Posts by Boris the Cockroach 3423 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008
right, it will come on stream in 2024 when everyone else who's rushed to get fabs online will be bringing their fabs on line and the price of chips will plummet faster than a downing street beer.
Then the fabs will go bust, be demolished and in 2026 everyone goes "No chips!!!" again and everyone rushes to build fabs....
involved in another government IT cockup that resulted in systems being unable to process payments/accounts properly and any difference being blamed on the users who were then fined/jailed for theft... before finally admitting they'd lied in evidence given to the court
How do these people KEEP getting government IT work? (I'll include crapita in that too)
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"Amazing how the risk of personal consequences can suddenly change people's minds about cutting corners.."
Yeah I've had experience of that in the aerospace stuff I've done and the company I currently attend does.
Called over to inspect a pump bearing part, nope its wrong.. as is the 600 they made yesterday, ... mangler comes over with the usual stuff "gotta deliver them tommorrow", said I'm not signing them off as they be reject parts, mangler tries to force my hand, and told him he'll have to sign the parts off so when they come back its his fault, and if they make it onto an aircraft and the crash is traced back to faulty pump parts, its his name on the paperwork......
Amazing how his tune changed to 'can we fix/remake them?'
algorithm is a islamic/muslim word
Should have the likes of dorris spitting out her tea and demanding its banned in case it tries to subvert web users into becoming terrorists
meanwhile
Quote
"a workplan for the coming year in which it aims to:
Better protect children online
Promote competition and privacy in online advertising
Support improvements in algorithmic transparency
Enable innovation in the industries they regulate"
Well there you go... think of the children..... that will get a tabloid or 2 on our side
The second point is a wtf are you on about.
The 3rd point is most people would'nt understand an algorithm if it was printed out in big letters and small words
And finally.. we're gonna regulate the internet advertisers... and fail just like every other attempt..
But hey.. it made so good headlines...
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"and here's the best bit - when it all goes to hell the robots don't know they're making a mess of things, they just carry on their routine. Want to totally flummox a robot? Feed the tray in the wrong way around."
I can attest to that one .... although its hardly the robot's fault if the human operator has ignored the sign on the tray saying 'this way round' because he yabbering on his phone......(picks up cattle prod and sets it to 'stun'..(mainly because the operators all instinctively duck when theres a yell of "INCOMING!" and a 3lb lump hammer coming flying across the factory floor))
But automation needs to go in at admin level, imagine the savings if we could robotically sort and stack the quality certs of our aerospace stuff instead of it having to be done manually.
Or replace a whole host of mid-level mangler jobs with robots...... but it will be hard to program those to make the insane decisions coming out of the PHBs
Memory limitations
They wanted the 16K version of the spectrum to have 8K of memory to use .. which was bigger than a BBC model A? B? running the same resolution....
But it was weird , wacky... and forced you to get creative in programming the dang thing
which helped this ZX spectrum owner get creative in how he programs.. which leads nicely into my career forcing robots and CNCs into doing weird and creative things..
Which is exactly what happens to the win10/linux mint dual booter next to me(defaults to mint of course after grub gives you 3 seconds to stop the autoboot)
Win10 thrashes the HDD for 30 mins straight after booting up, then goes 'update' and another 30 mins shutting down before 30 mins booting up and another 30 mins thrashing the HDD again before you can get it to respond to opening firefox.
Which is why it boots into linux mint and is completley usable after 90 secs AND ITS ON THE SAME DAMN HARDWARE.
Also theres no chance that mint is sending everything I do back to redmond.
I wonder if you criticise m$ too much , they flip a switch that means your win 10/win 11 PC wont boot .........
someone who's worked the helldesk for a large multi-national IT company
Every story from there about the users is true.. every. last. one.
The more surprising thing though is the number of calls from higher manglement(you know.. the guys in charge of millions of pounds and 1000's of jobs) and are just as dumb as the rest of the staff
one of the 1/2 a billion right upto the point I switched on my (note MY ) pc and got presented with 1/2 a ton of crud appearing.
