Posts by Doctor Syntax

Resilience is overrated when it's not advertised

Re: Failover backup redlining

I should add that the disks were mirrored at the controller level and again in software - i.e. quadrupled. We never had a disk failure but the backup tape drive failed fairly regularly.

Re: Failover backup redlining

The key here is "most of the time". If it rises closer to 100% some of the time that "some" might be quite important. And things might get scary when that happens. I ended up spending a few Friday lunch-times* watching a server engine eat up more and more memory (due to a badly written 3rd party program which I eventually managed to get fixed) and having to allocate memory on the fly. If it overran it crashed and left a nice mess to clean up. If you don't want to spend your time doing that then going along with the sizing might be a good idea.

* Nice scheduling of the weekly invoice run, manglement.

Re: Failover backup redlining

And make sure the users know this and understand the implications.

Bad software destroyed my doctor's memory

Re: Have a hundred upvotes

"the user of these system know a lot about their domain. They know a lot more about it than some database designer"

They very likely know a lot more about it than their manager. If the manager wants to lay down how the system is to be used you need to get past them somehow. "Yes, I quite see your point but we have a set process. There's a 'Speak to user' task in this phase. More than my job's worth mumble mumble. I'm sure you'll agree I've got to be able to say I did it."

I'd say the design is likely to evolve from two different starting points. One is how it's supposed to function - the UI, the other is the data. The data which might be dictated by the domain, by established standards such as RFCs. The balance between the two will vary from project to project - the UI might even dictate the data at one extreme.

This was also my experience. I also had the advantage of coming into IT as a user. If you were a scientist and wanted a program to do something you either wrote it yourself (my option) or asked somebody who could (me sometimes being the somebody). Back in those days the job title was very often "analyst/programmer". It seemed perfectly natural to sit with the users, listen to what they wanted, write up what I thought that was and then present it back. That rewriting in one's own words is an essential step in gaining mutual assurance that what was said has been understood correctly.

Re: System designers vs interface designers

"The specification should include that a given sample of end users should be part of system acceptance"

If you don't bring users into the process before acceptance testing then you're doing so far too late for their input to be of use. It may well be so far askew from what they need that either it will have to be scrapped or, more likely., forced on them regardless of whether they accept it.

Re: "radically alter the workflow of medical professionals, without their input"

"Then run A/B testing on it with the users."

It's my belief that systems in general - but particularly web sites - should be tested by a team consisting of a user, a developer and an invigilator. The user has a series of tasks to carry out. The rules are the only question allowed to be asked by the user and answered by the developer is of the form "Where does it tell me how to ... ?". Officially the invigilator is there to enforce that rule and maybe score the performance. In reality the invigilator is there to stop the other two coming to blows.

Re: You're kidding, yes?

A few years ago I got off a train and saw in the station a large advert for programmers - "No experience necessary". The company that writes the system my GP uses is based in that city and they were the ones who were advertising.

"that's ok"

Which that is that?

Re: Have a hundred upvotes

A CRM might but a medical application might also hooks to take various lab reports and be able to adapt as more tests are developed. It would need to have the features of a LIMS.

Re: "radically alter the workflow of medical professionals, without their input"

"Go talk to a doctor."

Not just one, several. Several in each of the specialities you're supposed be covering. Sketch something out* and then take it back. Only when they've something in front of them will they remember some of what they missed out. What they tell you is likely to be what they were doing last, that's why you might need to keep going back.

* Lot's of ways for this.

-Some sort of RAD system might well serve for this even if it's not what you propose to use.

-Enterprise Architect has an diagram option that uses common UI elements you can arrange, then add what happens for each click or change. It can give you a sketch of what the screen will look like and a narrative of how it works.

- With Informix I could draft out what I thought the main tables the database was like and generate a default Perform screen on that. It was often enough to discuss with the users to get their agreement or refine as needed.

Yes, the time for reinvention is when what's in use doesn't work.

30 years on, Debian is at the heart of the world's most successful Linux distros

Re: free (as in beer)

"when servers were pets, not cattle"

I always thought of them as work horses - and I don't want to eat horse meat.

A couple of notes on the upgrade:

1. I went the advised route of apt upgrade followed by apt dist-upgrade. In the middle of the first phase it ground to a halt with missing dependencies for gdal3 relating to ODBC packages. It's the sort of thing that apt -f install should sort out automatically but I had to work out the dependencies myself and install them. I suspect that the missing packages would have been included in the dist-upgrade phase as at least some of the applications depending on gdal were installed then. Have the testers done their installs with only dist-upgrade which would have hidden this?

