Posts by Mark 85

Re: A company I worked for was sending its management and sales teams...

And US based companies wonder why there is no loyalty anymore.

Another poster is right. They don't wonder. Back when companies were founded and owned by the family, they did care. A lot of the old guard owners preached loyalty and believed in it. When they died off and the family didn't want to run the business, they sold stock.. which leads to MBA's.. which gets us to where we are today.

Back in the 70's/80's timeframe, when the Japanese were kicking everyone's corporate butt, they had the old school philosophy of loyalty, we do well and so will you. There was a joke that all we needed to do to bring the Japanese economy to it's knees was export some Harvard MBA's their way.... I think it worked.

Re: Wait until the weekend to install

Perhaps if MS started concentrating on security instead of useless 'bells and whistles' that no-one wants (Windows 10, I'm looking at you) we wouldn't have so many patches to install year after year.

Possibly. But it's possible that they just toss bodies at the Win OS and the old saying about "too many cooks spoiling the broth" applies. Especially if there's not much being done to check the code or test it.

Having read what I just wrote, I wonder about all those thousands of employees... mostly sales, PR, admin types? Not enough coders or testers? I realize there's probably still zillions of lines in legacy code in Windows, but crikey... this shit seems to get worse every month. I would hope that at some point, a complete code review would occur and all the old, useless, vulnerable stuff would be stripped out. Expensive? Yes. Doable? Maybe not so much in reality.

Yes, Linux is on standby for 3 of the 4 machines here at home, with one already happily running it.

And, at least here in the States, various municipal departments such as police.

Predator and Reaper spend most of their time flying autonomously with humans only dropping into the loop as needed.

Generally, there's one human for each of those in the air. Will the same be needed for cars? If there's an emergency, getting a "please wait for the next available driver" won't cut it. Given the nature of companies, they will keep staff to a minimum which means "wait"....

Re: The problem here

Let's add: health insurance companies that outsource the processing of your claims to another country. Once that data is on the wire and headed to the processor, anyone can get it. And there's no telling what the processor will do with it or who has access (legal or illegal) to it.

Re: I dumped Facebook

I'd love to upvote that several times...

Re: And is anyone surprised?

I know the yanks won't like it, but its high time we get some serious consumer protection, to protect us against "free" trojan horses

I can't speak for the rest of the people here in the States, but I believe most would agree that some serious protection is needed and not the lip service we've been getting from our government minions who are doing the corporate's bidding.

Re: Blueprints?

Meh... we old farts still call them "blueprints". Either nostalgia is setting in or senility. There is something (not good) to be said for the smell of a freshly printed blueprint. "Eye-watering" I think is the right phrase.

Obwiously no wasscally wabbits either.

Re: Wait

And on top of all this, there's no weasel words or PR BS.

Shocked... shocked I tell you. What's the world coming to?

Re: You can "learn" assembly?

If they're using the Apollo lander code as an example.. it's tight code. Nothing fancy like startup code or libraries. Just pure "do this".

Writing for the assembler isn't the hard part. It's writing for the chip and board. Methinks if it's embedded, they're not giving the coder a lot of space.

Hmmm.... maybe this is one reason security is crap on these devices. The "oh we only have enough space for the make-it-work-stuff... something else will have to provide the security."

There's one other small problem that seems to be ignored and it's not just about the ships It's the aircraft itself. You might have your 24 F-35's by then, but how many will actually be flyable or available for active duty? Some will be needed for training by both pilots and ground crews. There's the inevitable "hanger queens" in active units that end up basically as a spare parts bird. Then there's repairs... some by wear and tear and others by misadventure. Lastly, there's overhaul and "hours checks" where the planes get thoroughly inspected and parts replaced as deemed "unfit".

To have 24 available, I'd think you'll need at least 12 more just for the other purposes.

Re: Considering her ownership stake

possibly a big med device firm that thinks it can do something with the ip.

You assume the IP is viable... I'm still wondering if they ever did any patents.....

Re: Too Long?

As long as someone doesn't turn left when they should turn right, we'll get incoming goodies. Wrong turn.. and "oops"... will be heard.

Re: lol @ yanks

I fail to see your point. There's lots of us, trained, combat experience, live in gun friendly places, and we haven't killed anyone*. Should all us vets who own guns go turn ourselves in as being a danger?

*anyone since our combat experience

Well, they expect overseas porn websites to comply with their age verification demands, so...

I'm sure if they offered the positions for that, they could charge the raters.

I'm thinking along lines of Woody Allen:

Michael: Did you get a job?

