Posts by John Smith 19 16330 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
No audit to find out how much stuff needed to be moved off insecure removable storage (or why it's there in the first place)
No limiting downloading in the *first* place.
No tracking to know *who* or how *much* data was downloaded to insecure removable storage.
"We have a policy and told staff they shouldn't do this" is a f**king fig leaf.
IT staff *seem* to have a slight clue but this is looking like one of those "responsibility without authority" situations
This sounds like an immediate sacking offense in *any* other context.
*all* bodies who keep this sort of information *should* be able to track it and find out whose got it, whose downloaded it (and why) and frankly should be working like b***ery to make it *unnecessary* to download it to *any* kind of device in the first place.
Once in a lifetime acts of god I can cope with.
Repeated *predictable* stupidity annoys me.
Fixed price is *useless* without fixed *spec*.
This spec -> this cost.
Changed spec -> changed cost. Don't like it. Do without it.
It has also been demonstrated ad nauseum that retro-fitting something late into a design is *orders* of magnitude more expensive if it is not designed in from day 1 (or at least *provision* for it. EG the catapults on UK aircraft carriers so familiar to El Reg wartech readers)
Military projects are even *more* notorious than large software systems for being stupidly late and over budget. This is despite the fact that most of them are *physical* systems and not the *first* of their kinds, so there should be *extensive* data on relevant timescales with which to deliver estimates.
Techniques exist to cut cycle times (set minimal specs, freeze early, build early etc) but *none* of them seem to be used. Given how many military systems have to interface to existing systems I'm amazed that most of their design is not set *by* those interfaces, leaving just the core functionality to be specified.
And WTF does it *always* seem to be that *canceling* the project costs as *much* as running it to completion if not more? Where did that little "law of the universe" come from.
I note that UK Ministries *can* change. It used to be *gospel* at the Home Office that "Good times burglaries go up (more to steal) , bad times burglaries go up (more desperate people). New Labor seem to have managed to break that ideal.
It seems to have taken target policing, an increase in the number of people in prison and the *splitting* of the department into 2 pieces to do it.
I'm not sure what it would take to get that improvement with the MoD.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Not with 20 000 staff in procurement.
I don't think so.
Not enough guts. Not enough competence. They will continue to be b****slapped by any con-tractor large enough to have the pockets to survive the death march of the "selection" process (designed to ensure HMG gets *value* for money) and civil servants pull the old defer-decisions-to-save-money-now-and-someone-else-picks-up-the-cost-increase-later routine whenever there is a "spending review."
"Reminds me of the old myth about Queen Victoria banning homosexuality amongst men but not women because "Women don't do that.""
I think male homosexuality was made illegal under Disraeli, who could not quite work out how to explain to a women with 10 children, presumably a fairly active sex life and a husband with a pierced c**k that some women did not *like* men at all. OTOH explaining that men not having sex with women could *endanger* the future of the Empire was a much easier sell.
"Though I'd quite like to see Ripley taking the nutter apart with the exoskeleton...
... but would that be counted as porn?"
Well....
Under Wackinesse's violent porn law if it's got a BBFC certificate the answer is no.
But
If it's a lovingly crafted (and anatomically accurate) depiction of the action you plan that would make it a "realistic" depiction of violence against a women, the answer is yes and you'd be completely busted.
Of course if you posted it on YouTube and carefully avoided any mention of character names or back story (to avoid DMCA take down requests by the copyright holders) it could stay visible *indefinitely*.
"All Jackie has to do is come up with a way so that every time someone clicks to see some pron online there is a 1% chance they'll get a picture of her in the buff instead."
Now that *might* work in most cases. But remember on the interweb there's a site for *every* interest.
Somewhere there *is* a site with a section devoted to Polaroids and caps of her Wackiness
Liberally decorated with......
Probably best not to dwell on it.
Thinks ISP's should be "Responsible", not "dumb pipes" etc.
As for this documentary let's see.
Authoritarian and disgraced ex Home Secretary dumped by her constituency and busted for hubby trying to claim renting a porno on her expenses discovers...
There's a lot of porn on the internet.
Some of it you can get for free.
Up tight somewhat repressed people who go to an exhibition devoted to sex aids, swinging and porn show are likely to see things that might shock them.
Water is wet. The sky is Blue. Boiling water at sea level is hot.
I don't think I'll be tuning in to this.
A view to a merger?
James Bond jokes aside I hope they do work *very* hard to bury the UK link. The merkins are *very* protective of the made in the US nonsense (no most of the stuff they *think* is made in the US isn't but they don't tend to realize this).
It's more a dinner jacket than a coat.
Some public sector staff are *very* good.
Some public sector staff are *very* bad.
Ditto for private companies.
And it's *difficult* to tell the good from the bad.
CV's should be read *very* carefully. Especially for long spells of "paid leave," IE suspension.
