Posts by Doctor Syntax

Supply, demand and a scary mountain of debt: The challenges facing IT as COVID-19 grips the global economy

Re: Reality Check

"loading students with debt is borrowing from the future"

The US doesn't have a monopoly of that, I'm afraid.

Re: The NEUKlearer Option ..... in Derivative AI Futures Markets in Support of Quantum Leaping

Of course. Massive debts have been considered liquidity ever since 2008-9.

Re: Planned obsolescence

"Maybe the wheels will even fall off subscription software too."

Maybe people will even start to look at OSS in a new light.

"The fear then is that a lack of liquidity leads to another credit crunch. Instead of the 2008-09 crash warning companies off debt, they have become addicted to cheap interest rates and built up a mountain of it."

It's not surprising. Back in 8/9 governments were so terrified of the consequences of their low interest bubble that they didn't dare burst it. Their response was to keep interest rates low and print money - disguised by inventing a new term, quantitative easing. So instead of fixing the problem they kicked it further into the future and we're now in that future. Businesses did just what governments wanted them to do and they're now worse off than ever. Let's hope that this time a tiny smidgeon of sanity ans some of the worst excesses line leveraged buy-outs far into the future.

Microsoft Teams gets off to a wobbly start as the world and its cat starts working from home

"In the meantime, may we suggest a return to email, telephone or binging on Homes under the hammer"

Or just get on with stuff without being interrupted. This may sort out those whose work is getting things done from those whose work is stopping people getting things done.

Control is only an illusion, no matter what you shove on the Netware share

And did the users take the slightest bit of notice?

Re: "Or heard the sphincter-loosening words: 'What's a backup?' "

Or a Pi/USB storage/NextCloud at home and NC client on Mac.

If you're looking for a textbook example of an IT hype cycle, let spin be your guide

"good old-fashioned CMOS"

Stop it! I remember CMOS being the latest thing. It was all going to be ECL until then. Now you're reminding me I'm in the coronovirus cross-hairs age group.

Your data was 'taken without permission', customers told, after personal info accessed in O2 UK partner's database

"a full investigation to determine what happened "

Somehow I suspect it might be more a case of what didn't happen. Some little thing like securing the backup.

Tinfoil hat brigade switches brand allegiance to bog paper

Re: Shungite

"noncrystalline carbon with a metastable structure incapable of graphitization"

Soot?

Re: grep?

There's an old rubric about only using sed where tr won't do, only using awk where sed won't do etc.

Re: you'd still struggle to get through a couple of rolls

"Back in France, there's no shortage of toilet rolls on the store shelves"

There is in our local Co-op but it's been that way since they reorganised it. I think the shelf-stackers can't find their way around now.

grep?

sed

BT CEO tests positive for coronavirus, goes into self-isolation after meeting fellow bosses from Vodafone UK, Three, O2 plus govt officials

Another precaution

I see from the Beeb that football in England has been suspended until April 3. I call that a good start.

Re: It's getting the 1% as well

No. We hear about them because they announce it to all and sundry and the media repeat it. Your next-door neighbour isolates themselves and, by definition, you don't know about it.

"Given the number of people they talk to shall we just self isolate all staff at all telecoms and mobile companies now?"

From my experience of BT management any of the senior management could be carrying the Black Death without any impact on the rest of the staff. Let me correct that: without any adverse impact.

Ex-director accuses iRobot of firing him for pointing out the home-cleaner droids broke safety, govt regulations

Re: He obviously misunderstood his position

"They will fight the charges vigorously until they settle of court to not be officially noted as guilty."

Or the alternative, increasingly popular these days. They get found guilty and issue a statement insisting they disagree with the court.

When the world ends – coronavirus plague, WW3, whatever – all that will be left are cockroaches and Larry Ellison trash talking his rivals

"Oracle's subscription-based revenue is already contracted."

Good luck with collecting on that contract when the customer's gone down the tubes.

Appareils électroniques: Right to repair gets European Commission backing

"You will have to lease it, and return on upgrade or repair."

That means the lessor has an interest in TCO. If the vendor is the lessor expect stuff to be built to last.

Re: Farrage-phones

For similar reasons it has a very insensitive microphone so you must not only shout into it but repeat everything several times. It's not obligatory that what you shout makes any sense.

Re: This jumped out:

"I use my hoover to clean the floor, not as a willy-waving contest."

Safety first.

Re: This jumped out:

Whilst there won't be UK-specific phones manufactured expect all the stuff that can't be sold in the EU dumped here to the accompanying chorus of "see how much cheaper stuff is when we're not in the EU" with the murmured addendum "if you don't count TCO".

Broken lab equipment led boffins to solve a 58-year-old physics problem by mistake

Re: No good enough!

But it might be Pink Fir Apple shaped.

Re: Curiosity is a wonderful thing

"Curiosity for curiosity's sake."

Tne best kind.

The Reg produces exhibit A1: A UK court IT system running Windows XP

Re: What logic is this?

"There were very few process changes -but- the icon for the shortcut changed and the color scheme changed."

What you - and the designers - haven't realised is that whose details are part of the process, especially if they've been set in the cement of a workplace manual that MUST be adhered to.

At one client we had a number of systems which worked similarly and used different backgrounds (MDI) so that the users could be sure they had the right application open.

Re: Is this as ususal software related?

"high capacity USB memories are really cheap why bother with a random one of unknown parentage?"

In reality you're not going to use the storage medium once, irrespective of how cheap they are. That stick is going to go back and forth between your allegedly air-gapped computer and one that isn't. When that happens you don't really have an air-gapped machine at all.

Re: "We are in the process of upgrading our courts' computer systems"

"Do you seriously think HMG is not coughing up £millions to MS for this ?"