Victor: Yes, I got something at the strip-tease. I help the girls dress and undress.

Michael: Nice job.

Victor: Twenty francs a week.

Michael: Not very much.

Victor: It's all I could afford.

@bombastic bob -- Re: And, what has happened at MS since 2005?

You raise some interesting points. The Windows group supposedly is the driver at MS. If not company wide, at least for themselves. He's marketing which is how to push sales, cash flow and profit. I'm wondering if his leaving isn't related to the GWX nightmare. MS has had enough bad press about it, people are resisting, etc. And then there's issues with the OS itself not being ready for prime-time.

Maybe he's falling (or being picked up and tossed) on his sword over this?

Re: Standing Desks

A bar stool.

And... a tap built into the corner of the desk with a Kegerator beneath it.

Well, if he had been allowed through security, can you imagine the <sarc> hilarity</sarc> that would have occurred on the plane if he took it out to play a game? Here in States we have people on planes raising hell about someone wearing a turban (a Sikh.. not Muslim), etc.

Re: Guns don't kill people....

Reports are they're looking for two black suspects. This may be the beginnings of some very bad times. Reading the media stories and the comments on the articles makes me wonder where the hatred is coming from. Something more polarizing in the US than any of us understand.

I don't think I'm paranoid but there's just too many senseless killings from the cop side and the civilian side. The cops covering their tracks (if proven) seems to point to something other than coincidence.

But until lawsuits get filed and the lawyers sort it out, we'll never know which it is. Still ends up with the same result for customers...

I think we're very aware that the tools are "Enterprise" packages. But if your company doesn't qualify under the new "rules" (size), it' too bad. I see a lot of small shops having issues with this.

How can you have every customer record spewing out for that long and not have someone make the correlation?

How? Simple.... you take security seriously but put Bob the Janitor in charge of security. Bob, because he's a) cheap and b) used to cleaning up messes.

I will give them one point for confessing up. But I'll take away 10 points for them being idiots.

Re: Is suicide illegal in the USA

Whatever the outcome, she''s either a nasty piece of work or has some serious mental/educational problems of her own to deal with.

Not "either/or" but "and"... I'll add "despicable". She reminds me of those who stand on the sidewalk chanting at someone threatening to jump to "Jump.. jump... jump" and then applaud when the jumper actually jumps. I'm just not sure how she can look in the mirror at herself.

FTR: In many states it is illegal. It's a legal ploy to allow the state to get you mental help. Or was at one time before RR started shutting down the mental health institutions and dumping those folks on the streets.

Re: America

In all fairness, I don't think we or any other country can feel superior about the their police forces. There's bad apples in every department and dealing with the public service sector's regs on firing, it's tough to weed the bad ones' and the ones unsuited for the position out.

I'd like to think it's getting better out there, but reality is, it isn't. I can understand a cop being jumpy about someone with a gun as the rotten cops have made all cops a target. But the video points out too much incompetence to be believed.

Sidenote: The fact that FB pulled not only the video but the uploader's profile shows a definite knee-jerk reaction to this.

Part of the problem isn't just the financing of these things. It's the media frenzy that goes on. Most reporters don't seem to have a clue but they jump on the bandwagon and pretty soon.. it's "common knowledge" about such-and-such. And once a few brain-dead celebs take it up... all bets are off. A look a the case of vaccines and autism is a prime example of this.

@wolftone -- Re: With friends like that ...

There's another category... self-destructive drunks or maybe it's suicidal. Depressed and alcohol makes it worse.

I've run into a couple of those over the years. They'll get drunk in a bar, go outside and proceed to bang their head on lampposts, etc. One I knew, fell on a fire hydrant (he had a history of self inflicted wounds while drinking - intentional not accidental wounding), then bashed his head on the pavement. Bystanders duly called an ambulance and the next day in the hospital, he claimed some cops beat him up. Witnesses and street CCTV showed no beatings. Only one cop showed up to take statements.

The other one would run into the street in traffic and jump at the cars. Before he lost all driving privileges he wrecked 3 cars by driving them into brick walls.

Re: Language pack

Is it currently up to date then based on that email? Just checking as I don't speak Hipster.

Re: Paranoia may destroy ya..

Is it paranoia when you know they're out to get you? Just asking in case I need a new chapeau.

@Yuggy -- Re: they ARE a social phenomenon

And I'm doing my hardest to bring my daughter up not to see them as any sort of role model.

Actually you should use them as role model.. a bad role model. Someone she doesn't want to be like.