Posts by bregister

Do not touch that computer. Not even while wearing gloves. It is a biohazard

Re: CompuPro S-100 boxes in cat litter plant

MPM.

pip, pip, hurrah.

Datacenters could account for a third of Ireland's electricity by 2026

when the boom ends?

Whats happens to the Irish economy when the Bitcoin|AI|... boom ends.

I suggest we use the empty data-centres as airship hangars.

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

OPD in a bingo hall

Years ago, when UK bingo halls were large going concerns there was a special game of Bingo called the National Game.

Each bingo hall had an OPD to link into the nationwide network and the first prize was a million pounds.

The was the late 1980's when a million pounds bought you more than a cup of coffee!

Happy memories of the Mecca Bingo Hall in Islington, London.

I will also never forget seeing Renee and Renato(!) live on stage at that same bingo hall one Christmas.

Latest tech layoffs: Twitch, Duolingo, Citrix parent ditch hundreds of workers

watch this space

more to come ...

Because corporate leaders are lemmings,

Sorry lemmings.

RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

fond memories 2

Very sad news.

I remember programming Modula2 on an Atari ST.

Bring back the ST!

HMRC launches £500M procurement for new ERP, though project's already a 'red' risk

"all three departments in the cluster"

I can think of another word that should go after "cluster" ...

Infosys co-founder calls for youth to work 70-hour weeks

falling birth rates!

I volunteer to undertake the task of helping correct this existential crisis.

Former IBM Canada worker wins six-figure payout for wrongful dismissal

Re: Behind every mean termination

so lets say you're shutting down a whole organisation, who gives HR the chop?

Auto-da-chop?

A cheap Chinese PC with odd components. What could go wrong?

try the linutop

It's French,

it's solid,

it's mad but great fun.

http://www.linutop.com/index.en.html

Windows 10's latest update issue isn't a bug but a feature – to test your patience

TBH I download the updates manually and apply them manually. It works slightly more often than the "automated" version.

Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?

Re: I wonder

I think you are right, the biggest challenge for software is not AI/ML or that other nonsense, the biggest challenge is

"POORLY UNDERSTOOD SYSTEMS".

The answer seems to this seems to be emulate the operating system and transfer the whole thing onto a VM.

We have come to a time when we just don't understand what we work with anymore.

That's terrifying from a risk point of view, something vital breaks you just go out of business.

I wonder is it arrogance of the intellectual/philosophical sort, "I know all that there can be known" sort of thing.

Northern Irish cops release 2 men after Terrorism Act arrests linked to data breach

Re: Terrorism?

I'm from the bottom half of the island.

Our head policeman is a former PSNI officer and has been consistently much better than his predecessors.

Please DO NOT take him back we'd like to keep him.

Bank of Ireland outage sees customers queue for 'free' cash – or maybe any cash

Again

so I won't be able to access my account for a day or so every 6 weeks.

Last big 1 day+ outage was 30-Jun-2023.

How many 9's uptime is that?

How many billions did we bail out those *'s for in 2007 again?

I laughted at my friends to went to the branch and withdrew enough to live on for 3 months.

Larry Ellison a major contributor to Blair Institute vaccine database plan

I can't decide which one of the two is less likable.

Er?

Sparkling fresh updates to Ubuntu, Mint and Zorin on way

Why Ireland I wonder?

The beer?

Let's have a chat about Java licensing, says unsolicited Oracle email

Re: Simple solution

cousin or acolyte.

To be fair to MOL though, he stays in Ireland and pays his taxes.

Many others do not!

TCS bags £234M Teachers' Pensions deal as Capita set to end 29-year run

Rish!

Oh sorry I thought this was another thread.

Kinder, gentler Oracle says it's changed, and now wants you to succeed

Hung, drawn and ...

Good news customers, we are no longer going to "quarter" you each quarter.

As an Oracle DBA with 40 years using the database I say again, great database product, shocking carry-on otherwise.

ACS are pretty hot techies but you pay and you pay.

IT phone home: How to run up a $20K bill in two days and get away with it by blaming Cisco

Printing

Long ago I worked in a company where a user had a great idea, to use a printer down the corridor.

They were in Sydney, Australia and print jobs were sent from there via California USA and back to Sydney.

Pricey. Nobody ever explained why those print jobs had to go half-way around the world either.

Backup tech felt the need – the need for speed. And pastries and Tomb Raider

Re: Most tasks can be condensed onto 1 page of A4

Eek!

Yes, I've seen that coming from "experienced" DBAs.

Google "Oracle Universal Installer Response Files" if this ever comes up again.

Your install becomes a one-line command prompt jobbie and a lot of waiting.

IBM health benefits blackout leaves retirees footing the bill

Optum HRA

Is Optum HRA part of United Health Group or is it a different company?

Global network outage hits Microsoft: Azure, Teams, Outlook all down

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Rentokil uses AI rat recognition to plot extermination in real time

They should not layoff more people but cut their own bonuses and share payouts the dirty ...

Oh Sorry, wrong story!

Six years later, HPE and Oracle quietly shut door on Solaris lawsuit

The ongoing legal fees must be huge.

Was the limited Solaris market really, REALLY worth it?

Microsoft axes 10,000, already breaking bad news to staff

My BASIC program does not work, can someone help me?

10 fire staff

20 reduce service

30 lose customers

40 reduce bigshot compensation

50 go to 10

Quickest way to save with Oracle? Get off Unlimited Licensing Agreements, says pundit

after Oracle are bought out by Microsoft things will improve immeasureably.

