Disqus - Latest Comments for martin_english

Re: The craziest car colour names ever | Drive Flashback

martin_english — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 09:51:18 -0000

Chrysler Chargers came in (amongst other colours) "Thar She Blue", "Little Hood Riding Red", and of course "Hemi Orange".

Re: This Beater Camry Saved My Life

martin_english — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 22:45:44 -0000

Great writing, and a great description / reminder of how much a shitbox can mean.

Re: The 2023 enterprise software un-predictions

martin_english — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:08:30 -0000

Tooted on Mastodon :)

Re: Supercars confirms TV hosts, race formats for All Stars Eseries

martin_english — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 01:00:47 -0000

Just checked me foxtel - all times AEST
19:00 channel 260 (506 for the HD version) plus replays on the same channels
Sunday morning (00:00 - 01:30) and
Monday Morning (06:30 - 08:00

Re: Supercars confirms TV hosts, race formats for All Stars Eseries

martin_english — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 21:17:40 -0000

"April 8 at 19:00 AEDT " ...

Is that AEST or AEDT (just asking, as we went back to AEST on the weekend :)

Re: Did ERP vendors learn anything after the 2009 ‘Great Recession’?

martin_english — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 17:02:48 -0000

Obviously, the more you're spending the more clout you have, but I'm curious about the level of push back a customer has with a SAAS vendor where the relationship with the vendor is just a data entry screen where they input a credit card, compared to the traditional ERP vendor where the customer gets an account manager.

The type of company that this advice is directed to seems to be the one who is large enough to have a personal / Account Manager relationship, even with a SAAS vendor.

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - February 23, 2020

martin_english — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 20:40:19 -0000

Hey John,
1) my comments started working again (still don't know whether it was a Disqus issue or just me)
2) regarding Microsoft and Marriot 9and many others), have a look at - https://www.vulture.com/202...
"And so with every exchange, you have to acknowledge a reality where words like optionality and deliverable could be just as solid as blimp and pretzel. What happens if you ask a Megan or a Steph Korey or an Adam Neumann what they mean? I imagine a box with a series of false bottoms; you just keep falling deeper and deeper into gibberish. "

hth

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - December 1, 2019

martin_english — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 23:37:26 -0000

Data Breaches: https://www.newshub.co.nz/h... - looks like someone update some permissions and all of a sudden, .....

Re: Turkey time - the dorkiest tech predictions for 2020 so far

martin_english — Fri, 29 Nov 2019 22:05:16 -0000

If you need the traffic, I'll publicize my opinion of Tesla predictions more widely ("click bait the teslerati" is my latest hobby)

Re: Turkey time - the dorkiest tech predictions for 2020 so far

martin_english — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 17:48:10 -0000

1) Robert Cringely is the other guy who ranks his own predictions ...
https://www.cringely.com/20...

2 "Tri Motor AWD production is expected to begin in late 2022." (from https://www.tesla.com/cyber...

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - November 4, 2019

martin_english — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 18:46:34 -0000

Ahh Deadspin and sticking to sports :)

I grew up in New Zealand, when All Blacks Rugby meant playing against South Africa.
1976 Montreal Olympics https://nzhistory.govt.nz/m...
1981 Rugby Tour of NZ by South Africa https://www.aucklandmuseum.... https://nzhistory.govt.nz/f...

So yeah, politics and protests and marching in the street is sports :)

And that's not even counting how taxpayers in your city and state and country are subsidizing the businesses that run sport https://www.theguardian.com...

hth

Re: Agile has failed a a rebuttal

martin_english — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 22:59:18 -0000

The kind of issues I see day and day out, with organisations that consider themselves to be "Agile" (they have certificates and everything !!)
- Some developers consider themselves special flowers who can write the same procedural code they learnt 20 years ago (think SAP ABAP)
- No commitment to version control (i.e. we have to fix things serially instead of in parallel otherwise people overwrite each others changes)
- No commitment to unit testing (i.e. no Test Driven Development)
- No CI / CD environment (which means long winded testing)

"Agile" (the methodology) is a business process that requires a change in the business. While "Agile" gives management more visibility, it also provides more opportunities for interference ...
- Agile is good because it has lots of meetings
- No one at these meetings actually has implementation authority
- Gary (it's almost always a Gary) is away for 6 weeks so we can't get approval
- Lets call another meeting (where nothing will happen because Gary is too busy to attend)
- followed by a meeting with the "cloud vendor" who reveal they need 3 months notice for that change

This doesn't count those circumstances where "Agile" just doesn't fit, like legislative requirements;
- We already have a User Story (read the legislation !!)
- We don't have time to iterate, because the deadline is immovable (comply by July 1st or pay $XXX per day)

Too many IT teams implement SCRUMs or talk about being Agile without paying any attention to either the inappropriateness of a one-size-fits-all methodology, or the other components of getting the changes into production code; the nett effect is that while the development side kind of works (see my point about version control), those developments take a long time to get to production...

hth

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - July 1

martin_english — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 18:43:32 -0000

"Accenture’s developers also misrepresented the extent of their testing of the code by commenting out portions of the code, so the code appeared to be working."

