Posts by Notas Badoff

Lawyers: Failure is success!

"... and discriminating against MS because it's a small player in the market."

Remember, lawyers are always advocates for the side that's paying them, not truth-tellers. They will present any possible 'evidence' as reasons for their client to win.

Lawyers are the car salesmen of the legal system.

Testing methodology

"Yep, it passes all the tests... it's gold. Updates away..."

If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the critical difference was between the code 'working' and the code working over time, e.g. a whole shift.

Feature/function testing vs. ? What is it called when you test the code as it is actually used over a valid duration of time by real people?

When the users are flight controllers - rather important users them - aren't their usage patterns well enough understood to be the basis of "real world" testing? Or is this the after-thought to now be remedied?

Why can't they ...

just share the jokes?

Eh?

"While the FAA can warn operators of the dangers of Li-ion batteries, a law passed in 2012 means it can't regulate battery transport unless international regulators act first."

Is this unintended consequences of a poorly written law? Or consequences of a law poorly intended? (ie. industry lobbyists)

Anybody got a reference to this law?

And for the negative take on this...

"I've been rewarded 500,000 miles for a bug I found on May the 16th and I still have several bugs pending.

"Overall, I probably dedicated ~10 hours to their bug bounty program."

Umm, so now we've heard that several bugs, some major, can be found at United with only a few hours expended. Perhaps that is one of the 'facts' they should have embargoed?

Wearing my rubber-soled shoes

Worked 'near' the security people at a medium-big oil company. Watched their actions and words for years. It was all very 'correct'.

The company followed best available practices. (as revealed by their vendors) They used the best tools available. (those funded) The people individually checked all the boxes with their certifications (self-funded)

The security guys could not defend the company. What they could defend was their own efforts. Within their purview they did everything in their power. They certainly had my respect. Their efforts individually were not inadequate, but they well knew the total combined effort across the corporation was inadequate.

And they knew - knew - that they had been penetrated at will, more or less quarterly. The company as a whole figured this out - a few quiet inquiries from the C-suite made it clear even they knew - as the people on the other side had too much obviously internal information, not just re: negotiations but their technology/techniques/timeframes were known to low-level counterparts.

The company took the only action possible to them to 'cure' that situation. They slowly sold off any projects in the area and backed away from any further interests in the resources of or near to a certain large Asian state. They could do nothing at the turnabout that it was their own resources - technology - that had been extracted.

There is the characterisation that to get by when "living in the big city" you keep your head down, walk fast, look as threatening as possible when challenged, and be ready to run like hell. You *don't* attract the attention of gangs, unless you are surrounded by your own gang.

That network you've got protecting you... surrounding you... do you really think it'll stand up against the big gangs? We are everywhere living in the worst parts of the worst big city. Be ready to run like hell. Individually if need be.

Long-term stewardship

Nodejs was mentioned, but not the most illustrative aspect there of the uncertain effects of 'stewardship' by a corporation with its own goals.

Not too long past the second/third highest contributor by commit count was hung out to dry by the corporate steward, Joyent. For Ben Noordhuis English is a second language. He did not at one point have the required 'sensitivity' to the extreme viewpoints regarding gendered language. Seeing some dubious pull request come in from a previously unknown person whose sole content was changes of gendered words in documention, he said whoa, what is this for and what good is this doing the project?

Within hours his commit bit was yanked by Joyent, who reacted to the drafted webmob wielding pitchforks by saying "Ben who?". And then went on to post to their public corporate blog that "we believe that empathy is a core engineering value" and "if this were the act of a Joyent employee, we would—to deliberately use a gender-neutral pronoun—fire them", very prominently identifying Ben by full name.

While posturing that this was all about respect for others, they did not take enough time to respect one of their core contributors and straighten things out. They did not clear the air but added more nitromethane to the pyre. "Mob, *we* are *with* you!"

How does this tie in with one of the points in the article's list? Ben worked for a Joyent competitor. In a flash Joyent burned him to shine a better light on themselves.

Can you trust a corporate steward to value you and your efforts? Seems it does depend which steward.

(After an intervening fork, 1.5 years later Nodejs is shifting governance models subtly away from Joyent. I can hope it has nothing to do with their sordid behaviour. At least, that is what everyone is publicly saying.)

Damned inconvenient furriners!

Why do people with brains seem so alien to the powers that be? Why is intelligence something that has to be invited to Congress for a visit?

Obvious Blurbish is obvious

I really hate this quote:

"The result is a tool designed from the ground up for coding and customisable in all manner of ways."

Straight outta their glowing self-descriptions and ridiculous. What 'new' editor written by coders is *not* going to claim "designed ... for coding". And what editor is written now without being customisable?

Should I now go whiffling off and install 1.0 to see if it can _now_ manipulate columns of text across multiple lines? You know, like when you are trying to make code readable as a self-imposed requirement? Or more of the other features I use daily that are a fraction of what e.g. Vim provide?

