Posts by EarthDog

The US would sooner see TSMC fabs burn than let China have them

Re: In order to stop another country from destroying you ....

It worked for the Russians and the Soviets.

Make Linux safer… or die trying

Re: Men

what happened to just user? "Human" also works. Aliens could be human as well, just not terran.

Re: @AC - Technology & Economics

In German "welt" vs. "umwelt", in English "The wide world" vs. the world as in the planet.

Re: Men

+1 human

US government says Silicon Valley Bank depositors can get their cash on Monday

FDIC only covers 250k of corp. accounts.

Which is ridicoulously low. If you want more than that you need commercial insurance (which doubtless will go up now). ALso any insurance companies on the line to cover other accounts will probably start selling stocks and bonds to cover the expense.

Other limitations may apply.

Great Graph Database Debate: Abandoning the relational model is 'reinventing the wheel'

Re: Riiight

considering that the paper was written in 2023 maybe a year. Seriously, this isn't like coming up with a new power up pack in a video game.

I've said it once and I will say it again

First off +1 to @sudo-su and @Pascal Monett

A big chunk of the problem is most programmers are functionally illiterate when it comes database models. There is is trend to get rid of DBAs. In one case I commented on they got rid of the DBA and replaced them with a programmer on the team. Basically ending up with a programmer with possibly no background and/or interest in data who is actually and embedded DBA and bound to make all the same old mistakes and re-invent the wheel time after time.

Re: "there usually isn't any money available for a DBA"

DBs are complex because the things they model are complex. E.g. human relationships.

Atlassian to dump 500 – by email – in the name of 'rebalancing'

5 percent

Just like everyone else it seems +/- 1 percent

https://www.fastcompany.com/90843280/why-tech-companies-lay-off-6-percent-of-employees

The Great Graph Debate: Revolutionary concept in databases or niche curiosity?

Re: well-architected relational databases

+1 most programmers I've known are functionally illiterate at RDMS, or any DB model in fact.

Re: Relational often gets the blame for SQL's shortcomings

Too many people don't know the difference between a relational database and a scripting language interface to a database API. *cough* NoSQL *cough*

Marketing

Basically we have Graph Databases due to marketing. "Hey look at are new shiney shiney graph databases! Pay no mind to what the hot new shiney shiney graph databases were in the 70s".

Codd saw the problems with graph and hierarchical databases and defined the Relational Model that solved those problems and more. He also created the Mathematics to back it up.

I've worked with both Graph and (at least quasi) Relational Database models. Relational (at least quasi) wins hands down. But hey, if you want to waste your money on a Graph Database where things take longer to build than they should and they often require constant maintenance, then I'm happy to take your coin.

A Graph DB Model is a subset of a Relational DB Model because a graph is a subset of a relation.

Here's what I see graph DB are liked by those who:

1) Don't know databases

2) Don't understand graph DBs

and/or

3) Don't understand the relational model. Related: that SQL is a scripting interface to a DB API and NOT a way of modeling data.

Yes I sound like a cranky old codger. In fact I am a cranky old codger who is tired of seeing the same mistakes made over and over. Now get off of my lawn!

WFH? Google Cloud's offices like a 'ghost town' before new policy

Re: You cannot eat your cake and have it.

with fewer people fewer meetings, more exclusive use of conference rooms.

Elon Musk yearns for AI devs to build 'anti-woke' rival ChatGPT bot

Re: It will write a positive poem about Trump

I wouldn't doubt he would find a way to leave behind some sort of "poison pill" we all have to deal after he goes.

Re: Meaning of "woke"

see also enlightened

Re: Anti-woke chatbot?

Adderal will do that. Look at how much he's aged in the last year or so.

Backup tech felt the need – the need for speed. And pastries and Tomb Raider

Re: Most tasks can be condensed onto 1 page of A4

and possibly puts the procedure in context and what to do if something starts to go wrong. E.g. faced with a problem you basic Windows user will want to warm start the machine. This could be a bad thing. Instead you get a warning "DO NOT REBOOT MACHINE!" a trouble shooting procedure to follow and who to call if said troubleshooting fails.

Re: Most tasks can be condensed onto 1 page of A4

you're confusing a check list with a procedure.

Ericsson pulls plug on 8,500 workers

Re: Elon leads the way

How good you are does not make a difference. I saw people with years of experince, solid code, and their names on several patents get thrown away.

Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs

What's the big deal?

Grave robbing is a grand old tradition Amongst Americans and Europeans. Ask King Tut

Conversational AI tells us what we want to hear – a fib that the Web is reliable and friendly

Re: Google is the new Microsoft? Quelle surprise...

