Posts by Fred Daggy 522 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2018
Not sure. They ARE spouting the line, though.
I think its nothing but a good old fashioned scare campaign. Make the droids feel like their job is under threat - they'll take lower wages and longer hours. Win for the company.
And if the promises of AI turns out to be true then they have a double win!
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Now, how to we make the C-suite feel like THEY can be replaced by AI?
I have personally participated in different websites with their forums on some esoteric topics. (Different alias to El Reg). Two of these just went blue and upped daisies. Gone, from one day to the next. One because of bad hardware, the other because the owners no longer cherished the labour of love it had become.
The niche topics that they hosted may have been backed up on archive.org. Or not. The one that had outlived its owners good wishes had the content sold and is behind a paywall (for which I am not receiving any royalties, not did I consent to that move, alas, consent was probably in the fine print).
The forums of the website that died was probably the only first hand accounts of planning, building, operations and neglect of various objects in its subject matter. Niche topics, sure, but are part of the record of those times. Now, just disappeared in to the ether.
Putting this info on Reddit isn't any better. Nor Google. One day, these operations can just start pining for the the fjords too. Indeed, the content can be just deleted at the whim of the owner.
Perhaps when an appropriate archive format is settled on, the various content hosters can also come together on an export that would allow national libraries to collect this and maintain it for future generations. (eg, an actual export from Wiki, or Confluence, that can be read and archived by others).
Now I have had a cup of wake me up juice, is the other reason why C-Suite and BoD love RTO mandates. Colour me surprised, it is packed with self interest.
Commercial real estate is often valued as a multiplier of last commercial rent, not at what the market will bear. With WFT, there is less demand for real estate, so, pressure on rents to drop. Cue happy business? No, cue unhappy BoD.
Often the BoD have interests in real estate, directly or indirectly. What better way line the pocket "full of green" to have an over the odds rental/purchase of property? Conflict of interest? Much, but I'm sure the other members of the board will vote the right way, after all, you'd do the same for them, right? Same applies even if the company owns the premises - that's been used to prop up loans and cover up declining value for years, I'm sure.
Time for a second cup of evil.
If bosses really wanted people to come in to the office, then it might be good not to make the office a living hell.
An often cited reason for RTO is collaboration, but this relies on people being easy to contact. Eg, not behind closed office doors. Natural progression of this argument is an open plan or cube farm hellscape. (I don't buy this excuse, but rather more psychological base needs of C-suite and expressions of power "Oooooh, look at the size of my army" (as a proxy for other small parts of C-suite anatomy) ) Funny that the C-Suite almost always have their own office, potentially even guarded by a dragon (um, normally a personal assistant). C-Suite seem to collaborate between themselves just fine, while keeping the peons out.
Make the office environment actually pleasant to be in. Nooks, crannies, plants, and chill out areas at a minimum. Some places do this well, others, not so well or at all.
On the other hand, a manage that sets clear expectations, and takes time to build the team, will probably be able to pick the "best of the best". And also from a Worldwide talent pool, rather than those within a 2 hour commute of the office.
My personal experience is an open plan area that was so loud I would constantly leave the office with a headache. Concentration was a non-starter. I think i was heading for a burn-out before Corona shook things up.
1 - If your workload is static, then on-premises is for you.
2 - If your workload is ephemeral or elastic, then cloud can supplement your base load.
3 - If you want to walk away from your current provider for a better deal, then don't get hooked in to the proprietary extensions, no matter how tempting they look. Stick to the GPL and/or established, documented, portable, standards only.
"I for one am not a fan of the proliferation of cert/code signing stuff restricting control users have over the software on their computers. At least in cases that doesn't allow the user to override in some way."
Home users, owning their own PC, are not the target of this. But rather, a laptop issued by a company for use by the company's minions. That device is owned by the company and can get the company in hot water. (So many users tend to think of the device as 'their laptop' - dispel that myth right now). If the user is at a BYOD company, that's another story.
I mean, risk "avoidance 101" is that users should not be Administrators. Executable running from non-standard locations should be blocked. But again I point to the tactics used by Google, and then lately by Microsoft itself (Teams, especially) and you see that locking these things down is a royal PITA. Necessary, but a PITA.
All software published by a company should be signed by a certificate. Linked, if technically necessary to their local root/intermediate. So one can use package managers/group policy/orchestration/configuration managers etc to
1 inventory the software and
2 block it.
Try to block chrome, for example, play whack a mole as it uses every technique to evade blocks. Ditto Java. Want to block Oracle? Job done if we had a single root key.
As it is, one needs to get the cert of the day, as the intern doing that build uses a different cert and chain to all the other interns doing the build.