Not all bad, though, unlike Adobe's Brackets, which can't 'bounce' between brackets. Another editor that "... is a tool designed from the ground up for coding and customisable in all manner of ways."

Less workers, less money?

"The work was outsourced to Capita back in 2013, the contract is valued at £1.2bn over ten years and is the biggest of its kind."

I am confused. If they are indeed using automation and tools to decrease the needed workload, then the work performed is now less. Will they paid less on the contract? That is, is it now a £0.9bn contract?

Or is this the triple-play coup that outsourcing until now only dreamt of - screw the customers, the workers, and the contracting company? What's that phrase, "trebles ...."

Nonplussed

"... four years before it shuts it down."

I'm sorry, where was this explained in the article? Or is this just a well-known cloud feature and I mist it?

Appreciation?

"However Starbucks did not appreciate the ... hacker's quiet disclosure ..."

Well, now that the corporation's stance regarding disclosure has been stated publicly, the next bug permitting fraud will be announced on-stage with widespread reporting. Let's see them then take 10 days to fix the monetary leak. Why doesn't any corporation think about "next time"?

How far will a lawyer go?

Can you really get paid to railroad your own client into jail? Hmm, if the client (now bankrupt) refuses to pay, can you then demand the state pay your expenses? Can a client really be so stupid as to arrange for both prosecutor and 'defense' to be trying to put them in jail?

Balls

Wasn't Fiorina the one photographed at a company business meeting on-stage with an enormous pair of (nonfunctioning but strategically placed) balls? Somehow I think that she could win a large share of votes in America with just that picture. I despair I do.

Opt Opt Opt

So does the implicit extension of this ruling require stores to say how many people are watching the in-store security cameras and for what purposes? Given the number of anti-shoplifting cameras that already exist in these stores, if you simply temporarily hired enough 'researchers' to report on shoppers 'footfall' by watching the monitors and making manual notes, that would be the same thing as just ruled ilegal?

Would stationing an employee outside on a mall bench and having them manually note 'walk-bys' vs. 'walk-ins' vs. 'window-shopping' be a violation of people's legal rights?

This really seems like "technology is evil!" so rule against them.

Government transparency!

Ain't it great?

Ink... ink... the smell of ink...

I still hoard toothbrushes. After I'd used one to lovingly defuzz a drum you wouldn't want to use that toothbrush again. But the print would be so sharp afterwards! Strangely though, the same people who wanted me to clean the drum for the improved printing wouldn't want me to touch the paper after that - blue/black fingers - so shift end was quiet for me, just tickling the holes in the digits and caressing the drummmmm......

Not probing your site, merely perusing...

So if I suck down a component file from your web site, and analyse it offline for vulnerabilities, this skirts around the legal difficulties of being an Invading! Evil! Hackerist! ? After all, I did nothing but accept the files your site sent me, right?

And if people start selling site profiles and example exploits to others, that isn't illegal, as they themselves are not penetrating a web site, right? They're just saying hey look over there that parked car is unlocked.

Umm, okay, now how about the academic and investigatory exemptions? A survey in the public interest isn't illegal, right?

Politics, legal codes, and morality... Sheesh! I'll think I'll keep my head down and keep coding!

D'oh'main

Paired with the almost simultaneous news that Google is giving up on Google Code in deference to the success of other organizations in that 'development' space, like GitHub, Goggle seems schizoid at best. They are showing all the mentally palsied symptoms of a company too big to be rational.

If they would partner with GitHub and SourceForge to foster the open development arena under the .dev domain they would come out heroes. But keeping it for themselves only? Sounds like "locked supply closet" type company stupidity.

Uncomfortable?

"If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable."

Sounds progressive, except when carried too far...

"“Freedom of speech, in a space that aims to be as inclusive as possible, can be interpreted as hate speech,” the bill reads."

I call bullshit on all these "statements of conduct" that vainly hope to cater to or fend off every individual's interpretation of the moment. Every group is by definition made up of individuals, with their own usually divergent truths and self-prejudices held dear. Disagreements, disappointments, and often resulting in someone blaming someone for those.

If someone's not acting with a project's best interests at heart tell them so, and why. If someone lays an egg on a mail-list ask them to restate "more usefully". We've all seen even neutral plain prose interactions fail completely due to 'feelings'. And there is usually no mystery to those who have been following along, rather than those jumping in with pitchforks and blazing torches.

Quite amazing this progression, that since we are all supposed to be mature adults, we can't act on that basis without worrying someone's feelings will come up 'hurt'. Latitude and understanding from all parties in a conversation is what's required.

If you are more interested in telling everyone you are feeling hurt than you are in getting the subject at hand worked out, ain't no statement of conduct going to help.

Proof of government stupidity!

Oh wait, no it isn't.

It _is_ proof that unexamined private business can be more stupid than is suspected of the government. That a business that won't explain its processes must be assumed to be hiding Hanlon's razor up its butt. As if the banking snarguffage wasn't a good enough demonstration.

Grease-palm

Instead of face-palm splat it sounds like *sploosh* and the lights go dark.