Posts by Herring`

Re: Semicolons and curly braces, forever.

In a previous life, I spent a lot of time doing stuff with Lex & Yacc. When I saw python and whitespace having syntactical significance .... No.

Those who can afford to get an MBA and then tell those who can that they're doing it wrong.

Re: Don't people do risk assessments any more?

In "real" engineering, there's FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis). Thinking through what break, how and what the consequences will be. Even in a spreadsheet form, it can be a useful way to think about things.

Re: Fantasy

All the senior timelords are named after old professions. "The Doctor" ,"The (School)Master", "The Accountant" etc.

Re: Northern Ireland's retained EU personal data protection rights

I recall during the referendum campaign, people pointing out that NI would be a problem. The responses varied: "We could be like Norway" "Nobody is talking about leaving the single market" "Fuck off Remoaner".

It's the Libertarian mindset: oppression is best handled by the private sector. Americans go along with a private medical insurer telling them to fuck off and die, but socialised medicine is an anathema.

Re: Let's start with something simple

A UPS at home is all very well, but is there a battery backup for all the blinkenlightenboxen between you and what passes for an exchange? How long will it last?

Re: "the app was banned on UK government devices"

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I have always thought BYOD was a terrible idea. Either the organisation has to compromise security (allowing stuff with any old crap to connect) or the user has to compromise ownership (allowing restrictions on their device which they own).

The only people I can see bleating about social media access from a work device are the wankers in marketing. Oh, and the execs.

Re: Powers and data must be limited for safety

As has been pointed out, if Trump were successful in his attempt to prove presidential immunity, that would give Biden the green light to send a Seal team down to Mar-a-Lardo to take him out.

Re: Doesn't matter

if everyone outside every boardroom is replaced by a machine so noone is employed then what value does the business have without customers?

Well, yes, capitalist greed will end up destroying the economy when nobody can afford to buy stuff. But in the meantime, the execs get bonuses for cutting costs. Have a nice day.

Re: As a Southern Water customer*, When they said "Sorry we leaked your shit"...

Part of the problem is where the financial services sector bought out several water companies and turned them into debt-laden hulks, and it is of course possible that OFWAT were told to lay off these water companies because the financial services sector own the Tory party.

I am getting increasingly leftie as I age. Financial services seem to ruin everything. When my son got his MEng, he pointed out that his cohort had the option of going and doing engineering - making stuff - or taking their maths skills to financial firms - making rich people richer. That's where the big money is for engineers, IT folks etc. They suck the talent out of the rest of the economy. The demand for investor return results in enshittification of all sorts of things - not just platforms.

Re: Ain't Gonna Happen ...

Ah. High Frequency Trading. Making money by exploiting millions of tiny arbitrage opportunities. Because it's easier than doing anything constructive.

Re: Software Development != Coding

There is also the point of what to develop. Years ago people would be saying "one day we'll just be able to tell the computer what to do in English". That ignores the vast amount of work involved in getting users to specify what exactly it is that they do want the system to do.

Re: MBA Influences on Quality

It's not just the MBAs. Recently there have been a lot of "activist investors" who try to steer companies towards short-term gains as they don't give a damn about the longer-term. It shows up in enshittification of platforms and this sort of thing.

Re: Being remote is career limiting

The question is: what will they do when they have destroyed all of the companies?

Re: Erm

I am not convinced that you know anyone who has worked at HMRC

Re: More guff will spew forth

At the very least they could train whichever department (marketing?) who issue the "company standard templates" so that you don't end up chewing your own foot off in frustration

Re: If Corporations Are People

The corporations == people thing is interesting. If a person acts negligently and it results in the death of another person, that person can be prosecuted and imprisoned. If a corporation acts negligently and that results in the death of a person, well they might have to pay a small fine.

Also, the saying "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one"

I haven't seen hazing, but I have seen testosterone-heavy environments and I have seen (male) management who assume that the quiet (but very competent) female programmer isn't worth as much as the loud and confident males. I've seen talented people leave the business because of the environment and lack of recognition.

Where I work now things are better. We have excellent people who are respected for what they contribute. OK, the people are still more male than female, but I don't get the feeling that the women are talked over/not listened to. We're short of people in IT and driving good people out because of a "lad's club" environment does not help

Re: Finally they thought of it

The current Office things have "print to PDF". Do that.

Re: Optional

We have write-only systems. Sharepoint for one

I am enjoying this dispute

Yet another stupid lawsuit from Musk who seems to believe that all should bow down before his greatness.

“One hundred idiots make idiotic plans and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot, whose plan succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he’s a genius.”

― Iain M. Banks

Re: If YouTube hates its customers so much

It is classic enshitification

Re: Why?

Minor issue: If you look at traffic congestion at the moment, many cars have only one person in them. Now add a load of cars with no people in them

Re: Enshitification strikes again

I was thinking about setting opening the port(s) so I could use my Pi as DNS from elsewhere (Zen! Static IP!, 100Mb upstream!) but it seemed too much of a risk.