No matter the subject matter, or how long the presentation, 7 slides max and 5 ideally.
If its a demonstration, demonstrate, don't make screen dumps of every step. Give supporting documentation files out in advance. Show only the MOST important graph (ok, 2) in the above mentioned 5 or 7 slides.
Simple rules I was once taught:
1 - Tell them what you are going to tell them (Slide 1)
2 - Tell them (slides 2 - 6)
3 - Tell them what you told them (Slide 7)
Always start that way and only break the rules if absolutely necessary and you have a really good answer to "What do I hope to achieve by breaking this rule and is it really a good idea".
Keeps the focus on you (and/or subject matter), not the screen. A presentation should not be your notes and then you reading out what is on the screen, nearly verbatim.
That's the plan, at least. Works at least 80% of the time.
Others subscribe to the rule "Presentations should be like skirts, long enough to cover the details, short enough to keep interest".
Dealt with any number of CIOs. Only ever heard "next year". I kept asking, because at least then I know i'd done my job.
O/S out of support? Check. DB out of Support? - Check. ERP - same. Security flagging it - no change of direction. External auditor raising it as a risk? - Noted, but not approved.
Twas not rocket surgery, but just needed a plan, time and approval. Lots of dependencies - what upgrade of serious tin and software doesn't have them? Plan was there, the other two were not.
Great plan, so long as it doesn't blow up on your watch.
Fair to say that the CIO/CTO is either jealously guarded as a second paycheque by the CFO, or is the "seat on the board" by some nepo-baby. The most recent one I have had to deal with is the nephew of the CEO. Couldn't even communicate in English ... which is the business language. (Spanish being his first language).
Either way, incompetent mouth-breathing wastes of space, all of them.
In my day, we had Service Packs. There were (almost) no usability changes, only rolled up, working, tested security updates. One actually looked forward to them, providing there wasn’t an audit dept asking why it wasn’t rolled out a yesterday. Why? Because it meant that the amount of patching was reduced by a huge factor.
Rolling updates mean nothing is ever finished properly. “The OS is like a dog turd sandwich, you never know what you’re going to get” to misquote someone fictional.
Now, get off my lawn.
It's ok if HP have a non-functioning anything for me. Because my wallet is non-functioning if the name of HP is mentioned. I mention this frequently to family and friends, they take notice.
This, in the long list of shenanigans have really shown me that they don't want me as a customer unless I pay the HP-tax. Month after month. Of course, ideally (from HP's perspective) without anything to show for it.
Step 1 ; Kill on premises update services << - This is where we are now
Step 2 : Depreciate host patch installation services, except those that talk to MS servers with reduced user choice and less ability to delay patching
Step 3 : Introduce new update API, only available to MS and cryptographically locked
Step 4 : Either accept the MS patch push, or use a MS based subscription service to mange estates
Step 5 : Massively profit (note, no ??? step required)
No on-premises nor cloud based services except for MS. Certainly no free tools as they won’t pay the MS tax to unlock the API.
THATS how MS turns a profit.
One used to do that with every OEM PC you got. Clean it up. Obligatory was some Anti-Virus, "Free for 12 months" or some such. It was often Norton or McAffee - or some wanna-be. Potentially a media player. Microsoft works as well. Then the IBM or later Lenovo connection manage for managing dial-up. Oh, and later a firewall. there were probably others that have been garbage collected away from my memory. Cleaning it up was a good practice, but it was only so good as the uninstallers, which weren't very good. So there were DLLs around that were still loaded by Windows.
The only answer was to do an actual clean install. But, a lot of the time you were SOL as the factory re-install disks did not have a pristine copy of Windows, but rather the same OEM-loaded crap. Back to square one.
Now, you actually can get your hands on the Windows installation media, but you do need to spend the time to ... clean the crap out. Just like in 1995.
(Anyone tried to deploy a single version of Windows lately, but also ensure that local language and region settings are automated? It was working well until about Windows 10 20h2(?) then MS decided to improve them .... and broke years of workflow.)
My take: In 30 years the installation of Windows has not improved one millimeter.
I parked my DNS domain with them. No web site. All good for more than a decade.
One day, when needing to make some changes, Lo and behold I find a placeholder website with them. With a certificate. With SANs of completely different domains in the same cert.
I pulled that domain and told their support to revoke that cert, pronto. I won't be giving them a single cent/rappen/ruppee/peso ever again.
Datas backwards would make sense, it would be readable. Unfortunately, it's messed up beyond belief. But that's nothing compared to the leap back in social awareness.
I can just imagine aircraft completing a transatlantic flight now "Welcome to New York, please set your watch back 6 hours and your calendar back 250 years".
