Posts by shawn.grinter

HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M

Utter stupidity

Before MTD I could file my VAT return by just filling in an online form, which sounded pretty digital to me. Now I have to fill the same info into an Excel spreadsheet and pay a third party to upload it and send it to HMRC

What twat thought this was more efficient!

IBM dragged down by DOGE contract cancellation roulette

What comes around....

So not all bad then....

Payday from hell as several British banks report major outages

Re: Making changes

Actually the rules came in 31 March 2023 but as you say the last day before they are enforced is 31 March 2025.

(If you think U.K. Banks are bad I know one Bank in the EU where ALL it’s mainframe software is out of support, in some cases by 7 years and their mid-tier vulnerability/exposure index has over 5 million entries!

Lloyds Bank reviews tech and engineering personnel in reorg

Re: "We are excited"...

No, "Valuing"

As in we value your call, but won't hire staff to answer it

As in we value your custom, but not enough to make sure our systems are robust

As in we Value your loyalty, but you won't get anything back in return

etc...

Microsoft tries out wooden bit barns to cut construction emissions

Storm proof?

Given the destruction aren’t by recent hurricanes I hope it’s out of the path of any storms. Wood is great in earthquake zones (hence why Japan uses it so much) but less so for tornadoes!

Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids

Fox News Next Please

Given the huge sums paid to American "news" anchors I hope they are looking over their shoulder!

And lets face it some of them could do with being replaced.

Thinks: I wonder if there is a "fake news" (aka lies) available in ChatGPT....

Hangover from messy Walmart tech divorce ongoing at Asda

Mental

So mid migration the TUPE critical staff, Silly Billies, what could possibly go wrong……

Too late now for canary test updates, says pension fund suing CrowdStrike

Offshore

I bet CrowdStrike regret offshoring their Development to India in Spring 2024 - how much money did that save you chaps......

CrowdStrike meets Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will

Offshoring

No comment on the fact CrowdStrike offshored their development to India in early 2024!

Administrators have update lessons to learn from the CrowdStrike outage

Development location

And I’m sure moving their development effort to India in Feb 2024 had nothing to do with it.

EU gave CrowdStrike the keys to the Windows kernel, claims Microsoft

Re: Dave Plummer has a different take on this

I watched this too and it' an excellent review. One extra piece of information is that CrowdStrike moved their development to India in Feb 2024.

Related, I couldn't possibly comment

:-)

CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes

Bad procedures

Who in their right minds let’s a third party directly patch a Production/Customer facing system?

Study finds 268% higher failure rates for Agile software projects

Quelle Suprise

Possibly because most orgs say “agile” when they really mean “cheap”.

And surprise surprise they have no staff to do the work.

UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims

Tragic

How do you compensate being dead?

Once more a classic case of those in power getting away with it, they sit around with their ill gotten gains and gongs whilst the little people are in the ground.

Taxing times: UK missed out on £1.75B because of digitization delays

New definition of "Digital"

For VAT I used to be able to type values from my Accounting Software** into boxes on HMRC site, confirm and submit. HMRC confirmed successful submission there and then Thus all in my view "digital"

*NOW* I have to take the values from my Accounting Software, type it into an *EXCEL* spreadsheet (macOS Numbers not supported for my gateway), save it, send it to my Accountants portal, upload it, confirm OK, hit the "send" button, confirm with the gateway it was OK then asynchronously wait for HMRC to say OK.

Oh, and HMRC Basic Tools no longer works on current version of macOS

**Doesn't support direct submission.

Data breach reveals distressing info: People who order pineapple on pizza

Re: Having grown up in Hawaii

As a child of the 70'2 - Gammon and Pineapple was " a thing", so Ham and Pineapple is too by extension.

So if you are going to put Ham on a Pizza, expect me to add Pineapple :-)

Of course "real" pizza should only have tomato, mozzarella and basil....

