* Posts by a_yank_lurker

4139 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2013

Embrace our cloud, damn you: Microsoft dangles 40% discount on Azure instances

a_yank_lurker

Requirements

What happens if you do not have first born male child? Somehow Slurp must be asserting rights to yours in the shyster you have to sign.

Back to the future: Honda's new electric car can go an incredible 80 miles!

a_yank_lurker

Re: One of the factors I'd be interested in

First and foremost the environmental issues are different points in the manufacturing and use of the car. Overall, I suspect, if one is honest the net environmental problems are awash between ICE and electric cars. They will have different issues. One issue with EVs is the load they will put on the electric grid and is the grid resilient enough to handle it.

Verizon's bogus bills tanked my credit score, claims sueball slinger

a_yank_lurker

@Griffo - I am not sure myself

Hasta la Windows Vista, baby! It's now officially dead – good riddance

a_yank_lurker

Re: Haters gonna hate

@James Anderson "just because it is MS stealing your data does not make it OK." - the only difference between Slurp's 'Spyware-as-a-Service' and malware is you can get rid of malware. Theft of data is still theft of data.

Cowardly Microsoft buries critical Hyper-V, WordPad, Office, Outlook, etc security patches in normal fixes

a_yank_lurker

Re: Microsoft has cutting-edge customer support. . .

The Unfriendly Skies has atrocious customer service but my experience with the Slurp is are always looking to pinch for a couple of pennies on even flimsier excuses than the Unfriendly Skies. Not much worse but worse.

Gordon Ramsay's in-laws admit plot to hack sweary celeb chef's biz

a_yank_lurker

Pot meet Kettle

It sounds like Ramsey got the in-laws he deserves </snark>

Consumers go off PCs as global shipments continue their decline

a_yank_lurker

Re: Yet again...

Have an upvote, I would go further out to say in most countries the device market is a maturing or mature market overall. PC sales are sluggish at best, tablets sales are declining, and most phone sales are for replacement devices. Phones are the only real bright spot, sort of, because many are on a 2 - 3 year replacement cycle still while the other devices are on a 5 - 10 year cycle. Another problem for PCs and laptops is the availability of quality refurbished kit particularly if one needs one for limited duty.

Gartner's problem is they fail to read their history. All markets follow the same pattern: the item is luxury/niche item, then it breaks into the mass market, and finally the market saturates. In the beginning the devices are sold in low volumes with high prices and margins. As it breaks in the mass market unit sales increase dramatically, prices and margins decline. At saturation, the unit sales stabilize with low growth of new equipment, the existence of viable used market and prices stabilizing with margins being soso at best. For device insert any common mass market device. The only difference is the timeline. So devices took decades to become mass market devices while others only took a few years.

It gets worse – now WD says Toshiba memory business sale breaches joint venture terms

a_yank_lurker

US Nuclear Industry

Toshiba failed to do their 'due diligence' when they bought Westinghouse. The US nuclear industry has been in the toilet for decades with only real sales to the Navy. Worldwide the industry has not been very healthy. Partly the industry has been using the choice for reactor fuels and design since the 50's and partly because other options are cheaper and have easier environmental problems. Whatever you think of coal fired plants, the environmental problems are much easier to manage than with highly radioactive wastes with millenia for a half-life with uranium based cycle.

Oracle reseller boss banned from directorship over VAT fiddle

a_yank_lurker

Re: hmmm

Leisure Larry's Minions and their sidekicks can even spell ethics, who'd believe that?

As you stare at the dead British Airways website, remember the hundreds of tech staff it laid off

a_yank_lurker

Re: The solution? Start with more outsourcing...

"didn't do too well for United" - BA's screw up while affecting many did not result in any reports of paying customers being assaulted because management incompetence. That is an improvement over the Unfriendly Skies where management reserves the right to 'Send in the Goons' on any pretext they can think of.

Intel's buggy Puma 6 chipset earns Arris a gigabit-modem lawsuit

a_yank_lurker

Danger for Chipzilla?

While Arris is facing the music now, why isn't Chipzilla in someone's crosshairs? Chipzilla made the dodgy silicon not Arris.

