* Posts by zebthecat

133 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2008

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Former Oracle product manager says he was forced out for refusing to deceive customers. Now he's suing the biz

zebthecat

That old chestnut

Many years ago a company I worked for fell for that trick with a Content Management System.

This became apparent as we mysteriously had to build missing bits of the management front end for our projects.

One the developers from the CMS company was working with us to give us some pointers as their documentation was pretty sparse and he admitted on night in the pub that their software demo, while impressive, was a Powerpoint presentation.

Buy Amazon's tiny $99 keyboard so you can make terrible AI music for all your friends

zebthecat

Re: Voiced by Amazon Polly

There is also a touch of the Shatners with the arbitrary mid-sentence pauses.

zebthecat

Voiced by Amazon Polly

That voice over was so obviously machine generated (and bloody creepy at that) it would have been better off for them not to shame their own product.

2 weeks till Brexit and Defra, at the very least, looks set to be caught with its IT pants down

zebthecat

Re: You beat me to it ...

That hasn't been done as there is no way that Theresa May could have found a policy that would not have broken the Conservative parliamentary party as demonstrated by her failure even get them to agree to the withdrawal agreement. The ERG did have a go but even they could not find a policy that they could agree on among themselves.

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

zebthecat

would you care to explain what Trump's native language is

It sounds like bollocks to me

Renegade 3D-printing gunsmith Cody Wilson on the run in Taipei from child sex allegations

zebthecat

Stay classy

First SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket lobs comms sat into orbit

zebthecat

Small...

...Far away

LLVM contributor hits breakpoint, quits citing inclusivity intolerance

zebthecat

LGBTQ* are extremely overrepresented in tech - especially if by "tech" you mean Silicon Valley.

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

Mannequin Skywalker takes high ground on Bezos-backed rocket

zebthecat

Re: Maybe it's the schoolboy in me (snigger)...

You're not wrong.

I suspect Jeff Bezos used Flesh Gordon as inspiration.

2018's Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop is a lovely lappie

zebthecat

Re: US$2,579.00

Holy cow that is very expensive indeed.

I was tempted until I saw the price

Too many bricks in the wall? Lego slashes inventory

zebthecat

Re: ...

Awesome!

KFC: Enemy of waistlines, AI, arteries and logistics software

zebthecat

Ah, that brings back memories of driving to visit my grandparents in Dunbar. The sign always made me laugh.

There was a similar one near me on the A22 for the "River Uck" which was always defaced. East Sussex County Council finally gave up the battle and removed the sign completely,

Microsoft working to scale Blockchain for grand distributed ID scheme

zebthecat

Interesting

It would appear that the way to get Blockchain to scale as a decentralised ledger is not to use the chain as a decentralised ledger at all.

Innovative but doesn't that defeat the point?

Wannabe W1 DOW-er faked car crash to track down reg plate's owner

zebthecat

BE11 END

So you're 'agile', huh? I do not think it means what you think it means

zebthecat

Re: Agile

That is not Agile at all, just laziness

Dell forgot to renew PC data recovery domain, so a squatter bought it

zebthecat

The Back of the Napkin

Fuck the napkin!

Shock: Brit capital strips Uber of its taxi licence

zebthecat

Re: But disruptive is good

Henchmen? pfft!

I swapped over to minions long ago

zebthecat

"To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers"

Well that'll be a first

BlackBerry admits: We could do better at patching

zebthecat

Ah bollocks is more like it

I really like my Priv and am pretty hacked off about this news. The overheating thing was sorted out a while ago and I love the combination large screen and keyboard.

Plan to carry on using it until it finally dies but won't be purchasing another BB after this. If you can't be arsed to carry on supporting your products then don't expect anyone to buy them.

Massive iPhone X leak trashes Apple's 10th anniversary circus

zebthecat

They’re introducing a bunch of new 3D animated emojis that are based on the user’s facial expression...

...when they are having a poo

Sci-Fi titan Jerry Pournelle passes,
aged 84

zebthecat

Re: Jerry will be sorely missed

Eh?

SDI was a catastrophic and expensive failure, not one of the projects succeeded.

Your top five dreadful people the Google manifesto has pulled out of the woodwork

zebthecat

Re: First, read the memo

D'Amore, however, presents precisely no evidence to back up his supposedly scientific assertions. Firing him was a bit harsh but don't pretend that this was a well researched paper. For all the apparent logic the premises of arguments are worthless

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Assange offers job to sacked Google diversity manifestbro

zebthecat

Obligatory xkcd

https://xkcd.com/1357/

F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen on IoT: If it uses electricity, it will go online

zebthecat

Re: Share and Enjoy!

So now we know why they were first up against the wall when the revolution came.

Anyone who tries to sneak comms stuff into my toater can go stick his head in a pig!

Nest leaves competition in the dust with new smart camera

zebthecat

Re: I don't get it

Me neither - I guess there must be some use case but I can't think of one apart from spying on your own family.

Very weird

Agile consultant behind UK's disastrous Common Platform Programme steps down

zebthecat

Sounds as if they weren't actually doing Agile at all but merely spouting the management bullshit that can surround it.

The projects I have been a part of that did use Agile were all about delivering working software first and foremost. From what i can remember that is pretty much top priority in the original manifesto.

Google Spanner in the NewSQL works?

zebthecat

"Traditional relational database system do this by only having one master, the keeper of the truth and slaves which keep copies and may actually be wrong!"

