Posts by TRT

FATANG, YANG, KIPPERBANG?

I've so far done three different Access courses. It's the only piece of software I can't seem to get to grips with. I've no idea why. I've no problems with SQL and the many variants of it, FileMaker, RDS etc Just a massive bout of amnesia when it comes to Access. I remember it just long enough to pass the course then Poof! Gone.

I sat in on a session today. Updating 785 network switches across 13 sites with 53 buildings.

The project was being managed using Excel. The consultant must have spent 60+ hours constructing an intricate balance of pivot charts and look up fields. At £400 am hour no doubt. I watched him live on a call with the stakeholders add in all the unidentified risks they'd missed. The whole thing collapsed as soon as he added a single line. And we pay for it.

Re: Microsoft and its rings

Five rings for the Azure Lords, doomed to die...

Re: I think that I might have also worked for that company

That implies that they must be doing a lot of ranking. Yes, a lot of rankers about in that company, obviously.

Re: I wonder...

New key designs come out every year or so.

Bismillah, no. They will not let it go.

Re: hydrogen engines?

Dozens of buses in our area run on it.

"What's that just dropped through the star door1?"

"Ack! Just another fast food flyer. Collection only??!! No chance."

1 A star door is a bit like a star gate but a lot more secure and It has a star letterbox.

Re: Yet another elastoplast with unexpected consequences?

Indeed. It's the OS vendors that need to address this. Fine, allocate different MAC addresses to different SSIDs, or allocate randomised SSIDs to certain stored network connection profiles, but they have to allow a fixed MAC for especially trusted networks.

Or even double-nought! Like one of them there double nought spies, Uncle Jed!

Re: Not just dates get confused

I find 12:00 to be most problematic. With no other frame of reference I'd it noon or midnight? Spent half a day coding a function to display lecture times absolutely unambiguously because of things like that.

Re: Sounds familiar

Yeah... dwarfish thoughts about making something proof against hacking tends to revolve around axes.

Re: The definitions of AI aren't very reliable yet

And a true AI would be able to fathom a rational argument against that. It would be able to state clearly and calmly why it was in fact a goal. And some would argue that the clear and calm bit proves what we suspected about footballers all along.

Re: @"They have some explaining to do."

And fc.uk seems to have promise.

For football clubs of course.

Re: Elon-gated kit

Colonisation of space. That would require something like an army of sentient robots, maybe with a cortical processor developed from human foetal brain tissue and taught in an accelerated fashion by a link to someone fitted with these brain chips. Better make sure that whoever is chosen to teach these cybernetic space-men is mentally stable, otherwise the Hector robot destined for the space station at Saturn 3 might make a bit of a mess. Mind you, my mental stability was severely shaken by the sight of Kirk Doulgas's naked, wrinkled behind as well. That and the thought of a similarly undressed Farrah Fawcett.

Re: B*ll*cks

Enough time to ask how The Dodgers are doing?

Re: Creative students?

Adobe seem to have lost the plot. I'm reading lots of comments here about creative students and arts and the like. Well I can tell you it's NOT creative. It's communication. We use Adobe products. I used to support and lecture on FE / HE courses that used Adobe and Quark and I learned the software through a need to communicate the findings of hard science. I'm hounded constantly by recent graduates and undergrads who learned Adobe at college and now have diagrams to draw.

I'll admit we don't use ETLA, we have to stump up for CLP and they do at least allow us to aggregate over the whole institution so we get maximum CLP but we don't use Photoshop as a core software. It's under 5% of the work but the cost which was once a one off has now risen 10 fold. What's worse is we can't realistically share one between many due to the administrative overhead of reassigning licenses - the old concurrent run license server is long past it technology (we used to use that at the college to cut costs down)

In short, Adobe are wicked. Their approach regarding schools and colleges licensing doesn't just hook those who go on to creative courses, it's like a dragnet for everyone who ever needs to communicate in their career. And whilst an artistic type might get a good return from investing time transitioning to a non Adobe alternative, the science types just use the tool they know.

Re: "Ach ay tha noo"

Did someone say the Enterprise should be hauled away AS garbage?

Spoke like a true programmer. Not even a Musk Jesus buggy could bring a dead critter back to life.

Re: Red light district?

Did they also sell green lights? Asking for a friend. Really... his name's Cliff.