Internet Society tells G20 nations: The web must be fully encrypted

a_yank_lurker

Remember your audience

Mark Twain once observed that a flea is smarter than your local Congresscritter. I suspect the local equivalent of a Congresscritter is equally as stupid. They can not grasp either you have secure, encrypted communication for everyone or no one has it. The math is rather binary on that point. Given that basic arithmetic is beyond a Congresscritter's comprehension (you can forget about algebra and geometry) they will try to have both and wonder why it failed.

FCC kills plan to allow phone calls on planes – good idea or terrible?

a_yank_lurker

Praise the Lord

While the technical issues are long gone, it is annoying enough to have hear someone babble on a cellphone on the ground. To have to listen to some moron who thinks they are so important they have the right to disturb everyone else trapped in the plane is not my idea of a pleasant flight (an oxymoron yes). They can stifle it for awhile for the rest of us sardines.

Google fumes after US Dept of Labor accuses ad giant of lowballing pay for women

a_yank_lurker

Are Women Paid Less

Are women paid less than H1-B visa slaves?

Gartner halves tech splash forecasts, blames the US dollar

a_yank_lurker

Re: Out of interest

Accurate if you believe the opposite of what they "predict". Gartner has not figured out the IT industry as a whole is a mature industry with limited growth worldwide. What is happening is some sectors are cannibalizing other sectors, if you are in the growing sector there is an illusion of rapid growth but when combined with declining sectors there is much less net growth.

April proves to be the cruellest month again as Fujitsu staff down tools

a_yank_lurker

Re: Wankers

Similar problem on the other side with a twist. Companies will try to use H1-B visas to replace US workers with lower pay foreign slaves as well as dumbshore jobs. And the elites who run these companies haven't figured that us peons figured Donald could not any worse than Hildafelon. If we are going to get screwed at least lets gets screwed by a new face not the Hag and her cronies.

Who really gives a toss if it's agile or not?

a_yank_lurker

Buzzword Bingo

All too often a sound development ideas are perverted. The concepts are sound but the mistake is to view each as the perfect panacea to produce bug free, working code. Each has its purpose and scope of effectiveness. What should be understood and applied is not a precise cookbook method but principles - Agile focuses communication between groups and ensuring all on the same page. Others focus more on low level development (test driven development, e.g.) but one can lose sight the goal is use an appropriate tool set to make sure quality code is produced. Again, is the code being tested, are the tests correct, are junior developers being mentored, are developers working together appropriately for the nature of the projects are issues to be addressed not the precise formalism of the insultants.

Uncle Bob Martin has noted that one of the problems the formalisms try to address is the large number of junior developers who need proper mentoring, training, etc. in real world situations. He noted that in the old days many IT pros were mid level professionals who wandered over to IT and many of the formalisms so beloved by the insultants were concepts they did naturally. Cross functional team meetings - check, mentor - check, use appropriate tests - check, etc. These are professional procedures common to other fields and were ingrained mindset and habits.

Mark Shuttleworth says some free software folk are 'deeply anti-social' and 'love to hate'

a_yank_lurker

Re: He's right

Nerds and geeks over here have a reputation for at best being anti-social. The caricature is based on a grain of truth as many do not have great social skills, being more interested in technology than people.

Payday lender Wonga admits to data breach

a_yank_lurker

Re: Might be in for a shock

I would be surprised if their combined checking accounts had more than $100 total in them.

The hackers are probably not locals who would know that Wonga is a payday loan outfit. Sad and humorous at the same time. Sad because innocent people now have to worry about their accounts. Humorous because the hackers thought they were going to make the big score but will be lucky to get peanuts but if caught could face the same sentence.

Machine vs. machine battle has begun to de-fraud the internet of lies

a_yank_lurker

Choice

Fake news abounds but what most of the hand wringing is about that many are ignoring "our fake news" for "their fake news". If we are honest there is tons of fake news produced daily for various reasons but mostly ignorance and incompetence. Most medical and science reporting in the mass media is just pure garbage. For example, the recent Sarin gassing in Syria has created much finger pointing. But none of the "reporters" have bothered to find out how easy/difficult Sarin is to produce. This would require talking to an organic chemist and possibly doing some real research. Something many are too lazy to do. Based on the Tokyo subway Sarin attacks in the mid 90s my suspicion is the precursors to Sarin relatively easy to get and that Sarin itself is not very difficult to make by a competent organic chemist (I am an electrochemist originally). So what does the media do, report what are effectively hotel bar rumors as fact; something they have a long history of doing.