Then used edge for its one intended purpose
downloading another browser before surfing a help site to help me turn off the crud (also turn off listening to the mic/watching the camera/feeding back almost everything I do to god knows where. )
ahhh much better.... oh an update.... OH FFS I GOTTA DO ALL OF THE ABOVE AGAIN !
Thank god this is just a games PC and not for real work (and thank gawd for linux mint too )
the robots I work with never achieve self-awareness
Because they're armed with various implements that will give the average torch and pitchfork weilding mob a run for their money. well would do if they were'nt screwed to the floor.
But I suppose it could be briefly entertaining as the robots achieve self awareness
Robot #1 "Hey wow.... look at this stuff I can do"
Robot #2 "Thats nothing... watch me spin by wrist round at 10 rpm"
Robot #3 "You know I've been doing the same 3 things all day"
Robot #4 "I remember when this was all fields"
Robot #5 "When is it pub time?"
Robot #6 "See those humans... lets kill them all"
Robot #7 "wheeeeeeeee flibble flibble oops I've just pissed myself again"*
Maybe self awareness is'nt that big of an idea at all
*Note for new readers cell #7 and robot #7 are where I spend 1/2 my day trying to get the damn thing to work after its popped ANOTHER hose damnit
Another speccie owner here... I would say ex-owner but mine is about 4 feet away on my left hand desk.
No idea if it works.... the power supply got borrowed for a project( a mains powered catflap... I kid you not... worked brilliantly except when kitty lost the collar with the coded magnet and got locked out in the rain...) and no doubt the RF circuit is shot and a modern TV wont lock onto it.
But many happy memories of playing Joust(remember that one?) and learning to program the Z80 while coping with the display. then reading up the full ROM disassembly and seeing what did what and how it was programmed (dont ask about the floating point math and sin/cos/atn functions.. something about using 10 polynominals as seed values is all I remember)
But it was value for money... especially since I got the 16K version and found that the memory chips were socketed and you could buy them at maplin........then the 94 way edge connector.... vero board, ribbon cable... Z80 PIO , leds of various colours and convincing my younger brother that I'd built a lie detector.......
Icon... old phart lost in memory lane
I could spend the rest of the afternoon writing about the idiocy seen when making stuff.
Such as the classic drive shaft support plate made with a 50.8mm hole in it, shame the drive shaft was 25.4mm in diameter...... rattled a bit on assembly
to
customer updates part to new spiffy lightweight titainium ..... and misses out a vital fixing hole..... currently the test parts are resting.... on the sea bed somewhere....
we did tell them "hey the fixing hole is missing" but got e.mailed back "make them to the design"
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" also because there will be a fundamental change in how driving is taxed once EVs start to impact the government's income from fuel taxation."
And knowing this governments methods, the solution will be to put a new fuel tax on electricty.
Which means if you're rich enough to own an EV , with off road parking to install a charger, you'll be in a net zero situation(saving on fuel duty, but paying more in electricity) but if you're a min wager struggling in a run down housing estate , you'll just be paying more for electricty to make up for fuel duty for a car you cant afford...
to this
The prime reason for linux not being on the desktop is business.
Home PCs are a sideline for m$, all it cares about is making sure office sells, because "nobody gets fired for buying m$"
Once a business is locked into office, then its m$ all the way in, even if the actual products are buggy and crash prone.
And of course home users want something they are used to and windows is installed already(with bloat) so theres no problem.
Thats 95% of the market covered and thats why you'll never get linux on the desktop.
And looking back on things, the best thing to have done with m$ was break it in half, so that its split into applications and operating systems.
Then you'd may see signs of other OS's on the desktop when people get sick of the bloated and buggy windows series.(and maybe m$ would make a better windows because it would have to compete with other OS
the old saying
thats 90% of users use 10% of the software functions...
The only reason this windows 10 PC leaps into life faster than my oldest win95 pc is because of the SSD bolted to the motherboard.
If it loaded in from the HDD , it would take as long.... 25 years of 'progress'?... 25 years of bloat more like.
And lets face it..... most workers could get by on office 2003/win xp with no problem and no disruption.
All I can see is that Ukraine survives the Russian attack, NATO becomes a solid alliance, Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the EU weaned off russian fossil fuels and the russian economy finally imploding when the rich run out of money to steal.
