Posts by Jim 59

Done well

"...a byword for getting things done well".

No. That was never part of the mix. Even the Wipro marketing department wouldn't go that far, surely.

Offshoring was all about doing things as cheap as possible and *good enough*. Sometimes that's the wise course. Often it isn't.

CPU

Web TVs need *much* more powerful CPUs. Currently their grunt level is about half a Raspberry Pi and the user experience is like eating flour.

Oracle

Great to see the new systems and continued Solaris roadmap. It's just a shame how Oracle is treating existing customers, at least here in the UK. Some shops are transitioning to Linux just to get away from poor and expensive support. Not chucking Sun boxes out, just replacing them with Linux when it comes to refresh time. Others are buying OracleT4 kit though. (I've been a Sun admin for 20 years.)

Howler

Fry's explanation of the Turing Machine last week was for more accurate than his previous contributions to satellite navigation etc. It was a mistake for Reg to lampoon it and further articles should not happen unless he makes a genuine howler. Given that, I don't blame the chap for being overwrought at the injustice.

Fry is touted as a brilliant mind. His "brand" in TV involves amusing pedantry and the display of knowledge for its own sake. It is therefore amusing, and tickles our vanity, when he publicly gets it wrong in matters we would find trivial. Fry may be a brilliant mind, but even Turing would look stupid if he made pronouncements well outside his area.

Time for a Reg/Fry love-in I say. At least part of him wants to be an engineer. And after all, he is one if us, being a home computer freak dating back to the 80s. I look forward to a Fry authored article, long overdue in these mildewed pages, sprinkled with a few latin quips and hopefully the odd mistake to make him look human.

Wimminstruggle

She should have just politely asked them to shut up, which they probably would have.

The blog article carries some extreme views. Very extreme. Frighteningly extreme. All couched in a cool, monotonic new-speak in which old-fashioned ideas like friendliness, humility, reasonableness, cannot be expressed and therefore (for Richards) don't exist.

Reading it, I was dimly reminded of stories in which citizens of some totalitarian state are denounced to the authorities for tiny digressions which supposedly betray the perps as "traitors". She overheard a whispered conversation and just couldn't wait to denounce these chumps to the PyCon authorities, who took them away in a dark van to the salt mines. Meanwhile she posted their images all over the place, as an example to other citizens who may be thinking of making a joke or perhaps watching Benny Hill on YouTube. We have been warned.

ARM

"...doesn’t wrangle data and pass it off as a business model" - Apt comment, describes many web "businesses".

"Intel is throwing new Atom chips under ARM’s feet."

...meanwhile ARM is punching Intel in the face.

Folding stuff vs warm/fuzzy

It all depends how enjoyable the job is and the culture of the company, Working in-house usually beats consulting, but not necessarily. Some consultancies treat their staff as humans, others are just poorly run sweat shops with 50% staff turnover. In-house is warm and fuzzy, but can become a hideaway for problem individuals just biding their time.

A job you enjoy is obviously wonderful, better than $$$. And having a good manager is probably the best perk.

Take a big coat

You will be spending a lot of time in Scotland.

Just south of the border (I'm English), try these:

Newcastle (Steam turbine, Parsons)

Sunderland (Lightbulb, Swan).

Byker (reinforced concrete, Wilkinson)

Stockton (Steam locomotive, Stevenson)

Nice.

Mind. Boggling.

What a nerve

This guy had the audacity to crouch down and take obvious rude pictures, but not the nerve to just say "Hi" instead. Alas.

Cause <=> Effect ?

Could it be that very fat people tend to eat more bacon, and have a higher mortality rate for many reasons, among them the consumption of unhealthy foods, regular alcohol, lack of exercise, vitamin deficiency, tendency to diabetes, heart disease, allergies, internal organ damage, joint wear etc etc ? Isn't the report just stating the obvious, ie. some people care more about their health and some less, and bad habits will cluster round the latter group ?

How did they know the diets of the 26,344 deceased ? "Data" on the living was collected by survey - does that count as empirical measurement these days ? We all know people underestimate their calorie and alcohol intake, because it was in a recent survey, and...

flack wav

Any chance of selling uncompressed music ?

i vote for

Asteroids

Gorf

Missile Command

Quartet

Good article

Very funny writing.

"...a bedroom in which the plucky oldster had decided to make his last stand"

and many other bits. I actually did lol.

lol

"...a demon from the pits of Cupertino."

lol

CD

When they first came out, CDs were great. But why the annoying plastic boxes ? Why did the manufacturers not just put CDs into the same packaging used for vinyl ? It would have saved album art and we could have kept our old furniture.

ROTM

At first I didn't believe this chump's story. Not sure now. My Nissan has keyless entry and the engine can supposedly be stopped with a long press on the start button. I hope. Are all these electronic aids removing our control in the last instance ? Even worse for people with automatics.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is great but it looks fugly and feels ungainly. A drab, 1993 style UI spangled with random icons like a badly decorated Christmas tree. It won't do. Managers today like things to be shiny, snappy and above all slick, so give them what they want. LO should divert all coding efforts from the engine and into the UI. Heck, give them a ribbon if that's what they want, or a menu that spins around, just make sure it is smooth and fast.

"He joined VMware in late 2012..."

So the WVware staffer is cheerfully saying VMware would like us to buy thousands of VMware rigs :-)

"Intriguingly, Laverick's call for a show of hands to discern if any attendees operate home labs saw several arms thrust skyward."

Intriguing ? A fair proportion of Reg readership has been doing this for decades, even before home networks became the norm. Mostly with visualization but we all know a boffin who has industrial hardware ticked away. Nowadays plug computers are on the menu too.

On the subject of training, isn't it the case that companies train young grads but expect us oldies to adapt our existing knowledge ? What say you young 'uns ?

Acid

So a technician opened the server(s) on many occasions, replaced parts, without noticing anything untoward - Unexpected smell ? Caked fluid ? Funny marks ? A certain lack of limescale ?

Or

or use a keyboard

Hey Google

Just pay your tax

Netflix, Lovefilm, Blinkbox

These services are okay, but it's hard to get excited about an offering that serves up thousands of repeats in exchange for a lock-in contract. Broadcast TV seems to be about 80% repeats, often repeating the same material several times a week. Combine that with intelligent PVR ownership and series-link recording, and the public's appetite repeat TV is pretty well catered for.

Blinkbox offers the slightly more interesting possibility of pay-as-you-go.

Matte will rise again

"... I wouldn’t have this [matte finish] done to the windows in my house, the windscreen in my car nor the spectacles sitting on my nose. Doing so would make everything on the other side harder to see."

But you probably have curtains, tinted glass, coated lenses, curved surfaces etc!. I know you have curtains and not blinds, because...

Installer ?

Lots of talk from Fedora and commentators about how the installer has been updated, as if that is a really exciting and important thing. Meh. It's a gui you use about once a year, and not even part of the OS.

Fedora 18 will be my default OS.