HPE to face lawsuit for allegedly misleading DXC investors

"standard operating procedure"

that is damaging to the long term health of the company, so how long before these companies cease trading ...

NASA overspent $15m on Oracle software because it was afraid an audit could cost more

As a nearly 40 year user of the database, its a good product, the rest of what that company does is not so great any more.

Games Workshop once again battles scariest monster of all: ERP gone wrong

Re: The Horror

GW are huge, 430 million pounds per annum!

"Roll to hit" indeed.

PC sales slump to pre-pandemic level in Q4. 'Boom' is over, says IDC

2020^H1^H2^H3 the year of Linux on the desktop

Virgin Orbit doesn't

Last year there were hundreds of rocket launches, deploying thousands of satellites.

It's such early days yet, imagine how reliable trains and steamships were at a similar stage of their development.

As a resident of the left-hand island (bottom half) of the right side of the pond there is still a lot to be admired about right-hand island.

A lot.

IBM staff grumble redeployment orders are stealth layoffs

IBM at least seem to be consistent over the years.

The rest of them (b*ds) just seem to be following the herd https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/,

but then the era of thoughtless investing (gambling) did have to end eventually.

If you are looking for good people in IT, now is the time to look for them.

Micron plans staff decimation as demand dips to Great Recession levels

there will be more of these type of layoffs in 2023

With pay strikes ending, BT merges divisions to save £100m in annual costs

Give people well paid secure jobs and your C-suite bonuses over the long run will be HUGE.

More rationalisation to come in IT and the finance industries I suspect ...

French JV wins contract to upgrade NHS Oracle finance system

because COVID, end of discussion.

Oracle clouds never go down, says Oracle's Larry Ellison

so how long before Oracle is taken over by Microsoft?

Not bought out but with M$ in effect being in control?

Victims of IT scandal in UK postal service will get fresh compensation

I use this as the first lesson I give when teaching the realities of computer technology.

You can't trust the computer,

you can't trust the people that use the computer

and you can't even trust yourself using a computer.

We are fallible beings and that fallability is only magnified by our creations, especially computers.

This is the best pay offer you'll get without more strikes, union tells BT workers

"Inflation is increasing the price of everything and yet wages are staying the same, so how can the companies really justify it?"

because the people making the decisions really don't care about the long run, if they can puff up the share price for the next quarter and get the multi-million pound bonus.

Customer service or the fate of the employees is a matter of no importance what so ever.

Someone I know is a avid board gamer and finished their MBA recently, doing very well in the process.

How, by simply gaming the system.

BT back in government hands by 2030 just like the trains

A brand new Linux DRM display driver – for a 1992 computer

Happy days

I used a Modula-2 compiler and played Balance of Power endlessly on my 520ST.

It was so cool compared to anything before or since.

Started off playing with Asssembler on an 800/XL which is at the top of the stairs on a little altar.

Memories ...

Intel offers Irish staff a three-month break from being paid

Re: Are they allowed pursue other paid employment during that time?

I've often wondered about that, I saw 25% (twenty five not two point five) "youth" unemployment figure for Spain for example.

Thats a lot.

Could the statistics be wrong or differently classified?

I thought Eurostat had clear rules on this kind of thing.

On the main point of the story, how long before the employee pays the employer to work somewhere?!

Meta links US military to fake social media influence campaigns

Has not the horse altready bolted the stable about 6 years ago?

$COUNTRY posts stuff on f*b*k, we're still relevant?

San Francisco politicians to vote on policy endorsing lethal force for robots

I suppose it give a new meaning to the phrase "blue screen of death".

So robots with guns and flying aircraft.

What happens when they don't keep their licenses up to date?

Mine's the one suitable for wearing in a pony and trap -->

HP Inc to lay off up to 6,000 staff, cut costs by $1.4 billion

what still surprises me is

that "investors" fall for this nonsense, layoff loads of people => share price goes "up"?

It would take a 'catastrophic' recession to stop tech spend growth, says IBM boss

Magical thinking

I cannot see how IT stands outside the normal economy. The customers of IT companies live in the real economy, an economy heading toward contraction. These people forcasting a great recession for IT are either a) unable to count or b) have a vested interest in keeping up appearances.

Mines the dirty one with the holes, that I sleep in -->

Irish government seeks power to bar 'high risk vendors' from telecoms networks

"if they elect a Sinn Féin government"

Thats a distinct possibility, both North and South.

Db2 goes 'cloud-first' as IBM struggles to lift database dinosaur

My hopes were up ...

when I thought it was DB2 for mainframe.

"Dinosaur" is shirley a bit strong, you mean its been around for more than 10 minutes and real businesses depend on it, right?

Your next PC should be a desktop – maybe even this Chinese mini machine

the year of the linux desktop?

Linutop, http://www.linutop.com/linutopxs.en.html

Great little machine and reliable. Just for casual not CAD or the like.

Mount it on the back of your monitor to save space.

I'd be interested to see a series on low-power devices given that here on the emerald isle an electricity bill will cost more than a Rolls Royce.

Liz Truss ousted as UK prime minister, outlived by online lettuce

Re: Hahahaha

I kep reading that as tickle down economics and wondered did I miss something. Time for new glasses

across the Irish sea

it's a worry for us as this may be a preview what we will go through after the next election...