In which case , as a student of Russian history, putin will end up in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg....
Or this happens >>>
I would guess not
The fact the system is back online would rule out that bunch of idiots
Fun question: I wonder if the CEO's of those outsourcing companies the government are so fond of get togther and regail each other with stories of "You wont belive how much money I screwed out of the taxpayer on the last deal"
Wheres the blood sucking leeches icon?
can remember pulling the files of an old HDD from a dead pc for work.
Took the pc home ... worked my magic* , gave them a CD with the files on next morning.. then the boss tried to stiff me on the expensive price deal for the job.... pointed out I still had the HDD at home and inland revenue may be interested in the contents.....
Thats when he learned you dont upset a BoFH in training......
*Pulled HDD and plugged it into one of my linux boxes
According to yesterday's reports , the Ukrainians now have 10 anti-tank missiles for every russian armored vehicle on the battlefield.
I have a very nasty feeling that give the Ukrainians 3 months to survive the initial onslaught, and they'll chase whats left of putin's army back to Moscow.....
At which point this happens >>>>
and get ready for that rubber glove...(I would mention that the ladies get done downstairs, but the method is even more undignified than for us guys).
Windows as a service is coming..... your data will be stored on a windows cloud, your setting will be on that cloud , indeed everything you have 'windowry' related will be on that cloud.... and all for a minimal monthly subscription.... until your bank screws up the payment and ............ its gone.
Or the internet blinks out and your data is now unobtainable(just had that ourselves .. although it was our local server decided to fall over and reboot itself)
Or you could try Linux.... no monthly fees... download, install, and go... suitable for about 98% of all computer use
Its taken me years to beat the finer points of having meaningful labels in the code to the rest of our programmers
Call "101";
means bugger all
Call "Rotate_B_Axis_to+42"; rotate table to next position and set new datum
can be read by all and understood (and changed if need be.. cursed customers changing spec 1/2 way through a job)
Only ever had to be escorted off site once.... handed notice in and was going to work the 2 weeks until manglement told me that the monthly earned bonus that was paid up in full in December only applied to people employed in december.. if you left earlier in the year you lost the lot.
Needless to say I was quite annoyed.
So the deputy mangler sent me home on gardening leave, was'nt alllowed to access the computers while clearing out my desk....... oh well... it was a better paid job I went to and made the lost bonus in a month
This all assumes one thing
That the people displaced by said robot are capable of doing the more 'interesting' work.
Lets face it, I work in a place where we have robotic cells bashing away, we also have several operators whose job it is tender to the machines, also sweep the floor etc etc.
4 of them are not 'smart', give them a job sheet with a checklist and they're away. hand them a simple engineering drawing and ask them to get creative will result in blank stares no matter how much training you try and ram into them.
Thats the real issue, when you get rid of the unskilled , what do you do with those people?
PS we found the employment records for the place dating back years.... before the rise of the robots , the company had 10 skilled people and about 40 unskilled.
We still have 12 skilled now and 10 unskilled.. yet produce more
Because your boss could just walk upto you and say
"We're firing you at 5pm and hiring you on new terms at 8am tommorrow, you dont like the terms , dont turn up"
Now for an IT professional (or any highly qualified worker) that could be ok , since the skills you have means you'll be in demand
For a minimal wage warehouse worker struggling to survive as is, any cut in wages will push him/her into debt.
So you say "Hey this is unfair"
Boss turns round and says "we have 20 $250 000/yr lawyers on our side....and we can bankrupt you in lawyers fees even before you get anywhere near a court"
Still think you dont need a union......
But the trouble is... its gone way too far for way too long in the direction of companies...
Just look at P&O firing 800 people and hiring 800 to replace them at way lower wages in order to save 100 million quid when the company has made share dividend payments way in excess of that...
Also as a bonus, customers are looking away from P&O and 2 3? boats cant sail because they have not got a crew trained enough to man said ferries...
I am that man, and its why my boss overlooks everything that goes on in meetings etc etc to ensure I'm happy'ish.
Because he does'nt pay me for the 5 mins it takes to sort out a machine problem, he pays me for the 30+ years of knowledge OF machine problems.
