Posts by WhiteDragon43

'Please download in Microsoft Excel': Meet the tech set to monitor IT performance across central UK government

Re: in line with agile delivery best practice

@Warm Braw,

"Often, the biggest issue with exercises of this kind is determining whether the data you want actually exists, whether the responsible people are capable of collecting it and whether you can learn anything useful from the data when they do."

Wise words that should be embedded or tattooed on the head of every consultant - sigh!

Coincidentally was looking up Ncurses which I believe would be useful in cases of prototyping what type of entry data can be collected - but most likely be dismissed as too 'old-hat' for the trial data tests.

Too many Excel experts think it is the Ultimate Answer for data entry.

Sheffield University scales back student system after Oracle integration stumbles

World Class Mediocracy

Blighted by our Born to Lead Old Etonians and other bum boys from the Bullingdon Club. Nothing equitable at all in the race to the "bottom" - a wonderful achievement to encumber £9k a year debt to many for a certificate of mediaocracy.

UK data spillers fined, but enforcement slows: £5m in ICO penalties not yet paid

Old Fashioned Treatment/Punishment

The old stocks with a supply of festering veg, curdled eggs, offal gone off, dog poo collections - as a monthly local fete with free admission - should be quite popular with an alternative to public subscription to witness a public tar and feathering of the bollock naked culprits and a forced parade of shame through the streets. The TV companies would cough up for permission to serialize the shaming, makes for an effective deterrent.

'Large-scale computing' needs a government team driving it, says UK.gov

@jfollows,

A "government team" - - the kiss of death to any IT foray, in my early days in the 70s I witnessed the development by a team of PFYs using Cobol create an industrial payment application, weekly pay. Unfortunately it took about a month to run on the latest of ICL's 1904E's - Arrogant bunch of twits!

Heaven help us all if Crapita is selected to assist, as ex-Army I choked when they were appointed for the recruitment task.

UK Ministry of Defence apologises after Afghan interpreters' personal data exposed in email blunder

Re: Too many blunders

@elsergiovolador

Same thought crossed my mind - standard whitewash to be applied - any guilty party should take a holiday in Afghanistan to receive their reward from the new government/Taliban as a thankyou.

UK gives military's frikkin' laser cannon project a second roll of the dice

And again and again, re-invent a wheel.

So what happened to the COIL, (Chemical Oxygen and Iodine Laser) that was touted many moons ago as the new super weapon, needed a sighting laser prior to firing and necessary adjustments for differing air density to target. Was a bit too heavy to be fighter mounted but the pumping hydraulics were all sorted out AFAICR and it was intensely touted as perfect for Naval use.

The Great Borkish Breakfast: I'll have a cup of tea, a sausage roll and a side of bork, please

Re: Pie?

Known as a graphite processor with optional erase

Max Schrems is back... and he's challenging Apple's 'secret iPhone advertising tracking cookies' in Europe

Pi-Hole

Surprised no one has mentioned the excellent use of a Raspberry Pi hooked into the router and blacklisting all the annoying advertising crud that litters up so many web sites. I am currently setting up one which makes use of a dust gathering 2B.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pi-hole-raspberry-pi/

https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-ftl-v5-2-released/36964

Bit tongue - in - cheek the FTL (Faster than Light)

'This was bigger than GNOME and bigger than just this case.' GNOME Foundation exec director talks patent trolls and much, much more

Re: Certainly alarmed

I remember the excitement of installing DRDOS 6 from Digital Research - brilliant OS. M$ were evil and still are and for those who haven't the background to what M$ got up to in those early days I reckon the following link provides some enlightenment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingVidFeed/comments/iyf1to/did_microsoft_steal_disk_compression_nostalgia/

iPadOS 14: Apple's attempt to pry fondleslab from toddlers' mitts and make it more businesslike

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note

Not that many will remember - maybe just me, but there was a hand writing recognition tablet devised by Quest Automation in Ferndown, Bournemouth - late 70s. One of the reasons they didn't survive because of the investment - they had a good Emma photo plotter and an excellent PCB design system built on Data General Nova and Eclipse mini computers - seems being ahead of the curve with innovation is doomed to fail if there is no market demand - sigh!

Dude, where's my laser?

Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser

Surprised no one has mentioned COIL - in my younger days it was in my mind to build one, but a copper chloride laser was more feasible - managed only to do a nitrogen in air version.

https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/abl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_iodine_laser

http://laserkids.sourceforge.net/eng_cvl.html

http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/people/mcsele/lasers/LasersN2.htm

Still a bit away from Death Star ability - now I just want to zap the bleeding pigeon pests

How many days of carefree wiping do you have left before life starts to look genuinely apocalyptic? Let's find out

Re: More importantly...

And we have the bright green comet making an appearance this month - no Triffids around here last time I checked - sneaky buggers though as they camouflage themselves to look like rest of the vegetation.

Her Majesty opens UK Parliament with fantastic tales of gigabit-capable broadband for everyone

Re: It's no problem...

I always read it as Open Breach, killed off the land line - (PlusNet "Do You2") now on 4G which is just adequate - might play with an aerial to improve.

Peers to HMRC: Digital tax reforms 3 days after Brexit? Hold your horses, how 'bout 3 years...

One screw up to rule them all

For any software developer the following is the entry to loss of sanity:-

https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/docs/api/service/vat-api/1.0

None of it is finalised and will change regularly as and when HMRC sees fit to revise what ever it wants - of course end users will have to pay for those updates.

Anything that is computer related and especially under HMRC control has the kiss-of-death attached, just increase the VAT rate to cover the loss and increase the fines for non-compliance.

Mandatory to be using whatever is designated as MTD from April 2019