Posts by a_yank_lurker

@AC instead of master/slave try SWAMBO and other-half.

Re: I thought the whole idea was they lived in Nigeria

Actually, they may want to be sent to Club Fed as some do not provide as luxurious accommodations for their guests. But that depends on the extradition treaties.

Re: 19H1 - virus id?

How contagious is it?

Re: I don't get it.

It's not the accuracy of the description that is the problem it is supposed connotations of the terms. The complainers do not understand that precise meanings and descriptions are important in communication. So if master-slave correctly describes the relationship between systems then there should be no problem.

Re: If anyone

This type of fraudulent phone call is a world wide problem. I doubt there is not anyone with a phone who does not get several of these a week if not a day. Invariably these calls are originating from somewhere offshore so legal proceedings against them are difficult at best if not impossible. But it seems you Brits have the same problem we have with our incompetent bureaucracy coupled with the limited total mental capacity of the legislature. Czar Thomas Reed (Speaker of the US House of Representatives) once observed that too many Congress critters subtract from the sum total of human knowledge whenever they open their mouths. It seems this is generally of all legislative bodies worldwide not just the Congress.

Re: "I suspect MS shareholders would generally disagree."

A telling point about Amazon is Bezos' maniacal focus on the customer. He tries to understand his customers and have products for them. Also, being a retailer originally Amazon is used to operating in a low margin business that relies extensively on repeat customers to stay around. This is very different from the relatively high margins found with the cloud or software. One key difference is physical products, say cat litter, has a relatively high percentage of fixed costs for each bag sold that does not really change much. With software, once a certain number of units are sold or rented the costs to add more customers are much lower and the affect on the profit margin much more for unit added.

Re: Only 3%?

I would look at a company that enforces strict silos between groups within to have an extensive head count of useless PHBs in middle mismanagement. Ask the question: Can a peon assigned a task wander over to the originator of the task to discuss the requirements? If the answer is yes, then the company is probably relatively lean with very little fat. If the answer is no, then the company probably has many middle mismanagement PHBs jealously guarding their turf and plenty of weeds to eliminate.

Uncle Bob Martin once in a YouTube talk noted that there is a difference between being 'Agile' and being agile. The key difference was whether you adopted a formalism called Agile or do you allow people to discuss problems and solutions in ad hoc groups as needed with these people being the people actually involved in executing the project.

@msage - Apple was a profitable company back then unlike Tesla. I do not remember Tesla ever making a quarterly or annual profit nor coming close to meeting production goals. Apple was doing both in the throughout most of its history. Apple did have a near death experience and survived. Tesla reminds me of many of the late 90s DotCom bubble companies with an interesting product but no clue as to how to make a profit to survive. They eventually burned through the VC cash and burned spectacularly.

Another key difference is Apple was one the early companies in the PC market when PCs were emerging as useful devices around the home and office. Thus they had a chance to evolve with the market. Tesla is a late entry into a very mature market of cars and trucks. There are numerous well established companies who have been making cars for decades if not over a century. They know how to make a car. Other than the power plant there is nothing 'novel' about a Tesla. Even its 'novelty' is not new; electric cars have been manufactured since the 1890s with varying degrees of success and profitability. So there is nothing stopping say Ford or Toyota from making an all electric car and trying to sell it. Plus they can afford to have a few years of lack luster sales with minimal profits for an electric vehicle as the infrastructure supporting them improves. They also have the facilities to ramp up production rather quickly if consumer demand shifts.

Re: Tech Savvy Millenials

@AC - Though sweeping the core is correct. The implied assumption is someone who grew using a computer as a tool understands how they work. Other than being able to use some applications the majority of all users do not understand how a computer works. If they have to troubleshoot a problem they are DOA (dead on arrival).

Re: Education

The minimum LTS support period should be 4-5 years from release. Any releases between LTS releases should be considered betaish; release that are ready for use but have some features that could be considered bleeding edge. These features will often find their way into the LTS but after they have been in the wild. But there would be no forced migration from LTS to the intermediate releases. Essentially look at the Ubuntu release model of LTS every 2 years (supported for 5 years) and semi-annual non-LTS releases which users usually skip.

Re: Meh

I suspect most of the customer frustration is not with the db technology but with the vendors. The 'big 3' listed are all notorious for their shakedown antics when comes to 'license audits'. That is enough to get the attention of C-suites and does not bode well for long term commitment. However, that does not mean an alternative db type is the replacement, it just might mean ditching the 'big 3' for something like Postgresql or MariaDB.

@Flakk - The totality of evidence has to point to the a consistent conclusion. Wayback Machine is only one source, other records are also a source. If the prosecution is only relying on Wayback they have a weak case. If Wayback tidies up all the loose ends then it makes the evidence more compelling. It appears the latter was done. Also, the prosecution provided witnesses to validate Wayback's methods that were cross-examined by the defense. So if there were serious holes, it should have come out with a competent defense.

