Posts by Herring`

Open source 'Office' options keep Microsoft running faster than ever

Re: Office schmoffice...

PIP LPT:=CON:

US Army may be about to 'waste' up to $22b on Microsoft HoloLens

Surely asking end-users whether the product is useable/useful would set a dangerous precedent for large technology projects

Heresy: Hare programming language an alternative to C

Re: No moving targets

Well, quite.

The evolution of programming languages seems to go like this:

1. Initial reasonable idea

2. Acceptance

3. Flurry of "wouldn't it be great if we have $feature like $otherlanguage"

4. Bloat to the point of incomprehensibility

5. Someone proposes another language. goto 1.

When I largely stopped coding and took up drawing pictures full time, C++ was pretty nice. We had templates and exceptions. When I look it at now, it's like WTAF?

Oracle, SAP suspend business in Russia amid invasion

Re: OK, less of a sanction then a favor isn't it?

I was thinking that. Oracle shouldn't pull out - it should put people in and do a license audit of the whole country

No help for IT contractors on IR35 tax errors

One of Johnson's big -repeated - lies to parliament is that there are more people in work than before the pandemic. There are more people on PAYE than there were pre-Covid, but the number of self-employed has plummeted and there are fewer people in work when you include them. This week's More or Less is worth a listen. They even mention IR35 as a factor.

Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter after deadly Autopilot crash

The comparisons with aircraft auto-pilots are not really valid. Go outside and look up. The sky is massive and not crowded with aeroplanes. Something unexpected happens in a plane, the autopilot disconnects and sounds an alarm, the pilots have a fair amount of time to react and sort it out (OK, maybe not a TCAS RA).

In a car, on the road, you might be < 1 second travel time from a hazard. That's not much time for the "driver" to become aware that the software isn't handling it, put down their book and take action. Yeah, Tesla are pretty irresponsible for marketing this as "full self driving".

Hauliers report problems with post-Brexit customs system but HMRC insists it is 'online and working as planned'

They've had since January 1973 to work out how to leave the EU

That's 49 years to sort out what they were going to do. It's almost as if this wasn't totally thought through.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

Re: Misquote

Or the "politically acceptable" is the enemy of the adequate

Belgium watchdog reckons online advertisers should be data controllers under GDPR

Consumer behaviour indicates that folks would rather have their data slurped and be bothered by ads than pay for a service.

Mind you, at least one website I pay a few quid to doesn't mind if paying members turn on their ad blockers

EasyJet flight loadsheet snafu caused by software 'code errors' says UK safety agency

Don't the pilots have trim wheels? They should look on it as a challenge.

Intel's €80bn European chip plant investment plan not bound for UK because Brexit

Re: Deal done

I would imagine that Intel want to sell chips into the EEA. In which case, they will have to deal with the "rafts of EU bureaucracy" anyway. If they are in the UK, they will have to deal with UK bureaucracy plus the EU. Makes no sense.

Electron-to-joule conversion formulae? Cute. Welcome to the school of hard knocks

Re: "a multitude of fresh qualifications counted for naught"

Clearly the NQE had never heard of a Tesla Valve

UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead

I thought that paedophiles already controlled an area of the internet the size of Ireland.

IBM's first 7nm Power10 chip arrives in E1080 server system with a wealth of shiny features

Can it run Cry...

I can think of an easier way of saving money on Oracle licenses

Council culture: Software test leads to absurd local planning SNAFU

Re: Not absolutely no means.

Reading Private Eye, it seems that listed buildings which developers are seeking to demolish are far more flammable than most other constructions.

Guntrader breach perp: I don't think it's a crime to dump 111k people's details online in Google Earth format

Sigh. While I don't want to revert to <gloucestershire>they dunt unnerstan urr cuntry ways</gloucestershire>, the conflation of "people who own guns" with hunt supporters isn't correct. I know plenty of people from where I grew up who a) have guns and b) hate the hunt because of the chaos those entitled bastards cause. Farmers have all sorts of reasons for having guns - including humanely dispatching injured livestock and pest control. For farmers, the countryside isn't a thing to gawp at or wander through (with your uncontrolled dogs and leaving gates open), it's their place of work.

