* Posts by Boris the Cockroach

3393 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008

Yes, I did just crash that critical app. And you should thank me for having done so

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Coat

Re: Dicks are Dasdardly

Quote

"It turns out having some kind of antisocial, destructive personality is the ideal characteristic for a QA tester - one must take inordinate and smug delight in breaking things, and revel in the tears of your fellows.

"Hate your job, hate your life, revel in schadenfreude? Consider a career in QA"

*Sadly, I am now a grumpy old dick about almost everything "What asshole designed this, and what bigger asshole passed it?" I have pills for it - they don't work."

You are our QA inspector and I claim my £5

<<wanders off muttering darkly about plating allowances and paperwork stamped "Fail"

Microsoft defends barging in on Chrome with pop-up ads pushing Bing, GPT-4

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Windows

Wait until

windows 14

Running system process load analysis on win kernel

MMU : 0.10%

GFX: 1%

Network: 0.5%

User data analysis: 10%

Serving ads based on above :85%

Remaining resources for user processes: 4%. Microsoft are pleased to announce that if you buy an Intel I11 15Ghz 24 core CPU, you'll have a extra 1% for your programs. click here to buy.

Bernie Sanders clocks in with 4-day workweek bill thanks to AI and productivity tech

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Joke

We here

at global megacorp have decided to move everyone onto new working arrangements.

These new arrangements will mean that on average all of you will be working a 3 day week , however this does involve moving 40% of our workforce to a zero day week and dumping all of their work on the remaining 60% who will still be doing the full 5 day week, those of you who object doing 40% more work for no rise in pay will be joining the 40% on the zero day week.

Those working the zero day week will have a pay rate in line with their new working arrangements IE zero.

The extra profits thus created will be returned to those deserving of higher rewards such as the shareholders and the C-level management.

Joke icon...... because maybe someone may take the above seriously.....

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Devil

If its like the vermin media outage here a few years ago, some wanker letting a 16 yr old drive a JCB on a building project and letting him dig where the signs/warning/detailed instructions all said "DO NOT DIG HERE!"

If only we could run 30 000 volts through the cable armor.......

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
IT Angle

Re: A missed opportunity?

The problem does not seem to be Russia's past contribution to the arts, sciences and the defeat of german facism

The problem is Russia's (actually putin's) desire to rebuild the USSR by any means including gunfire and the deaths of 10 000's of people

Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
WTF?

Quote

"The mammoth should, of course, be bred with mice."

And of course, the question that occurs is

"How?"

And the second question is

"Has a pr0n site already filmed this and released it to its depraved customers?"

International effort to disrupt cybercrime moves into operational phase

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Stop using certain products then

When the 'certain products" stops allowing a script inside an e.mail to run in its flagship browser which then leads to the script being able to link to a key system process and execute a malicious payload , then I'll wake up and pay attention.

But since "certain products" hold a near monolopy on the desktop PC operating system business, it makes it damn good value to target them for the stupid decision not to seperate core system functions and memory from being affected by anything in user space by tying the browser into said operating system..

Justice Dept reportedly starts criminal probe into Boeing door bolt incident

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

What makes it worse is that if companies like boing demand our paperwork and theres a missing full stop at the end of a sentence on the certificate, they'll go full anal and ream us out doing a full 100% trawl through our work and paperwork.

Where as their employees leave out door bolts and they go 'meh.... could happen to anyone'

Microsoft confirms Russian spies stole source code, accessed internal systems

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Windows

Surprised

microsoft has source code.

Judging by the latest patches I thought they threw the task at a bunch of interns and hoped for the best (not forgetting to sack the intern who produced the lowest lines of code)

BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Pint

This episode

would have killed a keyboard had I read it at work.

Instead its made Mrs Roach wonder what I'm laughing at here in the Roach hotel where things are going very nicely for a change in my post-pub kebab'ing

Looks like there'll be a patter of tiny roach feet here soon... not mine... but from one of the kids.

The PFY has passed her exams too ("Intermediate bastard'ness" and "Cold revenge:A systematic approach") I tell people not to take the piss out of her finacee... do they listen...no.... hence her passing the exams.....(you dont want to know what she did... heck I dont want to know!)

Right must go... Mrs Roach has bought me a beer ..... and got a decent'ish movie (Starship troopers.... hey you cheer on your side , we'll cheer on ours "Get them squishy humans heroic bug brothers!")

