Posts by Stevie

Bah!

"Very close to a success" or as human beings say "fail". Why is is so difficult for Schiap Chaps to admit this? Someone fucked up.

And as usual, that someone was a programmer, sorry, software architect, who in a move of staggering incompetence wrote a critical routine that had no "gibberish result" check.

Nought out of ten. Go and read "Object Oriented Software Construction" and fucking well pay attention to the basic rule about unspecified results.

Bah!

All fixed, then.

Bah!

And while everyone was looking at the screen, Jason Bourne killed another fifteen CIA grab-team agents, a couple of freelance assassins and a Treadstone asset.

Bah!

Stiff fines are called for.

Bah!

And the quality of reception and clarity of sound when making a phone call?

Clearly not important (although the work "phone" is used frequently in this, for want of a better word, review).

Bah!

I'm sending a note to OPOTUS and former Cyber Czar Giuliani to the effect that we used to have Unisys mainframes and greenscreens and never once got hacked in twenty five years.

One massive re-rollout later I shall have employment for the foreseeable future and all the Javascripties and C-like language scaredy cats will be sent off with a flea in their collective ear as they so richly deserve and be told to go back to school and learn proper computers and to keep off my lawn.

Trump shall Make Computing Great Again!

Bah!

Yeah, saw this coming about one second after reading the original El Reg description of the killswitch.

Perhaps if the bright young thing that found it had not been so hungry for fame we might have caught some breathing space.

Oh well.

Next up: Why the government can be trusted with your encryption keys and why they should have a proper back door into your computer that only they can ever use.

Bah!

I must be slow today.

It has only just occurred to me that this is a godsend to some. I imagine an encrypted hard-drive is evidence enough for the IRS when claiming that tax records have been "lost".

*Much* better than a flood or fire, much less indiscriminate in its destruction.

It's like a Neutron Bomb for tax dodgers.

Bah!

Internet of tat is tatty.

Bah!

OPOTUS should have asked when he had TASS in the oval office doing the press coverage of his meeting with the Russian ambassador.

And no US press.

Bah!

No internet means no tweets.

Intollerable risk!

Bah!

Anything that makes me not have to use that bug-ugly flat three-color GUI is a good thing.

It has infected the ATMs hereabouts now, and the new workflow required to get what used to be a simple job done requires three more screen operations, each requiring me to look at the Visual Nasty even longer.

It is the sort of square and ugly GUI that IKEA might sell in a flatpack under the name "Güi".

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You missed one.

Mason has done other investments invested money

8o)

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Ah yes, the old "Faust: So Far" ploy.

I predict the rolling out of the Swiss Army Hacker Defense in three ... two ... one ...

Bah!

So basically, everyone in the UK in on Double Secret Probation?

Just like in America!

Bah!

Bandwidth challenges in my workplace mean four seconds from selecting a mailing to it actually loading into the preview pane when everything is working properly. Periodically, typically as I'm trying to type a reply or building a filter to move something important out of the storm of reply-to-all "Me too"s which liven up my day, the spinning wheel of annoyance pops up and the entire shambles goes Nonresponding Grey for anything up to 15 seconds.

This outage just meant I was less aggravated by the bloody thing yesterday.

Bah!

A spokesperson said "This is a smart move. We consulted with the Indian staff after they had identified a problem with our IT, and agreed it would be easier just to transfer everything into their hands. It seems our vindows are infecting the internet wth viruses."

Bah!

I once did a two week training course in Albany NY and needed to claim the costs of traveling from NYC. My employer would only reimburse the cost of an Amtrak ticket even if I drove. I used the train, but somehow the first return ticket detached from the expense claim, leaving only the two NYC-Albany tickets and the final Albany-NYC ticket. My expense claim was denied and I appealed, leading to the following conversation:

Them: You only supplied evidence of three journeys.

Me: But two of them were from NYC to Albany. I must have come back, yes?

Them: Yeees ...

Me: and you would reimburse me the ticket price if I drove, right?

Them: Yeees ...

Me: And you don't require any documentation for gas or tolls, right?

Them: That's right.

Me: So what do you care? I've demonstrated that I made four journeys, one of which could have been by Concorde for all you care since under the rules you will only pay the going rate for a train ticket and you only require evidence of a train trip, not of gas expenditure or airplane tickets. The train tickets I supplied show the going rate. Therefore I should be reimbursed for four trips.

Them. Okay.

To this day I have no idea why the bean counter couldn't do that math himself. He knew I'd appeal the decision and he caved in like a cheap suitcase in sparrow's fart time. Maybe he was lonely and needed the conversation.

Bah!

When do they predict that industry pundits-o-the-future will be replaced by an AI?

I imagine it need only be a small one.

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This "do as I say, not as I do" thinking is SOP in the computer biz.

At the dawn of the dot net era I sat through a presentation in which it was shown that buffer overrun vulnerabilities were a thing of the past because of smarts built into the new Visual Studio C# gubbins.

I asked if Microsoft had used this Mad Science to re-engineer the eagerly-awaited new iteration of Windows (due in a few months).

If looks could kill I'd have left the presentation in a bucket.

Last week I sat though a Noracle presentation of their latest and greatest cloud-enhanced enterprise monitoring and management tool. It was dead impressive.

Right up until someone else (I've learned my lesson and am tired of sitting in the uncooperative corner) asked "Do you use this at Oracle?"

Of course the answer was "No, not yet". They aren't fools. They want the bugs kicked out before they deploy it.

Bah!

I think of all the stupid stuff I've come across, five part line printer paper has to take the McVitties Digestive.

In order to get the fifth part to show anything at all you had to crank up the hammer velocity to such levels the first two parts were often turned into confetti as the letters were drilled through the paper.

Then there was the time I worked a Unisys contract and a fellow consultant sent ten copies of a monster report to the only available line printer. I waited for two hours to use the printer then asked what was printing.

When I found out I asked why ten @SYMs had been sent. When the requestor had explained, I asked "why not send it as three three-part prints and a single-part?" the requestor's eyes widened in horror. Others around me were asking "what is three part when it is at home?"

This is what happens when the programmers know nowt about the hardware.

Bah!

I worked for an agency for years which routinely "forgot" to pass on Social Security taxes it withheld from the consultants's wages. I only found out because I turned 50 the year I started with them and so received a report of my payments/expected retirement benefits.

When I told the others they ranged from "who cares" to sending demands to the agency. I went a different route and contacted the SSA who in turn told me to simply send a copy of my year end witholdings (W2) to them and they'd correct the records. This became a yearly ritual, and I often wondered why none of the Company Officers ever got pulled in to explain these discrepancies.

Years after I left them, people are finally doing time for the shenanigans.

But I still wonder what took so long. The scam was stupidy blatant.

Bah!

The digital world abounds with information on how to properly size these things so gangrene isn't an option.

So I'm told. By others.

Bah!

SEX terra of course.