Interesting Links for 04-11-2023

[andrewducker]

1. You can change any existing building in Edinburgh to be used for something new, what do you do and why?

(tags:edinburgh building )

2. The British government's ageing IT systems are an an outdated accident waiting to happen

(tags:uk computers obsolescence )

3. Doctor Who and BBC iPlayer | The first episode controversy explained

(tags:drwho copyright history )

4. Ada Blackjack: Stranded on Wrangel Island

(tags:history USA women )

Comments

[greenwoodside]

The Ada Blackjack article is wonderful. And holy shit, the extract from Lorne Knight's diary entry. He seems not even to have bothered to have learned her name.

It reminds me once when I worked in an academic library that I came across an English/Hindi phrase book for sahibs. Lots of stuff like 'walk faster', 'clean my boots', 'do that or get a whipping' etc.

[andrewducker]

Truly horrific and dehumanising.

Item 3

[dewline]

Yeah, that kid is being worse than a jerk about all of this.

Re: Item 3

[andrewducker]

They really have.

Re: Item 3

[andrewducker]

They really are.

[movingfinger]

3. Coburn clearly waiting for what Mrs. Beeblebrox called "the right price."

[coth]

Not just the government's. Everyone's, big and small. Lots and lots of people and enterprises are finding that they are relying on or inheriting obsolete IT systems that have NEVER been documented or maintained and are essentially valueless to the people dealing with the resulting messes. I suspect most of these will never be cleared up or excavated for value because the costs of change will be too high. Government systems will survive or be replaced, some of them, because they are recognised as serving essential functions. Smaller systems will be abandoned or thrown away, and their contents with them. How many times will the enterprises they support and the other enterprises that rely on them go down with them?

For example: Brian is the only person in the world who knows, just, how to manage and maintain his business with its specific mix of completely obsolete (eg website), partially obsolete (eg Thunderbird, Windows 10) and ostensibly up-to-date-but-not-really (eg Microsoft Office Access, Excel and Word) and I don't know what else. Then there is Amazon. The business struggled for years chasing continuing external change, avoiding updating where we could because we couldn't afford the cost of change at the time. Now, even if his one man business wasn't winding down anyway, it would be really hard for anyone else to take it on as a going concern - someone could probably extract the stocklist and audit the stock, but there is no point in trying to figure out how he carries on the business and no additional value in continuing the business any more. The world will not miss a second-hand-book dealer. But who knows how many small enterprises are essential somewhere along the line?

In Japan they are worried that about two million businesses will close when their sole proprietors give up and what the ripple effects of that will be. There are already big businesses reducing their ranges on offer as niche enterprises they rely on cease to exist. I wonder what the impact would be in this country if you looked at this factor and its overall impact. It's not just the government.

[fub]

The Dutch tax office went big in 4GL around Y2K (I think mostly Cool:Gen) because those tools would 'solve the software crisis'. Now nobody knows how to work these tools, if they are supported at all, and they can't change their systems quickly enough to enact actual laws...