Dutch government in panic mode over keeping ASML in the country

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Coat

This may seem like

a stupid idea, but would'nt a good response to the lack of skilled workers suitable for ASML (or anyone else for that matter) be

Training people in the skills needed to run your business.

Oh crap... that takes money, time and planning..

Copilot pane as annoying as Clippy may pop up in Windows 11

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Devil

"Hello"

"It looks like you're trying to scram the reactor... would you like some help with that? or how about pictures of other reactors or a trip to Amazon.com to see if they have the tool to scram the reactor...... my sensors are detecting increased radiation and temperature, are you still sure you want to scram the reactor? there are many exciting alternatives on the microsoft website to help you be more productive while suffering from terminal radiation sickness.... heres a link to some funeral homes that deal in hazardous remains......"

Does anyone else get a whole 'talkie toaster' vibe whenever these companies witter on about AI assistants AND NO I DONT WANT A FLAPJACK!

The batteries on Odysseus, the hero private Moon lander, have run out

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Alien

Re: Photo

Its a FAKE!

You cant see the stars........

<<off to raid the conspiracy stores...

Hands up if you want to volunteer for layoffs, IBM tells staff

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Mushroom

Quote

"Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me."

Because it continues to grow in value , plus chances of higher dividends in future thanks to a scheme to increase profits.

Just dont be holding onto those shares when IBM's bubble pops... and judging by the way they're happy to throw away knowledge, that could be sooner rather than later......

City council megaproject to spend millions for manual work Oracle system was meant to do

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Priceless ..

More than likely but since Birmingham has to be customised in terms of changing employee numbers , changing background graphics etc etc, that means Oracle will have to charge another £50 million because of the contract variance.

I deeply suspect that it would have been quicker and cheaper for Birmingham to have bought and trained its own programming department for its bespoke software......

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

Re: Don't train just one skill

Ironic really, as I was hired to drive the forklift , yet seem to have ended up doing the programming.

But can AI help me to program?

well I can describe toolpaths and robot motions to it... but I'd have a hard time convincing myself the code spat out is correct (I have a hard time with the output of the CAM package)

But if you have to be frighteningly specific to the AI is describing what you want it to output , how is that different to regular programming as high level langauges are merely away of abstracting the lower level code into more compact yet complex commands.

EG

Add 1 to variable counter and store the result in counter.

C=C+1

Inc C

All equally valid and yet a lower and lower description of what you want done(I'd put it in binary too but cant be arsed to look up the op code )

Until AI gets the ability to describe a problem given to it, its just another programming tool and more than likely currently, an unreliable programming tool

Security is hard because it has to be right all the time? Yeah, like everything else

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

You can only

do so much with security when you start to look for the weakest link.

And its always the users

Take 1 case I know of, Company laptops provided , however , during night shift when internet is'nt needed, its turned off. employee thinks "If I use the phone tethering function on my phone , I can stream the latest TV shows on the company laptop while I work" which he does by searching for streaming services and coming across "Download and install this to watch the latest netflix" which he does and watches netflix..... and it has a rather nasty payload attatched.

Next day, the server starts up, connects to the internet and the laptops and downloads gigs of data and then the anti-virus alarms go off and system grinds to a halt.

Cue much gnashing of teef and wailing.... once the culprit is found, he no longer has a job. and good riddence.

Or a new employee gives her work e.mail address to a friend, that friend's son downloads stuff from a dodgy site, and the resulting spam bot fires off an e.mail to our new employee... who unquestionly opens it because its from a 'trusted' source...... yeah we're back to wailing and gnashing of teef.

So the question should be "How do you secure your applications tightly enough so that the system cannot be compromised without tying the system down so tightly that people cant do their jobs"?

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Pint

I like those sorts of colleague

Partly because it gives me insight into his/her personality, but mostly so I can add more 'facts' to their beliefs.

I mean who would have guessed all those dashcams on peoples cars can transmit live video back to the government so they can spy on what the population are upto when they drive and indeed how they drive just so they can select a few people at random to get 'due care and attention' fines while sitting at 50 mph in the middle lane of a motorway for several hours.

Or how metal coins interfere with cell phones evesdropping on what we chat about so thats why physical money is steadily being replaced by online apps.

And that aliens secretly rule the world because humans have proven to be no good at it.

