Posts by Am I Consing Yet?

Facebook deletes 17 accounts, dusts off hands, beams: We've saved the 2018 elections

Re: I really don't understand

What you say is correct, but I wonder if people are trusting what they read in Social Media _because_ they have lost all trust in conventional news reporting. They have more trust in something that a random stranger says because they think it's a real person, not an organisation after commercial or political gain.

That stranger on Social Media is "us" in the "them and us" equation.

They're wrong of course; the most damaging use of Social Media is absolutely coming from organisations for commercial and political gain, but the Social Media platforms make it easy for those orgs to look like random strangers, and therefore "us". How can FB ever differentiate between "Joe Bloggs" and "Joe Bloggs posting what EvilCorp has paid him to post"? I don't have the answer.

At last! Apple admits its MacBook Pro butterfly keyboards utterly suck, offers free replacements

No offering for people who need their machines to work every day

I have one of the machines in question, and the keyboard (whole top-case in fact) needs replacing. They quote 3 to 7 working days turnaround for the repair. I have the AppleCare extended warranty so cost is not an issue in my case - but being without a machine for a week or so is very much a problem for me. I have discussed this at some length with both Apple Store retail staff and "premium resellers".

Naturally, replacing the top case does not take 3 - 7 days. The issue is that when you hand over your Mac it goes into a queue. The turnaround time will depend on how many others are queuing ahead of you. I asked why the machine couldn't remain in my possession while it is queuing, but "that's not a service we offer".

I am able to work in the meantime by using an external keyboard but this is not always convenient. I now think I'll have to take it in for repair the day before I go on my summer holiday, then hope it's fixed by the time I return. This isn't straightforward either - you cannot book in for a repair more than 7 days in advance, and sometimes you'll find that all repair slots in your nearby stores are already taken.

A chap working in a London Apple Store suggested that I should buy a new MBP, use it while my old one is being repaired, and then return the new one "no questions asked" so long as it's within 14 days. Remarkable that they would tolerate this, but I won't do it anyway because it feels a bit too risky.

For the price of my AppleCare extended warranty, I could have added next-day onsite repair to a Dell laptop, and I'm sure that's true of many other brands as well. I like my Mac (apart from the keyboard issue), but for work I mainly run Windows on it. Next time I choose a new laptop for work, I cannot possibly buy another Mac because they have no "keep you working" service option.

Apple agrees to pay £136m in back idiot taxes to UK taxman

"...the company has agreed..."

Is this like I agree not to murder people, or agree not to take your car without asking...?

The language around this stuff is all wrong.

It should read "We received this tax bill. Our accountants checked it and found it to be accurate. We paid it."

Likewise, there should never be talk of a "settlement". That implies both parties have had to reach a compromise. That's all wrong.

Believe me, I know from good experience that UK tax legislation is vague, and intentionally so. Accountants have no interest in that ever changing, and they are the people consulted whenever government thinks of changing anything around tax. But, a tax demand is a tax demand, not an invitation to negotiate. At least, that's how it should be.

Oh good, half of Defra's Brexit projects involve IT

Future-proofing is designed out

Years ago I was invited to sit in on a design review meeting in one of those IT companies that specialises in UK public sector projects. I didn't work for them, but was doing some consulting for them at the time.

A little embarrassed, I kept pointing out obvious future-proofing steps they could take with their design, so that delivery of v2 would be much cheaper. You know, the kind of things that private-sector projects do all the time. They had some smart people, but they were just not interested in my suggestions. Then in a coffee-break, one of them explained why...

1. By the time the system is live there could be a different government, with a different agenda, so there might never be a v2

2. If a v2 is commissioned, there has to be a bidding process and a rival vendor might get the work. Why make it easier for them?

3. If v2 is commissioned and we get the work again, we want it to be a lengthy project so that our profit margins can be kept high. No real incentive to make it easy for ourselves.

I'm not saying all of those things makes complete sense to me, but that was the logic they employed.

This doesn't explain why all public-sector projects go over-budget. In fact, you could argue this should make them easier to deliver on-budget. But it does make you think about the mindset involved.

IBM UK: Oh, remote workers. We want to be colocated with you again

Text is clearer than speech

I picked up on this...

...easier for co-workers to “clarify things” with each other when they sat “side by side” in a shared “working space”...

I'm going to assume they mean that speaking yields more clarity than written language. In my experience that is a false assertion, but I accept it depends on your relative skills with spoken and written language.

Or am I assuming the wrong meaning? Perhaps they mean that people who sit together will know what their neighbours are working on by overhearing, whether they want to or not, and will therefore have a better understanding when that neighbour tells them something. I'm not sure I believe this either. In my world (software development) we benefit a lot from having things written down, and proximity limits how much information we capture because people find it easier to speak than type. I often work remotely and colleagues phone me, saying "it's easier than typing". Yes, it's easier to speak than to type, but it's not easier to listen and remember than to read and re-read.

Attack of the Digital People: The BBC goes fully Bong

Post-Hutton BBC

Fully agree that it would be preferable for the BBC to concentrate its efforts on numeracy or real literacy, but the Government has decided that all kids should be taught to code.

It's been commented here many times in the past how cynical that policy is.

But since Hutton, the BBC has to support the Government's policies, even if it might disagree with them. It's a sad state of affairs, but I don't think the BBC deserves most of the blame for it.