Posts by David Lewis 2

Tiny Brit tech firms win spots on £1.84B public sector contract. Kidding, it's the usual suspects

Prediction

It will be late and cost double. Yes I’m an optimist.

UK Home Office dangles £20m for national gun licence database system

Database?

Surely all they need is a spreadsheet!

Capgemini wins £30m deal to work on UK customs

How much?

£30m for a one line script … “The Computer Says No”.

Nice work if you can get it.

Dido Harding's appointment to English public health body ruled unlawful

Perspective

OK, the way she was appointed broke the rules and was therefore unlawful.

The fact she was appointed is firmly in crimes against humanity territory.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel green-lights Mike Lynch's extradition to US to face Autonomy fraud charges

None of the above seems fair to me.

That is because you are forgetting about the “special relationship” between the UK and the US, which of course only works to the advantage of the US.

Shut off 3G by 2033? How about 2023, asks Vodafone UK

Re: Phase out 3g

That’s why it’s called a ‘mobile’ phone!

UK government tool to monitor its legacy application estate is… LATE

Well it’s worked splendidly for Dido, perhaps they should give the job to her?

It couldn’t get any worse could it?

IBM bosses wrongly sacked channel salesman after Tech Data joint venture failed, tribunal rules

News?

Sadly

“IBM shits on staff (especially sales)”

Is no more newsworthy than

“Bears shit in the woods.”

Somethings never change.

Tesla disables in-car gaming feature that allowed play while MuskMobiles were in motion

Re: In vehicle training

All it would take is a small hack allowing the game to control the auto drive software and you could play GTA for real!

Ooh, an update. Let's install it. What could possibly go wro-

Installing patches? How quaint.

Of course Microsoft have ‘improved’ things, they install patches which can break your systems without any effort on your part.

——-> but is it?

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

Only 20 years late?

I’m sorry Dave, I can’t let you do that.

'We are not people to Mark Zuckerberg, we are the product' rages Ohio's Attorney General in Facebook lawsuit

In other news….

Bear turds found in woods. More at 11.

Sheffield Uni cooks up classic IT disaster in £30m student project: Shifting scope, leadership changes, sunk cost fallacy

Put a positive spin on it.

At least the university has a new case study they can use for future courses.

UK Ministry of Defence tries again to procure £1.7bn tri-service recruitment system

Re: Has anyone seen an outsourcing work?

It depends what you mean by “work”, and who for, the client or the outsourcer.

I think you’ll find that from the outsourcer perspective most are very profitable, which is the only metric that counts to them.

Did the client get what they wanted or needed and value for money? Meh.

Snail mail would be a fool-proof way to inform patients about plans to slurp GP data, but UK govt won't commit

Soylent Green!

Microsoft? More like: My software goes off... Azure AD, Outlook, Office.com, Teams, Authenticator, etc block unlucky folks from logging in

Re: if only the internet was a distributed network

Next you'll be suggesting they test their updates before pushing them out!

Proposed US fix for Boeing 737 Max software woes does not address Ethiopian crash scenario, UK pilot union warns

Why not 737-666?

She was praised by the CEO and promoted. After her brother and mom died, she returned from compassionate leave. IBM laid her off

That's just them applying their policy of "Continuous Improvement".

As we stand on the precipice of science fiction into science fact, people say: Hell yeah, I want to augment my eyesight!

New Opportunity

Augmented humans will require a new funeral choice:

Burial

Cremation

WEEE Recycling Skip* - probably mandatory

* Of course any "organic residue" will become Soylent Green!

Yes, but No.

While the concept is not new in the realm of science fiction, has many possible benefits and is probably inevitable, I foresee a huge problem in a real world implementation.

With embedded augmented reality, this will just mean <$enter ad-flinger of choice> will be able to deliver advertisements directly to your retina.

Or is this a sales pitch by Kaspersky for a new opportunity for an ad-blocker?

iOS 14 suffers app preference amnesia: Rebooting an iThing resets browser, email client defaults back to Safari, Mail

Re: So iOS is now better than Windows 10

All your preferences are belong to us.

Of course if you take this behaviour to its logical conclusion it will result in the complete removal of user preferences, after all, they obviously know what is best for us!

Video encoders using Huawei chips have backdoors and bad bugs – and Chinese giant says it's not to blame

Re: In other news - Intel to blame for all Windows bugs

Yes, this. I'm glad someone else said this before I could.

Have one =>

You won't need .NET Standard... except when you do need it: Microsoft sets out latest in ever-changing story

Just the one?

'Mindset reset' contributes to £1bn extra costs and another delay – 2 years this time – for Emergency Services Network

Oi! We'll have none of that NIH rubbish around here.

Anyway how can we have a "World Beating" system if someone else is using it?

Nvidia to acquire Arm for $40bn, promises to keep its licensing business alive

@Adair, you work for Gartners and I claim my £5.

IBM made ‘top-down’ efforts to fire older workers, says US employment discrimination watchdog

Re: Oh no, not the meetings!

I'll bet the are given the "comfy chair"!

Accenture dares to enter site of US Air Force mega ERP-project disaster

Did I miss something?

Final Project Update:

1. We have shifted your (non functional) ERP system into the cloud (AWS/Azure/Whatever).

2. We have carried out extensive testing of the new implementation and confirmed that it is exactly as non functional as the original.

3. Here is our bill.

Northrop Grumman wins $13.3bn contract with US Air Force to kick off Minuteman III ICBM replacement

Re: Launching Minuteman missiles?

Alexa! Nuke {$CurrentMostNonFavoredNation}

Who needs a button?

Job planning, temp staffing: NHS England tosses out £30m for HR and people systems to support new ways of working

That's their whole business model:

1. Win public sector project contract.

2. Completely fail to deliver.

3. Profit!

4. Go to step 1.

It has been working for them for years, why would they change now?

I won't be ignored: Google to banish caller roulette with Verified Calls

Thanks for the Information!

1. STD Clinic requests Google to verify a call to John/Jane Doe.

2. Google verifies the call and hungrily slurps the data, fantasizes over the marketing opportunities and sells the info to Blackmail-r-Us Inc.

3. John/Jane Doe subsequently receives a "verified" call from Blackmail-r-Us Inc ... "does your husband/wife/partner know you have a STD?

4. Profit!

AI in the enterprise: Get ready for a whole new era of smart software fueled by mountains upon mountains of data

The Computer Says No ...

... but we have no idea why!

UK Home Office seeks suppliers: £25m up for grabs to build database to keep track of crimelords' ill-gotten gains

Re: I can do that!

Remember to ensure the only copy of the "database" is on a thumb drive that is easily "lost" when the evil crime lords offer you sufficient "inducement"!

The Honor MagicBook Pro looks nice, runs like a dream, and isn't too expensive either. What more could you want?

Re: And the software?

Clutter free Windows 10 installation

Shirley an oxymoron if ever there was one?

So the question is, are you satisfied with just being monitored by Redmond?

When low-balled projects go bad: Scottish pensions agency starts £10m procurement to buy the system Capita could not

And the winner is ...

Capita! Come on down!

Icon: I'm not sure it is though.

In the frame with the Great MS Bakeoff: Microsoft sets out plans for Windows windows

Are you suggesting that new stuff is always better?

I don't see a career in marketing in your future!

Multiple customers knocked offline as firefighters tackle flames at Telstra's London Hosting Centre bit barn

It's alright, only the "1" bits will be affected, the "0" bits aren't flammable. So only ~50% data loss! Easily recovered.

'My wife tried to order some clothes tonight. When she logged in, she was in someone else's account ... Now someone's charged her card'

Re: Cache at your peril

... an awful lot of proper multi user testing on a test system before doing it live.

No, they are just following the modern trend of using live users as their test environment.

Well if it is good enough for Microsoft ...

Start Me Up: 25 years ago this week, Windows 95 launched and, for a brief moment, Microsoft was almost cool

... the regular reinstall of Windows to keep it running well...

Isn't that what today's Windows 10 Updates are for? Haven't we come a long way!

* For some obscure definition of "well" with which I am not familiar.

Alright! Who's stoked for Windows 10 20H2? Anyone? Well, it's ready for commercial pre-release validation anyway

Re: Time for another 6 hours of lost computer time

I feel a slower release cycle would enable the vendor to get rid of more bugs BEFORE release, not after.

That could only work if they weren't using the end users as the QA department!

Many, many years ago, I remember someone defining the relative costs of bugs discovered during Design, Testing & Production. Presumably that knowledge has been forgotten, or perhaps it has been discarded as it is "old".

Accenture scores £20m contract extension with UK pensions department: Competition? We've heard of it

Re: One wonders

Given that this is DWP how can these "legacy" systems not have a retirement plan? It is obviously time they were "pensioned off"!

Putting the d'oh! in Adobe: 'Years of photos' permanently wiped from iPhones, iPads by bad Lightroom app update

Re: Obviously was not tested

Of course it was tested ... that's what users are for!

Icon > I'm not really sure it is. This seems to be a modern trend.

Robust Rust trust discussed after Moz cuts leave folks nonplussed: Foundation mulled for coding language

Re: Foundation and Umpire

Does that mean Rust 2.0 will be Second Foundation?

Whoops, our bad, we may have 'accidentally' let Google Home devices record your every word, sound – oops

Re: Self help AI

... although the sentences made grammatical sense, the writing lacked any substance ...

So was it a bad AI or a Politician?

And it's off! NASA launches nuke-powered, laser-shooting, tank Perseverance to Mars to search for signs of life

Re: RIMFAX

P.S. I am currently designing a talking toaster with on the edge AI. Any suggestions?

Yes. Take great care with the diodes down the left side!

Someone made an AI that predicted gender from email addresses, usernames. It went about as well as expected

Re: Non-binary

Binary is just 0 or 1. By definition it can't have Decimal places.

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

Re: Win10 is Not Fit For Purpose.

... Can the general public turn the telemetry completely off? ...

This, 100x this, but you forgot to add " and have it stay off through subsequent updates!

I would like to move from W7, but I have no interest in playing whack-a-mole with W10 "Surveillance-as-a-Service".

Re: Win10 is Not Fit For Purpose.

... the public is not MSHQ's beta testers, we're not the QA department ...

You might think that, but that is exactly how Microsoft sees them.

USA seeks Moon and Mars nuke power plant designs ready to fly in 2027

Re: What are they going to do with the heat?

No, at 2 metre Social Distancing restrictions, that is a BIG sofa!

Better get Grandpa off Windows 7 because zero-day bug in Zoom allows remote code execution on vintage OS

Hang On A Minute!

" ... products or services that are marketed or targeted with the express purpose of tracking or monitoring another person or their activities ..."

Does that include Gmail?

The passing of information to the intended recipient is purely incidental to its Primary function.

The good news: Vodafone switches on first full-fat, real-life 5G network in the UK. The bad news: it only got sent to Coventry

What could possibly go wrong.

I suppose that means to prepare for a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases in Coventry.