Posts by Doctor Syntax

Developer’s code worked, but not in the right century

In terms of weird formats does anyone remember the TACS serial number as given on the phone's label and its relationship to the hex format CellNet needed to activate it?

"I have an application that extracts the likely date content from free text postings."

Thursday before S Dunstans day, the year abovesaid [25 Edward I]

Re: What did you break by getting little details like dates wrong?

"You are supposed to remember the date of your wedding anniversary."

I can remember the month, year, approx day of month and day of week. cal does the rest.

Re: No standard for epochs - @katrinab

Unix counts seconds since the epoch, hence the approaching Unix Time "Apocalypse"

From then link: "On January 19, 2038 03:14:08 GMT all computers that still use 32 bit Unix Time will overflow."

In 20 years time will there be anything outside of museums still using 32-bit Unix time?

Re: The Standard Date Format?

"I think year 0 on computers should have been end of last Ice age in Ireland"

What's your reference site, Littleton, Sluggan or something else? And are you including pollen zone I or even I, II and III as ice age?

Re: Because computer dates are numbers but real dates aren't

Get into historical dates and you have more complications. Julian or Gregorian? Different countries switched at different times and the start of the year isn't necessarily the first of January. (Unix cal always starts with January. man cal, at least back in V7 days, listed that as a bug.)

Then you get documents with the year given as regnal years and/or the rest of the date relative to a church feast or saint's day. Such documents may relate to property.

"those standards mostly say: think about what you're doing, do it consistently"

I'm not sure low level customer service agents are allowed to think what they're doing but consistency seems to matter, even if it's done badly. Once something goes wrong any complaint leads to the same wrong being repeated.

Newspapers often have a weekly column where a journalist manages to sort out various customer issues with big companies. Inevitably the problem has gone round a C/S loop several times without success, gets fixed as soon as it gets tackled out of loop and turns out to be some combination of "unique" and "computer" issue. The only thing unique was that it got handled by the company's press desk who needed a sensible answer. Up to then it had probably been handled strictly according to the C/S scripts with all the consistency that ISO 9000 and the like dictate. A few decades back the talk was of "empowering" C/S. That's been killed in the name of consistency.

Re: Re : Can someone explain to me...

"Why this wasn't tested offline first before applying it to a LIVE database ?"

No test database?

... Aaaand that's a fifth Brit Army Watchkeeper drone to crash in Wales

Re: Savings

"this is not some groundbreaking design"

It seems to have broken the ground several times.

Perhaps we need our own global positioning system so we don't have to rely on foreigners.

Where's the stirrer icon?

Boffins offer to make speculative execution great again with Spectre-Meltdown CPU fix

Re: To Stop Futures and Derivative Plays as Presently Planned for the Past ..... Believe in Miracles

"I thought this was buzzword bingo."

No. Just AMFM

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

Re: They finally did it...

"I'll bet they won't use it themselves."

Don't be too sure. Taking a whole archive home to run on a PC. Using gmail for Company business. The people whose job it is to break into other people's stuff don't seem that interested in protecting themselves. Is it any wonder they don't see what's wrong with their idea of the public running back-doored devices?

Re: tamper-proof screws aren't

"There are various screwheads around that are claimed to be tamperproof, but really they're just mildly inconvenient."

We had a new HP tape drive with a shipping bar secured by Torx screws back when they were new and supposedly uncommon. The engineers who came to set it up were a bit taken aback to find it already being used. My cheap screwdriver set already included a range of Torx bits.

"I'll stick to my (not quite quite as easy to compromise) padlocks that I paid $20 dollars for"

I'll stick to the ancient Yale monster securing my shed. It's older than I am. Probably considerably older. It looks more like something built in a shipyard than a lock factory. OTOH it wouldn't be that hard to break through the side of the shed...

Re: Where did you get that $20 padlock?

"Probably half the padlocks in a 10 mile radius open with the same key."

For years it seemed every filing cabinet I saw had a lock with the same key number.

Re: Yeah - but if I am a "common criminal" I'll definitely find another non-indiegogo to pawn

"PETA will be on the case."

That's OK, the dogs will eat them.

Bank of England to set new standards for when IT goes bad

Re: Government Infrastructure as a Service.

Right. The team will be with you to start on that as soon as they've finished Universal Credit.

Re: So basically

"All to do with slack lending, the thing at the core of retail banks."

