Posts by Throg

Tech suppliers asked to support single electronic health record across England

Decentalise It

Dare I say that this is exactly the sort of thing that we should be using Solid and web decentralisation for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_project)

Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, economists claim

Wrong Jobs?

Maybe it’s because the jobs listed there actually involve creativity and the ability to think rather than just churn out meaningless text all day?

Let’s think. Which jobs do involve that sort of almost mindless activity? Ah yes. Middle management. Sales and marketing. Estate agents. Maybe even lawyers.

Anyone up for building a B Ark?

Asian tech players react to US tariffs with delays, doubts, deal-making

Qualcomm

Presumably that’s the same Qualcomm who donated $1m to the Trump campaign?

https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957

Dev loudly complained about older colleague, who retired not long after

Not an Age Thing

Incompetency exists within any demographic, so I’m not sure what the relevance of “greybeard” was here.

This is a recruitment and management problem.

IT recruitment in big organisations is terminally broken, due to the ongoing insistence on using the kind of “testing” that is easily gamed by the unscrupulous, rather than the simple interviewing techniques that are still used very successfully in other domains.

It’s a management problem because far too many managers are focused on both politics and motion rather than delivery. A proper team lead can pick up on a lack of productivity fairly quickly, with no need for another team member to report it.

Smart TVs are spying on everyone

Re: Buy a non smart TV - if you can find one

Google TV OS -> basic TV option.

Google TV OS

Remarkably, Google TV OS is the solution here.

During setup, you can select “basic TV” which turns all of so-called “smart” features off. It still asks to connect to a WiFi network, but you can skip that step as well, because no one needs “security updates” when it’s just in display monitor mode.

I thought this was too good to be true, but when my trusty 12+ year old Panasonic went pop (literally) over the weekend, I chose this option as all my content is managed by other devices over HDMI. Thankfully it does actually work.

Rust developers at Google are twice as productive as C++ teams

Cause or Correlation?

Is it Rust that made them more productive, or did they happen to pick the really smart developers for the teams doing the migration?

UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is a… what user now?

Re: Not a bad record. I'll give him some slack for being in the Apple camp for too long.

My “spare” MBP that lives in the sitting room is a 2009 model, recently upgraded to Monterey using OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

I’m not sure I’d use it for music production but it’s fine for casual office use and gentle coding.

Tesla hits the brakes on rollout of Full Self-Driving code to new users

UNLESS the road is in an “area of natural beauty”, in which case repeater signs won’t be present.

I learned this on a speed awareness course, having been caught just a smidge over the speed limit which was painted on the road about 2 miles back in just such an area.

Third-party Twitter apps stopped dead with no explanation from El Musko

That Curl query works with my bearer token, so the v2 API is definitely up and running.

This does suggest that certain developer projects and their associated tokens have been disabled.

Finance Bill amendments to curb umbrella company malpractice fail to get traction in UK Parliament

Employed

Let’s be clear here, they’re not being contracted. Under this legislation they’re being employed as “workers”.

Virgin Media broadband in two-day wobble

In my experience, VM "support" = recite a script and then tell you an engineer is coming to look at your modem sometime next Thursday. For every issue.

Part of the script is (or was, until I gave up calling them) "what Windows patches have you applied?" leading to great confusion when you respond "none, I'm a Mac / Linux user".

Luckily, in the last 10 years I've had little cause to call them. Just recently though ...

Starbucks extends gratis Wi-Fi to UK

Not new

Free wifi has been available at Starbucks in the UK for years.

All you've ever needed to do is grab a Starbucks card, register it online and then use your Starbucks account to get free wifi. You only ever need to put money on the card once to register it and then you can buy your coffee with it as usual, leaving £0.00 on your card.

DfT to install new motorway tech

Not That Sort?

"It also relies on extensive use of cameras, for checking the variable speed limits used"

Surely that's *exactly* that sort of camera?