BTW, my parents had chickens years ago. I also hate foxes. But the hunt used to encourage them.

When everyone else is on vacation, it's time to whip out the tiny screwdrivers

Re: Haynes Manuals

Oh god. Brings back memories of owning a British car that was built in the 1970s.

Faster .NET? Monster post by Microsoft software engineer shows serious improvements

Re: 1.07 MB for a "Hello World"?

Not a complete implementation. Text should be "Hello, world!"

Magna Carta mayhem: Protesters lay siege to Edinburgh Castle, citing obscure Latin text that has never applied in Scotland

Did she die in vain?

Disappointed that nobody has referenced the Hancock.

Before I agree to let your app track me everywhere, I want something 'special' in return (winks)…

Red Guitars

Bloody hell. I thought nobody else remembered that song.

Talking of songs, the woman in the Flake advert, she has Dickie Davies Eyes

D'oh! Misplaced chair shuts down nuclear plant in Taiwan

... setting off a chain reaction that tripped the main steam turbine and stopped the reactor...

Technically it stopped a chain reaction.

UK celebrates 25 years of wasteful, 'underperforming' government IT projects

Re: Yeah, but no

One thing that was interesting in Covid: with the furlough program, there was no time to bring in the external consultants. So the in-house HMRC people developed it. And they did it really quickly and it worked.

I've always worked in the private sector. Yes, the big consultancies also screw companies there, but you don't normally get to hear about it.

Hole blasted in Guntrader: UK firearms sales website's CRM database breached, 111,000 users' info spilled online

Two sides of the pond

Here in UKia, people realise you're more likely to be targeted by criminals if they know you have a gun.

I'm not anti-gun BTW. I know farmers who have firearms. Our system where you can have a gun if a) you have a reasonable use for one and b) you're not a nutcase, well that seems fair.

Alan Turing Institute to spend UK.gov grants on AI for air traffic control and banking

Interesting

AI: "FU891 Ascend to FL 140 and turn left 160"

Pilot (having a bad day): "Unable"

AI: "I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand that"

Pilot: "UNABLE"

AI: "I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand that"

Pilot: "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY. We have lost power in both engines"

AI: "If you require a human controller, please say Yes"

....

The policy of truth: As ransomware claims rise, what's a cyber insurer to do?

Layer 8 problem?

How many of these bits of malware get in through users clicking on links or opening attachments in emails? Let's face it, that's a far easier way in than trying to get past tech.

And how many C-levels demand access to their GMail/social media/etc?

Also ob. SMBC https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-02-20

Nvidia dips its toes into IaaS with subscriptions for DGX SuperPOD AI supercomputers

Ob.

Can it run Crysis in 4K?

Congestion or a Christmas cock-up? A Register reader throws himself under the bus

Re: PICNIC?

Layer 8 problem

'Biggest data grab' in NHS history stuffs GP records in a central store for 'research' – and the time to opt out is now

Once the records of Johnson's many visits to the clap clinic get leaked, they might re-think.

Transcribe-my-thoughts app would prevent everyone knowing what I actually said during meetings

Minutes

Well, from Orwell, you should remember that he who controls the past controls the future. Taking the minutes gives you control over the past. Nobody reads them when you send them out so you can put what you like.

UK banking was struck by one IT fail every day for most of 2018

It's interesting* that it's only in Monopoly that you get a bank error in your favour.

*I lied

Age checks for online pr0n? I've never heard of it but it sounds like a good idea – survey

Re: Choices Choices.....

I've got an Amazon VM in the US which I've been using to test stuff. I also put OpenVPN on it and that works pretty well. I found TOR a bit slow. I knew nothing about VPNs but with the help of the internet, it didn't take too long to get it working.

There are a lot of websites. The BBFC are going to have to take on a lot of people to check them all. I'm surprised that we haven't seen wanted ads for porn checkers.

Hey mate, are you dense? Why, yes. Yes, I am, says the NAND in Micron's new client SATA SSD

Is the speed the same for the SATA and the m.2?

