Posts by Doctor Syntax

Smart Meter biz case still there, insists tragically optimistic UK govt

"no one wants to tell the Emperor that he has no clothes,"

It looks as if quite a few people have told him. He's just not listening.

Dormant ALIEN SLIME LIFE frozen in SPEEDING comet will AWAKEN - boffins

"the LHB occurred between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, the earliest evidence we have for life on Earth is from around 3.7 billion years ago."

If life had developed prior to the LHB the evidence for it might not have survived - indeed life might not have survived - so it's not surprising that the first evidence comes later.

"current theories, and experiments conducted since the '70s suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own"

It's still difficult to get going even if you suppose it happened elsewhere. I've never found this hypothesis appealing - it smacks of trying to avoid a difficult problem by turning your back on it. I suppose the advantage of the hypothesis is that you can allow a much longer time-span for it to have happened. But as a scientific hypothesis it has the disadvantage of being difficult to falsify - look at a comet & find nothing you have a choice of saying "wrong comet" or "wrong type of comet".

Awoogah: Get ready to patch 'severe' bug in OpenSSL this Thursday

Maybe you should check the Windows code for yourself, just in case. Can you see a problem with that?

Migrating from WS2003 to *nix in a month? It ain't happening, folks

Re: Not a shill?

"For applications that don't, it can take anywhere from hours to years to solve the roadblocks."

And that doesn't even include company politics. Sequent box running the entire logistics business going out of support at year end. Se well in advance IT planned to migrate to Sun over the Christmas/New Year break when the business was closed for holidays. Told definitely not. Eventually it transpired that the owners had arranged for the books to be gone over to value the business for it to be sold.

Re: Sorry...

As a Unixer with experience dating back to 7th edition days I'd obviously recommend a Unix-like platform wherever feasible. But Trevor's right: you can't make a cross-platform move like that in a month, especially if you've no existing Unix experience. OTOH I'd have thought that a month is cutting it fine even for moving a small estate from one Windows platform to another. Apart from the acquisition of any new hardware you have to allow for testing and plan a good time for the migration. Realistically you have to allow for the possibility that testing will reveal some problems there may be no suitable time for the move within the month, especially if you have to work round some problem discovered in testing.

'The server broke and so did my back on the flight to fix it'

Re: I feel your pain (quite literally) (LaeMing)

"The trouble with backs is that spines were designed as beams for four-footed animals. Walking upright we have turned them into columns and the stresses are completely different."

No. They evolved as beams for four-footed animals. Then they evolved into columns. Evolution is effective at optimising things but it can only achieve local maxima. So what we have is probably the best column that can be adapted from an articulated beam but probably not the best column that could have been evolved directly from a notochord and certainly not the best column that could have been designed. And hence, as you say, the backaches & other problems.

Re: I feel your pain (quite literally)

I don't think any believer in Intelligent Design can ever have had back trouble.

Let me PLUG that up there, love. It’s perfectly standaAAARGH!

Re: Microwave recipes

That's the source of your problem. Never dispose of anything you're hanging onto just in case. If you do the case will eventuate.

Re: @Imanidiot, re: Flaming Fax.

"I think the biggest reason she didn't strangle him in his sleep was because she would have needed help disposing of the corpse."

Quicklime and a roll of carpet always seemed to work for the BOFH.

Re: wiring through the gutter

I once bought a house where the detached garage had a number of 13 amp sockets wired together. They were supposed to be powered by a flex with a 13 amp plug (that's P L U G) on each end plugged into one of the sockets & a socket in the kitchen.

Re: Education - Latin

"If you were unlucky, it would be raining and your book would be a pulpy lump by the time you retrieved it."

In my case I'd have called that lucky.

Re: Education

"Commonly, to save a few quid, a classroom might have only one mains point"

What do you think adapters are for. You just plug one into another until you have as many outlets as you need.

Re: XML meets SQL

"The last time I was given XML from a client - ummm, this year - it wasn't even proper XML."