I am just going outside (to check some code) and may be some time.

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - June 25

martin_english — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 19:36:01 -0000

Re: Are We Ready for AI-Powered Security Cameras?
I'll put one in the shower, see if it can work out how to scratch it's eyes out

Re: Enterprise hits and misses - June 9

martin_english — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 21:57:10 -0000

The real problem with cloud computing was encapsulated by XKCD years ago :)
https://xkcd.com/908/

Re: Enterprise hits and misses – AI bias is political, and digital is impactful

martin_english — Sun, 07 Apr 2019 05:33:42 -0000

Looks like Google Music is heading to the graveyard as well...
https://www.slashgear.com/i...

Re: Are Programmers Ethically (and Legally) Responsible for Their Code?

martin_english — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 20:40:10 -0000

I think I understand where you're coming from, but morals and laws are not equal :)

Re: Are Programmers Ethically (and Legally) Responsible for Their Code?

martin_english — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 20:33:49 -0000

How far removed am I (the developer) from the end use ?
Level 5 Autonomous Driving systems can (arguably) save lives on the road, but could also be used for autonomous warfare. There's even an argument for autonomous warfare being morally defensible; Who decides what is right or wrong - the venal silicon valley plutocrats with a vested financial interest or democratically elected governments (or if you like, the "Do No Evil" corporations or "the clowns running the show" at any specific period ) ?

hth

Re: Bled 1: That we did. Nutta’s View.

martin_english — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 03:06:27 -0000

Don't forget the original etymology of the name; it was a misprint of All Backs.

I'm sure Foley understands that quite well (I am so over him as a player, but Metallick's dummy even fooled the end on camera man !!)

Re: The Tuesday Top 5

martin_english — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:42:28 -0000

I don't know how much this contributed to the lack of numbers, but ...

I was at the stadium on Saturday, and I was there in time for the Wallaroos game. When I asked at the gate about coming back outside the stadium for a feed between the games, I was told "no pass outs" (To be honest, I expected this). So I watched the Wallaroos game from outside the stadium, on my phone on the foxtel App, while eating a nice curry.

Re: Friday’s Rugby News

martin_english — Fri, 11 May 2018 08:47:51 -0000

Your ideas intrigue me; do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to ?

Re: Monday’s Rugby News

martin_english — Sun, 06 May 2018 23:49:53 -0000

Hi Gun,
I can't speak for Richard, but I am a kiwi in Oz, who still supports the ABs and the Hurricanes.

The NZRFU (and all kiwi rugby fans) need a strong ARU and Wallabies. The SA Unions are all heading to the European competitions; without strong competition from Australia, the New Zealand will loose money and players to Europe.

And that is entirely apart from wanting to watch good hard passionate rugby, where I don't know if the Tahs (or any other Australian side) will find a way to loose a must win game, or where I know Rebels (or any other Australian side) won't collapse and give away 30 or 40 unanswered points in the 2nd half.

However, outsiders can only help so much. The resurrection of Australian Rugby must come from within, by someone (Castle, Twiggy, Eales, Kafer ?) saying, in effect "This is Bullshit, we need to fix it, and I don't care who gets the credit or the cash or the glory"

Re: Friday’s Rugby News

martin_english — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 04:25:15 -0000

Hurricane’s fan here. Phipps is just wrong.

But please keep him as Tahs & WB halfback :)

Re: Wednesday’s Rugby News

martin_english — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:00:25 -0000

Para 5:
"These stats really pale in comparison to the New Zealand conference, with four teams being given over an 80% chance of playing finals footy, and two more teams being given a seventy per cent chance of making it to the semi-finals."

Who are the 6th team ?

Re: Tuesday’s Rugby News

martin_english — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 01:00:39 -0000

"an inflammatory, low-quality piece of "click bait" about a non-issue involving 2 teams not remotely associated with Australian rugby."
Think of it as a comparison piece to one on Cheika...
- Last year, England (who contributed a large part of this years BILs) beat the Wallabies convincingly,
- 10 days ago, Scotland (who contributed very few players to the current BILs) beat the Wallabies,
- On the weekend just gone, the ABs beat the BILs convincingly,
- Later this year, the ABs play the Wallabies
....
and Chek is talking about finding players who are fit and can make passes stick better than 3 out of 5.

(I know, explaining a joke takes the funny out of it)