ANd the last and most important one is the mind control chemicals secretly slipped into beer to make the world a warmer and fuzzier place..... hic fat potted plants... heh

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Devil

There is an

old klingon proverb

"Revenge is a dish best served cold"

And some of the above stories have proved that

By the way, Did tell you about the day I quit one place, for months every request for more pay went unheeded with the famous phrase "We can get anyone in to replace you for less than we pay you already"

Ok........ found a better gig, and quit

Day after my quit letter landed on his desk, boss grabs one of the co-workers "We need to replace Boris" he says

"Good luck with that" comes the reply "You'll never get anyone in to cover his work at that rate of pay"

Panic then followed....

Amazon hopes to avoid labor regulation by simply abolishing national watchdogs

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

Who's next?

FDA? after all they stop companies making bigger profits by putting 'fillers' into the food and other companies from selling 'snake oil' cures

lets face it.... the only reason these agencies exist is because some companies need regulating and cannot be trusted to treat employees/customers/everyone else fairly

London's famous BT Tower will become a hotel after £275M sale

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Happy

Re: Secret places and maps

I remember those days quite well

The joys of seeing a spiffy site at <redacted> with a big fat MOD no photos sign and all freshly built and with MOD plod at the gates... then my boss drives past, carries on for about 2 miles, turns left down a country lane to what looks like a cow shed with a hole in its roof... and that where we're working out of for the next 2 days, making stuff for professor Z whos the leading authority on <redacted> and prefers his sky lit cow shed......

His office was nice and warm though... when it started to snow.... and he started with the "when I was in the artic.. " type stories....

Trident missile test a damp squib after rocket goes 'plop,' fails to ignite

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Facepalm

I suspect random

chance was more likely involved here given the missiles are shared between US and UK subs.

Would there be so many headlines if it had launched from a US sub and failed?

Although I do wonder if it was a boing made part that caused the failure

Ps damn typos....

Space nukes: The unbelievably bad idea that's exactly that ... unbelievable

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
IT Angle

Re: Star wars?

SDI was never going to work... physics.. cost... deployment.... computing power all stood in its way.

However, it had an unexpected benefit... it scared the shit out of the USSR, who thought "In order to get our missiles through, there will have to be 10 times as many as we've already got and we cannot afford to build them"

They already knew the USSR was going economically bust, and blowing billions more on more weapons would just make that process faster..

Virgin Media to stand up rival network operator to BT Openreach

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Thumb Down

Anyone's

bullshit bingo card go off?

Vermin/O2 now want to be open retch ewwwww think I'd rather have root canal treatment

Dave's not here, man. But this mind-blowingly huge server just, like, arrived

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Happy

We had the unsackable

one once.......

Some relative of the boss's sister's brother in laws' secound cousin (or something)

Lets call him Herbert

Herbet enjoyed the sweat leaf a bit much and after forever at lunch, came back and made a big mistake that nearly ended with him being a child of the grave.

Sadly he was unsackable.. except the boss was having his 2 week holiday... so things were 'arranged' in that his rolled tobacco/orchid tin got 'knocked' onto the floor while herbert was talking to the lord of this world(deputy boss), releasing its legal and not legal contents.

Deputy boss marches herbert to the door and sends him into the void (no class B drugs allowed on company property).

And by the time the boss comes back, all the paperwork has been filed/signed and its too late to save herbert.

I love it when a plan comes together

Pentagon launches nuke-spotting satellites amid Russian space bomb rumors

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Optics

Sadly for the russians, after turning the east coast of the US and its mid west missile silos into glass, they'll have to deal with whatever the subs can launch (24 trident D5 missiles from 4 US subs, and whatever the French and British have on patrol)

So looking at anywhere from 100 to 200 odd inbound nukes(with decoys), so MAD still lives on.

Moving to Windows 11 is so easy! You just need to buy a PC that supports it!

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: 10 + 0.1 = 11, according to Microsoft

Quote

"There’s clearly some infighting between engineers and marketing going on at Microsoft!"

I just wish the engineers were winning...........

Please install that patch – but don't you dare actually run it

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Happy

Re: Harks back to

Its a small company

So theres no 'chain of command' or 'superiors to be informed'

If the boss does'nt want the machinery stopped to change a HDD, then its down to him.

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

Harks back to

the glory years we had with HDDs inside the machinery.