Dratted hipster UX designers stole my corporate app

It's not just designers

People in IT rarely seem to be interested in spending time watching what users actually do. Specs are often thrashed out with managers of the users who don't spend any time with them either. I've winced when seeing people in the call centre trapped between an angry caller (with broken $EXPENSIVE_THING) and shit software that doesn't tell them what they need to know.

The other thing with software for internal use: if users are on it all day, does it make more sense to have something that takes a little longer to learn but once learned is very fast to operate, or to have something "intuitive" that's always slow to operate?

Why does that website take forever to load? Clues: Three syllables, starts with a J, rhymes with crock of sh...

Re: Ads on the web

I subscribe to one that tells you it doesn't advertise/track if you subscribe. I use a blocker as well though.

Re: Ads on the web

$1.40 a day sounds OK to me too.

Maybe, instead of wasting time on the internets while pretending to work, I should set about designing a global micropayments service. I reckon you could preserve privacy too by having the service throw anonymous tokens at the sites providing the content and then bundling up all the payments in one.

Hmm.

Ads on the web

The ad people don't seem to get it. If you make adverts intrusive and annoying, people will start ad-blocking. Once they start blocking, they won't stop. Running a fucktonne of 3rd party JS counts as intrusive and annoying. Advertisers are the ones who have killed the goose etc.

If someone could come up with a decent micropayments service for accessing things like news, that might be better. I pay for news sites I use all the time, but I'm not going to subscribe to sites that I look at 5 times a month.

I am just a mapper: Solar drones take to the skies above Blighty

Re: What can you fit in 25kg...

I couldn't watch the animation, but 60,000ft is a bit less than 20km while a stable low earth orbit is more like 200km. Since the demise of Concorde, no passenger jets get higher than about 45,000 feet.

Article removed

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

Well, one is obviously 1,654 better than the other.

If it looked and worked exactly like Office 2003, I'd be on it like a shot.

German competition watchdog tells Facebook to stop combining user data without consent

I like it when websites try to tell you that "targeted advertising" is a benefit for users.

Using WhatsApp for your business comms? It's either that or reinstall Lotus Notes

Notes

OK, I may be in a minority here, but aside from the horrible UI, Notes was pretty good for developing workflow apps. Also some nice security features. These days I sometimes come across a requirement for something that needs workflow/DMS/email/security etc. but there isn't anything else that quite fits the bill.

Microsoft decides Internet Explorer 10 has had its fun: Termination set for January 2020

Browsers

Can't we have a moratorium on developing browsers? Just bug fixes and security patches to existing ones - no more features. What started off as a way to display HTML pages has turned into a bloated monster that eats all your RAM and lets the bad guys get to your stuff. Enough.

Disk drives suck less than they did a couple of years ago. Which is nice

I keep thinking I need to build/buy an external storage thingy for home (RAID 10). I was thinking of buying drives from different manufacturers so they don't all fail due to the same cause at the same time. Mirroring across identical drives (from the same batch) seems like a recipe for trouble.

Gripe to UK, Ireland, Poland: Ad tech industry inhales, then 'leaks' sensitive info on our health, politics, religion

I don't know why the big tech companies have such a hard time understanding GDPR. Even managers can grasp the fundamentals.

By gum(stick): Samsung speeds up 970 EVO Plus drive

Re: Is my maths wrong?

Cheers for confirming.

The cynic in me looks at the hardware we're running these days and thinks "what if we were writing software as efficiently as we were 25 years ago?"

Is my maths wrong?

But PCIe 3.0 x 4 is 32Gb/s. So 3.5GB/s is close to the limit.

My motherboard only has one M.2 slot - which is a shame. Being able to stripe these could up the throughput a bit. If I had enough PCI lanes. Which I don't

Slack to fend off the collaboration competition with... a new logo

What's wrong with IRC?

The Large Hadron Collider is small beer. Give us billions more for bigger kit, say boffins

Bigger than the SSC was going to be

Well, according to Wikipedia. I think they should go bigger though.