Posts by Doctor Syntax

Windows 11 still barely pulling ahead of 10 despite end-of-support push

Re: Perhaps...

Microsoft is impervious to messages. You are going to have AI whether you want it or not and you are going to pay for it.

You're supposed to just pay up, not ask questions and get answers. A sense of entitlement like that is very hurtful to Microsoft execs.

"The primary blocker is slow change management processes. These can be slow due to bad planning, lack of resources,"

Why should customers be expected to plan for and allocate resources (i.e. money) for Microsoft's smash and grab raid?

Newly launched civil service pension portal from Capita is crapita, users report

Re: Capita

Off the shelf pensions systems probably have built-in assumptions such as employee and/or employer makes contributions, contributions are invested and at the end the accrued value of the contributions is used to buy bonds or the like to pay out the pension due.

The CS pension scheme differs from a Ponzi scheme only in so far as not only are there no investments there are no contributions either, the employee is on a salary sacrifice without it actually being called that, especially as we're now going to make salary sacrifice schemes pay NI. As Ponzi schemes are illegal I can't imagine anyone offering an off the shelf solution.

By doing things differently the govt. has cut itself off from COTS opportunities.

"to ensure the transition is a success"

If you launch something with the number of faults listed here it's a failure. It might come as something as a surprise to the Cabinet Office to be told that failure is not success but they certainly need to be told.

Fortunately my CS pension is already in payment and not with the main UK CS and its site appears to be unchanged so not in scope for this mess. Perhaps UK CS should have asked N Ireland CS to run the scheme for them.

Re: Nothing new

Don't worry. It will all be sorted out by 2029 so you can have your new national ID.

"We appreciate the patience and understanding of those affected."

Typical non-apology. Why do these mouthpieces assume those affected are patient and understanding? Why do they think they're entitled to patience and understanding?

I can only assume that they speak a language which uses words which look as if they're English words but which are not and have non-English meanings.

John Henry still leading the race vs AI in customer service

"the same number of employees while handling higher customer volumes"

Are these more individual customers or the same customers calling multiple times trying to get a sensible answer?

OTOH it may be that customers are getting fatter.

HPE positions Morpheus stack as enterprise alternative to VMware

Morpheus! Where do they get the names? I suppose they'll say an unresponsive system hasn't crashed, it's just having a little nap.

Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling

Re: Provide a fix with the bug report

"Maybe the open source community could provide a standard licence under which the big fix and associated tests could be provided an/ord tested by another corporation without attracting a liability or obligation for the corporation(s) involved."

You mean something like one of the GPLs, or MITS, or Apache, or even one of the BSDs?

If you look at the contributors to the Linux kernel there are a large number of corporate commits. Corporate support is not incompatible with FOSS.

I don't know about Reddit but here votes can be reversed.

"The CNCF ecosystem"

CNCF: Cloud Native Computing Foundation

It lists a lot a members, including gold and platinum membership. This means solid money being paid in by companies that need it to work and/or want their names up there as Good Guys. It advertises coursed and certifications which probably bring in more money. At least on the face of it there appears to be a route in for money which could be spent to support the work at the coal face.

So where does that money go? Big conferences? PR? Project director salaries? Developers working on the projects?

NASA nominee 'committed' to uprooting Shuttle Discovery for Houston trophy piece

Re: The easy solution

I don't think that the failed state that is the US does useful stuff any more.

For the judgement of Solomon you'd have to split it in half. And this lot would probably accept that.

I suppose they could then display it as two sagittal sections, an accepted approach to museum display in biology.

Whatever legitimate places AI has, inside an OS ain't one

Re: I Can't Wait For It To Be Rolled Out....

"She is also required to disable and avoid LLMs in every possible way for client privacy. If Microsoft make an LLM compulsory at the OS level she may well be required to upgrade to something without AI."

It depends on the wit of the employer. If Microsoft make some aspect of it compulsory they can simply argue it's impossible and provided she continues to get rid of what's possible she can't do more. Businesses can be very creative in avoiding long-overdue change.

Re: "Whatever legitimate places AI has, inside an OS ain't one"

"Blindly vilifying AI is as much an error as bashing it in everywhere."

But more likely to be right most of the time.

London grid crunch delays new housing amid datacenter boom

"If there is to be just one takeaway from this investigation it must be this: grid capacity cannot be an afterthought,"

Finally, after decades of ambitious legislation for reducing CO2 emissions, the message is getting through that action is needed as well.

FTC schools edtech outfit after intruder walked off with 10M student records

"The FTC's action underscores a broader warning"

Broader but shallow. You'll get a stern talking to bu no penalties, so carry on.

Unofficial IETF draft calls for grant of five nonillion IPv6 addresses to ham radio operators

A nonillion hera and a nonillion there and soon you're talking real money.

UK gov blames budget leak on misconfigured WordPress plugin, server

Re: Really?

"I guess others were using this as an excuse to get rid of him."

Yup. His job was to tell it how it is. That never goes down well with politicians who think reality is optional.

Whatever the misconfiguration there's a simple, catch-all remedy. Don't upload it until it's due for publication. However predictable the URL, if it isn't there it can't be found.

