, pledges to 'make Start menu great again'

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Re: Do what you like but give options

I haven't used any HP devices for a couple of decades.

But I use my W10 computer for photo processing and have a monitor calibration device with W10 software. From what I've been able to find out there is NO viable Linux support for it.

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Unhappy

Re: Do what you like but give options

The one big issue with all versions of Linux is getting all the 3rd party windows apps to run on it. Yes, I know there is this fantastic thing called WINE. But this is not something that an every man in the street can use. Also little things like getting the various scanners, printers, screen cards etc working properly.

I know that I am going to have to make the move from W10 to some form of Linux as there is no way that I will use W11. But I am not looking forward to the pain of transitioning. And I know it will be painful no matter what all the members of the Church of Linux say.

There is also one thing I will not be doing. I will no longer support friends and families computers.

Now let slip the downvotes of war...

DARPA's air-steered X-65 jet heads into production with goal of flying by 2025

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Re: Wing-Warping

From what I understand warping is exactly the same as bending.

From https://www.thefreedictionary.com/warping

noun.

1. The state of being twisted or bent out of shape.

Is it time for 6G already? Traffic analysis says yep

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Mushroom

Re: Lucky me

Lucky you! Here in Oz we get a lot of fraud messages. And it has nothing to do with browsing habits or anything else. They just spam SMS to a random list of mobile phone numbers.

  • Things like your australia post delivery has (failed/package is damaged/incomplete or invalid address) etc.
  • Messages from the local toll road provider to say there is a problem with your (non-existent account)
  • From your local power company about power outages.

And of course these all contain a link you need to click on. There have been times when these are coming every couple of hours 24/7. That is why I ended up putting my phone onto flight mode.

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Re: Lucky me

With me my phone spends a lot of time in flight mode especially at night so I can't be disturbed. It has gotten to the point that you are getting spam/fraud messages/call 24/7. And I do like my peace and quiet.

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Re: Pretty sure you can't change the laws of Physics...

Mobile networks need to be robust.

The issue in Oz is the higher the G number the less robust and the less available. It is good if you live inner city, but once you get out into the bush; forget it!

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Re: Bring back the art of low bandwidth coding

SMS should still be considered an essential.

Especially here in Oz as we need it to report little things like bush fire, flood and thunder storm asthma alerts. If you are out in the middle of no where you need that SMS coverage.

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Re: it would be great

Telstra seems to have deployed 4G at 700MHz. Doesn't this work well to fill in the gaps?

No! And this is only telstra, the other carriers are even more flaky. The big issue we have in Oz is the distance and population spread. You will (but not always) get coverage on main highways (A roads to you poms) but once you get away from those (B roads etc) there are huge gaps.

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Mushroom

Re: it would be great

The big issue, especially here in Oz is that 3G actually works! It doesn't matter how efficient the other standards are if they don't bloody work!

Scientists mull Solar Radiation Management – a potential climate-change stop-gap

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Re: Retracting part of my post

If you actually look at the initial research it was carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the period where they were trying to justify the use of nuclear energy for everything.

It may mean that this research should be revisited.

Artificial intelligence is a liability

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Peter Principle

I wonder if the Peter Principle will apply to AI's.

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Devil

Being sued was unlikely to have been the intention

Actually they expected to be sued, it was just the cheaper option.

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Happy

Re: The fault lies with lazy humans

Humans love magic. Imagine you can skip the hard work because you can just wave some wand...

For a moment I thought you were talking about the ways BAs use Agile.

Biden urged to do something about Europe 'unfairly' targeting American tech

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Unhappy

Re: Hogwash Posturing

In Australia we have Aldi, but they don't/won't sell the good European stuff. They just do a cheap version of the existing duopoly of the coles and woolworths supermarkets.

UK officials caught napping ahead of 2G and 3G doomsday

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Re: G for Generation

I still don't understand why that kind of data cannot be sent over the power lines

Need to be able to step over/through transformers etc. Also be able to handle transmission issues caused by signal refection from branches.

I'm actually curious as to why 3G needs to be switched off?

