* Posts by Doctor Syntax

32776 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014

Page:

Dell: 60% of our people won't be going back into an office regularly after COVID-19

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

"why you wouldn't want to buy some Lettuce off Amazon"

I get it out of the garden. Yet again I have a glut of it...

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

"working from home will be considered by the tax office to be a benefit "

Working from home involves costs to be set against income for tax purposes.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

"when the mass evictions and foreclosures start,"

If people are being evicted or foreclosed because they can't afford rent or payments because of COVID 19 where do the landlords and lenders think they're going to get new tenants and buyers once the limited amount of slack has been taken out of the market? From other people who also can't afford rent or payments because of COVID 19?

Those who are able to afford to rent or buy will be in the driving seat. They'll be able to drive property prices down.

Landlords and lenders would be far better off, assuming the tenants/borrowers have been OK before, coming to arrangements and being prepared to write off some lost income.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

"If rent dropped to say mid 90s levels and they've bought or refinanced a building in the past 25 years they are still going to be in trouble."

Whatever they do some of them are going to be in trouble. Call it overshoot, call it a property bubble, whatever. It's taken this to start bringing home to people what should have been obvious for years now - the growth of big cities has exceeded rational limits. Their time has gone.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

"Fewer people will want to live in the big cities if they're working from home and commute time is no longer a factor. You can live just about anywhere so long as you have decent broadband."

Not everyone will be working from home. Mixing residential and business would make it easier for those whose employers are dedicated to presenteeism to avoid commutes.

AFAICS the growth of cities has been in overshoot for a good while now. Simply getting people into work in big cities has been a major headache for years, not helped, at least in the UK for town planning policies which, for more or less the whole of the post-war period, have been dedicated to separating residential end working zones. Just to add insult to injury for those condemned to long commutes, they were then blamed for causing congestion.

It's time to rethink. Don't build more offices in cities. Look at the possibility of shared work spaces in the peripheral towns. Move as many of those who continue to work in cities and are prepared to live there into converted ex-offices. And accept that even then there will be redundant space there.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"So in the long run i think its better for some shops and cafes to go to the wall"

A better idea would be to let them go to smaller towns, villages, suburbs etc. were the people are now working.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I get I'm in a microscopically small minority, but...

"some people simply don't have the space to be able to do that"

Enforced home working is serving to demonstrate a bigger issue: that the big office in the big city isn't necessary for any business that doesn't have a vested interest in big city property and services. A more practical idea might be the provision of shared workspaces or smaller offices closer to where employees live.

I hope that at some point, for instance, it might dawn on banks that they could start opening small offices in small towns and villages where employees who live locally could work instead of commuting into big cities to expensive offices. They could then cut down on that city office space and - who knows - they could actually open part of those small offices to offer a service to the public. It could even be competitive in helping them to attract more customers.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I get I'm in a microscopically small minority, but...

"Added to which, many jobs simply cannot be done remotely."

This is true. After all I spent half my working as a lab. scientist. But the other half was spent working in IT where one of the major challenges has the hell of the open plan office and a good deal of it could have been done using my own equipment at home.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Extroverts hate it

We've noticed.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I get I'm in a microscopically small minority, but...

I often agree with Bob but usually give up under the barrage of caps lock.

However you've triggered me now. The lady in question was a talker. On the phone. Incessantly. In an open office. In the next pig-pen. And despite working for a phone company hadn't realised that with a phone you can talk to people a long way away without shouting.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Efficiency gains

"Working with a number of blocking issues in testing and supporting test teams in bringup up of test, expect to take a week of my time to resolve"

Measuring claimed inputs instead of actual outputs. Not good before, still not good now.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I would hate to own commercial real estate

Time to look at how best to convert it to residential.

China trolls Trump with tech export rules changes that could imperil TikTok sale

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: but he's a late comer.

Who says he didn't know how to run a casino?

It sounds more like the banks that lost out didn't know how to run banking.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Why buy it?

"They only want the userbase"

So does Trump. Some of those users pissed him off. If they'd used Faceter to do that a few national security letters would have identified them.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: The whole thing is a mess

"gives an authoritarian government open access to a lot of data"

Remember in all this that a forced sale would give that access to a different authoritarian government. Don't discount that as a motive.

Funny, that: Handy script for wiping directories is capable of wreaking havoc beyond a miscreant's wildest dreams

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Makes a change from the Unix version.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: My contribution ...

"most of /usr was toast.... everyone's user directories"

The halcyon days when /usr was for user directories instead of being filled up with stuff that should be in /bin, /lib and the like!

What a time for a TITSUP*: Santander down and out on pre-Bank Holiday payday

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Sometimes that, getting it in the media or emailing CEO* is the only way to get things done. With automated systems - including those with call centre drones in the loop - things aretoo often handled by repeatedly retrying what's failed. Surprise, surprise, the same thing happens again. Publicity is a way of breaking out of that loop to get the problem escalated.

* Yes, it can work, been on both ends of that although it might only apply to some companies.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Somebody's bonus depended on getting some change in before month end?

You Musk be joking: A mind-reading Neuralink chip in a pig's brain? Downloadable memories? Telepathy? Watch and judge for yourself

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Oink!

"Looks as though you have a fan/stalker Jake."

I suppose with a bit of effort we could go back and find some numpty post, probably about IR35, that Jake picked up on and work out who it is.

Still, it makes a change from just going round downvoting every post which some of them do.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"telepathic summoning of Tesla cars"

Road hog.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Eyes Back Head

New here?

