Posts by Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese

Re: it would be like a car hitting a shopping cart

"it would be like a car hitting a shopping cart" doesn't give me enough data to assess how serious the situation is....is the shopping cart full of beer or full of vegetables?

Re: European Space SLAs

I believe many of his colleagues were named Hans.

Indeed - they were all employed on the optical guidance system....many Hans make light work

Re: Digital Tinnitus

Reminds me of an old Compaq desktop I had at work. Sound out of the onboard speaker was OK but the signal path for the headphone output must have been too close to the CPU - there was a faint high-pitched buzzing when listening to music on headphones, and it used to fluctuate depending on how hard the machine was working. That was the PC that persuaded me to buy an MP3 player.

Re: There's a big difference...

There's also a big difference between rockstar and rockstar.

One rockstar is the one who is always front-and-centre on stage all night, playing their guitar with great skill, soaking up the glory. Then they go back to their hotel after the gig, drink like a demon and trash the hotel room. Hey, they're a rock star - that's what they do.

Then there's the rockstar who is the focus of the band and holds everything together.. They take their guitar solos in the spotlight, but also know when to step back and just provide a solid groove while their bandmates do their thing. After the gig they also go back to the hotel bar, but they sit in the bar and tell stories about earlier days on the road with <whoever> and buy the odd round of drinks for the rest of the gang.

Translate from a music context to a software dev context - there's still one type I wouldn't touch with a bargepole because they're a potential liability, and another I'd welcome onboard as they would be an asset both in terms of production and team spirit.

if the RI lecture is no longer on iPlayer then it could well be on the RI YouTube channel - beware though, the latter is a rich seam indeed, and I've lost many an hour to viewing stuff from their archive.

"only be sure always to call it, please, research."

+1 for the Tom Lehrer reference...

...and the start of a spiral of infinite regress given that you plagiarised that line

Re: Well, looks like that migration to Linux is getting cheaper and cheaper

But once they've retrained everyone, no more problems and no more surprises.

It's not just a case of retraining through is it?

There's also the matter of physically updating each client PC from Windows to Linux (either by OS update in situ, or purchasing new box, configuring Linux and swapping with Windows box). A far from trivial task in an organisation the size of the one in the article. And it wouldn't happen overnight, so raises issues around having part of the workforce on one platform and the rest on the other.

And all of this is predicated on the business software packages in use being available for Linux, or usable under WINE).

It's a sad fact of life that once an organisation of any reasonable size has embraced the Windows ecosystem, the logistics associated with a move to another platform are significant enough to preclude that move being made.

More's the pity

Re: Money Grab

Someone must be profiting!!

That 'someone' will be 123-Reg, who decided that I wanted to automatically buy the .uk version of all the .co.uk and .org.uk domains I have registered with them. Fortunately I pulled it before the transaction went through, but I suspect many were caught out and ended up buying domains they neither wanted nor asked for.

Reminds me of a weekend away a few years ago with The War Department, when she'd organised a little family-run B&B in a little Scottish village. We were checking in and the proprietor said "Now, you've booked a double room - I can offer you that or I've got a twin room available as well"

"We'll take the double room that we'd requested" I said

Mein host pondered for a moment and asked "Have the two of you been together long?"

I thought he was being a bit judgemental so answered a bit indignantly "six or seven years as it happens"

"Oh, that's OK then...it's just that the double room doesn't have a toilet door"

Re: and giving users an inferior experience when compared to a native desktop application

Browser-based apps can only be astonishing if the client has connectivity to the web server. Don't overlook how many people work in places where connectivity is patchy or non-existent. I've managed to be quite productive on a long train journey by working with local files using local applications...something that just wouldn't have been possible is relying on mobile comms (despite what LNER / Virgin / whoever might imply in their advertisements, their onboard wifi is generally pretty s**t, and I don't trust any of the mobile phone providers to give me a data service I can rely on when I'm on the move).

Re: Awkward

On an EPOS terminal it'll almost certainly be the embedded flavour of the OS, which is in support for far longer than the regular.

Re: Why some people keep on reinventing the ill-fated Palm Foleo?

I can *sort of * see a use case whereby you buy 2 of these - one for the office and one for when you're working at home. Transporting your machine between locations becomes no more cumbersome than popping a fag-packet-sized machine in your pocket......but for that sort of working scenario you're not likely to be using a Pi as you main machine - you're much more likely to use a laptop, which brings us back to your argument....

Re: When is a Max not a Max

So what, changing the name won't change anything else.

Ironically, a lot of the problem here stems from the fact that the 737-Max is evolved enough to no longer be a 737 type aircraft, yet Boeing chose *not* to change the name

Get some STEM graduates working on it

Re: "it’s not a particularly flattering angle"

Going off-topic a bit but your comment about people giving TV interviews by Skype reminded me of something.... why do people doing interviews like that so often wear headphones?

I've never had any problems using Skype (or other videoconferencing tools for that matter) with the sound coming out of my PC speakers. The software's clever enough to manage to audio so that it doesn't descend into some howl of feedback reminiscent of Hendrix at Monterrey.

Why not just use speakers and ditch the earbuds, instead of appearing live to millions of people with bits of wire hanging out of your bonce?

To be honest, my phone has been nagging me for months that the new version of Android is available and it wants to update. I just keep dismissing the notification. Phone runs fine as it is - I don't want to risk updating the OS and some application(s) deciding to break, or the whole phone slowing down because the latest OS expects more up-to-date hardware and generally makes my older phone run more slowly.

Yes, I'm probably taking a risk by not getting the security patches, but on balance I trust myself to use web/email responsibly to reduce the risk, and just keep using my phone as I always have.

YMMV

However, many companies leave the initial CV vetting to the (let's not hold back here) total *uckwits in HR.

I'm lucky in that HR don't get involved in our selection process. The CVs I see come from a specialist recruitment agency who I trust to do a suitable initial filter.

Interestingly in the context of the article under discussion, is that part of their service is to reformat all of the CVs into a common format/structure, including removal of date of birth. My company explicitly forbids interviewers from asking interviewees how old they are.

Re: Greedy and careless

But there's nothing to stop you buying the kit at retail price from existing channels and selling it on at a markup.

On the face of it that sounds correct, but I suspect there would be some legal rope to hang you with relating to warranty - either you're supplying goods for which you can't offer manufacturer's warranty / the manufacturer not approving you passing the warranty on to the end user. IANAL but I have a feeling in my water that there's something relating to warranty provision that would prevent you from being able to pull a stunt like that.

Re: It's made of gamers!

Who thought Soylent was an attractive name for a health food?

To be honest, it's not an attractive drink in either taste or appearance, so an unattractive name seems appropriate,

I was given a bottle at an event and tried it out of curiousity...I don't think I would have sampled it otherwise, and I certainly won't be doing it again

Re: Mensa...

From what I remember, Mensa membership criterion is being in the top 2%, and was around the 140 mark when I was a member a decade or three ago. I don't think the UK or worldwide IQ range has slipped so low that 132 represents top 2% now.

I think you do a trial test at home and if you score 132 or higher then you can apply for the formal test for joining - and that has the threshold of around 140.

Re: Why?

Schwarzenegger <- he's a big man

Steven Seagal <- but he's out of shape

Michael Caine <- with him it's a full-time job

What part of "no-connection available" do you not understand?

I understand "no-connection available" perfectly well. What I don't understand is why an application which stores data which is considered to be "serious stuff" does not maintain some secondary copy of that data, e.g. copying to a server when a connection does become available, rather than an all-eggs-in-single-offline-basket model.

Also, from I remember of the Wii, it also sat vertically.

That's how I remember it too

IR35: If you're affected, raise your prices or go full-employed. It's really not that hard.

Makes total sense.

Various companies I work for routinely review their prices and pass increases in therr costs on to me. Acme are supplying me with pre-fangled widgets at £10 a pop, having sourced un-fangled widgets from their supplier at £5 a pop. Their supplier ups their wholesale price to £7 due to price fluctuations in the international widget market, then I understand why I might well end up paying £12 instead of £10.

If a contractor's costs, in the form of taxation, go up then it makes sense to just add that to their rate to the customer.

That becomes the going rate for contract labour. It's then up to the employer to decide if they'd rather pay that bit extra and retain the flexibility of contracted labour, or commit to employing staff.

They finished painting the Forth Bridge in 2011

Indeed, yet so few folk know this.

Having to constantly correct people about painting the Forth Bridge not being a thing anymore is like painting the...oh, dammit!