Pass.

Re: in fairness

Multiple copies is the best strategy. Such literature as has survived from antiquity did so because there were enough copies for at least one to have escaped destruction and even better if there were enough survivors to allow individual copying errors to be detected.

"XHIBIT court listings system"

I wonder what they call the system to keep track of exhibits. LS?

Re: What logic is this?

"A hospital application that allows the janitor to prescribe controlled substances is seriously flawed."

You've just triggered a memory from long ago. Back when prescriptions were mostly on paper new classes of prescriber kept getting introduced and our standing joke was the car park attendant prescriber would be next.

Re: Upgrading an OS isn't a magical solution

"There is zero excuse for the IT team of any large organisation not to begin preparation for a change of OS"

I know it's unfashionable these days but the first step of that is a feasibility study. The second step might then be a it of CV polishing. Alternatively submitting an estimate might be the second step in which case the CV polishing comes third.

Re: Upgrading an OS isn't a magical solution

And a litlle while ago, somewhere around Wannacry, you could send a copy of the document to current manglement who certainly aren't going to disregard a chance to cover themselves.

Re: Upgrading an OS isn't a magical solution

"I'm sure someone, somewhere, around 15 years ago said hey, maybe we shouldn't be locking ourselves in with this architecture"

And somewhere not far away was a vendor saying "No, it's OK, we've got it covered".

Re: Is this as ususal software related?

"You have to take a storage medium to get your data off them."

Hopefully your storage medium isn't that stick you found in the car park. Or a 5 3/4" floppy you don't have anything to read it with.

Re: Is this as ususal software related?

The "picking a different component" means spending those millions on replacing H/W and still find that its replacement still has the same generic problem: expensive H/W is expected to have a life exceeding that of a typical O/S.

It's also not straightforward demanding support includes updating to a new O/S. Firstly the certification will be based on the original configuration and it's not going to be feasible to re-certify every patch Tuesday. Secondly the expected life of expensive H/W might also exceed that of the original vendor.

The expected life of the expensive H/W might also exceed the life of the H/W running the S/W. Even if the vendor excrows a few original motherboards per unit by the time they're needed the caps might have dried out.

Re: in fairness

A few weeks ago I visited the local archives to see some deeds from the 1200s. Apart from an ink spillage on one of them, probably a few hundred years ago, they wee fine.

Probably the Mylar film I used to use about 50 years ago is OK, it just hasn't had the same long testing as parchment.

Re: Simple updates to the system

"The system may use proprietary software (and possibly hardware) that is not entirely compatible with Windows 10."

Quite. Despite our friend's snide comments about parchment one of the problems with digital archives is that you need to be prepared - and able - to migrate your data to new formats as well as updating H/W & S/W.

Budget 2020 in tech: UK.gov splashes cash on broadband and R&D while trying to limit impact of COVID-19 outbreak

Re: Borrowing from yourself

"a country borrows in its own currency from its own central ban ... as long as inflation doesn't go up too much"

"Borrowing" money from the central bank and cancelling the debt afterwards is printing money. Inflation is the consequence.

Of course we could just print a teeny bit so there isn't "too much" inflation. But now prices have gone up a bit so we have to print a teeny bit more so government can cover increaed costs and .... why is inflation out of control?

Re: Borrowing from yourself

No there isn't a money tree. It's just Brownomics - make the future pay for now by loading it with debt.

"academic e-journals entitled to the same VAT treatment as paper-based media."

So the end-user prices will stay the same because the publishers have worked out what the market will bear and the publishers will pocket the difference.

'Up to 300' UK heads to roll at Brit IT services firm Allvotec, with 200 jobs offshored to Bulgaria in cost-cutting drive

I wonder if any of those businesses they bought up had sold themselves on offering UK-resident support.

Resellers facing 'months' of delays for orders to be fulfilled. IT gathers dust on docks as coronavirus-stricken China goes back to work

Once upon a time there was a concept of dual sourcing. That went away. Then there were the floods in Thailand hitting hard drive supplies. You might have thought that the industry would have re-learned that lesson. Clearly not. Will it be different this time?

Microsoft nukes 9 million-strong Necurs botnet after unpicking domain name-generating algorithm

Yes, and now they know that that was their problem thanks to some public back-patting. They might well have been able to work that out for themselves but why save them the bother?

Clearview said to be chasing every mugshot taken in the US over the last 15 years to paste into its facial-recog system

Re: Real time false positives and trigger happy policemen with guns

Not that sensible given that they keep pushing ahead in spite of mounting evidence of excessive false positives.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

Re: fun facts

I suppose Edsel would have been appropriate.

UK Defence Committee probe into national security threat of Huawei sure to uncover lots of new and original insights

"It does not appear that any of Ellwood's parliamentary colleagues on the committee have any special knowledge of national security matters."

Do any of them at all, on or off the committee, have the special knowledge to assess the technical aspects?

Check Point chap: Small firms don't invest in infosec then hope they won't get hacked. Spoiler alert: They get hacked

"Make operating systems completely secure, so that you don't need to buy anything extra."

Great idea. Where are you going to start?

"Small businesses often don't have the budget for decent infosec."

They always have budget to fix the consequences. Well, maybe they don't always but if they don't it also means they don't have the budget to survive.

Chips that pass in the night: How risky is RISC-V to Arm, Intel and the others? Very

"but as a smaller company, can you really do better?"

RISC-V itself isn't a company, it's a group of companies cooperating. It might be chancy for a single vendor to make its own extensions but it could be quite feasible for some or all of the group to decide on the need for a given set of extensions and cooperate on those as well.

Australian privacy watchdog sues Facebook for *checks notes* up to £266bn

Re: The court will wimp out

It could still have a serious effect. But in a good way.