That number will, probably, be saved in their MS online account. But if you've used a local account, then no it won't be there. And good luck prising the password out of the dead reletive, because it was saved on the hard drive that is now inaccessible.
All part of the plan by MS.
I hated 10, but it seems like quite reasonable compared to 11. I mean, ever tried to simply change the foreground colour in Terminal? Just the foreground colour, so one may colour code for certain time-overlapping tasks. One yellow, one light green, one bright white? Now it requires building a theme for each colour. Even the Powershell application has the tab borked and needs a profile.
Give me more or less Windows 2000, Sp4, then just update the security. There is nothing in the later Windows editions that has make me more productive. Indeed, I am fighting Windows all the way, not working. (Compared to a Mac for writing and ebook designing, or Linux for transcoding, or either for Cloud administration (my paying gig)).
This software obeys the letter of the GPL licence, but fails to take the sprit of open source software. Sort of like a monopoly state run store. The bazar has only one stall and one product here. Your choices are “yes” and “not no”.
The problems that systemD solves were not mine and indeed I need not repeat the problems that it has created. 5 seconds faster booting is a saving rarely. Unexplained “features” kill my time so much more frequently.
Slackware since, oh gawd, I forgot when. But have dallied with other distributions.
Counterpoint "Your 30 second meeting is my 30 minute context break". Meaning the bozo that comes up to me when I am in deep thought just cost me 30 minutes of productivity as I zen back in to the topic.
Sure, some "thought lite" topics are much quick to get back to. But if I wanted thought lite, i'd be in management.
Seriously, its like "there is only one true way" when forcing "back to the office" mandates. Real life means there are a variety of solutions to the problem at hand.
Except, that certain Mus-based Megacorps have a foot in both doors.
For the corporations, Bluray and other physical media are good. But streaming month after month is so much better. It's not just the ongoing revenue, its the lovely telemetry and co-marketing that this also gleans. "House at Totter's Lane, Shoreditch, just streamed 'Frozen' 2000 times over the period of 6 weeks. Must be a female toddler, potentially two, and one or more stressed parents. Advertise Wine and tranquillisers during the ad breaks"
Physical media will go the way of the dodo. Just doesn't make *enough* money. There isn't a way that you can buy it at any price.
No, they will simply NOT get my to to start streaming my Bluray collection that now happily sit on my phone and Kodi server. For the price of one month streaming, i can watch that bluray forever, often with multiple seasons. Don't need to pay top price when it just comes out, wait a couple of months. All legit paid for, no "yo ho ho".
C) Say "Yessir, right away", but actually stop doing it. Do something useful instead. Take a coffee break. The finish it off at a relaxed pace, and tell the boss I have finished it. Then claim 100 different challenges while still succeeding. Never let an opportunity like that go to waste.
I think the normal steps here apply:
Market is saturated, no more growth. Growth becomes "turning on each other". The smaller players get eaten by the bigger players, until there are only 2 or 3 major players, and perhaps 1 or 2 serving a very, very small niche. The market then settles in to an equilibrium with higher prices, little competition nor innovation and the enshittifiction process begins.
"All markets tend toward a monopoly or comfortable duopoly"
Straw poll in the office. >90% had no plans to "refresh" their PC. A lot of new phones, though. The ones that did want a new PC were all going for the Mac laptops.
MS for sure will get everyone off Windows 10 ... but they are only going to get them to an iPhone or Mac laptop. (Actually said "iPhone", not "phone")
Most of the Mac people were creative types. Mostly from Marketing and one or two techs.
Problem is, that even if they were in PMITA prison, they still have significant assets that are just continuing to accumulate interest, dividends and appreciation. They get out, barring significant economic event, even richer that when they went in.
If I earned 10 million for 24 months prison time ... then lock me up and take away the key and take the smile off my face. As it is, 6 months in the slammer will probably cost me everything as I can't earn an income and I won't have the means to settle what is outstanding.
So, its a combination of loss of liberty, loss of earning and direct, meaningful compensation to those affected and we might START to have an effect. It won't be the beginning of the end, merely the end of the beginning.
Actually, often they simply do not work at all. Disable Javascript and your IP is blackbanned as a robot. Just a static, generic, page. Now - I just need to get ALL IP addresses and get them on the robots list.
I could perhaps go through the page and enable scripts, site-by-site, but that is too much effort for the small amount of info i get from the page in question. It is just muscle memory that occasionally takes me there.
I thought so too. But then, just when you think you've got rid of the last JRE, another department complains their critical supplier website stops working. Sometimes a bank, sometimes inventory, government web sites (especially taxes).
I'm still sure there are some web sites (well hidden by a shadow IT), that still use ActiveX and/or only work under IE6 from some of our vendors.