OLE-y hell. Bug in MSFT Word allows total PC p0wnage

a_yank_lurker

Security isn't Job 1

Given this flaw has been around for ages one has to ask why wasn't discovered and patched earlier? It raise the question of which feral TLA was using this until the bad guys of the month started using it against them. Now that the cat is out of the bag, it has become useless to the "friendly" spookhauses thus must be patched.

The motto for Slurp should be "Spying is Job 1 but don't ask who for".

Overcharge customers, underpay the serfs. Who else but Uber (allegedly)

a_yank_lurker

Re: Wouldn't surprise me a bit

That is a very low blow but very accurate. Makes me glad I haven't used Uber. I still use cabs on occasion.

An echo chamber full of fake news? Blame Google and Facebook, says Murdoch chief

a_yank_lurker

Pot meet Kettle

So FB and Chocolate Factory are purveyors of fake news (whatever that is) but media isn't. I can remember many a supposed story in the media that was either faked (exploding cars on one show). Also, ask Dan Rather about "Fake but accurate" comments about Dubya's military service record. If you want me to believe you start be giving the facts first and check your sources. There have been Pulitzer Prizes given to fableists of the Washington Post and NYT (Jayson Blair comes to mind).

Germany gives social networks 24 hours to delete criminal content

a_yank_lurker

Enforcement?

One problem is different countries have very different ideas about free speech and where the line is between free speech and something else. What will fly in the US may not fly under these regulations. So, is the Fatherland trying to emulate the ferals and become the guardians of proper speech on the Internet?

Roll up, sysadmins, now you can join Windows Insider for businesses

a_yank_lurker

Re: We're all just lining up for this.

To marketing moron, this idea sounds good on paper. But I doubt most businesses have the spare staff and equipment to be alpha testers for Slurp. So this will be idea that fizzle like the Hindenburg.

Ubuntu UNITY is GNOME-MORE: 'One Linux' dream of phone, slab, desktop UI axed

a_yank_lurker

@anthonyhedgedus - Linux Mint and other 'buntu derivatives exist because someone believes that the base Ubuntu can be improved in their opinion. In some cases, like Mint, they have a very reasonable alternative to Ubuntu itself long before Unity was a out.

It should be noted that Gnome can be run on Ubuntu instead of Unity fairly easily. Also, I believer there is Ubuntu derivative with Gnome as the default desktop. I have a couple of different desktops on my Linux partitions. This ability means that switching default desktops is not very difficult for a Linux user.

FCC Commish: Hey, don't look at me – Congress should sort out net neutrality mess

a_yank_lurker

Ultimate Responsibility

With the ferals, the ultimate responsibility for defining what the swamp should be doing is 'America's Native Criminal Class'. But leaves the idiots in charge.

Webcam sex blackmailer faces extradition to Canada to stand trial for bullied teen's suicide

a_yank_lurker

@Moosh - Also, too many do not understand how FB, Google, et. al. make money and that everyone is product to folded, spindled, and mutilated for advertisers. Couple this with some of this has only been around about 20 years. Many grew up without every having a computer or understanding how it works.

a_yank_lurker

Re: Murder in the First

He probably will be so charged. This was about having enough to get him extradited. His has Dutch time and almost certainly Canadian time.

ICO fines 11 big charities over dirty data donor-squeezing deeds

a_yank_lurker

Same problems on this side

We have the same problems on this side of the pond. Too many charities get <20% often <10% of the funds raised by 'professional fund raisers'. Also, many large charities waste money on high salaries, high rent office space, etc. which means less money is actually be spent on the purpose of the charity.

It's 30 years ago: IBM's final battle with reality

a_yank_lurker

Re: Too much credit

@schifreen - Itsy Bitsy Morons always had a schizophrenic attitude towards PCs and to a lesser extent minis at the time. They worshipped big iron and could not understand why people would want a "toy" or "crippled iron". What they failed to grasp is many computing activities are not very resource intensive on any computer (I wrote a thesis on an Apple IIe) even early PCs. These are activities that could be easily automated and put on a smaller computer. Others grasped the vacuum left and moved in with both feet.

