Posts by CentralCoasty 103 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2017
Nah.... its the opposite... its normally a case of trying your hardest NOT to let the players kill themselves (each other)..... and frequently involves coming up with some bizarre twist, scenario or sub-plot just to give them a chance of staying alive.
I have to give them credit for responding the way they did on tw*tter.... cant imagine getting ANY response from most of the other organisations....
And I must admit that I use them as well & have never had a problem before. They also have a long way to go before their outages even get close to the "wonderful" experience I have with my NBN connection...... although the outage did start just as I copied and pasted a large number into the foreign exchange rate field for a purchase....
Was talking to someone this week who whilst having a research background is actually an accountant for a government R&D division. His biggest problem is that the items with the biggest returns are normally those that are going to cost a huge amount and/or have a very small chance of success.
Naturally governments dont like paying R&D to fail as it makes for difficulties come election time.
Hence the majority of the R&D tends to be on more "safe" ideas where there is a higher chance of a payback.
I can imagine the situation back in the 40's with the Dambusters. There was limited resources, limited funding - and they wanted to try something new - the bean-counters would have simply gone....
20 x new bouncing bombs + all new tooling etc to make them (and will they work) vs 1500 existing type bombs (which we know work).
I solved this problem - according to dear old google I am 17,216 km from my parents house, so I luckily never have to deal with parental IT woes.
I do hear the "oh we had problems but luckily your sister came down and fixed it".... my sister has the (mis)fortune of living 4 houses away from them.
For two reasonably smart people (mum was a teacher and dad an engineer) I am still struggling to get them to buy a cordless phone (when we call to talk to them we have to wait while Dad crawls off up the stairs to the spare bedroom where the second phone is located).....
..... the computer is stuffed in a small box room - so again, using it is a nightmare. Mum hardly ever does as she hates tackling the stairs. I suggested they get a tablet... they thought about it but decided they didnt want to because then they would have to leave the modem/wifi router turned on!
Simplified recent interaction:
Goldfish: "Can you make it do THIS"....
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Of, course. And it will only cost you X dollars".
Goldfish: "Super - we'll take it".
IT PM: "So what's the scope".
Goldfish: "Here - see this scribbled note on the back of this used packaging"
Large Corporate Money Guzzler (getting worried): "Here Goldfish, sign here..."
IT PM: "Hang on, can we check this pricing please...."
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Uhm.. .yes, but its based upon the scope... mumble, mumble"
IT PM: "Sorry, what was that mumble mumble bit?"
Goldfish: "Why hasnt it been delivered yet?"
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Arhm, its actually just a prototype"
IT PM: "Prototype? So its being tested at the moment?"
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Arhm. No. Actually its just a concept, but we are sure it will work for you... maybe.... but you may want to include some extras in the contract to be sure"
IT PM: "Like what extra?"
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Well we expect the complete version to be ready 18 months after first delivery - so that will require some additional funding"
IT PM: "Like an extra zero on the end of the budget....."
Large Corporate Money Guzzler: "Oh and you will need a new HANA environment - the one you have is far to small for this solution to work"
IT PM: "So thats another extra zero on the end of the budget...."
Goldfish: "What do you mean its going to cost that much! Bloody IT always over-charges for its service... I'm going to do this myself from now on".
IT PM walks away in disgust and goes get another contract somewhere else.
remember it... I had it! If memory serves me well, was a flimsy floppy plastic that needed a 2p to hold it down so it would spin.... knowing my old folks, they still have it tucked away somewhere in a storage box....
... ah.. .actually it was the Pinky & Perky version I had......
I dont get it...
I am sooooo confused.
I thought when you were a student there were only two things you thought about... sex and beer (not necessarily in that order)... so the usage of money generally involved acquiring one of those things with the intent to acquire the other.....
I guess times are a-changing......
I love SAP.... always means plenty of contract work fixing what should really be "simple" business issues.
On a personal note, moved my coffee shop onto a new accounting system a couple of months ago - longest job was working out the chart of accounts and then making sure my monthly journals were correct. And even then when I got it wrong I was able to go back in later and fix it up without any problems.
30 days for business larger than me though is going to be a tough call though.
"revert" is becoming a corporate favourite where I am at the moment... and yes in every single instance they mean "reply".
It's now started working its way in the BA's lexicon.... going to make the requirements reading very interesting.... trouble is I dont see any BOFH's around here......