Managers either can't spot rubbish staff or can't manage to *do* something permanent about them. Reasons range from being a friend (Or as one such "friend" put it in conversation "I can get away with murder as I lick the managers a*s") to "I'm scared of the union. "
This suggests a generation of gutless incompetent managers who feel threatened by their competent staff, lack the backbone to fire incompetent staff (*all* public bodies have a discipline and dismissal procedure. It can range from quite reasonable to stupidly drawn out in the case of teachers in the UK) and welcome "friends" who are actually the biggest threat to their job they will find.
There's *plenty* of prejudice to go round. If you're not sure you're prejudiced ask yourself would you be *this* doubtful about employing them if they had a *different* background? If not then your looking at their background, not the person you met or the CV you read.
A suggestion.
Make sure an IT line manager attends the interviews. Stick to a standard set of questions and *most* of all set up *practical* test of the finalists.
Nothing too time consuming or complex but something some one with the level of experience they *claim* to have should find straightforward. You're hiring someone on their ability to *do* something, not tell you how good they are at doing it.
Incidentally no one has mentioned how staff become institutionalized and unable to accept change. In a different context Jeff Greason of Xcor Aerospace said he'd never heard of anyone who'd "grown up" in the cost plus world of big aerospace being successful in a new space business. They could not accept that there is no reward for *effort* only results. He put the bar at which they became unfit for commercial companies at around 10-13 years in.
Have I missed anything?
Shared services, when they driven by *internal* logic and not government policy *should* be a good thing.
If they do much the same thing in much the same *way* (limited compatibility issues so they can share the same pool of staff), as opposed to the Labor merge *all* back office services everywhere *now*.
OTOH
Do you really want them cross referencing their ANPR cameras output so they can lower the bandwidth going into the national ANPR archive? Fewer PNC2 staff to get to know so you can borrow their password for a quick peak to find out where that lying gf/bf has been parking her car etc.
The theory sounds fine but will having a reduced back office IT function mean reduced safeguards on personal information (which don't seem that strong in the UK to begin with)?
The thing I had in mind is what Astobotic refer to as the "decent stage" Potentially a salable component in its own right, depending on weather it borrows the rovers nav hardware to handle the landing.
The landing process itself seem to be planning on using real time imaging of the ground to identify and avoid obstacles IE the way the Apollo astronauts did it.
The rover *will* have telephoto lenses to image the Apollo site without getting too close.
Target speed is 0.36Km/Hr or 10cm/sec. Racing the sun is not an option.
The plan *seems* to be for the rover to go *completely* dark and re-boot on sun rise. presumably by start of current flow from the solar array.
Structurally it looks to be a series of flat honeycomb plates. They might be machined by water jet cutting and use interlocking tabs for load transmission. This method has been used to make a number of US satellites at substantial cost savings relative to more conventional construction.
Note that a *well* insulated electronics package (aerogel or multi-layer insulation) *could* be kept substantially warmer than ambient with a simple circuit feeding a *small* trickle heater.
Not enough to continue operations but it *could* take the edge off the cold and needing mil spec components. The joker is if the insulation is a bit worse than design and the heater needs a bit more power the batteries go *totally* flat before sun up.
Note *some* batteries are essential, at least on the descent stage to power the landing sensors and trigger the engine valves. Making the rover battery-less *might* be possible but raises the question of what happens if the lander orientation to the sun is bad and the rover can't trundle off and point its array. Have an extension lead from the lander?
Impressive plan but as always the devils in the details and 2 years can go by *very* quickly.
It'll be interesting to see how much trouble they have getting funding given there are *actual* prize fund on the table.
Then running it against a large database.
But as others have pointed out keeping personal data *private* will be vital in preventing this capability from being misused.
Note it's about working out how to *ask* the question rather than necessarily the size of the DB or its search speed.
Thumbs up for the tech, juries out on the possible uses.
Stanley (maker of many hand tools and knives) "know" it won't sell more than 100s.
B&D (I've never seen a piece of B&D kit that didn't have a motor in it) take on the design and the rest is history.
Very few people manage *one* iconic design in their lifetime. I'd say he managed 2.
He had nearly 40 years to enjoy his success, which is more than a *lot* of inventors get.
I think I will raise a glass tonight.
It's to use a pair of high speed contra-rotating flywheels with integral motor generator system in an evacuated shell.
Industrial versions use carbon fibre or metal tape for the rotors. If damaged the rotors either fragment into small pieces (containable by the casing) or disperse the energy in unwrapping the tape.
AFAIK the French have been using this for emergency power in telephone exchanges since the 1980s.
If the electronics fail or the casing looses vacuum you have a problem but otherwise there is *no* degradation mode in the same way as chemical batteries have.