And all to do with low interest rates set by the BoE on the basis of a fallacious inflation figure. Personal debt just kept on climbing because when it's so cheap why not borrow a bit more?

Re: Banks too big to fail ...

"before a bank merger is allowed to go ahead"

Or demerger as TSB has shown us.

Re: So basically

"This is the org that let 80% of the UKs banks blow up."

By following a definition of inflation laid down by the then PM, former Chancellor. A definition that said increasing house prices didn't count as inflation when setting interest rates because low interst rate buy votes as well as keeping the cost of govt. borrowing down. That definitely wasn't a housing bubble you were betting the bank on. Definitely not, right up to the time it burst.

Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android

Re: Pipe dream

"Also, apple and microsoft both have maps applications of their own."

I don't know about Apple but in the UK Microsoft, at least on the desktop uses the OS which, compared to Google Maps is ... what's the word? ... ah, yes... better.

Re: Pipe dream

"try living with out...Google Maps"

Google maps is, as far as I'm concerned, not the first choice for mapping. Their actual maps, even at small scale, are just street maps. Ironically it's streetmap.co.uk that has the real Ordnance Survey maps. Oh, and Bing has them too. No Google is not the sole provider of good stuff; in fact it can be the provider of somewhat less good stuff.

Re: Get a grip

"How did you open a bank account? How did you get a credit card?"

So you have a bank account and a credit card? Have you looked at their T&Cs? Does it say anything about keeping your access credentials secret? Yes?

No tell us; if your phone allows - encourages even - apps to take information from unrelated bits of the system how do you know one of those apps isn't slurping those credentials when you use them? How do you know it's not aiding abetting your breaking of those contractual obligations?

You think you've nothing to hide? Wrong!! You've got plenty to hide, not only out of self interest but also because you're contractually obliged to.

Re: Get a grip

"However, if I'm running a calculator app, it doesn't need to know where I live, and I have no reason to give it that. If it goes about getting it anyway, there is reason for me to dislike that"

I'd go a step beyond that. If it wants access to something it doesn't need I'd suspect it of being up to no good and the reaction to that is a bit stringer than dislike.

"the ad companies have been taking the piss - in order to be able to extract more money from you, they gather all sort of shit."

The ad companies do not extract more money from you, at least not directly. The advertising industry only sells one product, advertising. They sell it to advertisers. The shit they gather is part of the product. The reason you see the pointless ads for what you bought is that the advertising industry has conned their mugs into believing that you're interested in buying 200 toilet seats and 100 new cars - or at least they've conned them into believing that their analytics indicate that you're in the market for one of these even if you're not.

They do, however, extract money from you indirectly because that advertising adds to the vendors' costs and all of us, whether we saw the adverts or not, pay the advertising tax.

Indiegogo lawyer asks ZX Spectrum reboot firm: Where's the cash?

Perhaps Indiegogo and similar sited need to monitor the firms who use their facilities to keep track of where the money's going and what it's bought.

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

Re: Not Millennials!

"finished school after Eternal September had already ended"

Oh no it hasn't. There's a new infestation of newsgroups from Google Groupies who think they're posting a reply direct to their OP despite the fact that the OP hasn't been heard of in the group this side of Y2K.

Re: Keyboard ecosystems

"An old recipe for Elderflower Champagne^W sparkling wine doesn't use added yeast - there's enough on the flowers and in the air to do the job - results can be somewhat... inconsistent though."

Explosive, even. And that was cordial which isn't even supposed to ferment.

Re: Keyboard ecosystems

"Now they're a consumable item."

What flavours do they come in? A choice of coffee or Tango?

Re: Keyboard ecosystems

"And every year the winner was... keyboards."

In my student days it was hand towels but I don't think we tried the keyboards of the Marchant calculators.

"Alcohol any one?"

Don't mind if I do, even if it is a tad early.

Universal Credit has never delivered bang for buck, but now there's no turning back – watchdog

"Consequently the benefits that people have often paid years of national insurance for are unfairly denied."

National Insurance was an exercise in getting rid of the difficult bit in the title. What you pay in doesn't go into insuring you against anything nor into a fund for your pension. It's just a form of tax. The benefits are paid out of current taxation.

There seems to have been a campaign against ring-fencing it recently with the H word being paraded round. The Treasury must be getting worried that there'll be pressure for ring-fencing NI. You can tell how much the Treasury hates ring-fenced by the fact that they coined the alarming-sounding word "hypothecated" to describe them. What's actually wrong with them, in the Treasury's eyes, is that it's money the Treasury doesn't get to control.