Here in NSW (Oz) they have just implemented (badly) a scheme to provide a refund on (some) liquid containers. (sort of copying the scheme currently operating in another state)
I say badly as they have been very specific about what containers they want recycled, so things like milk bottles, wine bottles, spirit bottles - as well as any non-liquid holding container isnt included.
The scheme gives the recycler back 10c on each container accepted.
There has been a lot of negative press though because (naturally) the suppliers, retailers etc have put their prices up - not just to cover the deposit, but also to cover the changes in systems and processing that required in order to be able to report to government & scheme operators, as well as to pay for the recycling machines, transportation of containers etc.
I would see this as the starting point of changing people's perception of what needs to be recycled and would hope that it would slowly grow to include all containers, but dont see any political interest in that happening.
Looks like we are heading towards the end of what has been a fabulous ride.
It shows the level of engineering that goes into these things when they are able to out-perform their original mission parameters by such an extent.
I guess it goes to show that running out of fuel must have been one of the lowest risks for the project for it to have finally come to that.
Media-hype
Showmanship
Media-circus
but at the end of the day it was a successful launch of a new heavy-lifter which shows the leaps that technology has made over the last 20 years and will (hopefully) help us ageing sci-fi fans dream that maybe we can make that great leap before we shuffle off this mortal coil.
----> "Is that because they were bolted down?"
WHAT!? What namby-pamby part of the country you from?
NOTHING stopped them from being nicked off the buses when I was a lad. Spent many a trip home from Stratford-upon-Avon squatting on the frame where there used to be a seat.....
I always wondered how they got the seats off the bus though.... big pockets?
Stretched out in the pool on Sunday in a balmy summers 42c I watched the local birds behaviour around the dogs water bowl. I cant say it was intentional, but it seemed to me that one bird would fly in, attract the attention of our dog & the two would then go tearing off down the garden. Following which the water bowl would then be instantly swamped by a horde of birds..... when the dog came back, away they all go.... two minutes later another solitary bird comes along and it all repeats again.
So I certainly wouldn't put it past the buggers from learning to use fire as well. Cockatoo's can shred a camper van/tent very quickly in order to get to food - even if they cant see it. They know there is likely to be some inside.
I can just imagine it... "x" years from now an alien astro-archaeologist will come visiting our system to investigate the remains of this quaint civilisation that failed to make a permanent move into space and find this strange object orbiting near Mars.... what will they make of it?
Brown-outs become common. Government threatens to nationalise the power industry to which the power companies respond "your welcome to it!".... private industry pulls out/reduces investing in the poor power infrastructure. Individuals seek to mitigate the power issue by installing private solar farms but get taxed to the hilt by the government looking for money to try and build a national electrical network (NEN?)
Electric car "service stations" shut due to limited power supply.
NBN equipment blanket failure due to "unusually" hot summers cooking the curbside equipment results in a special tax to help sustain NBN.
Sydney's housing market plummets after government restrictions on housing investment come into force - complaints by China force government u-turn.
I've just realised the RN's plans....
... sink the RAF by having a carrier that the RAF can't take-off or land on, then go out and buy a bucket-full of drones that can do (most of) the RAF's work.....
... the Admiral's will be thumbing their noses at the Air Commodores going nah-dee-dah we dont need you!
.....call from the production line came in - one of the Sparc's had gone up in smoke.
Attending the location I was informed there had been a nasty puff of smoke just as it stopped.
Opening it up - yup - there was a deep-friend motherboard with a strange brown/burnt stain in the centre of the motherboard. Now on these babies the power supply was actually locked into the top-half of the case and came off with the case when you opened them up - so the initial thoughts were that something nasty had leaked out of the power supply.....
Anyway, replaced the whole machine and took the dead one back for diagnostics. Curiosity caused us to plug it in - and the power supply came online... no issues..... thats strange. Motherboard was dead. Buts what caused that stain/burn mark?
Later that day walking through the production line I see the same guy drinking a can of coke. Seeing me, he puts it down on a nice flat surface... yup... the lid of the Sparc (which has vents in the top).... uhmm.... a bit of questioning and he admitted that he had spilt a can earlier - but he mopped up the top of the computer so was sure it wasnt that that caused the problem.......
.... I was recently shown the new fire-proof room that had been built to house the antique paper records that were still being used daily (I'm omitting the company name)...... very solid construction, looked really good.... except one problem. They ran out of budget. So there was no roof. A nice clear view up to the wooden rafters.
.... a long, long time ago, in a place far, far away... well, actually at SWCFE we had to come up with a nice pretty experiment to demonstrate at the open day.....
