Posts by D P Duck

Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater

Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School defacto owner of all variants of Linux

A line of code deep inside the Linux kernel is finally triggered in 2024. Research shows that the code that caused the error was created by an IBM engineer. Donald Trump, desperate for some good news, takes up the issue on behalf of ex-SCO executives and files a case that the Supreme Court swiftly examines. Due to a clerical error, the Supreme Court rules in favour of the plaintiff. It is then discovered that the only document that actually confirms the link between the code and SCO's ownership of same, was handed over to the staff of the Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School when they moved into the offices of Tarentella Inc (formerly SCO) in 2006. "You can stick that filing cabinet and all its contents in a place where the sun don't shine, buddy! You own all that sh1t now" was the decisive piece of evidence extracted from a witness statement filed by the staff of GBK when they lodged a complaint with the local police for a case of verbal assault.

RIP Bram Moolenaar: Coding world mourns Vim creator

A sad day. May his generosity remain an example for eternity.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bram at a Linux conference in the wild days before the Internet bubble burst. This was a time when everybody was focused on making a fortune with the new Internet economy where everything began with an "i". And here was Bram, quietly spreading the word about Charityware and dedicating himself to making at least one village in Africa a bit better off. What a fantastic human being.

God Bless, Bram. Rest in Peace

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

Spot on! AI is going to give the web the equivalent of BSE or financial derivatives

The problem with AI is that it is going to mix up facts with filler text to a point whereby we will no long really be able to trust any of the content we read online. This includes what I am now writing and the title of my comment. Future research will use AI to create new research which we will trust because it is, well, research material. In other words, just as with BSE and financial derivatives, we will no longer be able to separate what is facf from what is fiction. I don't mind watching a film that includes the warning, "This film is based on facts but some people and events have been added for dramatic effect", but I definitely don't want to have this when researching something serious.

Eurozone plans to formalize passenger data, improve security

Did Ireland leave the E.U.?

Venture capital biz hires former EMC CEO

Scaling companies is a very tough task, but not one Mr Tucci did well in.

Mr Tucci did pull off an incredible set of escape tricks during his time at EMC and may well have saved it from ceasing to exist after the Internet bubble burst. However, he did not scale the company from what it was into a bigger, better EMC. He bloated it up into a giant patch-work of semi-integrated companies that eventually became too big to move forward. Scaling is very, very hard to do.

Email proves UK boffins axed from EU research in Brexit aftermath

Re: No suprise....

France and Germany are getting the financials? Oh no! Who is going to create the next financial crisis? Time is running out here, the UK is moving towards paying off the deficit created by that overvalued and overpayed section of the economy. Personally I would welcome rebalancing the UK economy by sending that lot elsewhere and let somebody else can pay the price for their fat bonuses.

Eat me, Michael: 98% of EMC shareholders back Dell mega-gobble

The only way to go.

EMC had run itself into a corner (albeit quite a lucrative one). As I said before the Dell-EMC deal was announced: "EMC will have to kill itself to survive". EMC is gone, long live EMC!

I just hope that as many people as possible keep their jobs. The rest of this deal will just be about the dispersal of spoils to the share-holders and the board (which is not unusual or nasty, just the way corporations work). Once that is over it is my hope that the "new" EMC can survive and once again do great things in the area of technology.

Apeiron claims NVMe fabric speed without NVMe over fabrics - but how?

Re: I've got this hammer, everything is a nail

I don't think that I can agree with the statement ".. in an era where latency is everything". I also think that you are contradicting the title of your post "I've got this hammer, everything...", but I may have misunderstood you there!

Surely latency is not the only thing that is going to make a new technology succeed in the data centre? Simplicity and scale-out are also very important.

However, I do think it will be difficult for Apeiron to succeed. We are inundated with new storage technology, so it might be difficult for the company to convince customers that this is the "silver"/"magic" bullet.

With that said, I do recall many years ago hearing about a small disk system that used commodity drives to emulate IBM mainframe DASD. At the time I said "I find it hard to believe that that thing will fly"! A few years later I began my; 20 year career with EMC (which involved quite a bit of flying for myself). You might like to check out Apeiron's careers page :-)

Speaking in Tech: Techcast on Brexit 'You can't argue with people'

Re: "Speaking in Tech" does not normally do politics. Wise. Keep it that way.

I think it was the general assumption that one side is mad (i.e. leave) and the other is sane. I've spent months and months thinking about it and I still wonder what is the best move. Also the focus on reports that people were now regretting voting "Leave" and the general impression that the loony racists are now taking over control of the country. Finally, they fact that they did not even know whether or not Wales voted leave or remain. That apparently required too much research so they decided to dump the blame for all the bad stuff on rural England. I'm sure that I could get on a podcast and rabbit on about how dumb the American democrats are not to select Bernie Saunders or that Trump's success shows just how extreme and racist all Americans are.