<ducks>

Resilience is overrated when it's not advertised

Re: Fallback fault-tolerant

When I worked for a certain oil company our pair of IBM mainframes were called Zen and Orac

IBM gives z/OS an AI infusion in major upgrade aimed in part at easing admin chores

AI Error message

HAL9000E - I'M SORRY DAVE I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT

Explanation:

The system has detected the removal of memory modules

System Actions

Recovery action has been initiated

Operator Action

Put on Space Suit and report incident to IBM.

Aspiration to deploy new UK nuclear reactor every year a 'wish', not a plan

Thorium-R-Us...

I wish the UK would look at the Thorium cycle!

So many potential benefits and you can use them to "eat" radioactive waste.

Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law

Small companies

Are “small” companies even trading with the EU now, I thought most of them have given it up as a bad job.

Oh the humanity: McDonald's out of milkshakes across Great Britain

Finally - A Brexit Benefit

Well, one at last - a healthier population no longer able to stuff their face with the sugar, cream, corn syrup, and a handful of contained therein!

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Awaiting FlatTards....

I can wait to see what the Flat Earthers make of this one.... even the pictures out the window show the curvature...

Still Reality was never their strong point (or Science for that matter)

Having said that Branson is so obviously one of the Lizard People that they will find it easy to debunk.

UK's data watchdog probes use of private email to discuss government business at the Department of Health

Best Option

Given HMG's record on IT projects I'd say gmail was the most secure method of communication....

Either that or tying a scrap of paper to a brick and chucking it through the ministries window,,,,

Gov.UK vows to chop red tape in the digital sector. What could possibly go wrong?

UK Gov have done such a good job thus far on Red Tape

Yes, we "took back control" of:

1) Our borders - now we can't sent undocumented migrants back as we are no longer part of the Dublin Protocol (Well done France - sell them a boat and they are no longer your problem)

2) Our trade - we are just waving through imports and exports are (partially) nadgered (Anyone want some more Bi-Valve mollusks with their Chips?)

3) Our Laws - I think NI might have a word or two to say about that.

And we've sooooo reduced Red tape - ever seen a lorry manifest post Brexit - it's gone from 4 sheets to an inch thick wad!

Still, on the plus side, Truckers, Meat Packers, Brickies, Plumbers et al can now get decent rates so it's not all bad.... Oh, and we chuck out some Bankers too - Bonus.

You can trust Worzel Gummage to follow through on promises...

IBM email fiasco complicates sales deals, is worse than biz is letting on – sources

Re: "a variety of alternative communications tools"

Ah the 1052 - those were the days, the best 134 baud money could buy....

(And yes I actually used one)

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

Mine...

I'd want:

/*

//

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

Actually the Pope isn't Catholic.....

QI answer - the man in the white robes in the Vatican has many titles (Bishop of Rome etc) but Pope *isn't* one of them... IIRC it's the Egyptian Orthodox Pontiff is the only one actually with the title of Pope...

British bank TSB says it will fix days-long transaction troubles tonight

Computer Say No

The Bank that likes to say..... 401

UK tech supply chain in dark over Brexit preparations months ahead of final heave-ho

Bye lads....

My offer for a house in Ireland has been accepted. By lads, have fun without me....

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

I can just see it....

IT says: Enter 10 digit code for Customs Item

Me: None - I'm coming back empty

IT says: Invalid Entry please try again..

ALGOL 60 at 60: The greatest computer language you've never used and grandaddy of the programming family tree

OK, that's it.....

OK, so I'm officially "old" - I wrote my first programs in Algol 60!

These days I just use an abacus.

Lords: New IR35 off-payroll tax rules 'riddled with problems, unfairnesses, unintended consequences'

No sh*t sherlock

Well that's stating the obvious - not that it will matter...

Hasta la Windows Vista, baby! It's now officially dead – good riddance

Embiggen

WTF....

CBI: Brexit Britain needs a 'sensible and flexible' immigration programme

Re: dual nationality

Me too - I think you have to jump through a few hoops re residency and hand over 1000 Euro, otherwise I'll be in the queue behind you!

Regards,

Shawn