Part of their play was hiring away talent from potential competitors. the basically gave the talent toy projects to play with to keep them happy while putting them under long term contracts to keep them away from competitors or starting up a company which might compete.

Southwest promotes internal IT executive to CIO in wake of that Christmas meltdown

Re: It is not that easy

it's a basic principle in Operations Research to never fill your queue over 75% . this is true not only in business capacity but in networking e.g. ethernet. But of course a network is a network.

NetApp ditches 8% of staff as customers put away wallets

Translation of "raising the bar on our performance

"get to work you filthy scum we're doing more with less. More unpaid overtime with less work/life balance"

Break up Google now, says US govt in ad monopoly lawsuit

I'll throw in Exxon-Mobile, The defense industry, Wal-Mart, Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Kroger-Safeway as part of a short list.

Google institutional investor calls for wider cuts: 30k jobs

Re: 50% not needed...

twitter is losing 4 million USD a day since Musk slashed workers. Sorry, the facts don't back you up?

British monarchy goes after Twitter, alleges rent not paid for UK base

Re: So, his "genius" is mainly..

I'd bet his parents were the same.

Re: If you owe the bank...

Hmmm.... is Special Branch still around?

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

Re: Bit ridiculous

"Freedom Toast"

Re: What of all the towns and cities named after Native American tribes?

In progress. The current movement is in removing the word "squaw" from maps and place names.

Re: Oracle? Sun? Java?

They could sue Anderson for infringement on windows. https://www.andersenwindows.com/windows-and-doors/

Re: PLease stop this...

They were forced to.

Re: Bit ridiculous

That's the version I read in the 1990's

Re: Bit ridiculous

Sphagehtti Westerns where they had Romani play the Mexicans

Re: Bit ridiculous

Every year God smites the Bible Belt. It's not that he hates those people. He just doesn't approve of thier "lifestyle".

Google datacenters use 'a quarter of all water' in one US city

Thermal pollution

There is such a thing as thermal pollution. If you change the temp. of a river or lake from normal ambient it can profoundly impact aqautic life

Boss installed software from behind the Iron Curtain, techies ended up Putin things back together

Re: When they own the business............

I'm the type that doesn't say anything, I just tell the wife. If you've ever experienced karma catching up with you and you have no idea how it could've happened, it might have been one of us.....

Programming error created billion-dollar mistake that made the coder ... a hero?

Unmaintainable code

Oblig. Dated but many of the principles still ring true and hilarious.

https://cs.fit.edu/~kgallagher/Schtick/How%20To%20Write%20Unmaintainable%20Code.html

Re: Explosive demonstration

I worked in a refinery and we did "lock out tag out". You had a brass name tag that fit on a pad lock. You used said pad lock to loch machinery in the "off" position. Thereby preventing an intense emotional events in the form of electrocutions or being sucked into large moving machinery. So if working on a system, lock it out because Mr. Murphy.

Elon Musk picks fight with Apple for slashing advertising spend on Twitter

Re: he should probably be trying to win friends rather than alienate them.

He's bought plenty

Investor tells Google: Cut costs now and stop paying staff so much

Killing off products could be a strategy. If your new product doesn't take off in x amount of time kill it. the alternative is the fallacy of sunk costs.

Let's turn it into a McCompany!

Let's race headlong for mediocrity in a downward death spiral like all those other tech companies (though it could be argued that Google+Alphabet is a marketing company that happens to produce tech as a side effect).

Take a one size fits all approach and let it become a McCompany with McJobs run by McManagers.

Just follow the instructions … no wait, not that instruction to lock everyone out of everything

We used to embed passwords for the test environ in documents as a safety. Much like the left-handed valve.

Training opportunity

I learned to use documentation for backup/recovery/installs etc. to new hires or interns for training purposes. There is nothing better at finding the bugs in documentation than a naïve user. Of course all training was done in a test environment.

Feel Luckey, punk? Oculus designer builds VR murder headset

A boon for the death penalty

Primitive nations with a death penalty would see this as a win.

Boffins find COVID changed the way sysadmins work – probably for the worse

Agile to waterfall

Has there been a shift from a more agile approach to waterfall? The quick survey they did has a lot of flaws but what do people think about this?

Re: Making changes

So basically, one person on the team became the embedded DBA

Catching a falling rocket with a helicopter more complex than it sounds, says Rocket Lab

take it to a soft landing area and then let the parachute do the rest.

Parody Elon Musk Twitter accounts will be suspended immediately, says Elon Musk

Re: This Is My Only Account

Money? That is so passe'. Payment in crypto currency only. I think I'll suggest it to the twit....

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

Re: The human race could be safe after all

Being a Yank I guarantee there is at least politician, perhaps several, who would jump at the opportunity.