2. It replaced keepassxc. The version in use had been built from source. The new version has the fuggly Breeze icon style as does the latest downloadable source. Grrr. No matter, I'll rebuild the latest version with the icons from the earlier source.

It's an impressive heritage, especially when the Ubuntu spin-offs such as Mint and Zorin are included.

Also remember Devuan - Debian freed from the clutches systemd. The Daedalus release, based on the latest Debisn stable, is just out. My daily driver is already updated. My test laptop had the RC release installed from the ISO a few weeks ago after Debian itself had been upgraded. SWMBO's laptop comes next.

Man arrested in Northern Ireland police data leak as more incidents come to light

Decades ago it was made an offence in NI to leave a parked vehicle unlocked. Has this been rescinded or did a Superintendent not know about that nor about the advice frequently handed out by police, not to leave valuables in plain sight.

Re: Not encrypted?

"which I assume was encrypted"

reports said it was.

Re: 2 other NI public bodies receive ICO reprimand

"it is now the ICO's policy to issue reprimands rather than fines to public bodies"

Public bodies receive public money to do whatever job is relevant to the purpose for which the body was set up. If some of that money were taken away in fines you might reasonably claim that they were being denied the funds to do that job.

I'd hope that the reprimand is reflected on the annual reports, lack of annual increments etc. of the management chain that allowed the leak to take place. If that happened and became general knowledge in the Civil Service it would probably lead to improvements

Re: Newsflash

If he doesn't enforce the legislation how can he be dealing out any punishments at all, whether made up on a whim or otherwise?

Re: We don't do "plead guilty or else"

And a large number of assistant post-masters.

ISP's ads 'misleadingly implied' existence of 6G, says watchdog

You've ermined that quite enough.

"a reasonable non-expert would assume that 6G internet is out and this firm is selling it"

I'm now imagining mobs of unreasonable non-experts roving the streets looking for 6G masts to burn down an alleging a deep-state conspiracy to hide them as the reason they can't find any.

What if I call my company WeaselInternet? Is it misleading because at some point in the future somebody may invent a technology to deliver internet services via weasels?

80% of execs regret calling employees back to the office

"I would not mind 1-2h on a non-crowded well functioning train as much as I would mind the same time spent on a bus or driving myself."

The reality is more likely to be:

1. Walk to station and wait for erratic train

2. Travel by train

3 Either

3.1.1 Walk from station to Underground station on same line as a station nearish to destination

3.1.2 Ride Underground

3.1.3 Walk to work

or

3.2.1 Go to closest Underground station

3.2.2 Ride to station which is also on a line which goes to a station nearest to work

3.2.3 Change trains

3.2.4 Ride second Underground train to station nearest to work

3.2.4 Walk to work

At end of day reverse except preface "erratic" with "even more" and the strategic decision as to whether to try for the more distant mainline station with a single faster train knowing that if you miss that train you'll have to make your way back to the other station.

Mainline train ride 35 to 55 minutes depending on which mainline station and which service. Total journey time 1 hour 30 minutes on a good day.

Time to think - nil. And you'll probably be standing on all trains.

Re: We have expensive real estate.

It is also deeply depressing how slowly object lessons seem to be absorbed by management.

"I didn't get to where I am today by absorbing object lessons."

Re: Idiocracy

Coincidence?

Re: Headline doesn't match the article

They earn their pay by making the right decisions. They get their pay whether they earn it or not.

Re: It's all about the real estate

"in the UK, converting office buildings to apartments is not simple or cheap. The plumbing is laid out all wrong and there are completely different H&S regulations for example. Usually it's cheaper to just knock the building down and start again."

So the owners have three alternatives:

- spend money converting to residential and get some income,

- spend money knocking down and rebuilding and get some income,

- spend less money maintaining an empty building and get no income.

It should be possible to reduce these to two alternatives with a bit of intelligent thought.

Time to leave while there's still a company to leave from. If they have leaving interviews don't hold back.

Re: Just plain english

They'd probably need a meeting to consider it.

Seriously, it's something to raise with your line management. In plain English - "My status is 'permanently in meetings'. We* would make much better progress if something could be done about it." With "We need to do something about this." ready as a follow up. It then becomes his problem to get the meetings off your back. If it's your manager who calls the meetings then if he's any good he'll realise that it's a problem of his own making. If it's your manager calling the meetings and he isn't any good then it's difficult when you can't get him near a loose window or defective lift.

* Definitely "we" - this is his problem at least as much as yours.