The other issue for them was selling PCs is very different than selling a mainframe. One buys a PC much like one buys any other appliance from a retailer. There is no formal bid process with tenders to opened and reviewed. At retail, the sales staff is less interested in the brand you bought but is very interested in selling you something.

Tech visa saber-rattling more sound than fury

a_yank_lurker

Re: Degree and Programming

The basic problem is many IT positions require intelligence, logical thinking, and problem solving. These are skills quite common with about any STEM degree and some others. There is some specific knowledge required to be a good sysadmin, developer, etc. but often they can be learned via various short courses, ojb, etc. In many cases converting a competent accountant, engineer, or scientist to a developer is easier than the opposite direction.

a_yank_lurker

Degree and Programming

First, a BS/BA degree will not give on highly specialized skills that the H-1B supposedly is intended for. I doubt that an MS/MA will give these skills also. Second, programming is more about problem solving and logical thinking than writing code. Many people with non-IT degrees have the skills to be a very good programmer if they want.

Android beats Windows as most popular OS for interwebz – by 0.02%

a_yank_lurker

Re: Look at the 5 year Windows slide in to obsolescence

To find trends, the data set has to be internally consistent over time. Use the same websites (or type) over time will you a trend. The trend is more important than exact month Android became the most used OS for browsing. The trend is mobile OSes are going up and Bloat is sliding. This has implications for web designers as to the devices they need to consider as well as the browsers. Also, it points to another problem for Slurp, most users are comfortable with using a non-Bloat OS for many activities. This breaks a crucial psychological barrier that users feel that they must have Bloat or they can not function.

Alabama man gets electrocuted after sleeping with iPhone

a_yank_lurker

State Rankings

In Alabama they are so hard up they thank God for Mississippi. A welcome site in Georgia and Tennessee is an empty bus coming out of Alabama.

Indian Business Machines? One-third of Big Blue staff based there and Bangladesh

a_yank_lurker

@AC - "As an Indian," The real complaint with these dumbsourcing moves is they substitute experienced locals (UK/US/EU) with inexperienced offshore workers. This is done because the inexperienced, offshore workers have much lower labor rates; a case of 'penny wise, pound foolish'. The offshore staff, no matter how competent, can not make up for a lack of experience and a lack of local knowledge/context. About all this does is anger customers as the quality of service declines because of the mismanagement decisions as the inexperienced staff struggle to find solutions.

On this side of the pond, Discover Card has been advertising for years that all their CSRs are locals (US based). This implies a familiarity with US customs, laws, etc. that someone in overseas would lack even someone living in the UK.

a_yank_lurker

Failout

So when Itsy Bitsy Morons finally collapses the damage will be in poorer countries because they have only a skeleton staff in US/EU/Japan/etc.

Microsoft taking CodePlex behind the shed and shooting it by Christmas

a_yank_lurker

Re: Same old MS 3es

Except the 3es are beginning to hit da Slurp more often than not. It seems like a lot of their efforts are being extinguished.

Yee-hacked! Fired Texan sysadmin goes rogue, trashes boot business

a_yank_lurker

Re: IT guy gets fired and goes rogue.

One issue is how big is the IT staff and their respective responsibilities. In a small to medium non-IT organizations there may be only 1 or 2 true sysadmins on the payroll. I have worked for companies small enough the onsite IT department was the most computer literate employee; usually someone who had a vague idea how a network worked and how install and maintain the anti-virus. Anything real serious would require bringing in an outside contractor.

a_yank_lurker

@Lord Elpuss

Given the nature of the attack, rebuilding the drive would mean reinstalling all the software. Since it would be evidence in a criminal trial, the company needs to buy a new server plus all the work to get it up an running. Depending on how much equipment and time was involved this could add up fast. Whether the prosecutors are overreaching, can not say without more details.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: IBM sheds more workers – this time, tech sales

a_yank_lurker

Age Discrimination?

While the supposed skills are with the "hip and trendy" this action could be pure and simple age discrimination. Competent older workers are well aware of the need to keep up with newer technology. But it seems the dimbulbs running Itsy Bitsy Moron have forgotten a couple things. Older workers and lifers know where the skeletons are and the backstory. Also, sales is mostly about establishing good working relationships with (potential) customers. Can the grey headed sales staff and the replacement PFY has no idea about the account and has to waste considerable time to get up to speed. Time that might cause a customer to look elsewhere.

