Posts by Mike Friedman

In deepest darkest Surrey, an on-prem SAP system running 17-year-old software is about to die....

Wow. 16 years old? And never been upgraded? That's insane.

Makes me think of the client I had who was running their entire business on a database written in 1993. Yes, they were still running 16 bit Windows in 2008.

Taxi for Uber: Ride-hailing app giant stripped of licence to operate in London

Re: re. "Passenger safety is not our priority"

What profits? Uber loses money hand over fist, and has no roadmap to reaching profitability. There are two routes, raise prices or squeeze drivers. They’ve squeezed drivers hard. Only one way to go now.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

It’s really simple. People think (rightly) that this is an insult. When the affected people say that, stop using the word.

It’s not “political correctness,” it’s respect. Be kind to people and respect them as human beings. Why is that so difficult ?

Tesla's autonomous lane changing software is worse at driving than humans, and more

It's always hilarious when someone criticizes Tesla. They never admit a problem. The problem is always the user.

Clearly this stuff is not ready for prime time. It's certainly not ready for an inexperienced or elderly driver.

Uh-oh .io: Question mark hangs over trendy tech startup domains as UN condemns British empire hangover

Because the people who lived there at the time had no say in the matter. They were being used as pawns by the great powers and by Mauritius.

And because the fruits of colonialism are always a mess. The British have found this over and over again but they still can't learn the lessons they should (Brexit is ultimately about Britain not being able to come to terms with the fact that it's a medium sized country with limited power). The lesson should be, don't blunder into someone else's home, "claim" it for your Queen and then control the place by evicting the people who live there. Is that really so complicated? Just because you can doesn't mean it's right or legal. You would most certainly not like it if someone did that to you. Because these people lived in a remote area and were poor and brown doesn't make it right.

Overzealous n00b takes out point-of-sale terminals across the UK on a Saturday afternoon

If I was that AS/400 admin I would’ve thanked him for pointing out a glaring hole in the permissions. An end user shouldn’t have been able to bring the whole thing crashing down.

It’s unfair to blame the new, inexperienced guy for your cock up.

Customer: We fancy changing a 25-year-old installation. C'mon, it's just one extra valve... Only wafer thin...

The answer to this problem is absolutely clear to me.

A can of petrol and a flamethrower. Burn it ALL DOWN.

What the #!/%* is that rogue Raspberry Pi doing plugged into my company's server room, sysadmin despairs

That's exactly what I would've done with this. Unplugged it, put it in my desk (locked of course) and waited to see who claimed it.

And then given them a talking to about putting things in MY server room that I don't know about.

Finally, San Francisco cleans up the crap from its streets – yes, all those fscking scooters

San Franciscans have responded to this stupidity by simply chucking them into dumpsters.

It's not good that they then get thrown in the landfill but the companies deserve this. They're awful people.

Tech support made the news after bomb squad and police showed up to 'defuse' leaky UPS

Um.....guys.... DO NOT take batteries like this to “the dump.”

LEAD IS POISONOUS. It should never be put in a landfill! All lead acid batteries should be recycled.

Why is Bitcoin fscked? Here are three reasons: South Korea, India... and now China clamps down on cryptocurrencies

Re: Nowhere near corrected

I'm sure your work would love to know that they're supporting your hobby/side business with their power and resources.

90 per cent of the UK's NHS is STILL relying on Windows XP

There's absolutely no excuse for this.

I can't believe that 90% of NHS Trusts have some app they cannot move off of Windows XP. This is sheer laziness on the part of IT staff. Yes, doing a huge migration project is a pain in the as, but now you're really in the fire. I'll bet you their backups suck as well.

Virgin America mid-flight panic after moron sets phone Wi-Fi hotspot to 'Samsung Galaxy Note 7'

The guy (you know it was a guy) should've had his return ticket cancelled. With no refund.

The guy (you know it was a guy) should've had his return flight cancelled with no refund.

How much of one year's Californian energy use would wipe out the drought?

This is silly.

California is full of incredibly bright people. This has been though of before (in face a large desalination plan went on line this year in San Diego and Santa Barbara brought its 1980s vintage plant out of mothballs this year). Others have been talked about.

But what exactly would you plan to do with all of that salt? And whatever other impurities might be pulled out? It's generally mixed back with some water and put back into the ocean which is not without its impact on wildlife and ocean ecosystems.

Desalination makes some sense in places like Israel or Saudi Arabia where water is quite scarce, and California will probably have to use it more in the future, but implying that Californians are dense and stupid because they haven't considered this is insulting and just plain wrong. It's complicated and very expensive to run destination plants. Of course if the energy is produced by solar in some way that reduces the environmental impact, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

British people don't always have all of the best engineering ideas in the world. Trust me, I've owned a British car (a 1969 Morris Mini Minor).

Burned by a MacBook

make a backup...every day

I feel for you in terms of how you were dealt with. No one likes to be treated like crap by any company, especially when you've put a lot of money into something you depend on every day. It really does sound like you got a lemon (and I've seen those from every manufacturer there is, and support is often just as bad).

But I have to chide you for not making backups. With 500 GB USB drives available for $100 (in the US) there's no excuse whatsoever for being without a daily backup.