Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: We've all been there.

Avoid sitting on saws. They make a big impression.

Re: We've all been there.

As monkeys are involved it's clearly a combination of sitting and swinging and as blaming is involved somebody's going to have to swing for it.

Re: The rumored traditional IBM script for that...

Managing your users is almost as important as managing your manager.

Definitely not. He was a well-regarded defence lawyer with a self-deprecating sense of humour. I certainly regarded him well after he eventually objected to the prosecution leader cross-examining* his own witness, namely me.

* No way was I going to put any great weight on hair comparison as he wanted me to do. I could never understand why the FBI lab seemed to make a big thing about hair comparisons; years after I read an article proving that their evidence was unreliable.

Re: Too many to count

I'll admit to forgetting my document camera had a sliding lens cover.

It took me ages to work out that it was actually finding the camera but the signal was all black.

Re: Too many to count

Slight problem with that being that after nearly 40 years I can't remember the names - in fact I'm not sure I even knew all of them by name.

The names that stick in the mind were the really bright ones such as the one who managed to shuffle the order of his witnesses so as to ensure a key witness was called the next day. He knew the defence leader had to appear in another case and reckoned the junior was one of those who wouldn't be up to asking questions. Possibly the junior in question was the previous owner of the house of one of my colleagues who kept getting debt-chasing letters addressed to him.

Re: Some places do get it right

"you had to take a 1 hour training session from the office manager"

Somehow that reminded me of the time when you had to pass the chief technician's test to drive the departmental mini. He was a bit deaf and had obviously been used to driving cars with bigger, slower revving engines. He didn't know the engine was really labouring when he drive it and he complained about people changing up too late.

Re: Are you sure, this isn't the plot of an IT Crowd epsiode?

"Comedy and satire are built on reality."

Yes, but this is Reality being lapped.

Re: Too many to count

There have been one or two where random chance is the only explanation.

Re: Guy was an arse BUT..

"to discover she had somehow moved every heavy item of furniture & plugged into a dead data wallport"

I'd have been tempted to say "put it back as you found it and then raise another ticket if it's still not working".

Re: Seems to me that ...

"PS: Pluto is a planet, dammit."

And very annoying to have it downgraded just after somebody had composed the extra piece for Holt's suite.

Re: clicking on the screenshot

"you're sure you are not updating the output print file from the compiler rather than the code itself?"

You don't make that mistake with punched cards.

Re: @Doctor Evil: Clicking on "close window"

"Not a Microsoft Windows Issue"

I think it is. Prior to Microsoft putting Close there it used to be the button on the left hand end of the title bar along with the system menu so it wasn't going to be clicked in error that way. As a consequence a lot - maybe all - software released prior to that didn't have a safety dialog because they didn't need it.

I've come to the conclusion that anyone who wants to change a user interface feature just because they can should first have some interface in their daily life changed, say their car steering set to work the other way round or the brake and accelerator pedals swapped.

Re: maybe he is a genius

"so Twitter is another way to get some real cash"

And it's all going so-o-o-o well.

Re: maybe he is a genius

"a sale of Twitter to the highest bidder"

Would anyone pay enough to get them their money back?

Re: Nobody complained for years

Poor historical knowledge there. Christianity was adopted and spread by the underclasses in the Roman Empire. It was suppressed by the state until the time of Constantine, emperor from 306.

Re: Hamas

"their chosen idol"

Was that a spelling error?

Re: Hamas

the "Orange Man Bad" crowd

Musk articles bring out those of us who want to rubberneck at slow-motion car crash (metaphorical, of course).

Re: Hamas

"We're just anti-dumb."

In consequence the dumb are going to accuse you of bias.

The main step being that he's not doing it from orbit - he's actually standing in the target zone.

Time for a wee "vacation" at Betty Ford...

He'd only want to buy it, sack most of the staff and run it according to his whims of the day.

"that thread rots my brain."

Don't read it, then. Reading it is what he wants you to do.

"using the word incorrectly"

Which is pretty well what aerogems said. Just pretentious padding.

Re: Scandalous revelations coming out in 3...2...1

Or https://time.com/6300522/worldcoin-sam-altman/?

Re: Déjà vu all over again

Or Clipilotana

It's just the atheist fundamentalists being as predicable and boring as any other belief system's fundamentalists.

Re: Congratulations, Viscount

As far as I can make out his qualifications are that his family owned the Daily Telegraph for 60 years, his father was science correspondent there and wrote a book about AI several decades ago, he himself has been interested in AI & sci-fi since about age 5, he has an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon and was a management consultant. In terms of ministers responsible for science and technology over the years that seems to make him a high-flier.

I thought the vesting period was to take on employees and then replace them without having to make any contributions.

Re: Seems mean...

On the other hand, for defined benefits schemes HMRC instructed employers to take a contribution holiday because schemes were seriously over-funded.

Then Brownomics introduced rampant inflation to increase the liabilities and low interest rates to decrease funds' ability to pay (interest declared here) and defined benefits schemes were closed to new members because they were now grossly underfunded. Whoever made the original decision would, of course, remain oblivious to this as HMRC pensions, like those of all Civil Servants (interest also declared here) was, at least back then, essentially a Ponzi scheme underpinned by the taxpayer.