Posts by Alan Brown

Re: Security is not a part of the of organization's KPI

A little like another Asian country and cars then.

Re: I'm looking at the list of sins...

"China doesn't normally outsource to India"

Judging from the names and comments in the patches for various of my Huawei switches - "yes they do"

Re: Real point here

300 aircraft are of no use if they aren't combat-ready. Nor are 15 for that matter.

The difference isn't the numbers, it's how much has been spent on them.

Acquaint yourself with Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority" sometime.

The F35 isn't known as "the Jet which ate the Pentagon" for nothing.

"It means no travel."

This is exactly the line taken 25 years ago when we had our expenses capped at rates lower than the prevailing accomodation charges.

Manglement eventually realised that meant we could only fit 30-45 minutes in onsite without going into overtime (which they were refusing to pay too, so we wouldn't work it)

Get familiar with your contract. You can't be forced to work unpaid overtime - it must come out as time off in lieu and "from time to time" doesn't mean "every other day". On top of that, if the hours worked divided by the pay received goes below minimum wage, it's a criminal matter - _EVEN_ if you're on a salary, not a wage.

"work to rule" is one of the more devastating forms of industrial action you can take, because it gives seagull management _nothing_ to use and if they try harrassment or standover tactics, industrial mediators _will_ hand them their heads on a plate. "I'm only paid for 8 hours. Outta here. Sorry, not sorry"

Re: no it's worse than that

"so then had to write a "memo" to justify the cost, the discussion must have cost more."

I'd have just asked him if he would do it too.

and quietly made the customer aware that I was spending 2 hours less and I could be onsite - at the daily chargeout rate - due to this policy.

Re: Are Boeing employees brainwashed?

But then they've not yet been successfully invaded

[1812]

nor lost an Empire.

[Cuba, the Philippines(who'd just seen off the Spanish), Panama(which was forcibly split off Columbia) ... you can't occupy a country when the locals don't WANT you there.]

The USA has an amazing ability to airbrush "certain things" out of history that I'm sure Stalin would approve of.

Re: Are Boeing employees brainwashed?

"The level of loyalty to Boeing from some employees seems to verge on the fanatical , we are so great we cannot do anything wrong."

Actually the _really_ loyal employees are the ones who tried to fix this shit - see my comments about the auditors who discovered the 737NG build clusterfuck - and got shat upon by seagull management.

Boeing has a sordid recent history of shafting its employees in every way you can think of (both in Renton and in Wichita) and advanced antipathy towards unions (whose primary concern is safety of both individual employees and long term jobs - which is achieved by NOT fucking the company over). It's long past the point where anyone loyal has gone or has just given up and lives in quiet despair and whilst the sociopaths in the boardroom pretend there's nothing wrong, or if there is, it's all someone else's fault, or if it isn't, then you made them do it and if they did it you deserved it.

"Trying to cram the new(ish) plane into the existing 737 NG type certification was the problem"

The 737NG or MAX would not be certified on their own cognisance. They can only fly as modifications of an existing airframe. As soon as you tried to certify them as a new aircraft they're going to be FAILED so hard that heads would spin at Boeing.

If you're going to have to get a whole new type certification then you'd address the engine positioning - which means longer legs, which means new undercarriage and hull design to take it (this is a _major_ change - aircraft are designed and built around their engines and legs.). You'd fix the wing sweep (it's too swept for the speeds used) and you'd fix the baggage compartments to actually be able to take standard aviation containers.

At that point you're spending so much in airframe modifications you're better off starting with a clean sheet.

There are 8000 backorders on the 737 order book alone (another 8000 for the A320 family), simply because this is the sweetspot in the market as far as airlines are concerned (this has a lot to do with the US's heavy subsidiation of airports). This gave Boeing very little incentive to actually innovate or invest in new aircraft design when they could just keep kludging the old design and have their tame FAA stamp the already signed off paperwork.

