News: 1602574267

Commenting how "cyber" also used to mean to cybersex (because we were all young and horney on the Internet once).

Admittedly it's branched into a myriad of ways since then but since we're dragging back archaic terms (cyber... Ffs even regular managers just refer to it as digital these days) from the says of Alt vista and geocities they should be reminded of that one too.

Anon because I've been using my online handle for well into its second decade...

"since we're dragging back archaic terms"

Hear, hear!

I always thought that "cybernetics" was a term mostly used in the Soviet Union. Wot's wrong with plain old "IT"?

IT is not hip, or down, with the kids of today....

None of those words are used by anyone other than someone trying to be modern, but missed the mark by 15 - 20 years.

But i agree with the OP, cyber means something else than technology, IT or internet.

ASL, Wanna cyber, wanna webcam.

RE: cybernetics; the amusingly-named Norbert Wiener invented the term and tried to push it but it never really took off, unlike the rather more comprehensive "Information Theory" of Claude Shannon. (Yes, this is simplifying a lot of interesting history a lot. See "The Information" by James Gleick).

Huh, I'm reading that at the moment and am at the Claude Shannon part. Fascinating stuff.

Ever read Shannon's paper on information measures (from the Bell Systems Technical Journal, or what it was called)? Very well written, and the reason to call it "entropy" totally makes sense: it looks and behaves and calculates as entropy in physics and people don't really understand it...

Having worked for 3 decades in IT, I've never seen cyber used as an abbreviation of cybersex. It was always cybersex...

I know cyber as an abbreviation of cybernetics and its practitioners from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation will be the first against the wall, when the revolution comes.

Your plastic pal that is fun to be with.

"Having worked for 3 decades in IT, I've never seen cyber used as an abbreviation of cybersex."

It was quite common in the '90s when TheGreatUnwashed were just dipping a toe into the Internet through the likes of AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve & etc.

"plastic pal"

In every dream home a heartache.

https://youtu.be/G56DaSAeZfM

p.s. OWGT was 'kin great.

"Want to cyber?" was something I frequently heard in the early 90s.

They weren't talking about blockchains.

So I suggest the next generic "non-stereotypical jobs" ad has a picture of jake installing slackware on his tractor's inflight computer system, with a caption suggesting he retrain as a ballet dancer [1]

-

[1] At which point jake will be along to say that at one point he was indeed a ballet dancer of some skill, before he decided that his beard was more important, and he wanted to go work on a farm or something :-) [2]

[2] Just kidding, jake! :-)

But I don't have a beard (and never have), the 1915 Case is steam powered & has no computer controls, my old abused knees can't handle dance, and the idiocy of the British Government is not my issue, seeing as I'm a bloody Yank.

Other than that, I'd say you've nailed it.

This fits right in with the ideology that you can be whatever you want regardless of your skill or capacity... What a bunch of crap....

IT is probably the worst choice of career for this kind of publicity.. Even those that have the desire, capacity and knowledge can find infosec a deeply challenging area. It's complex, requires years of experience, frustration and endless days and nights of hair pulling and that's for those that are dedicated.....

I would challenge the authors of the publicity to actually spend a day with an IT Pro in order that they begin to understand some of the "subtleties" of what being in IT actually involves.. Ballet dancers are not likely to either want or desire to push themselves into IT...

I would probably also challenge the authors to day spend a day as a Ballerina....

Ah, you miss the worse aspect of this.

All of the outrage is at the sheer nerve of suggesting a delicate empowered woman should sully herself by taking a smelly job in *spit* IT.

Yes, they really do think that IT is done by social outcasts incapable of real work.

I seem to recall the Soviet Union being very keen on the arts as a failed way to show the superiority of their system.

People were very keen to participate because it was one of the few ways you could get to travel abroad and potentially "defect".

Can't see IT being a route to escaping our present pestilential pit anytime soon. Even if there were anywhere to escape to.

They did have a few successes.

https://youtu.be/RKs6ikmrLgg

Поéхали!

Where I worked before retirement.

Anything "Cyber" was important.

But ask what is Cyber?

----< Blank expression >----

And now it's anything "Digital" that's important

"But ask what is Cyber?"

Thus it ever was ... See [1]my post from 10 years ago .

[1] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/containing/811113

Go watch some Dr Who.

Whilst I agree, we, as a country need more InfoSec bods, what about trying to retain the ones you already have?

Having worked for the Government most of my life, I have watched graduate after graduate, start a job, get tens of thousands in training before leaving to join the private sector, because the pay cheque is 2-3 times what we are paying them. I don't fault the workers, I fault the pay structure. If they wish to retain the brightest and best to protect our countries digital systems, we need the pay to reflect the role.

As a separate issue, the InfoSec degrees need overhauling. They are woefully inadequate/unsuitable.