I suppose that the Monty Python got it all summed up in their "Election Night Special" sketch all those years ago. You know, the Sensible party versus the Silly party and the little pink pussy cat taking Barrow-in- Furness (gain from the Liberals). http://www.montypython.net/scripts/election.php.

P.S.

I don't live in England. I just think that all sweeping statements are rubbish (apart from this one, of course).

"Speaking in Tech" does not normally do politics. Wise. Keep it that way.

I was amazed at the lack of understanding displayed during the "Brexit Bananas" section. Making sweeping comments about subjects you do not understand is not a good thing to do. Factual mistakes, and poorly researched observations are not what I expect from this Techcast. My advise for the presenters would be to steer clear of politics. I myself will review my impressions of American society and politics to make sure I am not guilty of such misconceptions myself. Now, let me think, was it New York or Mexico where they speak "Mexican"? I think I'll drop George an email.

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

Re: Anti-democratic?

That is a case of two wrongs not making a right. Mr Farage was wrong to suggest this in the first place. His idea was also undemocratic. But your point raises a worrying question: why do so many people who engage in the democratic process not seem to understand it? 72% of the population found democracy important enough to vote. Of those who were interested in democracy a majority of them decided "Leave" was the correct option. Anybody who did not vote and is now outraged by the result has just learnt a very valuable lesson in the importance of exercising their democratic right to vote.

P.S.

I am Irish (the lower section of it), have a U.K. passport and live in The Netherlands. I did not vote in the referendum nor sign the petition. I also have no friends in the Vatican although I do like and admire the current Pope.

Saddam Hussein did receive 100% of the vote just before this Wicked West spoilt his show. My goodness can democracy ever win?

:-)

EMC, Cisco and pals nail colours to the EU Remain mast

Please let us not use a techie approach to this. Let's read the manual first.

I recommend that everybody read the "Treaty of Lisbon" http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C:2007:306:TOC.

I've just started and it is really helping me differentiate between the rhetoric and facts that are being thrown at us by both camps. I still have a long way to go before I can make any definite decision about "To Brexit or not to Brexit", but I tend to lean towards Brexit. This is largely due to my belief that more admin never helped any organization/company/country achieve lasting success.

Happy reading!

Pair programming: The most extreme XP practice?

Re: 1+1 = 3

And the Typhoon is also been adapted to fulfil the ground-attack role. So I think we broadly agree.

1+1 = 3

This is a term that I first heard used by the RAF in 1981 to emphasize the benefit of the two-seater Tornado.

The new RAF aircraft is the Typhoon, which is a single-seater aircraft. Did they change their minds about pair-flying? Do the Typhoon and Tornado fulfil different air-support needs? I don't see any clear yes/no answers to these questions nor the question "Is pair-programming the best approach to producing software"?

I still say that the old term "Different horses for different courses" is you best guide-line.

Happy arguing!

Re: Two words

A text review by somebody sitting beside you would have helped with the formulation of your "two-word" question or at least challenged you to write something else :-)

Still crap?

(which is without doubt two words).

This is why copy'n'paste should be banned from developers' IDEs

Re: Size doesn't matter

This is very tr..? How did that command work again?

Violin Memory offers starter kits to tempt flash storage virgins

How important is array level synchronous replication these days?

When I consider all the synchronization techniques being introduced at higher levels in the I/O stack, I wonder if this feature of the new Violin kit is really a differentiating factor that will encourage new customers to go for the kit? Doesn't it just double up the cabling that would be required for a vMotion or Software Defined Storage type of environment?

Perhaps there are specific high performance applications that might benefit from this array-array synchronization, but I'm not sure it is going to boost sales enough to get the firm back into favour with the stock market.

Zuck's bucks are now the world's 6th-largest cash pile

Re: We can all do our bit

I have a FB account, but I can't remember the last time I logged into it. Are you sure you shouldn't be seeing somebody about an addiction problem :-)

Is this the same company that paid a whopping 4,000 pounds to HRMC?

How do they do it? When one considers the penal tax regime that FaceBook is subjected to it is amazing that they can be so successful. I must drop along to their tax haven office in Amsterdam to ask them how the do it!

Disclaimer:

I am not suggesting that FaceBook is doing anything illegal. I know that they are a well run company that adheres to all tax laws they can avoid.

Apple to add 1000 jobs to Cork payroll

I'm not sure I can agree with the idea of Ireland's economy being destroyed by expulsion from the EU. That might allow Ireland to decide to postpone its payments to the EU for about, let me think, 1000 years okay?

Actually, I would have no problem with the EU enforcing such rules on Ireland, but only if the same would apply to other areas of Europe that appear to be rather handy (hush, hush) tax havens. For example, they could have a little chat with Monaco, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. Bit of tax dodging going on there (slight understatement).

I think that one euro fine is probably the same as paying tax on "legal" earnings in Monaco.