The way they went about covering up the issue of suppliers counterfeiting documentation on critical hull components for the 737NG (The ribs were supposed to be precision-CNC made and weren't), and ALSO covered up how badly the build shops in Kansas and Washington were battering the parts to make them fit (then filling and painting over the damage) - which is the root cause of at least 3 hull breakups/11 deaths that shouldn't have happened on landing overruns - shows that this is NOT a new thing at Boeing. (There are at least 500 737NGs flying which are at risk of bursting like a Comet at high flight cycle levels thanks to these faulty parts) - When internal auditors found this they were ignored. When they blew the whistle they were identified almost instantly due to FCC stooges who handed the complaints straight back to Boeing and hounded mercilessly by Boeing corporate.

(The FBI recently arrested people in the FAA and other US government departments who were offering to sell whistelblower data back to the companies concerned - and this ONLY happened because one of the companies did the right thing and fiiled criminal complaints. It turns out that the USA's whistleblower protection legislation has been backdoored by corrupt employees since it was enacted.)

Re: Not an investigation

this is almost exactly what Iwas going to say.

Ive pointed out a few such issues to Huaweri in devices still under support, to be told they won't be addressed

Re: In other news... lying liars.

'Johnny "Chickenhawk" Bolton'

Chickenhawk is also a term for a violent homosexual predator who goes after young teenagers.

Given what happens to young men in wars, it fits.

Re: In other news

"US policy was not the reason Japan chose to go to war"

I think the USA's trade embargo and oil blockade had a hell of a lot to do with it.

The USA knew that they were going to have to go to war with Japan, but they were planning for about 1943. What they didn't _expect_ was for Japan to reach out early and hit the fleet at Hawaii as a starting shot.

Re: In other news

"but they've always been more than happy to push back pretty hard when they've been attacked"

Funnily enough when you have a history of around 5000 years of being invaded, you tend to get tetchy about wanting to be left the fuck alone. Russia's still raving on about Ghengis Khan taking Moscow and St Petersberg. Iranians still scare their children with stories about Alexander killing Darius.

Re: In other news

" Today, that's likely to mean discovering the hard way that the US is far more dependent on the internet and vulnerable to cyberattack than Iran "

Whilst ALSO discovering that aircraft carriers were obsolete for warfare sometime ago (as the USA did with battleships in 1941, despite many years of warnings).

Hint: DF21D, DF26 - and they don't even need to have explosive tips. A kinetically achieved hole in the flight deck is more than sufficient to ruin the Admiral's day.

"I remember, years ago, the internet was designed to stop people taking a big chunk out and stuffing it up for everyone else."

Years ago, the first octet of an IPv4 was supposed to represent the destination network and the second, the location inside that network.

Things grew, numberspace got crowded and that tidy setup got obliterated. IPv6 is _big_ and _sparse_ precisely to allow the tidy setup to be maintained without panicking and stuffing numbers into every available gap.

Re: Ah....white hats and black hats.....

"There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides"

Re: Cherchez la femme?

"someone who, as far as I can tell, is not a techy in the least bit."

You got that right. Neuromancer was banged out on a _MANUAL_ typewriter.

"He saw all that money, realized that he could do whatever he wanted, and did so."

Not exactly the first time a money handler has decided to do this - and it won't be the last time.

Bitcoin (and other cypto currencies) just make it easier than creating a South Sea Bubble, but there are ALWAYS greedy and gullible investors coming along - who will helpfully act as schills to sell even more of the worthless stuff - we all work with some hopeless gambling addict who's constantly buying into these scams (my reply is usually "Tulips! tulips!")

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/

Re: Bah and possibly, Humbug!

Your grand dad blamed all those young people listening to that satanic Rock and Roll, and HIS grand dad blamed it on Jazz

Re: Bring In The Fashion Police

"The 1000s of petty little laws" is a result of large chunks of the USA being of Germanic/eastern european stock, culture, and religious nutjob tendencies (a result of centuries of warfare over what colour socks a certain arab was wearing one day on a hill - he was probably wearing sandals) despite being a common law country. They'd legislate blasphemy if they could. (some areas actually did). The rest of the world simply rolls their eyes and ignores people saying naughty words unless they're doing so whilst waving fists(or other things) around.

Say it aint so and I'll point to the factor that the proliferation of those laws (and morality enforcement) is strongest in areas of germanic+religious nutjob migration.