Internet's deep-level architects slam US, UK, Europe for pushing device-side scanning

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Pint

Re: Workarounds?

I still use cash. It has one major advantage, when I'm at the pub and run out of it means I've spent the budget and it is time to go home.

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Big Brother

So This is considered "Safe"

The major issue with all this shit is that what is added to allow a your government access can allow another government access or another 3rd party entity such as one of the various criminal groups.

NASA engineers scratch heads as Voyager 1 starts spouting cosmic gibberish

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Alien

Xmas

It has run into Santa Claus on his way to earth...

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Re: Have they tried

"power cycle"

Actually power cycle in NZ used to be the term the ministry of transport used for a moped. Especially something like a C50 Honda.

Microsoft to intro dedicated mode for Cloud PCs

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F*cked by Optus

Not something you would want to use in Australia.

Dump C++ and in Rust you should trust, Five Eyes agencies urge

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Re: I must be a bit thick

the use of hex is a hint that it should be unsigned

Yea, but there is no indication as to what those HEX numbers mean... Ok in char 0x20 is space and you should use char(' ') to be clear if space is what you meant. But as an unsigned char what does it mean?

Also what will it mean to the next developer in a couple of years time when they are maintaining this shit code!

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Re: If history had taken a different turn

It was never meant for doing the kinds of things you can do with C

The big issue with that is just because C allows you to do all the things doesn't mean you have to. I have seen unmaintainable code written in C full of gotos, continues, breaks, returns everywhere in a function and try throw and catches. All legal and all possible.

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Re: I must be a bit thick

???

Everyone of those code segments is syntactically correct! So it will compile. But it will depend on the compiler on exactly what machine code is created and the hardware on how it runs.

If I saw this during a code review you would get a major bollocking. For the use of magic numbers, variable names that mean nothing. The != in the for loop

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Re: I must be a bit thick

One way to make C/C++ more of an application language instead of a Systems language is to max the warnings level and to carry out all the initial testing in DEBUG mode as this should catch stupid programmer level errors like "not all paths return a value" or "variable not initialized " or "mismatched variable assignment".

The one thing I have seen so many times is a bad programmer can still create bad code even in a good language. Shit code is still shit code not matter what it is written in.

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Re: Capability

The big problem was finding an Algol-68 complier to run on your hardware and OS.

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Re: Capability

Nope, A company I worked for in the industrial process control space used PASCAL because it was a SAFE application language. At that time Algol-68 compliers were extremely rare and Ada didn't exist.

40 years of Turbo Pascal, the coding dinosaur that revolutionized IDEs

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Alert

As for why it wasn't use commercially, the short answer is performance

Wrong I used it in a commercial environment for industrial process control. The MAIN reason was it was considerably safer than any other language. In process control the last thing you want is your oil refinery or chemical plant to explode!

Also you cannot compare a commercial release of a PASCAL compiler on proper hardware to MS PASCAL on a PC. They are completely different beasts. For example at the time there was no way you could safely us a PC for any real-time or near real-time work they were just a toy.

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

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Re: Every single time

And in Australia. My GP had to send the fax several times before they acknowledged it.

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Re: Every single time

A friend once described such as "oh my GOD, she talks in CURSIVE!!"

When I was doing my OE I met and married an english lady (had to marry as the NZ govn would not give me an import licence). Anyway moved to NZ and after a couple of years went back for a holiday and to meet her family again.

Sister immediately commented to SWMBO "Oh you sound so posh!". Me thinking WTF as she came from the Midlands and the base accent was anything but posh. Then I realised she was now pronouncing all of her consonants. Because she had been living in NZ for a couple of years it was the only way for kiwis to understand what she was saying.

Tesla sues Swedish government after worker rebellion cripples car biz

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Re: I am enjoying this dispute

Arent basically all bosses useless ?

It is called the "Peter Principle" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Half a kilo of cosmic nuclear fuel reignites NASA's deep space dreams

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Interesting, there seems to be a consistent single down vote across most of this discussion. I wonder why...

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