Google Antigravity vibe-codes user's entire drive out of existence

Re: What the Fark did you expect?

"He took a risk"

And very likely without being aware of that. If something's advertised to do a job you should be able to rely on it doing that job safely.

Photorec?

Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

Re: Is this some kind of joke?

idle time is a cost profit centre.

FTFY

Windows 11 needs an XP SP2 moment, says ex-Microsoft engineer

Re: And to hell with Adobe... for chaining me to Windows

Why Acrobat?

Shareholders ultimately depend on users. Pissing on users views is not a good long term strategy.

Re: Wait

"The usual scare stories will be rolled out, about Linux being too difficult for 'Average Joe/Joannas' to handle."

But if MS head to producing something the 'Average Joe/Joannas' can't handle that doesn't wash. Even worse if hey're buyin ChromeOS at their local PC shop.

Re: The tragedy is...

"past 50 your CV stands a 75% chance of going in the shredder"

Time was that this was when freelance opened up opportunities but NewLabour put an end to that with IR35.

Re: Windows 11 is pretty bad

"leaving me with no mouse and headphones halfway through a meeting"

Are you complaining or boasting?

Speccy clone storms back for Christmas without a shred of Sinclair code

"Click through to the retailer."

To be honest, I was idly thinking of buying my son one from Christmas - he said his original one melted - but then wondered if he'd appreciate the joke and thought better of it.

Which Christmas? The site says "Stock available from 28th of March". It doesn't say which March either.

HSBC partners with Mistral AI as banking giants spend billions looking for LLM boost

consolidate "various data streams into a single, bank-wide data platform"

They write "bank-wide data platform", I read "point of failure".

Landlord quirks leave thousands of flats stuck in the broadband slow lane

Re: A 'murican in UK?

The 105-key dodgy keyboard variant?

"If you had something that was enough speed for everything you did, you might not even notice the upgrade"

I'd notice the extra monthly payment and also having a fibre strung up to the house.

" but that would be true even with POTS"

No, POTS has a big UPS at the switch (exchange). The footway cabinet taking a digital feed from the cabinet and adding it to the line may well have a UPS, otherwise there's be no point it the consumer having a UPS for their router. But POTS just keeps working through the outage.

Sure, the DECT base unit dies but the line-powered phone I retained because of that doesn't. Hence I was able to dial 105 on Saturday to be told that, once more, I was one of over 2,000 households who'd just lost power because their non-redundant (they didn't actually mention that bit) overhead line had failed again.

Re: If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring?

"The point is you don't know until you try."

I'd be hard pushed to use the bandwidth I already have so I deeply resent some marketroidi telling me I'd "enjoy" more when they can't get off their arses to provide an adequate FTTC service. It's not as if they're going to roll out FTTP to those customers who they're already failing. They're just going round and round the easiest customers to supply to make themselves look good.

Re: If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring?

And POTS provides a common UPS for all users instead of dumping that on the customer.

Re: Both Labour and Tories are happy with the status quo

Let's just say PM's arse's have common features.

Dorset Council ditching customized SAP for £14M Oracle overhaul

Don't worry, el Reg has a good memory about such things. They won't let it pass unnoticed unless the council is exceptionally good at hiding things.

Re: £14M Oracle overhaul

"I meant or, not of."

I read it as you meant it. They are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Are not council business requirements largely the same across the UK?

Where one council doesn't have housing to administer that may simply be at that tier, some other tier may have housing obligations covering that area.

"Adult Social care and other central grant funded obligations have very odd accounting processess, and the number of transactions is large and complex."

One would hope that these processes are followed uniformly everywhere otherwise one might start hearing about post-code lotteries. You have made the best possible case for a standard module to be not just available but used by every council at whatever tier that has that responsibility.

Module is the operative word in this. Given a series of modules to cover the various functions a council could use a mix of them appropriate to its responsibilities.

Re: Are not council business requirements largely the same across the UK?

"absent a spec there's a problem even estimating a build and support budget"

Absent getting round to doing something there won't be a spec.

"systems such as an ERP platform are once in a generation investments"

That doesn't mean you have to take an entire generation implementing them.

Re: £14M Oracle overhaul

They are not mutually exclusive.

Cheaper 1 GB Raspberry Pi 5 lands as memory costs go through the roof

You seem to be underestimating the huge value of beancounter's time. I'm sure everything they're doing is perfectly optimised.

Re: AI is now top of my list...

"And what will happen if there is not."

A welcome glut of cheap 2md hand memory for the rest of us.

Dutch study finds teen cybercrime is mostly just a phase

So it's just a hobby. An expensive hobby. Expensive for other people.

Asda's 'self-inflicted' SAP mess after Walmart divorce stalls financial revival

"places like Aldi and Lidl are providing nicer environments to shop"

I don't know about Aldi but the thing that struck me fairly quickly about Lidl was the merciful absence of background music and, even more, advertising, constantly being poured out of the PA in some other stores.

Re: Availability in stores and online was at an eight-year high of over...

This is marketing, not specifically Asda.