The real takeaway from this is that the Lanham Act has just been declared unconstitutional and that's been the go-to for meddling morality busybodies American Taliban types for _decades_. I can think of much more offensive behaviour in media or public places that US lawmakers won't touch - such as wearing swastikas and shouting "sieg heil", or wearing sheets and white pointy hats whilst carrying torches and waving bibles around.

It's time to invest in popcorn shares, because shit's about to get _very_ interesting in Middle America.

Re: Estimating Software Projects

> and also usually a bunch of 'unknown unknowns'

Yup, such as when a vendor "can't duplicate" a bug(*) you've been spoonfeeding to them - because they insist on trying to replicate it in a totally different OS (macos) to the one you're using (linux) and different authentication schema (local users vs LDAP) - and keep repeating the same mantra no matter how many times you point out that their "It works for me" is comparing Applies to orange juice.

(*) Not so much a bug as a software module that's entirely broken from the ground up and the people responsible are dodging accepting the blame whilst their management look on, not realising that newer Linux distro rollouts are going to show this particular dain bramage(**) up in spades.

(**) Otherwise known as "we're going to fuvk your security up, in exchange for gaining small amount of programmer convenience"

Re: At last.

"I've got one of those USB charging cables with a detachable magnetic plug; it's quite nice having a "quick-release" system and it also means I can leave the plug attached to my phone to prevent dust and water getting into the socket"

I've yet to find one that's compatible with QC2 or QC3 - so you're limited to 5V 0.5A

Re: "We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online"

"but most teens with rampaging hormones are going to find porn at some point"

By the time they get to BE teens you've had plenty of time to instill into them an idea of "right and wrong", plus ensure that they KNOW that if shit hits fan they _can_ talk to you. The ones who don't have this and feel they have to hide everything from (usually control-freak) mumsy and dadsy are the ones who end up being victims.

I know when I was that age I knew that some jazz mags were ok and some were best avoided. Then again I could talk to my parents about most things. A lot of my friends weren't so lucky.

Re: Not done with DNS

"There's no legal requirement, as a foreign website isn't subject to UK law."

Long arm statutes, "doing business in or with residents of" - where the latter condition seems to be easily fulfilled even if the access is "free"

That's how the USA's being handling that kind of thing for, oh, at least 100 years - and they _can't_ challenge UK or EU courts invoking long arm statutes as it would undo decades of precedent on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is why the GDPR laws have an effect despite potentially offending data handlers being entirely based offshore. It's perfectly feasible for data privacy commissioners to sue them anyway.

"I quick test using an EE mobile plan where adult sites are normally blocked at the DNS by EE."

That would be the same EE whose adult site blocking nobbled access to the Sarracens Rugby club in Watford? I know about rugger buggers but that's a bit over the top (especially seeing as the Sarracens' site is the only way to know about the availability of certain public parking spaces on match days)

Re: Bloody big state Tories

"Vicorian views to morality"

Which were "anything goes" for the most part.

The age of consent was 12 years old and only raised to 16 due to a moral panic over child prostitution (it was felt that younger girls could pass for being 12, but it's harder to pass for being 16)

If you didn't pay your bills, it was commonplace to hire a "cutter" who would hunt you down and do as the job title suggested - usually to your face - as a warning to others.

And the rich lived in terror, behind 12-foot high walls topped with broken glass/razor wire.

Re: Skilled cyber-criminal left traces of own IP address

"how do we know he didnt take extra IP hiding measures"

He didn't. Most crims (who get caught) simply aren't that smart.

If they were, they'd hold down honest jobs (or start up new religions) - and although you occasionally hear about massive amounts stolen, when you tote up the hours involved they're usually getting less than minimum wage overall. It's some kind of gambling mentality. (big up the wins, ignore the losses)

"and the Mad Skillz of the plod traced it anyway?"

As with many such cases, it was handed to them on a silver platter after a lot of other people did the legwork.

About the only time they did their own legwork was when Peter (weaselboy) Francis-Macrae sent out fake invoice spam with a reply phone number of the Cambridgeshire police HQ's main switchboard in 2003. Then it got personal.