"Need to replace the HDD, its showing signs of failure" "Nope... need the machinery up and running"

"Look , there more errors reported on the HDD, only a matter of time before it goes kaputt, it will take the engineer 1 hr to swap it out" "Nope need the machinery running"

"we need to replace the HDD now ! got bad sectors everywhere, 1 hr with the tech to fix.. got his number here" "Nope need the machinery running"

"HDD is kaputt.. machine is dead" "Call the engineer... must have it running"

"Hello.... this is the engineer.... I'm booked up for the next 10 days... please call back later"

Boss

"Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" "Get it running now!" .............. ad infinitum

I hate my job

BOFH: Hearken! The Shiny Button software speaks of Strategic Realignment

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

And there goes another

Keyboard

Quote

""And you think I can convince a couple of them to quit?" the Boss asks.

"I was thinking more of murder suicide," I reply.

"Or something that looked like murder suicide," the PFY suggests."

And now the boss is wondering why theres sounds of laughter coming from the programming office... indeed ... any sounds at all apart from post-pub snoring before I go home.

Although there is talk of replacing our late not so lamented production engineer with a new one..... which means sharing the office again.. must come up with a plan......

AI models just love escalating conflict to all-out nuclear war

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Facepalm

The trouble is

everyone always plans for the next war by looking at the last war

Eg. Maginot line built by the french, described as the western front made into concrete.(only 2 flaws...... it only covered the french-german border, and it only covered the french-german border.... yes I know that only 1 flaw but its worth mentioning twice)

So the enemy AI will be cheerfully fighting WW3 while a massive number of small and medium drones massacres the enemy army... followed by the enemy population.. and finally its own side as its AI gets rampant blood lust and decides ALL humans are the enemy......

Developer's default setting created turbulence in the flight simulator

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

Re: Military IT Moves

A long time ago , we used a PC as part of a <redacted><redacted> test on board one of her majesty's ships.

We installed all the gear... wished the sailors good luck and returned to our lair.

Few weeks later the test was over and said sailors said they'd removed the gear and it was on an aircraft heading for RAF Brize Norton.... cue a 5 hr trip in the works van to pickup a load of big heavy stuff including a PC.

After arrival.... said ground staff said our big heavy kit was over in the warehouse corner.......... a slightly second hand moniter..... "Wheres the rest?" my superior asked.. "Thats it mate"

We spent the trip home grumbling that we should have used a mac. what a waste of a day...sheesh.

Mozilla slams Microsoft for using dark patterns to drive Windows users toward Edge

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Alert

Thats IT

microsoft is the Harry Grout of operating systems.

"Thats a very nice installation of linux you have there..... would be a shame if anything..................... happened to it....."

Fujitsu finance chief says sorry for IT giant's role in Post Office Horizon scandal

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

Re: Rehash

Quote:"

"Frankly a rehashed article with a predictable blizzard of virtue signaling and ill informed opinion in the comments."

Fushitshow employees could go into the horizons database and alter accounts WITHOUT leaving a transaction log, when challenged in court fushitshow employees took the stand and said "Horizons data was good, and cannot be altered once entered from the horizons terminal in the post office concerned"

People lied in court, and innocent people were convicted and sent to jail as a result.

How much more is there to say?

Quote:

"I bet every other retail provider is breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't them."

I think you're right there AND crossed fushitshow off the list of software vendors to approach when they want to update their computer systems.

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

Which is all well and good, but the court of appeal can only hear an individual case.

Which involves the PO handing over the documents used to prosecute said postmaster as well as said postmaster handing over documents saying why they believe their conviction is unsafe.

And the PO can point to the inquiry not having reported back and unfairly affecting the case as a result.

All of which takes time, and then theres the other 762 cases to consider......

Windows 3.11 trundles on as job site pleads for 'driver updates' on German trains

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Windows

Re: The latest isn't always the greatest

The other thing about industrial systems is the sheer cost of replacing the machinery.

£750 000 for ONE machine ... and then you need to run it for at least 10 years and more if you can.. and then you see the notice "No updating the OS as the system software has only been proven with win95/98/XP/ our custom linux build supplied with the machine"

"But you can run it in a VM" but can the hardware running the VM interface safely with the hardware running the machinery? and what happens if its a custom PC built into the machine?

The land of industrial controls is where the dinosaurs (like me) still roam , having spent the afternoon on the 30 yr old tooling lathe making 20 custom supports... while trying to remember how to program the thing someone give me my win10 powered CAD/CAM pc back :)

Cory Doctorow has a plan to wipe away the enshittification of tech

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

Its too late to stop

it.