.... needless to say we managed to talk our chemistry lecturer into "donating" a few goon-bags of cheap red wine & spent the day merrily distilling it......
Wasnt until late in the afternoon when one visitor actually asked what it was that we were distilling.... by then none of us cared..... and it all gets very hazy around that time.......
Am glad the Reg picked up on this - was a bit disappointed to have to read this first in the "main stream" news first.
Isn't it amazing - that when it comes down to it our role-models in life consist(ed) of a bunch of men with very strange/bad hair-do's. Show's that its what's between the ears that really counts.
Hasn't been marked anywhere else on "The Reg", but given the reference to Egg-heads.... I noticed that dear old Heinz Wolff has passed.
Ah - the good old days of the Great Egg Race.... what better role-model could we have for science?
Apparently he turned up for his 80th birthday party on an scooter powered by fire extinguishers.......
I had an interesting debate (argument) with someone recently over art museums. I dared indicate that whilst they were open to the public, it wasn't the average public that visited them. That it was rather more likely to be a specific demographic of the public. (eg growing up I never saw a skin-head in an art museum - unless they were actually an art student - or there as part of a school excursion.)
I think the same applies here - Facebook is open to the public - but I would also question its demographic usage. Given the responses here in the Reg as a sample (and the prolific negative opinion) I would imply (and could be wrong) that Facebook users are predominantly of a (more) limited education, potentially with a narrower global outlook - possibly less willing to question what is presented to them. (All conjecture & a blanket statement - fully accept there are some VERY smart people out there that could be using Facebook).
I'm reminded of the propaganda information passed out by the NAZI party back in the 20's & 30's - it's appeal was to people's base instincts - which was why the basic party membership consisted of what could politely called the left-overs of society. It's political success only occurred when they toned down their propaganda in order to appeal to the more mainstream population in Germany (then ramped it up again once they were in control).
It is currently VERY easy to distribute fake information, news & to create impressions in certain groups of the population. The reality is that some people will always look for, expect and believe things just because they are presented to them. And I feel that Facebook has become a very accessible tool to spread this sort of information.
The German response? Is it right or is it wrong? Hard to tell. I think their reaction is at least partially based upon their own history and that they are fully aware of the ability of masses to be swayed by misinformation. On one side it becomes overt censorship and government conspiracies, the other leads to chaos.
Hey, this is a good idea... .we can deal with all sorts of varmits in the same stroke....
..... whilst the idiot trophy hunters are out taking pot-shots, the other crowd of parakeets will be busy shredding the camper-van's tires, window seals, roof vent, the tents, food containers, eskies, water containers - in fact just about anything that can get their beak into.....
...... so we end up with lots of dead cockatoos and lots of dead trophy hunters... a win win I think!
"How save do these examples save labour 'cycle to the next village to court the landlord's daughter' so before that you wouldn't have courted her you would have courted someone else close to hand."....
.... just had to reply to this..... watched Deliverance recently? Perfect vindication of the need for ahm... courting away from your own locale......
As to compatibility - yes the world will change, but it will take decades - and the robots are going to have to deal with what we have for the time-being. Look how it was when cycles & the motor car started. Gravel roads, cart-tracks & cobbles. 140 years on and... yes, we still have unpaved cart-tracks in places, gravel roads - and even cobbles in some places (especially where the road is worn down!).
So I think its fair to say that robots will be dealing with our crappy infrastructure for some time to come.....
Its always amazed me that something so ugly, so cumbersome, un-user-friendly, complex, difficult to maintain, update, fix or manage is the top software time after time in reviews of ERP's and related systems.
I worked out the SAP business model long ago... make something SO complex that once someone's bought it, its just going to be too expensive and awkward to migrate off to something else.... h^ll - even its own version upgrades are the stuff of worst nightmares.
Nearly ever customer bastardises SAP out of existence - why - because SAP allow it.... brilliant strategy.... customers are tied to them forever.... easier to close the business and move to a new one than try to migrate off of SAP.
Do SAP care about cloud? No. Not really - they want their fingers in it just incase - but their focus is, and will remain in the huge money generated off of licencing.
(End of rant from a long-term SAP PM who's in desperate need of a weekend)
Lets face it..... Uranus is probably the main reason most schoolboys have any interest at all in the stars... and the "renaming" has simply made it even more comical...
That said, down here its pouring so no chance of seeing it.... dont know what the chances of seeing from Sydney were anyway even if it wasnt!
So whilst all my northern friends enjoy staring at Uranus I'll have a beer........ (better than them staring at mine....)
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