The reason the pay structure is what it is is because the public sector workforce wants it this way. In the private sector, performance-related pay is common. Age-related pay is not a thing. There are no "spines". The lazy can be managed out, and the hard-working can be rewarded. Skilled technical specialists can be paid more than the generalist, mid-level administators they report to (nothing wrong with mid-level adminstrators, but they are much easier to find). These are not conditions imposed by government, they are conditions voted for by the majority of the workers.

Perhaps the wet wipes would have been happier if it was suggested that she retrain as a career Barista, or as a seamstress in a gingham factory?

I don't really care about who is upset about this to be honest, but young Fatima here doesn't have a divine right to any job just because it is in the "Arts".

If this global pandemic really gets a hold, and then the next one hits... then this faux liberally minded outrage will be the last thing that you'll all be concerned about.

Downvote away.

I did find it slightly hypocritical that the same people on twitter who'd been mocking the government for trying to get people back into the office to save workers at Pret and the like, and saying they could get new jobs suited to the post-covid economy, were then outraged when the government suggested people could get new jobs suited to the post-covid economy... It was almost as if they were the kind of people who'd criticise the government regardless.

Still nice to see that we're still allowed to make the stereotype that all girls want to be ballet dancers.

No, she doesn't have a "divine right to any job", what she does have though is a reasonable expectation that the government she has paid her taxes to will not throw her and the culture of the country under a bus. Even the arch-Tory Churchill himself said: “The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them….Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due.”

I think the government's super spreader forecaster-in-chief is quoted as saying, with respect to support for jobs, "the f*ing ballerinas can get to the back of the queue". The art and entertainment sector makes up a significant part of the economy and it's not the "faux outrage" of the "lliberals" that's astonishing, but the political opportunism of the right that would like to see its permanent destruction regardless of the economic cost because it doesn't tend to support their world view. That seems to be the new political correctness and it's no better than the old one.

It's brought to you by the same people who will sell you a degree to make you a better worker. They can't get into their heads that anything could be worth doing just for the joy of it rather than to make more money.

spewed his Ultimate Wisdom upon us. I'm surprised the ad wasn't attacked because it shows [a female] [of colour], which is an indication of offense being meant! (cause, like, it CLEARLY implies that dark-skinned women are lazy / think they can get any job, including ballerinas?! Get a job man!)

Is there ANY career ad for anything that's not offensive to the Masters of Social Media these days?

p.s. and I just love some comments here, about how ballerinas wont' want to become cyber-whatevers so wtf is this ad about?! :)

Faux-outrage bollocks.

What we need in IT is more ballerinas.

Perhaps that is exactly what we need. Or is it men only in Dogshit world?

Are missing the point, it takes years of hard graft and dedication to become a dancer, and it's not going to be a spectacularly long career anyway.

But if you've dedicated your life to something, trained your body to a honed perfection to do a job. Only then to be told, sorry we forced you out a job and that we've destroyed your livelihoods. But it'll be all fine, just dedicate yourself to a job that you've got no experience or desire to do and you'll be right as rain.

It's as condicending as having a manager get you to service his new electric car "because it's all just computers anyway".

It's also sadly, par for the course from our elected leaders being so out of touch they're in space.

An honest question from someone whom can't see (literally) what the NSFW part is about.

What's NSFW about a ballerina & why is there so much uproar?

I know I'm missing something, but I honestly for the life of me can't figure out what.

Please enlighten this old fart?

Thank you!

*Hands you a tall tankard in hopes it encourages a civil reply*

I suspect it's the F word on the included satirical versions of the advert.

Oh no! They didn't doxx someone who is essentially a model in a stock photo!

Oh no! They used a stock photo showing body diversity in ballet!

Oh no! There was an undertone that someone in a troubled industry might want a more reliable source of income!

Oh no! How dare they suggest that cybersecurity isn't a career only for nerds!

It's offensive because it exists... Somewhere on this planet of 7 Billion souls there is an individual who has become triggered by the extremely poor background choice, which just by it's existence is obviously racist, homophobic, trans-phobic, inter-sex-phobic, xenophobic or one of the other million phobics that now exist. It's obvious an attack by the far right, really just look at the intent... It's anti-antifa......

"This is not something from @DCMS & I agree it was crass"

Whether it was created by a third party or not. It was clearly done with permission from them. Don't you love how when the shit hits the fan they disown it and pass the buck to a someone else. Yet it this had been widely praised they would be happy to take the positive press for themselves.

Plus did the ad agency get permission to use the photo from the American models Instagram page? Just because someone posts a picture on a publicly viewable website DOES NOT mean its public domain and you can use it in your crappy ad campaigns without express written permission. (and it it were my photo a big fat cheque for the privilege)

& her new career is in...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkIea-ZWoAI22hJ.png

I am suffering from Poe's law. Is this satire or genuine? Her character in Dr Who had far more experience of cyber than she wanted