I suppose in the case of NI they do have a point but that's only because the DWP would be controlling it instead.

"And NO! I DON'T count being a barrister as a qualification to be an effective administrator.....!"

The effective administrators are supposed to be the Civil Servants but in this case they're DWP.

Years ago a client of mine dealt with several govt. departments including DWP. A colleagues considered opinion? "Not the sharpest knives in the box." Nothing has changed.

In fact nothing has changed since the days when I was a "client" when I was redeployed* and the erk behind the counter had difficulty understanding that not being able to sign on because I had a job interview at the other end of the country was incompatible with the notion of "not being available for work".

* HMG's then current jargon, back in that weasel Harold Wilson's time.

ICANN pays to push Whois case to European Court of Justice

"The answer is simple: the organization has more money than sense."

A few GDPR-max fines will correct that ratio. Meanwhile I suppose their lawyers are assisting them on a slightly smaller scale.

Re: This one could run and run

"Are they trying to outdo the SCO / Linux case for extended legal farting about?"

Given that they're trying to accelerate its progress to the top court, maybe not. Unless they want to take it on to the UN or something when they've failed comprehensively in Europe.

Keep your hands on the f*cking wheel! New Tesla update like being taught to drive by your dad

Re: Pedant Alert

"There are many "A" roads that are 3 lanes in each direction with a central reservation and barrier."

And a few with just 3 lanes, one each way and a suicide lane in the middle.

Re: Crash Test Dummies.

"The computer would eliminate accidents through inattention. inc drink/drugs."

They'd eliminate a sub-set of those accidents - those that arise from things they're programmed to deal with such as keeping lane. The drunk, drugged or over-tired driver will find accident opportunities other than those they've been spared.

Re: Crash Test Dummies.

"Sad fact of life really..."

All true but with cars it's more like life and death.

Re: Crash Test Dummies.

"Still, once we get over this hump it's going to be super safe"

There's an assumption built into that statement.

Re: Auto-crash-pilot

"Just have two seconds between you and the car in front."

When I learned to drive (an probably for a long time before that) the rule was a car length per 10 miles an hour. That turned out to be a reasonable approximation for 1 second. Given that brakes and tyres were less efficient than nowadays it seems that the advice then was a good deal more optimistic.

Re: Auto-crash-pilot

"The radar is used to detect other moving objects, not stationary ones."

What about an object crossing the road perpendicular to the line of travel? It's moving but not with a component in the direction the radar's looking.

Re: Sigh ...

It's actually called "culling the herd" and maybe should be added to the Darwin Awards as added incentive.

It's likely to cull innocent bystanders, AKA collateral damage.

Creepy software knows what you are about to do... to that poor salad

"Predicting entire video frames will be at some point in the future possible"

How did they predict this?

Apple will throw forensics cops off the iPhone Lightning port every hour

Re: 5-dollar wrench

Doesn't work if: suspect is dead cf San Bernadino, have phone but suspect has escaped, want to unlock phone without suspect knowing etc.

Re: Aiding and Abetting

"I wonder what would happen to Apple's policy if their executives were hauled before the courts for aiding and abetting criminal and terrorist activities."

That would require going to court to prove that such activities did actually depend on the phones being lockable. The risk would be failure to prove that to a court's satisfaction, blowing up all the PTB's arguments in their face. That's a risk they're unlikely to take.

Re: Easy good passwords, here I go again...

"What we've got here is failure to communicate"

Or was it "a failure"? or did I expand "we've" to "we have"? So many things to remember...

The only way is ethics: UK.gov emphasises moral compass amid deluge of data plans

Re: Blind keeping the public in the dark

"Why isn't the question the other way round, e.g. any reason why your project should not be spoken about openly?"

Because it doesn't work the other way round. If you speak about it openly and then discover you shouldn't have it's too late and you might find yourself having to dob yourself into the ICO for having led to half a million people's PII turning up on haveibeenpwned.

Scrapping Brit cap on nurses, doctors means more room for IT folk

Re: More job displacement, yay

"Why can't we recruit and retain the necessary medical staff?"

Because we don't train enough and were capped from bringing in enough from outside to cover the difference.

Re: Fishy logic

"Different types of workers obviously aren't equivalent or interchangeable."

Manglement everywhere doesn't believe you.

"among my friends who work in advertising there has been a serious exodus"

So it's not all bad.