Posts by Doctor Syntax

Excel recruitment time bomb makes top trainee doctors 'unappointable'

Re: Excel for dodgy databases

Once you start involving professional design, data types, etc Is the spreadhseet even needed. Just design and build a real application to do the job.

"a complex and confused approach to using spreadsheets led to the disaster"

When managers try to manage by spreadsheets is there any other approach and any other outcome?

New information physics theory is evidence 'we're living in a simulation,' says author

Re: How many simulate consciousnesses ...

I'm disappointed. I'd hoped someone would come along to say they had but the margins weren't wide enough to fit it in.

Re: How many simulate consciousnesses ...

"Philosophers gotta eat, too."

Do you have a proof of that statement?

Re: Critical Questions

I doubt Jake cares about that. neither do I, for similar reasons.

No, at best it's a hypothesis. He needs to make predictions which cannot be satisfied by any other hypothesis and which are falsifiable.

This "law". What tests have been made of it? Let's get the essentials done before we start thinking of anything fancy.

Bennu unboxing shows ancient asteroid holds carbon and water

The panspermia hypothesis is just throwing the problem over the wall. As regards organic compounds its proponents need to read up about Miller and Urey and then visit Occam the barber for a closer shave.

Generative AI slashes cloud migration hassles, says McKinsey partner

Re: Why would anyone trust someone from McKinsey?

Are you calling your partner a crook?

It sounds like a house of cards.

Software patch fixes Euclid space telescope navigation bug

Re: Windowlicker

As things stand it seems to point to a gap in existing physical theory. Experience shows that when you fill in gaps the new knowledge means something potentially useful right here on Earth.

Microsoft gives unexpected tutorial on how to install Linux

"Perhaps recommending Chrome OS Flex as a replacement for macOS is a step too far even for Microsoft just yet."

It's possible they're trying to edge their business to a Microsoft equivalent of this - it's just that they expect you to run their web services rather than Google's and don't really mind if you do that from Linux.

My SiL has a W7 machine and uses nothing beyond the web browser (including email) and Excel. A few months ago she had a look at W10 & decided it would be too different for her to upgrade.

I don't have a W7 instance I could try this on but the download link in the Which article appears to work in that it downloads an exe file.

Go ahead, let the unknowable security risks of Windows Copilot onto your PC fleet

Re: User free

You won't operate Windows, Windows will operate you.

What to expect when the UK-US Data Bridge comes into force this week

Re: It's always from The World to The USA

I think there's one simple principle that would sort this out for good. If I hand over personal information to a second party for some reason that party becomes directly responsible to me, and answerable in a court in the jurisdiction where I live, for safeguarding that information. If they hand it over to a 3rd party they're still responsible, even if that 3rd party hands it over to a 4th party etc. up to infinity, it doesn't matter whichever party is responsible for any abuse, it's the second party on the hook.

The sole exception would be access required by law of the jurisdiction where I live. CLOUD Act? If I don't live in the US the 2nd party is on the hook.

International agreements? The 2nd party is on the hook.

If the 2nd party wants to use a 3rd party they need to come to a judgement about that party's reliability and exposure because they're going to be liable for the 3rd party's failures.

Microsoft says VBScript will be ripped from Windows in future release

Thin end of wedge.

Microsoft's view will be that given that it's not in the browser it can't be tolerated elsewhere because from Microsoft's PoV everything has to be run in the browser using Microsoft's cloud. Of course that applies to any other programming language too. The logical consequence is that all the other programming languages available to Windows will have to follow it. Elementary when you think about it.

SBF on trial: The Python code that allegedly let Alameda hedge fund spend people's FTX deposits

"The defense's explanation for this, according to White, is that Alameda was responsible for converting US dollars to stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to the dollar) and used the flag to borrow funds from FTX before returning them as stablecoins."

Sounds plausible. After all it's wrapped up in this code to ensure the transaction completes, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Is it?

Where is it?

Fresh curl tomorrow will patch 'worst' security flaw in ages

Jam tomorrow

Why wait a day? Or to put it another way, why announce a day early?

If it's urgent tomorrow it's urgent today so waiting a day (or however many days it's been) isn't justified. OTOH if it's really not ready don't announce it in advance and tip the bad guys off that it might be worth looking for something for which a patch isn't available. It doesn't make sense.

RISC-V org claims export restrictions would stifle innovation

If the US wants to shut itself off from the rest of the world RISC-V market place as it develops - fine. Let them play catch-up later on.

SAP customers on brink of ERPocalypse as 2025 support cliff looms for ECC

Re: “ and instead try to make the leap to S/4HANA”

But why have SAP come out with this statement now? It sounds as if they're wanting to rustle up a bit of panic buying.

Why do I keep thinking "never give a customer reason to review the market"?

IDC: AI is a solution for a PC industry with a sales problem

An alternative meaning might be "it could go either way".

"uses cases have yet to be fully articulated"

Does this indicate peak generative AI may already be near?

Next fad, please!

Qualtrics culls 780 jobs amid 'complex' growth spurt

Re: "We call it empathy at scale" "Software to improve employee engagement and retention"

They seem to make software for the intelligence insulting business consultancy industry. Their front page will appeal to those whose intelligence can't be insulted.

"Rapid hiring was essential to enable our growth up to this point, but it also created complexity that does not support continued growth at our scale,"

Translation: "We were lemmings."

Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs

Re: Whose paying for waste disposal?