Unless you use the Master/Master circular replication set up that is

Java? Nah, I do JavaScript, man. Wise up, hipster, to the money

zebthecat

Re: Java is absolutely crap for web applications

You have clearly never coded a Java web properly so shut your cake hole.

Ignorance is not a strong position from which you should try to frame an argument

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

zebthecat

Re: Make something new

Long form TV, however, would be a perfect fit.

I'd love to see Netflix/HBO/whoever take on Use of Weapons

Oracle effectively doubles licence fees to run its stuff in AWS

zebthecat

Those yachts don't pay for themselves you know

British military laser death ray cannon contract still awarded, MoD confirms

zebthecat

HMS Sharky McLaserface

Oracle exec quits over co-CEO Safra Catz's promise to assist Trump

zebthecat

Since when has supporting an election winner become mandatory?

Higher tech prices ARE here to stay. It's Mr Farage's new Britain

zebthecat

"And you forget the only thing that matters: Germany needs to export to the UK. Their auto industry will be rioting if the EU insists on tariffs."

Hi Govey!

You're flat wrong by the way. Politics will trump economics - the EU will not give us tariff free access unless we accept the four freedoms and that is that. They cannot give us a special deal as it will encourage others trying it on.

Linus Torvalds releases 'biggest ever' Linux 4.9, then saves Christmas

zebthecat

Re: Why have you included a picture of Christopher Biggins!

Definitely Biggins

Continuous Lifecycle 2017: Ten days to tell us how DevOps really works

zebthecat

I have an open mind about this.

Where I work we have a large collection of web applications running on a portal server and deliver new stuff monthly using agile and continuous deployments and it works pretty well. Probably the most productive I have been in twenty years and our business bods are pretty pleased with what we do.

One of our management people is muttering about DevOps (largely because our ops team aren't particularly good) but I have yet to hear anything about how this approach will help us be more productive, it appears to be all about architecture rather than actually churning our working new stuff (which is what the business side are actually interested in).

Does anyone here have any practical answers?

I have read papers that say that data (which, after all, is the heart of most applications) is difficult without actually explaining how this difficulty is overcome.

Sharing's caring? Not when you spread data across gov willy-nilly

zebthecat

Wha!?

I thought that sharing personal data without consent was contrary to the data protection act?

Might be pretty hard to get the private to play nicely if the government decides it is above the law

Gov's industrial strategy: 'Look, we've changed the words above our door'

zebthecat

Not surprising that the Hayek inspired IEA are calling for a slashing of regulation as that is their only strategy. Worked for the banks didn't it?

You work so hard on coding improvements... and it's all undone by a buggy component

zebthecat

Re: Best practices like remediation coaching and eLearning

Indeed they do

They are also running a devops security roadshow tour at this very moment

Criticize Donald Trump, get your site smashed offline from Russia

zebthecat

The real question is... why would the Russians want Trump to win?

Pretty obvious that one:

Trump and Putin have been acquaintences for a while.

Trump is rowing back on the US's NATO article 5 commitments (collective defence).

Trump thinks Russia didn't invade eastern Ukraine (even though they admitted it).

Trump is, by nature, an isolationst.

All this would give Russia a free hand in foreign policy to carry on its military adventurism unchecked by the US. Trump's comments on article 5 could potentially leave the Baltic states vulnerable to an invasion similar to Ukraine

4K-ing-A! Roku bangs out broad range of new streaming boom boxes

zebthecat

I agree

Got a 3DTV a few years ago by accident purely as it was at a huge discount (and a bloody good plasma screen as well).

Have watched a fair few 3D movies on it and only two have ever worked well (even Gravity was so-so). This two were TT Closer to the edge because the on bike 3D sequences are terrifying and it really brings home how scary the TT course is. The other was Dredd purely for the 3D blood flying everywhere in balletic slomo.

Bad news: MySQL can dish out root access to cunning miscreants

zebthecat

Re: I've got a cunning plan my lord

I was wondering that too.

Facebook, Twitter and Google are to blame for terrorism, say MPs

zebthecat

Re: Is another term for press subjugation to the Home Affarirs committee...

You are in the right anatomical area

Time to re-file your patents and trademarks, Britain

zebthecat

Re: 'EU' -> 'UK' -> 'K'

Dismaland?

Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd

zebthecat

Re: So where is the post to balance this out?

Perverse it might be but that is exactly what the leave campaign implies

Outsourcery to perform ultimate outsource as it enters administration

zebthecat

Re: The Cloud...

According to the article they deal with the failing cloud.

Funny old business model that

Microsoft and LinkedIn: What the CEOs are planning

zebthecat

Hmm...

"He assures them, with apparent belief, that the company will remain independent of the Beast of Redmond."

I give it two years max

Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick... Hang on. They're back

zebthecat

Re: Problem is that Agile doesn't work

Disagree completely - I have worked in three places that did Agile well and it worked very well indeed. As far as I can tell the main thrust of the article is creect in that you really need everyone (especially the business sponsors) to buy into it too. If they don't understand the process then you might as well not bother..

HSBC swinging axe on UK IT department, 840 heads to roll

zebthecat

Re: Cunts

You beat me to it (Wankers was my choice)

GDS gets it in the neck from MPs over Rural Payments Agency farce

zebthecat

Where, presumably, many government ministers learned all they know about IT.

Says it all in one sentence *sigh*

zebthecat

If only...

...it was fail fast - at least that is relatively inexpensive.

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