The time to stop it was 20 odd years ago when the chance to split microsoft into 2 (or more) companies was lost.

Once everyone knew that there was no limit to the size any company would be allowed to take its market share to, then they were all at it... m$ with 95% of operating systems.... google 90% of searching... farcebook ... need I say more.

And now due to their size in their markets, the barrier to entry for smaller companies is simply huge.

And as for schemes like share buybacks, they only do that because it makes the execs and share owners richer, and it means less tax to pay on share dividends .. and who cares about the employees fired to reduce costs that those profits spent on buyback could have easily covered.

PS buybacks should be illegal as they once were, unless 100% of the traded shares are being bought back and the company de-listed from the stock market.

That runaway datacenter power grab is the best news for net zero this century

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Boffin

Re: A fine idea but...

Quote

"...people fear nuclear. They fear it to the point of irrational panic."

To the point the word 'nuclear' had to come out of NMRI scanners because the public were scared of the things.... now they go 'meh' and complain about having to lay in the tube for 20 mins.

We had a science teacher at skewl explain about the safe shielding needed for plutonium, basically a crisp packet that can be sealed to stop the plutonium dust escaping, if you want to go over the top then the foil/plastic bag your phone came in would do, big fat alpha particles cant make it through 4 inches of air let alone a plastic bag.

It was from him and his geiger counter we learned about how many normal materials put out radioactivity..... its not just granite table tops you should be worried about....

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Mushroom

Sorry its

coffee here

freshly brewed in a french press, no milk or sugar.

However, for what the americans have done to our tea, they must PAY and pay dearly

(please note: the germans tried to interupt the tea supply in 1940... look what happened then....)

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Pint

cleaning alcohol

Make remember that one to add to my list of costs.

At 35 quid a bottle (speciality hypo-allegenic made from pure scottish spring water carefully manufactured over about 12 years if anyone asks)

Wether it will get past our new accountant is another matter

Although the clues were there for today's meeting such as the boss going "Got an urgent meeting with a client. see you monday" knowing full well the meeting is at his golf club and neither of them will get past the 19th hole.

But back to the beancounter at the meeting.... and does he drone on and on , our eyes have glazed over while he explains how much money we should have made and keeps on droning on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, while the clock runs slower and slower and each second ticks away like tombs being shut . the PFY has forgotten to send me the bat signal after 40 mins to get me out of hell, and then oh god.... the beancounter starts with the power point slides and I start debating whether to eat my own arm when the QA guy gets awarded a medal when his blood sugar tester lets off the 'low sugar' alarm and he seems to pass out (I can see its in 'test mode') where upon the meeting is stopped while we find the QA guy some sweets and the rest of us go hide somewhere in the factory.

What is it that makes a man(or woman) become a beancounter? and what sort of courses do they take there? something that removes all emotions and empathy leaving a heart unbrideled by a conscience

Just think, you could be walking down the pub later , passing what looks like a normal human being, but really its a chartered accountant with a heart full of dull greyness just waiting for its chance to destroy your mind.

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

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Terminator

Re: A modest proposal

Thats what the AI driven robots are for.......

And the fact they are fitted with a phased plasma rifle in the 40kwatt range are merely there for your comfort and convenience

United Airlines’ patience with Boeing is maxed out after repeated safety issues

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Manufacturing

Can only upvote this once.. sadly.

This is exactly what everyone in the manufacturing business is now facing as my generation have had enough and goto god's waiting room (retirement), we said we'll need to train people but 'costs too much' and 'we can outsource it' and 'china can fill in' came back...

And you're right... who wants to do this.... 4 years of apprenticeship + 4 years as a journeyman and you'll be getting good at this game for a wage barely better than a forklift driver at a supermarket, and all the time knowing that somewhere on some accountants spreadsheet your fate is being decided.

The sad thing is its not the dirty factory image so beloved by rose tinted old timers and students of Marx, its clean(ish) and can be quite interesting especially since our main tools now are computers and robots.

But the C-level guys must have their bonuses, so once proud manufacturers look to employing the least trained and cheapest staff they can with the result the door blows out and lands in someone's back garden........

Florida man slams 'tyranny' of central bank digital currencies in re-election bid

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Find a new joke

Quote

"Same with the fraud trial. There was no victim, the bank at the centre of the issue pretty much doesn't care and the people going after Trump campaigned on the promise of 'getting him'."