Techie studied ancient ways of iSeries machine, saved day when user unleashed eldritch powers, got £50 gift voucher

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

or "very carefully"

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: That whooshing deadline sound...

I must say I was nervous about the expect stuff. It could have been done a bit easier to script with ex. Yes, probably a parametrised shell script would have done the job but --- don't fix it, don't even be tempted to take a look.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: You get told "We're not renewing your contract anymore"

That's the nature of contract work. Leave on good terms, keep in touch. Sometimes there are more contracts down the line.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: That whooshing deadline sound...

"Inevitably, the systems were so flaky"

The worst one I inherited included some jobs that used tcl/expect to run vi to write and run scripts on the fly. Distinctly "if it ain't broke" territory. Fortunately it stayed unbroke.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: However, he also got a reputation...

"That worked very well up until my particular section of IT ended up under Marketing, the Head got my number and I ended up getting a call a scant two weeks later while I was on holiday to try and clear up one of their messes."

There are times when the pain of changing a number is worth it. Or have separate work and life numbers and leave the life number at home when you're on holiday.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge
Flame

"However, he also got a reputation as being the chap to go to when everything went wrong"

Letting one of the less destructive ones go -> might be a good idea.

Don't be seen as too infallible.

Southern Water customers could view others' personal data by tweaking URL parameters

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"The practice of threatening people who make responsible disclosures of security cockups has long passed out of the IT industry in favour of bug bounty schemes and proper pentesting; perhaps other industries are still playing catchup."

Well it has in those parts of it that actually take protections of customer data seriously as opposed to just stringing together some words they'd heard.

Ex-Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain loses US appeal bid against fraud convictions and 5-year prison sentence

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: This is still HP's fault

Not only didn't read it, didn't wait for it to be completed.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: This is still HP's fault

If a professional inspector didn't find it it could be hard to prove the seller must have known.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: This is still HP's fault

I'd go even further. The value of something in the open market is the price someone is willing to pay and someone else to accept. HP made an offer at a given price which was accepted therefore that was its value at the time. Not more. No less. That.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Especially as the UK case is a civil one to be decide on the lesser standard of balance of probability.

Here's some words we never expected to write: Oracle said to offer $10bn cash, $10bn shares for TikTok US – plus profit share promise

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"So what is it exactly the the US doesn't want China to know about American teens"

T'other way about. Trump wants to find out who organised the mass bookings that messed up his rally. A China-based TikTok is outside the reach of the CLOUD Act.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: I've never used Tik Tok

Even if they don't buy it I never will.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Although it seems there's a never ending supply surely there must be a limit to advertising budgets. The more platforms there are the thinner it gets sliced. They should be grateful to those of us running ad blockers. It means there's more to spend somewhere else.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"HP'd probably mess it up so badly"

They'd still claim they'd be cheated, sue and try to get whoever they could from the vendors jailed for wire fraud. Maybe the CEO who baled out thought they were going to bid.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

I can't see that amount being justified by the IP nor any tangible assets they may have for a US operation. It can only be justified by the user base and the prospects for growing it further. But there's no guarantee that a use base can be retained let alone grown as MySpace demonstrated years ago. Somehow I can't see Oracle managing anything in a manner that keeps the user base regarding it as cool.

All of which prompts the thought of where do Social Networks go in the future? There seems to be a generational issue. A new cohort of prospective users is likely to reject the network their elders are using simply because that's what their elders are using, even if that means their elder siblings. Could the future be the ability to pop up new ones every few years? Could social network servers become commodity software? I rather suspect you could even cobble up something to get a new network off the ground out of a selection of NextCloud modules and some UI bells and whistles. SNaaS? SNSPs?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

If HP come in with a better offer don't take it!!!!

IBM ordered to pay £22k to whistleblower and told by judges: Teach your managers what discrimination means

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Discrimination ...... is like a virulent disease

"It doesn't take one long to shoot oneself in the foot, does it, and make yourself an enemy of the people to boot."

The boot must have been on the other foot.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Just wish I'd done my SAR request a lot sooner

Lesson learned. Keep your own copies of emails.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

It sounds like the discrimination training they need is how to to discrimination what they need to hear from what they want to hear.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: £22K? Is that all?

"Yeah, her slate will never be wiped clean. This will follow her at IBM for the term of her employment."

By court order the judgement is added to her file. Any future manager will have to take account of it because any future tribunal will. And better not lose it from the file because a tribunal will take a dim view of that.

Google wants to listen in to whatever you get up to in hotel rooms

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Alexa, charge this room to Jeff Bezos.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Let's turn this around..

"a Trump speech"

Even better, a Trump speech intercut with one of John Prescotts.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Reminds me of the time

A ton of polystyrene packaging beads.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: GDPR

Streetview Wifi pre-dated GDPR.

TikTok CEO quits after less than three months in the job

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: What would be really funny

Or charging a huge per CPU and/or per connection licence fee for the software.

Palantir: Never made a profit, we do something with family-separating ICE, we just lost $580m – please join our IPO

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

If you're paid money that doesn't officially exist from budgets that don't officially exist, sometimes by organisations that don't officially exist then obviously our profit can't officially exist either.

Forget your space-age IT security systems. It might just take a $1m bribe and a willing employee to be pwned

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: The Independent Takes a Stumble Under Pressure

Could it be something to do with the fire and they haven't got their replacement up and running yet?

https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/27/telstra_london_hosting_centre_fire/

Page: