I mean, he wasn't wrong.
Posts by RoboJ1M
38 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2010
808 lines of BBC BASIC and a dream: Arm architecture turns 40
Quick maths refresher: Intel CPU shortages + consumer stock bottleneck = no computer sales growth in EMEA for 2019
Another German state plans switch back from Linux to Windows
Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors
Wozniak: Please, whatever you do, DON'T buy me an iPad Air
Congrats on MP3ing your music... but WHY bother? Time for my ripping yarn
Re: grip on Linux does a nice job
I like abcde.
It's a dream for the bulk ripper.
Setup your config file then start inserting CDs.
It spits them out when it's done, move onto the next one.
It really doesn't come any more bullet proof.
Also the names easy to remember.
You can even auto load it when you insert an audio CD with a bit of work.
Oh please, PLEASE bring back Xbox One's hated DRM - say Xbox loyalists
Asperger's and IT

Re: Asperger's and IT
Well at least awareness is increasing, my girlfriend was diagnosed late in her educational career and had a *VERY* unpleasant time before that.
From what I've learnt over the years it seems to be something like this:
It's a spectrum, or scale. Starts at zero (I guess?) and goes all the way up to Rain Man.
Everybody's on it and that's why EVERYBODY associates with it.
Now, a syndrome is defined as "The association of several clinically recognizable features, signs, symptoms, phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one or more features alerts the healthcare provider to the possible presence of the others." (wiki) and I've read more (which I can't find ref to) which states that when dealing with autistic spectra and important criteria is that it "affects the individual's quality of life"
Got a few of the symptoms? Having a nice life though? Good for that person.
Wait, it's probably a bell curve isn't it?
Er, so if Rain Man's on one side who's over on the other side?
Some sort of person who can't focus but is some kind of empathic psychic?
There's a comment a few blocks down about Cancer Research UK.
That's makes me want to find those people give them the full Rage o'Clock.

Re: Asperger's and IT
hehehehehe. Yeah. Sounds quite a lot like me.
The days and weeks I've lost to seeing if I can make some piece of code or script that much more efficient or easier to run.
Joy of joys my role now involves how the source control is arranged, used, the naming conventions, the change control processes, the release process, the testing process and the code auditing process.
And designing and writing the inter-process document exchange specifications and the user interface design (but not the styling because who gives a crap about what it looks like? Except I got to come up with a method of divorcing design and implementation of content from design and implementation of style) and database design and how to increase coding efficiency (can you believe that people don't understand why duplication is bad?!)
And how to get multiple developers to work on the same project AND talk to each other AND not try to kill each other! It's like herding cats!
Holmes because the devil's in the details and I don't care what you think about how long it's going to take
So yes, I may be somewhere on it.
Universities teach us a thing or two about BYOD

Re: Swings and roundabouts...
Cost perhaps?
Each RDP session requires a CAL on your windows server.
Last time I looked there were no open source RDP servers or Citrix servers.
Also last time I was at uni and everybody I know who works in educational IT departments use Linux based servers.
VNC perhaps? It's pretty awful though, even on a LAN.
OFFICIAL: Humans will only tolerate robots as helpful SLAVES
Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A
Partying, beer and C++: How to choose the right Comp-Sci degree for you

Re: No you choose your degree at 13
Indeed, I'm now at the stage of my programming career where I don't go anywhere near code.
I spend every day in Balsamiq, Word and XmlSpy designing applications, screens, APIs and architecture.
The docs I write then get spilt out amongst the the programmers, be they "front end, "back end" or "external" and they do the programming.
Graduated from Brunel University with Comp Sci in 2001.
Did 4 year sandwich degree so I could actually get a job
Took A level Maths, Physics and Music Tech.
Spent 4 years at uni breaking any computer I could find, drinking, clubbing, camping, bowling and living in the 24 hour computer room. Oh and we had lots of block-war water fights
Smartwatch face off: Pebble, MetaWatch and new hi-tech timepieces
Not now, Apple: We've got the Pi-Phone, the smallest mobe network
The fast-growing energy source set to replace oil: Yes, it's coal

Re: Renewable Energy
Mostly agree.
They take my money and spend it on glossy advertising programmes telling me to use less energy.
Get lost, I now use all the energy I want to pay for without being overtly wasteful.
It's up to the privatised energy industry to spend my money on getting more energy but not at the cost of future generations.
They shouldn't be allowed to take more money because they backed the wrong horse.
They should all be going out of business and being replaced by younger, hungrier companies that know how to undercut the opposition by using fancy new tech.
What I don't get it why we aren't all building solar concentrating towers in north africa and piping it all back here for pennies.
Android 'splits' into the Good and the lovechild of Bad and Ugly
Power-mad HPC fans told: No exascale for you - for at least 8 years
Sony PS3 extends lead over Microsoft's Xbox 360 by a cool million

Not in the UK I don't think.
I own an Xbox 360. It's my 3rd one (First RROD, free replacement, Second traded in when the HDMI Elite came out)
It's the first console I've ever bought, leaving PC gaming due to hassle (Windows) and cost (GPU rapid obsolescence)
Things I have noticed over the last seven years:
1) I've only ever met 3 real people who have owned a PS3. Every other gamer I know is PC, Xbox or PC AND Xbox.
2) In our local exchange store, the Xbox has 9 shelving units, the PS2 has 4 shelving units and the PS3 has 3 shelving units.
3) This was the generation in the UK where Xbox replaced Playstation as the term synonymous with Gaming. In TV, print and general conversation, you go and "play xbox".
I'm a gamer through and through and in 7 years I've only ever seen an installed PS3 ONCE and I've never played on one.
Last generation? Everything was PS2. Everyone HAD a PS2 and everyone said "Playstation".
In my book, that's pretty meaningful.
J1M.
Stephen Hawking pushes for posthumous pardon for Alan Turing
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: Like it or not, this Linux grows on you
Chinese coders beat all-comers

Re: ..one way street
Agreed, get one of them to design software that's powerful, elegant, reliable, maintainable and easy to use.
And then get them to organise a team of many programmers to implement it.
Then get them to document it.
THEN see whether an entirely different team of developers can maintain it/interface with it.
Generally any interface designed by a "programmer/hacker" looks like the dog vomited on the cat.
Atmospheric CO2 set to soar - OECD
Valve responds to Half-Life 3 grumbles
Black Ops has best videogame ending ever

Re: insert standard shock horror response
Well, FF7 was my favourite ending, followed by FF8 (and it's most epic battle of any game ever at the end)
IMO FF7 has the best nemesis (SPOILERS: killed your gf, killed your mum (sort of) burned down your home, throws a planet at you at the end) in Sephiroth so beating him was proper satisfying. I actually almost cried when the game ended because I knew no other game was going to feel like that.
FF8, with it's 4 sequential bosses and real deaths after a castle of bosses was just epic squared. Also the CG was (at the time) mind blowing. FF7 and 8 had the best soundtracks. Counts for a lot with me.
Course it's all just opinion, but regardless, I think the FF games have the best endings over all other games.
System Shock
Huawei butters up Microsoft to avoid Android patent war
Minecraft upstages Portal 2 in arty game prize
id Software's Rage
Use of Weapons declared best sci-fi film never made
Elite coder readies £15 programming gadget for schools
IPCC report: Renewables can never meet energy demand

Build Proper Solar.
"The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year. Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass. The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth's non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined."
The Answer looks simple to me.
You just have to accept it's not "cost effective"