The way we set things up was that the XML schema was agreed with the client (i.e. my client's client, the main project contractor). I'm not sure whether it was part of the actual contract but every new product or product change was documented in a version controlled spec and in a DTD or schema (which I usually maintained). Nothing went live until we had test data from the client validated against the current schema, processed and the sample product signed off by the main contractor's client. In production any file received which was not a well-formed XML document would be refused. This happened from time to time because the sometimes the latest devs at the other end hadn't grasped the use of entities to handle certain characters. As the devs rotated when their visas ran out I occasionally had to do a bit of education...

We didn't validate the whole XML document but validated the individual fragments representing an order printed document. IIRC we had an arrangement to simply discard and report a particular order that failed validation rather than bounce several hundred good ones.

Although it's fashionable to decry XML as over-engineered it came with a selection of tools to do the heavy lifting and if you made proper use of them it was vastly better than having a system gamely soldier on and do the wrong thing or fall flat on its face when encountering bad data. I can't comment on JSON as I've never used it; does it have the same support for data integrity?

"They often came with the circuit diagram pasted inside."

Not that they really needed it. The 5 valve superhet was pretty standard. The only problem was if a component was so badly burnt that you had to guess the value.

XML meets SQL

Sometimes the bodges are mandated by the client.

Client ran a digital print service. They got flat files, usually CSV to print. The printers were driven by a package which took in flat files with one line per field in the document together with a formatting in file which told where & how the field was printed. The normal work-flow was to store the contents of the incoming files in a relational database & then pull the data out in the field-per-line format. Having the stuff in the database helped manage batching, remakes etc & also made the conversion from one flat file format to another fairly transparent. The normal IT work-flow had been to write a system for this more or less from scratch for every contract. I'll draw a veil over the contract where the data came via EDI...

Along came a contract which needed this new-fangled XML stuff. The document was way more complex than the usual stuff and flat files wouldn't have handled it. I put myself up to handle the XML end & did some training on the subject. The obvious route was take the original XML & apply XSLT to convert it into the field-per-line format. To handle the usual work-flow requirements the incoming XML could be split into fragments, one per printed document, stored as text elements in the database and reassembled for a batch job. Client said 'No'.

They wanted the XML taken apart and stored in relational form just like all the others except this time it would require a whole hierarchy of tables and it quickly became clear that for performance reasons surrogate keys would have to be used to tie stuff together. I ended up with XSL to convert the XML to SQL with a series of macros to act as place-holders for the keys and a macro-processor to handle the tying together. Inevitably more sections were added to the document format and hence to the XML over the life of the contract. The database design was tied to the document structure and chunks of the code were tied to the schema so the client had committed themselves to changing both at intervals through the life of the contract.

Adam Smith was right about that invisible hand, you know

Re: You say "High Frequency Trading -I say "Man in the Middle Attack."

"For example, how can you stop someone being influenced by a lobbyist who also happens to be their spouse or immediate relative?"

If their areas of concern are different there's no problem. But you should require them to declare a conflict of interest and one of them to resile. But maybe I'm old-fashioned.

Export control laws force student to censor infosec research

"Does this imply that you can't tell foreign software companies about security holes you have found in their products?"

AFAICS, yes. It would also be illegal for any criminal to make use of the same holes should they discover them. Smart, very smart. Aren't we lucky we have such smart people looking after us?

UK TV is getting worse as younglings shun the BBC et al, says Ofcom

"British TV companies now spend less creating original material; scrapping regulations means you get low quality programming; and people are losing the habit of watching live TV."

Let's rearrange that sequence:

1. scrapping regulations means you get low quality programming;

2. British TV companies now spend less creating original material;

3. people are losing the habit of watching live TV.

1 leads to 2, 2 leads to 3 & a feedback loop from 3 to 2 makes the situation a runaway race to the bottom.

IPT: Sorry we confused Amnesty International with Egyptian group

We need competent oversight of GCHQ. This does not look like competent oversight.

NHS IT failures mount as GP data system declared unfit for purpose

Re: Employ their own consultants

"Our congratulations to Bob the tea boy, for his promotion to Head of project White Elephant!"

I think you missed "And require evidence that the named individuals actually have the clout to exercise that responsibility."