"while sustaining a modern style of life"

You're just going to upset the green hair-shirters with this. You're supposed to be living on a vegan diet of nettle leaves whist wearing clothes knitted from the fibres of the nettle stems.

Two Mile Island is smaller. Or is that less? Or fewer?

This is just getting ridiculous. Maybe it's time to decide energy shouldn't be wasted in this way.

Scripted shortcut caused double-click disaster of sysadmin's own making

Re: cd /tmp && rm -rf *

"Of course I've still had several ohnoseconds over my ${too_many} years in this game. That's why I'm quite keen on backups..."

With age comes learning from experience, preferably somebody else's experience.

Re: Yes

My UK reading of "learned" makes the "ed" a distinct syllable and the word an adjective as in "learned friend".

It's worse.

Re: It is mandatory to have an Oh No Oh Second experience

I always use a script to dd a download onto an SD card, usually duplicating the last line* of the script, commenting it out and then editing the if=value to be the new file name. Nevertheless between pressing enter on ./script and the red LED starting to flash on the SD adapter there's an enormously elongated couple of seconds of thinking "Could I have gone wrong and be doing this to /dev/sda?"

* The script ends up being a series of commented out lines and one non-commented line. From time to time it gets pruned.

Obscured by clouds: Time for IaaS vendors to come clean and play fair

"Microsoft's decades-long lead"

Perhaps this should be a hint to regulators to take an immediate interest as soon as Microsoft does anything new.

ESA funds space weather satellite swarm to understand and combat orbital debris

"I don't think a vaccum cleaner would work in space."

You mean it would just go "whoosh"?

We need flying vacuum cleaners.

FTC: Please stop falling for social media scams, you've given crooks at least $650M so far this year

"These usually involve someone buying something advertised on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, and then never receiving the product."

As opposed to buying from some of the more regular sites and not receiving the product.

But did they try looking on the doorstep? Somebody else's doorstep.

And it doesn't help when real banks' marketing idiots send out enticing emails that look just like the stuff the scammers are sending! "Click here [ ] for our very special offer just for you!!!!

This above all. It should be stamped on with maximum force by the regulators. Banning the executives (ir)responsible from the industry would be a good start.

You've got to remember that people can be deliberately deceitful and quite cleverly so. It's not necessary to be stupid to fall for a con if it looks convincing. Going through life with heightened wariness is obligatory these days; it's not a good way to have to live.

Re: Well, seeing as ...

No, that's us, here in this home for cantankerous old gits.

"In my experience it's mostly oldfolk who get ripped off. Via phone and emails."

e.g. someone I know in his 90s. Ex maths teacher, and, I think, ex-headmaster but fell for a banking scam. Fortunately his wife caught on what had happened and was able to stop it. She explained that he was from a family who'd worked in banks and therefore believed anyone who said they were from a bank must be reliable.

Fujitsu, RIKEN open Japan's first superconducting quantum 'puter to eggheads

Re: Schroedinger's Cash

I came to offer something on those lines. You did it sooner and better.

CDW data to be leaked next week after negotiations with LockBit break down

sometime, somewhere, somebody is going to decide that a couple of hitmen will be cheaper than a ransom, even taking into account the cost of locating who you're gunning for.

It's time to celebrate the abysmal efforts to go paperless in the NHS

Re: Mega-projects

H/W becomes obsolete. S/W becomes obsolete.

Data should live on. The key to that is open standards.

I guess the problem is a single big outsourced operation. It needs in-house to set the standards, say batches of extra interface specs every 6 months. Given that there are, I believe, a number of suppliers for systems to be interfaced there would be competition to keep them relatively honest - "That's the spec, you've got 3 months to go-live. The others will be doing it, so it's on your market reputation if you can't."

Years ago - so long ago I've forgotten most of the details - a client of mine had a contract with the NHS. If you lived in England and Wales back then you've probably benefited from the end product and the recollection was part of the thinking behind my OP.

Somehow - I wasn't involved with the details - we got the server an email address on NHS.net (or maybe there was some predecessor) and received data by encrypted email. I then had to parse these emails to load into the ERP system. The record formats hadn't been put together with enough planning and the ad hocery as more use cases got added got to a familiar point: "If I'd known that's where you were going I'd have started it differently." If the contract hadn't ended about the same time as I retired I'd have refactored it.

It didn't need anything special in respect of email clients. AFAICR the existing Unix mail handling sufficed to drop the files into the processing so no need to write email clients.

So much can be done with local processing and message passing with agreed formats.

Re: meh

I had this incident in mind: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18497161

I remember the hospital because it used to be just along the road from my lab which meant that during the rotating power cuts in the troubles we were spared them because the hospital power had to be kept going.

Police ignored the laws of datacenter climate control

Re: Location?

It's an on attitude isn't it? These machines will house your entire business. If they go down so does your business. Collectively they represent your entire business, whatever you value that at. Where do you put them? Somewhere where they'll be treated with the respect that that value deserves or whatever small space that you'll begrudge least, however unsuitable?

Remember the shop was a cop shop so they ran the jail.

The boss, of course, would be the cowboy.

Same house, most of the wiring was wooden conduit like that except those wires were gutta-percha with fabric covering. Metal conduit chased in down the walls.Only two wires of course. What to do when 3-pins were installed? Easy. Thread an extra wire down the metal conduit then twist it round the top of the metal to earth it. Or round a 6" nail hammered into the joint between two courses of brick. No brickwork handy? Hammer the nail into a wooden joist. I found all three options in that house.