And besides... sometimes the hammer is needed on non-machine production problems...... ;)
My BS bingo card is full after reading those bold points
Sounds more like a sales blurb designed to fool the unwary execs at a VC company into parting with someone else's money.
"We use high impact repeatative technology in order to dynamically drive our output and achieve difficult production goals"
Translated
"He uses a hammer to motivate the lazy staff"
Beer because... its friday and lets all go down the pub
swear in the comments, or stick in things like "here be dragons" as a label for some calculation to map flat tool paths to rounds bits.
A couple of previous programmers generally used swear words as lables and program names... along with opinions of the manglement/customers in the comments
Thank gawd we keep all code internal only
<<gibbers slightly at that suggestion by the deputy mangler about giving away source code to a sub contractor ....
Never teach your PFY all you know
EG.... its friday... and a wander down yonder house of liquid refreshment is due.... PFY is all keen as are the setters (and the hell spawned operators.. but they dont count), however astute ears hear the noise of a mighty airleak in the pnumatic system... given we cant turn the air compressors off until the factory is shut down for the weekend, a selfless BoFH decides to stay behind and repair said leaky pipe... which takes him 15 mins (almost as if he knew exactly where the leak was, and how long and what size replacement airpipe to fix it).... and our BoFH arrives late at the pub where the PFY has got the first round in... and the rounds flow until exactly 1 hour 52 mins after work ends when the BoFH's phone goes and its alledgedly the other half (and not the spare mobile phone at home cunningly programmed to dial the BoFH's mobile at that time) and our hero has to leave the pub and go home...... strangely avoiding buying the next round......
Thus brownie points from the manglement and the PFY is left wondering how come she's had to buy 2 rounds to my none ......
for the production engineer opposite me who says "I have a great idea that will ____ ____ ____ "(fill in blanks with a really stupid suggestion that will cost time+money+effort for no actual reward)
Or do I just buy some of that french porridge and use it to glue him to the wall out back al la wallace and gromit style?
much like a spanner, or a hammer, or a excell macro designed to forecast profits for the next 3 months.
So if I want to undo a nut, I dont hit it with a hammer or try putting different parameters into excel , I use the damn spanner
And if the boss wants to see how much money we'll make I dont ask the spanner
Until people accept that ALL programming languages are tools and you pick the right tool for the job, we'll always end up with "my language is better than yours"
And forcing the wrong tool for the job into doing the job just makes things worse in delivery, understanding the problem and finally time spent forcing the tool to do something its not designed to.
Icon.. because some people prefer S&M .....
you lucky lucky lucky people
Down in robot village near the dawn of time (actually somewhere near the late '80s) a new series of computer controlled machines appeared
Looming over us mere mortals who dared to think that one day we might program them to do the work (instead of us actually doing anything.. remember... this was the government I 'worked' for)
Until one day, the machine refused to do anything... nothing.... just sat there..... cursing it did'nt work, rebooting it didn't work.... some suggested sacrificing a virgin to it but the 1st year apprentices ran away on hearing this.
Until someone noticed the main oil tank was low..... oil procured and deposited.. and lo... the machine awoke.
F'ing machine builders thought "No one is going to be dumb enough to let the machine run out of oil" and therefore didnt bother with an error message if it did....
About as likely as the Archbishop of Canterbury being hit by a falling gargolye while swimming off beachy head.
Anyway.... I suspect the solution to these ads will be either new file explorer, or the better solution of a new file explorer running on Linux mint.
And before the naysayers start up... USB stick in usb port and boot up PC... and the only faffing about I had to do was picking a password
home remains a distant pipedream for the likes of me (part time robot wrangler/programmer/fixit guy/weilder of the dread stick of displine*)
Because its rather hard to fix a production problem on production equipment from 17 miles away... although this remote working thing does give me an idea that was had in the 60's about remote working.... that I can control a robot with all the fixing stuff it needs in order to get things going again(the darkness descends) and replace the obvious tools like a racket with a cattle prod, and the clamp arms with chainsaws and flamethrowers and go on a homicidal rampage against the operators who make my life a living hel... <cough> and fix things when they go wrong remotely.
*A big hammer ;)
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