Re: "Slurp's Orifice has compatibility problems between version"

Orifice 2013 and 2018 always mess the layout of an elderly document we use every day work that is in the older .'doc' format if you save as a .docx format or any template derived from the elderly document. Given the original document is a controlled document it is not going to be updated anytime soon.

Re: You don't cancel a successful program

I never quite figured out what value a Surface was when there are other Bloat based devices from many others that had as good or better specs at better prices. This is especially true since Slurp is not primarily a hardware manufacturer. Also, the marketing program smelled too much like Rooms-to-Go furniture sales for mediocre, over-priced furniture.

Re: Right to be forgotten

For someone over here, convictions, court records, etc. are all public record and available from the courthouse. So if they are put online, whether by the court or by someone else, there is nothing one can do about it. All putting the records online does in these cases is makes doing due-diligence much easier. One can still visit the courthouse for the records.

Re: Skipped Cisco Live two years and will next

Prostitution is actually illegal in Clarke County (Las Wages). There are a couple of counties were it is legal in Nevada.

Re: The return of front page

My experience with these products is they are a pain to update the site and often produce miserable code. Too often these products are marketed to PHBs who are penny wise and pound foolish.

Re: Most Secure Voting Machine

@ivan5 - That problem is with the voter rolls and their maintenance plus whatever id is required to prove your identity to vote. A different issue altogether than the security of the actual vote. If the actual vote totals can easily be manipulated without easy detection by the counters then all elections are in question as one does not know what the real votes were. Cleaning up voter rolls is important but not as critical as making sure the votes can not be changed without detection. The 2000 US fiasco in Florida was an example of having the actual ballots for a recount (Bush won them all). Even if there were issues about how to count some ballots ("hanging chads") one had the physical evidence to look at.

Re: What's the metric?

The metrics I would want to see is who is consistently falling for a phishing attack and how many failed the each test. I would not be surprised if there is a group of 'usual suspects' who usually fall for a phishing attack and there would be some random number who had a bad day, accidentally clicked on the link, etc. Also, properly designed, it might give a clue of how to screen emails from the outside to cut down the number of attacks getting through.

Re: On the one hand

What I would like to see is the verdict overturned with some harsh words by the Nine Seniles. Then for Chocolate Factory to sue Leisure Larry and his minions for a malicious suit to keep it going.

Re: Cute, but not for long

The problem is the barrel stress and poorly made/maintained barrels have been to blow up when fired. To use these plans to make a gun requires access to a machine shop complete with the proper equipment to heat treat the parts. Plus one has to start with the correct alloys. I doubt there it is economically for someone to DIY gunsmithing at home. It would be far cheaper to buy one.

Re: Where is the NRA?

Having plans to make a gun still require one to have some rather expensive equipment. Plus one would need to obtain the proper alloys and furnaces to heat treat parts, etc. Or as others have pointed out the gun would be a single use weapon that is possibly more dangerous to the shooter than the target. The NRA is not concerned with this because any sensible person who wants a gun will buy a well made one from a competent manufacturer.

Re: This is one of Microsofts biggest failures

@AndyMulhearn - I think Chocolate Factory's idea of perpetual beta is a bit different. My impression is they are saying that while each release ready for prime time the product itself will always be under constant development. Chrome releases are stable and generally problem free. But Chrome has new releases planned in the near future. They make sure the releases are stable and ready for the masses. But the browser itself is 'unfinished' in the sense that improvements and features will be added with time and rather frequently. Hence, in the sense of a release being good for 5 or 10 years it is always beta but in the sense each release is stable and works, it is not beta. So I think Slurp missed the key point; each release most be stable but the overall product is never quite finished. This works well for some software but not others. Also, it works well when the various bits of the system are more loosely coupled to each other (the browser is not part of the OS e.g.).

Re: Scum

The odd part about this is the company were I work has a habit of hiring older workers with obvious gray hairs for many technical positions. But we are not IT.

Re: "number portability"

On this side of the pond in 'feral land', you have number portability. All it takes is signing up with a new carrier and getting a new SIM. If you do it right there is no cost to you. Also, some carriers are pay as you go and you buy the phone outright. Other than laziness and no pressing need or desire to change I can change any time as I am a pay as you go plane and own my phones outright.

Re: "if I see someone of high status drinking coffee, I'll want coffee too"

Its amusing to see how many times PHBs fail to understand many if not most people will do what they want regardless of what someone else is doing most of the time. There are only a few social events where following the leader is necessary to a degree; but coffee?

Re: Nice to see ..

Indian Business Machines aka Itsy Bitsy Morons aka I've Been Moved