My experience in another industry was good salespeople knew each account and had an intelligent strategy to work each account. They would make the rounds to meet us, partially to show the flag and partially to find out when we were likely to have some activity for them.

Silicon Valley staffing agency boss charged with H‑1B visa fraud

a_yank_lurker

H-1B Visa Fraud

When will the big boys get nailed for visa fraud. It is an up to 5 year vacation in Club Fed for lying on the forms. Given the foreign national must have skills that are (realistically) unavailable in the US, many a signer may be guilty of this. Since they likely did this on orders of upper management I would think an aggressive DA could find a conspiracy charge in there also.

Recruiters considered really harmful: Devs on GitHub hit with booby-trapped fake job emails

a_yank_lurker

Macros

I believe the default setting for MS Office is for macro execution to require permission/credentials to run since 2007. So either someone has changed the defaults to allow macros to run or have carelessly approved it to run.

Windows 10 Creators Update: Clearing the mines with livestock (that's you by the way)

a_yank_lurker

Re: Wish I could use it

When Linux distros support hardware better than Bloat that should be a clue.

DevOps hype? Sometimes a pizza really is just a pizza

a_yank_lurker

Uncle Bob's comments

Uncle Bob Martin has a Youtube video about history of programming. One thing he notes was in the old days (pre mid 70s) most IT professionals were seasoned professionals who wandered in from other fields. They had skills and maturity that he notes is often sad lacking in many IT companies. He also noted that agile type methods were commonly used by these old timers. What they did differently was to realize projects have different natural rhythms rather than have "scrums" (idiotic term if you know rugby) and 2-week "sprints" because some insultant said that is how it is done.

DevOps seems to have the same problem, insultants who have a "magically" method to solve all your problems but never do.

Robots are killing jobs after all, apparently: One droid equals 5.6 workers

a_yank_lurker

Analysis?

When I see someone say there needs to be a retraining program they often ignore the fact that many do not have any real skills for the new jobs. Taking a logger or coal miner, jobs that have definite skills, and try to make them into web designer (for example) is likely to be a complete failure. There is no real overlap between their skills and the skills required for a web designer. So when policy wonk says retraining I wonder if they have any idea what kind of skills are required for the disappearing jobs as compared to the new jobs and if there is any overlap.

People may have been wrongly sent back to prison over faulty tags

a_yank_lurker

It could be worse

A small consolation those tossed into the klink because of this incompetence but Massachusetts will be freeing about 24,000 who convicted of drug offenses because a crime lab tech faked the results. It seems in every country, the criminal injustice system is not about getting truly dangerous people of the street but making the DA look good when they run for higher office.

FYI Docs.com users: You may have leaked passwords, personal info – thousands have

a_yank_lurker

Re: Weakest link

@P. Lee "MS - partying (and writing software) like its 1999." I think MS is actually writing code as if it is 1899 given the alpha level trash they have been foisting on users recently.

'Windows 10 destroyed our data!' Microsoft hauled into US court

a_yank_lurker

Re: It's right in the EULA...

@Not also known as SC - I suspect the origin of this lawsuit was that the plaintiffs managed to talk to someone socially who is reasonably computer literate who explained what likely happened well after the fact. A suggestion was possibly made to consult a shyster to see if they could find a way to shake some money out of Slurp. From the article none of the plaintiffs appear to be computer literate unless you define it as being able to turn it on and use a couple of programs. And I suspect 75%+ of all users are closer to the plaintiffs' skill level than the posters here.

a_yank_lurker

Re: @Will

@Wiil & @AC - This case hinges on pre-trial discovery. Once Slurp's legal beagles look that internal paper trail they may demand settle at any price. The internal paper trail is likely to show there was a significant internal debate about how to roll out Spyware-as-a-Service aka Bloat 10 on the masses. Also, it would show how close Slurp was going to the edge of obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. Once this is in open court it is public record. Being public record means it accessible to anyone. Remember this is a civil case which could cost Slurp dearly in direct costs and long term.

No matter what shyterly comments the PR flacks say Slurp could have avoid this mess by letting users deliberately seek out Bloat 10 not force it on them. And all it takes is for one of these suits to stick and go to trial.