Posts by Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

It's a good read...

Thankfully I'm not a Tesco customer, and I liked the added warnings as to what ongoing problems their customers should watch out for followong this... but I got halfway through and thought I was actually reading an advertising puff piece for a particular security intelligence firm.

Defence du jour...

No doubt the youths lawyer tried to claim that he has Aspergers syndrome as a defence.

I'm looking forward to the day...

When none of us will need to take either responsibility or accountability for our actions, and we can all happily pay lawyers to try to get us off of charges by grasping to any manner of conveniently purported or concocted mental conditions; because I'm sure we are all mental in some way if we looked hard enough. So...

Was he smart enough to do the crime? Yes.

Was it pre-meditated? Defintely.

Would he have understood the legality and consequences of it? Most certainly.

Should he be extradited to the US? I don't care.

And what are the odds...

On getting any significant return on that investment of time and effort?

The ICO are a busted flush at best.

Whilst I don't disagree with the thrust of the article...

At the volume that Walkers work at I'd suggest that there is more to producing a packet of crisps than simply growing potatoes.

Accounting misshtakes...

Or did Mr Coleman have a nice short position on those stock prices?

In my fairly experienced view...

The first rules of running larger SAP and EBS integration programmes and projects is always :

1. Front load and finance the programme with a proper requirements and transition mapping stage.

2. Do not allow any SI to write those requirements on your behalf.

3. Don't give the contract to IBM or WIPRO.

4. Or Accenture.

5. Or, err... CSC.

Okay, so that's five rules... and I'm available at short notice if you need me at an almost reasonable day rate.

"No single point of failure"

Is just hyped up marketing blurb so they don't have to admit to having "many points of failure".

I had an Aquarius...

And there was nothing for it. Nothing. Not even a plug in tumbleweed. It was rubbish.

Thankfully my father quickly realised it was rubbish and got us a Spectrum and then an Atari 800XL.

I loved the Atari. Absolutely loved it.

Alien invasions.

They always start with a computer glitch...

I should be all facepalm about this, but...

Nothing surprises me. Especially when validating the egos of Sociology and Psychology students.

In her support however, and by the awarding of the "first class degree" that in spite of the tenuous and vapid nature of the subject matter, that she presented a good synopsis, supported it successfully with observed cases and theory, and then argued the salient points as required; with those key points being a good part of what a good undergrad thesis is marked on.

Why all the fuss?

She's like...

Totes irrelevant.

If I was the Air Marshall...

I'd buy stuff based on how cool I thought it was, so it would be A-10 Thunderbolts all the way for me. I'm not sure I'd last long in the job though... but perhaps just long enough to have a go in one and blow some stuff up with the mega-canon on the front.

FTFY...

"DP revealed in the year ended 31 May 2015 that turnover had slumped to £46.9m from £52.7m in the prior fiscal year, and a spike in director divdends cunningly diguised and hawked as tenuous admin expenses as they knew the game was up; contributed to an operating loss of £1.9m versus a profit of £858,000 the previous year."

They lost my business forever...

When I went into the Portsmouth store to buy a pair of quite expensive headphones as an Xmas present. I had politely asked the sales droid to open the locked cabinet that they keep them in, and instead of actually doing that, he just looked at me and asked what mobile phone I had and whether I wanted to upgrade to a new tariff.

Even when I pulled him up short for terrible service and told him to forget the sale as I was no longer interested in buying from them - I just got that mindless zombie expression that appeared to have not an utter clue as to what he had done wrong or why I was saying it.

Perhaps I'm the only one...

But I think they deserve a round of applause. Their approach, expected results and ability to deliver has been based on a well hedged, honest and very pragmatic set of expectations. This approach goes down well with the HPC crowd, and in the end was where IBM kind of started to lose it; and where both HP and DELL could still do better (although it is to be noted that neither are doing "badly" in the same space).

I call bo**cks!!!!

This is just political posturing like a teenage prom queen preening for the boys to give her some attention behind the bike sheds. In or out of the EU, just like HSBC, they won't have the balls to vacate UK HQ.

So VF - if you do by chance grow a pair, please f**k off ASAP to save us from your whining and totally shit billing and customer support *cough* processes.

ROBOTS.TXT... schmobots.txt

Yeah, robots schmobotz!!! What chance do you have when the website states "HEY GROWN-UPS: We don't collect ANY personal information about your kids. Which means we couldn't share it even if we wanted to!"

But then they do... and the law does nothing about it?

Shameful.

Eh?

I'm all for the ongoing challenge of parking penalties and I can see how this makes things easier etc, but from a technical perspective surely this is just a jazzed up CASE or IF, THEN, ELSE construct?

Indeed...

This is why I have an ongoing case against a UK based content streaming service who have just moved the goalposts and cancelled/withdrawn my ability to play back £70 of paid for content on the device I bought it on. They are arguing that the T&C's allow them to withdraw device support at any time, which I am contesting under law as this statement is actually hidden away on page 7 of their T&Cs and not displayed prominently at the time of purchase.

I'd love Eric Cantona to become a senior EU commissioner*. After all, being a farmer from the Alsace region, look how he has manged to raise their plight recently. If he can do that for them then...

* Lets just forget the whole Seagull and fan-kicking incidents though eh?

FTFY...

Colin Spinks, assistant director of the Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said: “Khan has to pay the price for his deliberate attempts to steal money from UK taxpayers – money that could have been used to fund vital public services." But went on to add that "...most likely wasn't used that way however as we just bandy this term about to hide our own inability to correctly manage money. More likely is that the money was actually spunked on a failed IT project, some no-name MPs expenses, or used to crowd fund a missile that we ultimately fired at unarmed brown people somewhere in the Middle East".