Re: Employ their own consultants

"The one thing you have to understand, if you really want to know why things like this happen, is that the ONE overriding concern of everyone involved on the government side of this, is THEY MUST NOT BE ABLE TO HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE."

Quick fix. The Treasury doesn't release funds for any project above £x without having the name of an individual who is held responsible. If cost overruns take a lower cost project up to £x no additional funds are released without their having the name of an individual who is held responsible. For existing projects over £x no further tranches are released without having the name of an individual who is held responsible. And require evidence that the named individuals actually have the clout to exercise that responsibility.

The Treasury hold the purse strings. They can lay down such conditions if they have the will-power to do so. It might cause ructions elsewhere but that's elsewhere's problem.

Chair legs it from UK govt smart meter installation programme

Re: A modest proposal

I think you had a little finger trouble here. When posting your excellent suggestion you seem to have accidentally added the joke Alert icon.

Windows 7 and 8.1 market share surge, XP falls behind OS X

Same tired old meme. Don't you realise Linux users stopped talking about the year of Linux on the desktop years ago. We want to keep the riff-raff out.

We read Hewlett Packard Enterprise's 316-page post-split blueprint so you don't have to

Re: Back to the future

And then Agilent could be renamed HP.

Linux Mint 17.2: If only all penguinista desktops were done this way

Re: Goodness. @Psy-Q

"Never had issues like the ones you describe."

I think we're reading it differently. AFAICT the first few lines are updating Arch, the rest is updating Windows for comparison.

Re: Goodness.

"If ever proof were needed that this website is basically a Linux fansite then surely this is it."

And do all the car reviews at the weekend prove that this is a <manufacturer> website?

Perhaps you need to understand the meaning of "review".

he traditional desktop paradigmT

"taskbar-like panels with applets, a start menu and system tray"

This misses out the most significant part: the ability to put files, folders*, links or applications on the desktop. The current fashion in "user experience design" is that you must follow the designer's workflow whether it's relevant to you or not.

Stuff designing my user experience, just provide a versatile user interface & I'll design my own experience.

Microsoft rushes out latest Windows 10 build. 300 fixes? Pff, whatever

Re: Absolute Morons

"5) Aero Stupdity and down grading existing GDI APIs in Vista. Win7 should have been free, only a SP."

OTOH there's someone here who keeps insisting that W10 not having Aero is a problem.

"They must have known about these issues"

Maybe the definition of "issue" is "big enough to crash & burn".

‘Clandestines' prompt British border blockade in France

Simple solution

No ship allowed to dock in Dover unless all vehicles aboard have been searched in port in Calais after loading. Of course this allow far fewer ships to sale from Calais so most of the traffic would be diverted to Belgium. How long would it take the Frogs to realise that the value to Calais of the cross-channel trade is worth beefing up their security?

Teaching people to speak English? You just need Chatroulette without the dick pics

Ladybird

If the scope extends to pre-schoolers the old Ladybird Peter & Jane books have a lot going for them. Back in the day they got my son reading within weeks aged about 4. The content may need updating (autre temps, autre mores). The crucial aspect of it was that learning involved three elements, the child, the material & a parent (or other reader) providing one-to-one support. The books provided well-paced material so that the parent didn't have to have skills in teaching reading.

Re: Chatroulette without the dick pics?

I'll defer to your greater knowledge. And Tim's.

Revive the Nathan Barley Quango – former Downing Street wonk

Re: Scandal-mag-cum-style-sheet

@Charlie Clark

You can't take a Slow Train to Chorlton-cum-Hardy any more - http://www.nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas/anotherhat_slow.html

And they don't write them like that any more either!

Public or private?

If it's to be public money then definitely not. If he's looking for private money then he's going to have to join all those Nigerian princes and others in competition for the attention of the gullible.

Giant FLYING SPACE ROCKS could KILL US ALL, warns Brian May

Re: Name for Doomsday Rock

"If it happens in our lifetimes at least we get to say we saw it happen."

No, we get to say we see it's going to happen.

Palaeoboffins discover 500 MILLION year old ARMOURED WORM

"no living direct ancestors"

Given that they themselves lived so long ago it would be a bit surprising if there ancestors were still alive.

