Posts by Rich 11

Re: Metaverse metafictional metaphorically

Long experience suggests that most of the Americans who select these photo samples do not know what a bicycle looks like.

"Chet, try thinking of it as a two-wheeled convertible without an engine. No? Um, OK, can you imagine a pelaton with a second wheel, and that only works outdoors? No, take the laptop off your head! Oh, FFS..."

Re: Long - but a good read

I have a horrible feeling that GBG shaved his beard down to a moustache and moved 150 miles south in 1984/5. It would explain a lot.

I got lumbered with updating a Fortran software suite which had originally been written by a Portuguese placement student, more because I'd done more work with Fortran than anyone else rather than because I knew the field (although the updates required were functionally comparatively simple). He'd effectively written everything in Portuguese except the menu prompts and error messages, so you can imagine what it was like trying to make sense of all those variable and function names abbreviated to fit Fortran's six-character limit, even with sensible and consistent comments.

Fortunately there was a Portuguese-English dictionary in the library and with a bit of guesswork from what I could remember of schoolboy French and Latin, I got the job done in three weeks. Then as I was demonstrating the end results to the department who owned it, a lecturer popped up and corrected one of my translation explanations. She'd been away for the previous month buying a house in Portugal and teaching an evening class in computing at a local college, in preparation for a phased retirement in the sun. I think my expression gave away my feelings; I was lucky I was so stunned I couldn't even swear.

Yes, one university, in total isolation from all other universities and inter-university organisations. Idiot.

You're talking shite.

I recently retired after decades of working in IT at a university. It wasn't even a particularly large or famous one, but things were never run as unprofessionally or as incompetently as you claim. If you have a specific institution in mind, name it. If you don't, then stop making such broad unevidenced claims.

And we were fucking buried under SLAs.

Re: "Of course you realize, this means war"

Everything owned by an Oligarch

Setting aside the fact that most of these properties were already -- on paper at least -- owned by shell companies through a convoluted network of onshore and offshore shell companies, Boris publicly signalled two days ago that it was time for the oligarchs to add an extra layer of complexity to their holdings and to recruit more lawyers ready to gum up the works and ward off any attempt at seizure.

Assuming there are few or no nuclear conflicts in the next few months, I think it's safe to say that the Tory hierarchy will be auctioning off many more offers to play tennis with oligarch's wives this summer. Expect the bidding to be heated.

Re: The Great DeResignation

Ambush cake presumably looks something like this.

Re: Must-Attend Meetings

I never had it quite that bad, but always used to say if you don't pay these unexpected expenses, I'll make up for it by nicking three paper clips a day for the next six years.

Re: Still Avoiding Them

Not much point talking to Downing Street. They're currently preoccupied with flapping their mouth holes at Russia while working out how to best avoid Putin's oligarch friends having to remove their money from London.

Re: So NSO.

Look at Pakistan. I don't think the government there, on the few days when it tries to do better, really wants to risk a war with the ISI. Even the army doesn't want to go to war with the ISI.

Re: Shocking but unsurprising

Populist governments do like to attack their own justice system, if they're not able to replace the judges with their own placemen.

Why is it that 'populist' always seems to equate with authoritarian and repressive? Perhaps people who vote for politicians who promise simplistic, short-sighted solutions to complex long-term problems are kept happy just as long as they see people whom they don't like have their rights and recourses restricted slightly more than their own rights and recourses are curtailed.

Re: So NSO.

Would it not follow that "government secret service agencies" deserve to be wiped off the face of the Earth?

That would depend who they target and who they allow to be harmed in pursuit of legitimate national defence. If they do more harm than good then they are in need of a leadership and cultural change. A rogue security service whose actions reflect badly on a government by harming their own population should be brought to heel, although we all know of governments who can't control their agencies and of governments who don't care what happens to the people they claim to serve. For them, the revolution can't come soon enough...

Re: Dead Cat

How do you know? Have you tried it?

Is there quicksand in England?

After half a day's work with a JCB on a secluded Skegness beach, yes.

Re: Life, human or alien

All matter will decay into some form of energy.

Unless you're positing some sort of Big Rip scenario I don't see how your average iron atom is going to be reduced to pure energy.

Re: Needs a moon of decent size

It's not something to fear.

Re: thanks for posting this

A lot of what you experienced is the result of good practice at a local level that the IT supports by enforcing good practice

It is, and that's why I took umbrage at Doctor Syntax's piece of cynical ignorance, "Those looked after by paper-based trusts ATM are probably the lucky ones.". No-one thinks the broader NHS doesn't have problems, but most of those arise from the fractured structure imposed by politicians who think markets solve everything, and they are the blind ideologues and architects of disorder I hold in utter contempt.

Re: Dear NHS - Get well soon

We all know that politicians don't make decisions based primarily upon data.

Or probably not. I was in hospital just three days ago, an event which involved going from A&E to Radiology, back to A&E for treatment, then to Radiology for verification, and finally back to A&E for monitoring and discharge. At every stage either the department receptionist, a department nurse, the radiographer or the A&E doctor checked me in or checked my details on their computers. They knew they had the right record for the person in front of them because they asked a confirmation question such as my postcode, and if I hadn't been capable of giving that or my name they could have looked at my wristband. Compare that with the last time I was at A&E, fifteen years ago for a near-identical injury: then I had to carry several forms around with me at a time (and eventually a prescription), which quickly got disordered and crumpled, and the only things which were shared electronically were the x-rays.

Re: To be fair on BMW

The Green* in Boston, Lincs was tarmaced over in 1962 and turned into a car park / Wednesday market space. So that would make the colour Boston Green quite similar to your van's grauweiss.

* It's the westernmost part of Wide Bargate, if any tourist passing through wants to sightsee. It's still referred to as the Green, just as Bargate is still used although the medieval town gate is long gone.

Re: To be fair on BMW

Also known as "Cheap Brass", but that doesn't sell as well in the catalogues.

my first full-time post was replacing someone who had been killed on the job.

Standard BOFH practice. Glad to hear you got going before the full weight of worldly cynicism descended.