Well...

I think from a personal / home user / SOHO perspective the view has to be to start thinking about tough encryption on as many forms of electronic communications as possible. Yes I agree with the article that to do business with the EU in the future we'll need to maintain privacy standards, but what about separate standards when dealing with the US for example? We've all seen Teresa Mays vision of the future, and the recent roughriding over personal privacies as demonstrated by the FBI and other court rulings - and neither fill me with any joy. Even less now that we will not necessarily in the future enjoy the protections we have enjoyed previously and up until now under the EU.

Oooh Oooh I can answer this...

"What difference will there be between IBM and an Indian outsourcing company such as Wipro?"

From my perspective of having inherited both as 3rd party SI's on large scale SAP and ERP implementations my answer is thus:

The difference is that IBM are only slightly less shit and clueless than Wipro when it comes to (A) the quality of thought capital, (B) the understanding of and adherence to contractual terms, (C) planning and management, and (D) execution.

Can I get my 5 points and cuddly toy now?

Dear Germany...

I don't give a stuff about a game played 50 years ago. However, I will be persuaded to remain if you guarantee that whenever I go to Egypt, your citizens will stop laying towels over all of the holiday sunloungers at 6am and then deciding to not turn up at the pool until 11am to claim them.

I in return (even though this will be at the expense of much personal amusement at the sound of stroppy Germans) will promise to stop removing these aforementioned towels, and I will also cease giving them back to the pool attendant as unwanted or disregarded. I will note that this whole negotiation could have been avoided if your citizens stopped seeming to want to impose their own rules on everyone else, and abided by those already in place that serve for the benefit of everyone.

Deal? Deal.

When will those groundworks planners learn...

When will they learn to not measure these sites out using such obscure units such as the metre. It is well understood that large groundworks should be measured by the reference Diplodocus or London bus measures.

Typical of your carburettor based stars...

Twin Weber 40's I'll bet. Just spray some Quick Start into the air intakes and hold the choke out. She'll go eventually.

As Bob Dylan wrote...

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..."

I was going to write a rambling response to this article but I'll just sum it up in that I think that there is a tendency to overstate the fears that technology will replace everyone and everything as stated. This IMHO is a very inward looking perspective and certainly not representative of where I live or the services that I use to move through my life. What these self aggrandising "new-tech" *cough* leaders people seem to forget to do is to actually look outside and see if what they are saying actually correlates in any way to ACTUAL reality. And generally I would profess, the answer is no, it doesn't.

So, in summation : Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose.

Brilliant...

Because every day in my career in IT I am confronted by the thundering realities of having to understand the weight of a tablet. I'm genuinely interested in undertanding (A) what the full question related to that news snippet is, and (B) what possible reason it has doing on a formal Computer Science exam paper?

The Indians in Mumbai must be laughing their collective asses off.

Vin-da-loo, vin-da-loo...

Seriously, our team as usual will be out and back home again before anyone has had a chance to get remotely offended.

Dear Oracle...

Some guy by the name of Jeff Skilling called... he heard there might be a job going for him and a CFO type chap he knows?

Elmer FUD!!!

Yes the answer is always hybrid. But of course it depends on the scope and scale of the project. By all means use an Agile sprint method or scrum organisation structure to deliver key and core work packages, but on large multi stage development projects and programmes, these need to sit under a waterfall stage driven structure because it gives the Sponsors, Programme board, PEs and other steering group rerpresentatives the comfort that the programme has a clearly defined structure and approach, and because looking at a large project in high level stages, and being able to track key milestones against those stages is how it works for those seniors whose necks are on the blocks to influence and deliver.

Let the PM manage the project, and let the scrum-master or whichever unfortunate has been nominated to make it work, manage the work package driven sprints. All of which sits beneath the key stage plan.

The guy in the article claiming some mutual exclusivity of methods obviously isn't delivering change projects to the size and scale that a lot of PMs do (or maybe he just has a lumberjack shirt and a beard and makes it all up as he goes along?)

If you have staff that treat your corporate systems as their own, and refuse to adapt to new methods - then they need to be released. You will feel some pain but in the long term that issue should have been identified, and be actively managed with a contingency plan.

It's not rocket science. It's really really isn't.

Tidal

IIRC the feasibility study into the Severn barrage tidal power system recommended that tidal wasn't viable due to cost, timelines and environmental impact, suggesting that nuclear and wind were better options in terms of meeting the 2020 and 2050 targets. Not sure where it went after that.

Sod that...

I think I'll stay here on planet Earth thanks. I'd be itching to get away from everyone else and either out for a run or out on my bike ASAP after launch. My strategy is to wait until you are all nicely settled in that lovely cosy B-Ark, and then claim Hampshire as my own nation state once you've all departed.

What have the Britons ever done for us...

Apart from jet engines, the internet, medicine, electricity, mass communications…

Badgers spleen anyone?

It's kind of what Enron did...

Although sightly different from a financial accounting perspective, it has the same feel to the Enron debacle. Look how that worked out...

Still...

To all the knee-jerk Brexiters : How amazing to think that in a few weeks we won't have to worry about these regulatory inconveniences that protect our privacy because as soon as we leave the EU our lovely government will only be too happy to hand over whatever 'Ole Uncle Sam asks for. Marvellous!!!

Still, once the truth sinks in we can always blame the immigrants, the old people and those on benefits right?

Typical PwC...

All of the questions. None of the answers.