Posts by vapoureal

City council faces £216.5M loss over Oracle system debacle

Anyway, working for a software company I once led a project to implement a smaller non-Oracle erp system for a customer. Contract and specs prepared for the customer by a 'Big 4' consultancy. Off we went and got to first stage of user testing. 'But it doesn't do this!' It's not meant to we said. 'But it's in the contract!' No, it isn't we said., you bought the standard system. The Big 4 outfit had not legally bound the non-standard requirements list into the formal contract documents, it was just a wish list...It cost the Big 4 outfit dearly...

Linux Mint 22 'Wilma' still the Bedrock choice for moving off Windows

Re: My choice for a decade

Me too a novelist and publisher. Mint has a wealth of tools and I've been able to do everything I used to on Windows. 4 years since I moved, four laptops installed. Quick clean installs. I'm luvvin it.

SAP system gives UK tax collector a £750B headache as clock ticks on support

The problem with a bespoke system is that when it all goes wrong - and it will in the Public Sector - you can't blame a third party.

I'm just waiting for the new tax to pay for the new tax system.

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

Being of a suspicious nature I'm wondering if there isn't something a bit deeper going on. Is there a linkage in some way to the NASA D-Wave Quantum machine / Google Quail? Maybe OpenAi's experimenting with quantum computing not reported to the board, or an opportunity missed? Surely OpenAi has a finger in a quantum pie somewhere?

Mars helicopter to try for new speed record on Thursday

Re: If only there were other units

1 metre/second is roughly 1 yard (3 feet)/second plus 10%

UK air traffic woes caused by 'invalid flight plan data'

Sign-off

When I read these stories I always :-) and think back to the day: someone signed off this use case and design.

Apple becomes the latest company to ban ChatGPT for internal use

All seeing, all knowing, all sharing.

The future is bleak, the future is fubar.

Logitech, iFixit to offer parts to stop folks binning their computer mouse

"According to the United Nations Global E-waste Monitor's 2020 report, the most recent version, a record 53.6 metric tons of electronic waste was generated globally in 2019, up 21 percent in just five years."

53.6 metric tons of e-waste world wide annually?

No problem.

Somebody at El Reg should read the report.

And correct the story to add in 'million'.

53.6 million tons annually = problem

Take the blue pill: Keanu Reeves has had enough of AI baloney

7 years to singularity

AI may finally cure us of our data fetish

ISO Crap

I'm a sad git who has actually written a whole ISO9001 process manual for a software company and managed certification and umpteen 'quality' audits...

Anyway, I've been following the trials of DoNotPay which el Reg reported on a few days ago. It's fascinating stuff - they use AI to fight bureaucracy (not just legal stuff). There's definitely a future there.

After lunar orbit trip NASA's Orion capsule is on its way back home

Re: incredible accuracy

Pendantic point - I could be wrong but I believe that the navigation is done in nautical miles. 0.2 nm = 400 yards. Maybe they'd best stick to metres, but then the US taxpayers wouldn't get that. Jus' sayin'...

'Terra Firma'

They need to make up their minds - is it the Pacific or 'terra firma' for the return of the astronauts (who might have an opinion on that). Or maybe it's just loose journalism...

CP/M's open-source status clarified after 21 years

Hand soldered...

1979 - those were the days! Hand soldered S100 Z80, 8k RAM, 2 x 8" floppies (S/S), MS Basic. Wrote some code, ran a business with it for several years - after upgrade to 32 K RAM. Then it was Osbornes. NEVER Apple - I've always been allergic to them in all varieties. Then onward selling IBM PCs, then upward, System V Unix. Greybeard gone now.

The perfect crime – undone by the perfect email backups

Speak no evil

The best misdeeds are planned by word of mouth, face to face.

Uh oh Nixon tried that didn't he...

Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? Consult our cynic's guide to desktop Linux

Unix V 1984->Windows->Linux Mint 2021

Been around the block a few times as software dev mgr. As I now write books and work with graphics & videos I'd put off moving to Linux because of the tools change/loss fear. Finally bit the bullet last year, moved to Mint on my 3 laptops of varying pedigrees. The tools fear was a blind alley, and I can do all my work on Mint. Bloody glad I made the move though to have done it earlier would probably have been problematic.

Russia 'stole US defense data' from IT systems

Re: very likely still unpatched...

Patches, I'm depending on you son

To pull the US through...

A tiny island nation has put the rights to .tv up for grabs – but what’s this? Problematic contract clauses? Again?

Re: Nice article

Yet the software tech community thinks it's worthwhile having the .io tlds.

Is it a bridge? Is it a ferry? No, it's the Newport Transporter

Back in the day...Up in the sky...up in Heaven

As a lad in Newport many years ago, major kudos if you had a lass up on the top of the Transporter Bridge. The biggest obstacle was her fear of how far up you'd go, in a manner of speaking.

Ruby off the Rails: Code library yanked over license blunder, sparks chaos for half a million projects

Sounds like Hotel California.