BOFH notes : Best way to ferret these things out is to promise the department Macs and say they must use a single Mac Mini to test critical workflows. Then they come back with both the problems, and often the solutions as well. BOFH in me has so far refused to approve a purchase order for said Macs .... but they are authorised. "Next purchase cycle ... next purchase cycle ... when the pub offers free beer ... when politicians stop lying ..."
Die applets, die. Just someone strike a steak through the heart and go.
(Badly need an icon for "Own Goal")
This will be the thing that finally kills Windows, at least at home.
No one wants to be reminded about the time they "accidentally" visited a skin-flick site. No way. Bit of trolling on web forums? That comes back too. Etc. Assuming a mobile device isn't doing the "accidental" browsing.
Remember it was the lack of, um, "adult" material that mean VHS won over the technically superior Betamax.
The Princes of Crapitalism arise.
No, brains, application to study and good work are no longer enough. You should have picked your parents wisely, that they can spare you the cash to pay for a knightship ... I mean paid for internship.
Let the poor remain poor, the middle class fighting for scraps from the tables of their betters.
-- The Modern People Poet
(All said whilst wearing bright yellow overalls).
“I was not very happy with that. I think in this country, we have to work very hard because there is no substitute for hard work even if you're the most intelligent guy,” he said to an appreciative audience and laughing news anchor Shereen Bhan.
Yes, yes there is. It is smart work.
Every time I am working with offshored and outsourced colleagues and I am reminded of this. I would rather not work with 200 unqualified staff/contractors, but 2 or 3 good ones. You'd think one of then knows that the scary black screen is just a command prompt and the computer is not broken.
I can almost NOT see a company of reasonable size, that is all virtuous that i would be happy to do business with. In almost all cases, you're doing a deal with the devil.
Oracle: Predatory licensing practices, but I do use Virtual Box on my mac.
Apple: Walled garden (good and bad), union-busing behaviour in Apple stores, and certainly anti-competitive, but I own plenty of their devices
Microsoft: Convicted monopolist, tendency to release crappy software, but managing their products is how I get my beer tokens at the end of the week
Broadcom: Blatant disregard for customers through astronomical price rises
Amazon: Complete disregards for workers rights, or mental health but I do love my kindle (I avoid using the Amazon store and side load my books)
Google : I just avoid for their privacy invasive techniques, ditto Facebook. The above list are almost as bad at protecting privacy as well/almost as good at monetising privacy.
And that's just off the top of my head. Not restricted to tech, as well.
Just because I use a product does not mean that I will automatically like the company that produces it.
Old habits die hard.
Getting Windows Update to deliver updates to the MS ecosystem was a hit and miss, even while Bill G was in charge. (Part of his trustworthy computing initiative).
Server, SQL, Productivity apps, and a few others. Right now there is a huge list of categories in WSUS, but barely an update to be seen.
Then products all started to deliver updates according to "whatever feels right at the time". And, as pointed out above, in any format they liked.
---
This is where a profit driven software can fail. MS have corporatised the profits (releasing shoddy software) and socialised the losses (more testing required by the purchase (x1,000,000,000, once for each purchasor) ). In the Open Source ecosystem, (often) better documentation and testing lessens the load. Package maintainers at the distribution level - maintain compatabilities and minimise conflicts. It doesn't have to be this way, of course, shoe could be on the other foot, but that is how it is, now.
Kicking the wheels right now.
First impression : "Thanks, I hate it". Lets see if I get to loath it, or just hate it.
First screen, right after password prompt: How much data to you want to send to Microsoft (A) A lot (preselected) or (B) A little. Where "A little" is actually a lot.
Do enough searches on a particular topic and you'll know which are the sales sites and which .... aren't, or at least, less likely to be a sales site. Anything mac/iphone related normally brings up a "use our software instead" site rather than returning anything useful, for example.
So I'd like "let me save a string of convenient IGNORE THESE sites". No, i don't want to sign in, I'll save them to a text file on my desktop thank you very much. Copy and pasta when required.
An executive summary of the findings of the summary of the summary:
1 - IPv4 has too few addresses
2 - IPv6 fixed that, but
3 - IPv6 introduced serious problems of its own, and
4 - Response from IPv6 supporters was akin to Apple's "You're holding it wrong"
Let us go back to Step 1.
(I do not say that IPv4 is free from any other flaws, just that is the big one being discussed right now).
Unfortunately, probably the same as those that would dismantle the physical libraries of today. And burn the books within them.
Not going to blame any one group but profit and power (often, but not always, with a good dose of religion) seem to be the leading enemies of knowledge and enlightenment.
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