The victim was the bank, because if they knew how much the property was valued at vs how much Truump said it was worth, they would have charged him a higher fee/interest rate on the loan, the fact he paid off the loan and the bank made some money does'nt matter.

Trump falsely stated how much his property was worth with the intent of gaining financial advantage... thats fraud. its not 'good business' , its not 'people out to get him' oh and he complained about how unfair it was that its not a jury trial.... when he turned down the offer of a jury trial in the first place......

Still .... provides us on this side of the pond with much entertainment

DPD chatbot blasts courier company, swears, and dabbles in awful poetry

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Devil

Re: Never, ever train your chatbot on...

Now that sounds like a project for e-reg's special projects group.

Although testing AI generated vogon poetry on live human beings maybe a crime against humanity......

The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Unhappy

My view

(as repeated fairly often) is that its not the fault of the developers of horizons if the system is full of reported bugs that they have not had time to deal with

Its the fault of the managers at fushitshow who insisted the system go live, and told the PO that "Yupp it will go live on April 1st 1999" even though they had memos and emails to the effect that horizons was not ready to go live.(this was done to protect fushitshow from having any 'late delevery' deductions to their contract.

Then the PO begin noticing the faults and fujshitshow admit that horizons is a bag o'shite, by this time postmasters have already been charged and convicted of theft.

So the PO took the decision not to disclose the fact horizons was shite in order to protect themselves and the PO's reputation.

From there the sorry saga trundled along steam rollering anyone unlucky enough to have horizons burp on them.

All to protect fushitshow and the PO and the managers who made the crappy decisions instead of the correct ones (explain again why managers get huge rewards for screwing up when us mere mortals would be out on our arses?)

And Vennals could have earned her CBE by standing up when she got the job and saying "Horizons is a shite show" and admitted the PO screwed up.

Will AI take our jobs? That's what everyone is talking about at Davos right now

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

Its more like

"We employ 1000 people, thanks to the new tech the company is 25% more productive than before, so the solution could be that we keep everyone employed on the same money but you only have to work 4 days a week instead of 5, but the solution we're going with is we're sacking 25% of you, keeping everyones wages the same, and everyone will still have to work 5 days a week and distributing all the profits to C-level managers and shareholders"

40 years since Elite became the most fun you could have with 22 kilobytes

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Thumb Up

Yupp

I admit it.... I played all those years ago

And its such a simple and elegant solution to "How do I generate and store 8 galaxies in 22K?" *(lets face it unless you're into embedded systems, you dont have to worry about such constraints ever again)

And it spawned a whole bunch of us who traded, flew and shot our way across those 8 galaxies and always had fond memories of open world games where we could do as we wished rather than follow the straight plot line of the game or try for the highest score(this week)... how many people go straight to the main quest of fallout/elder scrolls open world type games?

And the memory lived on when the kickstarter for elite dangerous came around (mostly because no big publisher would put up the money to create it)

And apart from certain stumbles along the way, its worked pretty well for the past 10 years.

So heres a link for all you past elite players, and all the current ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99FMBNn1jZU

*Solution: Random number generator that uses a seed value to start the sequence.... same seed, same sequence.... store the seed and the algorithm no need for 22K of data to be stored

Post Office boss unable to say when biz knew Horizon could be remotely altered

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Compensation?

I suspect that fujitsu became aware of the errors quite quickly as their admins/helplines were correcting errors in horizons quite early on in its deployment.

However, they decided not to tell the PO because that could impact the income from the PO contract(thus affecting their own bonuses)

The PO (in all good faith at this point) used horizons data to prosecute the postmasters.

Now it gets even murkier

The PO becomes aware of the errors in horizons data(either through fujitsu admitting it or 3rd party(s) informing them), it has 2 choices here, admit it, and admit the previous convictions are unsafe. or keep it quiet and carry on.

Both companies were more interested in 'saving face' and 'costs of admiting failures' than they were in making sure the system worked as planned.

All this reminds me of the Challenger disaster when 'pressure to launch' and 'costs the the company' overrode the engineer's desire not to launch when freezing cold.

Windows 12 fan fiction shows how Microsoft might ladle AI into the OS

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
Happy

Rounded corners?

Hello lawsuit.................

UK public sector could save £20B by swerving mega-projects and more, claims chief auditor

Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
FAIL

A plan to

save £20 billion by updating and modernising IT systems at a cost of £40 billion if the usual suspects in government IT projects are involved (crapita, fushitshow , etc etc etc)