Naturally regenerative braking can be incorporated and the charge/discharge rates are set by the power electronics (which can range from silicon based devices to silicon carbide in exotic architectures) rather than innate chemistry or surface structure. Proper electronics design also can make it compatible with the planned UK plug and power standards.
Downside is it's less well known and the form factors can be awkward (best is large dia cylinder with some spokes but most mass in the cylinder to increase moment of inertia).
A mechanically driven system (brought up to speed by a roughly a 1.6l car engine running LPG) drives a 1 coach shuttle between 2 train stations at Stourbridge in the West Midlands).
Electric <> batteries. But will anyone bring it to market?
<sign>
Let's try unscrambling some of it
*Millennium bug". Failure cased by incorrect processing of change from 1999 to 2000. The article shows *no* evidence for this class of bugs being the cause of the problem.
Business critical. System fails company goes down pan. That *would* have described any major *offline* accounts app EG LEO (Lyons electronic Office). More recently would be the code that did calculations for a medical radiation source to decide, given various factors how much to dose them with. Not real time at all (except in the loosest sense) but *absolutely* critical to delivering the machines function. The code had bugs and several patients got 10x the dose they should have had.
Latency tolerant soft real time. Describes lots of stuff on *any* GUI. You clicked on "My Documents" and it showed you the folder. It opened fast *enough* that you're not bothered. If it takes a *bit* more (or less) time to act you're *still* not bothered. The cursor followed you mouse *well* enough to keep you feeling in control.
Latency intolerant soft real time. Here the *consistency* of the response is the important thing but I can't think of a situation where this applies.
After this things get *tough*. Typically the computer system is connected to "stuff" and if the computer can't work out the *right* response in a *guaranteed* amount of time *every* time *very* bad things happen. The "stuff" might be another computer on the network (Skype's latency and *consistency* of that latency are both pretty important for it to work well). If the system is an airliner, jet engine or Uranium enrichment centrifuge things can go badly wrong very quickly.
*nix's were never designed to support *hard* real time constraints but various upgrades to standard functions and the *long* background in building architectures that run such tasks have built up a *lot* of expertise in what to do and how to do it.
Armadillo Aerospace runs such a box to to fly the lunar lander which won the NASA challenge prize.
Some of the usual features for the work include a high resolution clock for the scheduler, software modules locked in main memory (no writing to disk) and either locking module scheduling priorities *permanently* or only allowing them to be changed under *very* carefully controlled criteria.
The developer and admin mindset is important here. While it looks to the apps and the dev tools like a normal *nix box it is not *run* like one.
Of course while the knowledge is out there and developers *with* the knowledge are out there as well it's not clear if *these* developers have it.
BTW Be *very* careful of the phrase "real time." Real time relative to *what*? A human can't control an unstable aircraft without computer assistance (watch the control surfaces of an F16 if you ever see one but *can* respond fast enough to simulate an ABS (c5 brake presses a second IIRC). OTOH a chemical plant with a time constant of 1 hour can be controlled by a human with a chemistry set, some graph paper and a calculator in "real time."
That's my pedantry done.
"Enhancing the Saturn V translunar payload capability. "Authors Africano, R. C.; Logsdon, T. S
State that the price of putting 1Lb on the moon was more than the price of gold at the time. Several methods were used to raise the payload by 5%, which is quite a lot given the costs involved. 2.5% (half) of the improvement involved simply shifting the mixture ratio part way the 2nd stage ascent.
Useful for anyone considering the design of high performance space launch systems
"Are Councils paying their IT staff £40k a year now?? Someone please tell me these are contractors going and not your bone idle hypochondriac idiots who sulk about in the basements of power and think the world owes them a life because they've been to a workshop."
Fat chance.
That' ll be the "CTO" or whatever top purveyor of products from the Strategy Boutique is called and 11 minions who get paid whatever is left over.
"Thier habit of driving 1/4 mile to drop off the kids is far more hazardous to the health of thier kids than the wireless networks at school."
But if they don't then their little princes and princesses might have to get on some kind of IDN *public* transport and share with those horrible *poor* children.
What is *so* special about council X's IT/HR/Accounts procedures (other than their fairly stupid if looked at by an independent assessor?) that can't be shared.
Note. I'd hope they consolidate *long* before they even *think* about outsourcing.
*Cautious* thumbs up. Might encourage other groups of councils to do the same (but I won't hold my breath).
It is only *now* that methods are being brought in to *allow* MP's to be dumped before the *next* general election (despite in one case being "Ill" while she was secretly filmed offering her services as a lobbyist). In the Lords there was *no* mechanism to remove a Lord from the *house* no matter *how* vile their behavior.
Historically it was felt that mere *entry* to such institutions was a *guarantee * that they were people of impeccable probity.
I can't imagine that belief surviving these days. Can you?
Handy hint.
Setting up *any* list whose membership has a)legal consequences and b) is *irrevocable*
is a *bad* idea.
*Cautious* thumbs up.
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