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

"Our team arranged to all be in the office for one day and that day was spent talking, not coding. We made it a social day."

That doesn't need to be in an office. I worked for a body shop where staff were spread very thinly over the clients' premises. There was a monthly meet-up in a pub with company money behind the bar.

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

"and then have twenty minutes unfocused discussion"

Once upon a time I could have linked to a relevant Dilbert.

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

"But, I have also been in teams were the programmers were in the same office and you know what, the projects end up better versus ones where they are all WFH/remote. Why? Because they talked to each other, threw ideas about, overheard something very relevant, etc, etc."

Quite right. Nobody would ever dream of producing something like an operating system any other way.

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

"As for documentation, the company has to pay someone to write it."

True. But are you regarding it as an expensive optional alternative to muddling through?

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

I also like the fact that for the salary, my *employer* pays for the heating, boiling the kettle, coffee machine and so-on.

And you pay for the commuting. Swings and roundabouts.

Re: We have expensive real estate.

The surprise is the fewer layers bit.

Re: We have expensive real estate.

There's no shortage of fools in management.

Re: We have expensive real estate.

"they were referring to the choice to change from assigned desks to hot desks"

My last permie job I had a desk with a lot of shelf space occupied by a lot of manuals within arm's reach. It needed to be an assigned desk, a hot desk and a mobile set of drawers wouldn't have cut it.

Of course the idiocracy can still mess up even the assigned desk. Some big-boss visited and said how the low screens in the call centre room made it easier for everyone to collaborate (why, let alone how a group of people in headsets whould be collaborating was never explained). This was taken as a hint by local ruling idiots and over a weekend our high screens were replaced, nothing to support the bookshelf and I found my manuals relocated sell away on a window sill.

Re: Idiocracy

"How far in the past do you want to go? Just far enough where the mill was the only place to work and was 15 minutes away (as was the mill owners shop)?"

I'm old enough to remember when the local mills were the main sources of employment and they were within walking distance with a good bus service to take others to work. There's a stretch of about 300 metres of road near here where there were once an independent butcher's shop, a Co-op butcher's shop, two independent grocers' shops a sweet shop, a newsagent/tobacconist a hair-dresser, a pub, a chippy, a joiner's workshop and a garage/filling station. The Co-op grocery was just off that road. Briefly there was also a green-grocer. No mill-owners' shop. It was sustainable.

Currently most of the shops, including both Co-op premises are turned into housing. The garage premises has been built over with several houses. The pub survives and there are two hair-dressers, one being run out of what was (and possibly still is) a house. Most of the local mills are also replaced by housing.

If you look at that road now you will see it lined with parked cars down each side - rather less than full lined during the working day but tightly packed evenings and weekends. The bus service is vestigial but obviously the choices there are work from home, commute by car or retire.

That isn't sustainable: roll on no more ICE private cars to commute and we're either back to work from home, retirement or hope that somebody quickly has a flash of inspiration and converts the remaining unoccupied mill building back into a place of employment.

"engineers perform better in person,"

How could they work any other way?

Re: We have expensive real estate.

Translation: We've still got all this office we don't need and it's embarrassing.

Re: Meta chief and human being Mark Zuckerberg

I'm pretty sure I've seen sources saying he's chief of Meta.

Bank of Ireland outage sees customers queue for 'free' cash – or maybe any cash

Re: Bank of Ireland Incompetent ?

If there was a system error how would they know you tried to set up an account and failed or who you were to get back in touch with you?

Obviously heard that the people who really made money in a gold rush were those selling shovels.

Re: Monopoly money

Without turning on the Waterworks.

If you were one of those who didn't overdraw you might be wondering where the bank was going to get the money to balance its books and whether some of it might be yours.

Boffins reckon Mars colony could survive with fewer than two dozen people

Re: Obvious?

I reckon there's more than 22 people we'd wish to send. Not too worried about them succeeding - just getting them off this planet would be success enough.

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

Re: Where's next?

"Scotland has already had a breech this week"

No kilt?

Re: Isn't it seeing triple now?

"East of England generally refers to Norfolk and Suffolk. At least on the weather forecast, which is all that matters."

Context was post worrying about confusing Left-Pondians who won't be listening to UK weather forecasts. Taken literally by someone with no other context the East of England would literally* be anywhere from Northumberland to Kent inclusive.

* Literally literally.

Florida Man and associates indicted for conspiracy to steal data, software

Re: The true test will

The consequence of our history is that the King is not above the law. Recent governments have tried to reign in the courts in an effort to be so.