No more customisation? Cloud Security Alliance calls for Open APIs

"protect PII (personally identifiable information) and sensitive data across" several other people's computers.

Oxymoron!

Get READY: Scientists set to make TIME STAND STILL tonight

"Both firms will implement a policy of cutting up the second and feeding it into the clocks on tens of thousands of their servers 12 hours either side of midnight."

The don't need to do this with leap-year days so why do they do it for leap seconds. Just allow an occasional 61 second minute.

Australian government demands signoff on telco network designs

"However, Stanton noted the government's indication that the laws won't be used against specific vendors."

I the laws aren't used against specific vendors then against whom are they to be used. AFAICS "against specific vendors" makes no sense at all so let's delete it.

"the government's indication that the laws won't be used"

So why have laws that won't be used? Because "we" (i.e. the govt.) can?

Why OH WHY did Blighty privatise EVERYTHING?

Re: We don't have a free market !!!!

PFI was largely just Brown up to his usual trick of making the future pay for his present.

Re: The Purpose of Government.

"after the public paid for the infrastructure"

The problem was that the public via the government wasn't paying anything like enough tor the infrastructure, hadn't done for years and wasn't likely to. By selling stuff off the government could get back of the value left in the historic investment and make the future Somebody Else's Problem - except when they totally muffed it.

Re: But public money...

At the time the railways were being privatised I was one of their victims AKA commuter. It struck me then that it was being done in a completely arse-about-face manner unlikely to improve my daily life. There was no reason at all to suppose that the infra-structure company would have any reason to align its plans, or lack thereof, with the requirements of the operating companies. Regional franchises removed scope for competition and the length of those franchises tended to inhibit all but the most essential investment.

The result was the same, largely ageing, hardware being operated but the same staff with, for the most part the same management with even less alignment between customer need and service provision.

It would have made sense to sell off whole lines, infra-structure & operations as a whole. It would have made sense to keep infra-structure separate but to allow multiple operating companies to run competing services over them. It would have made even more sense to have done the latter but split the infra-structure into regional companies so as to concentrate each management's attention on getting its own bit right.

Re: If you are old enough to remember

"The march of technology"

Ah yes, the saviour of us all. But only if someone has the money to invest in it. And the GPO didn't. The new chief executive who took over the newly separated but not yet privatised BT is supposed to have said that he found himself in charge of the black telephone rationing company.

BOFH: Don't go changing on Friday evenings, I don't wanna work that hard

Re: It's all in the plan

"rather than descend and climb 4 flights of stairs"

They could use the lift. But there have been a few nasty accidents with lift shafts. And the basement is so handy for the quicklime and carpet...

Gates: Renewable energy can't do the job. Gov should switch green subsidies into R&D

“Innovation really does bend the curve.”

Is that to straighten it out again or put a knot in it?

GCHQ heard you liked spying, so spied on itself spying on you

"correct legal basis"

There seems to be an assumption here that the current legal basis is correct. If the warrants are not granted by a proper judicial process it can't really qualify.

Capita: Call centre workers, can you fall on your swords? Please?

Re: Get out while you can

Seconded. But it looks as if the money is much less than I got.

'A Capita spokesman sent us a statement, saying more customers are using digital channels "rather than traditional customer service telephone channels" to log issues.'

My one experience of this was before the Crapita take-over so I can only imagine it's got worse. All I wanted to do was change a number from contract to PAYG. I tried the email route which was clearly handled in India. After several weeks I gave up & phoned for a PAC. Leeds arrange the PAYG on the spot. But I wish I'd got an email address for any of my old colleagues there, if any of them had survived, to send them an archive of 21 emails to and from the incapables.

Re: CORRRCT BUT NOT

The history of variously pissing on and pissing off staff by this business extends right back to BT Mobile days and "We're relocating from Euston to King's Langley. Oh, 80% of you still want to work for us. OK, we're not relocating there, we're going to Leeds instead. And by the way 'we' doesn't include most of us in the top team that made the decision."

Vegan eats BeEf, gets hooked

Re: It would be nice if banks were made aware

"The bank teller at the branch"

You've managed to find a branch that hasn't been closed?