Posts by Pascal Monett

Pure Storage's 'disingenuous' financial figures still out there

Maybe my blind ignorance explains my lack of humor ?

That, and the fact that I'm French, of course, which, in itself, explains why I know no one of integrity.

Re: Don't blame Vaughn Stewart!

We are thrilled to know that there is a man of integrity somewhere in this world.

Given that his name is not even mentioned in this article, maybe you would care to explain how exactly he is being set up as a scapegoat ?

Could our fear of fracking be appeased with CO2 sequestration?

Of course somebody could.

And as soon as that somebody publishes the findings, they will be rubbished by the interested parties. A deluge of counter-facts will drown the results. Ad hominem attacks will ensue, and you will learn that one of the participants in the study once ran a red light, thus casting doubt on his professionalism and, by association, the validity of the study's results.

If all that is not enough, kiddie porn will be found.

There may well already be a "proper" study. You don't know about it because of the above.

It's not called Big Oil for nothing.

Re: Talking about how the fractures never get near the aquifer

How can we be sure of that ?

Do we have an accurate map of the underground ? Do we have 100% certainty that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between the aquifers and the oil we want to mine that could be opened by high-pressure gas ?

I've read here (and elsewhere) that the aquifers are "above" the oil shales. Yet fracking consists of pushing high-pressure gas until the shales break open. Given that pressure can simply not go down (because more pressure), it follows that it goes back up. Towards the aquifers, apparently.

I'm not a geologist, obviously.

Not knocking the technique, just genuinely curious.

People bored of mobes, say magic quadrant wizards

Yup, you're getting old.

And so am I.

Old enough to remember my French professor telling us how wonderful it was to have a "living language".

He just neglected to say that it was all the morons who don't know how to speak their own language that actually impose changes that end up becoming fact.

That's why we now see all those things that "effect" change (gah!), or comments like "he would of" (beurk!). Not to mention the eternal confusion between they're and their.

We can now add another one to the ever-growing list. The beauty of a living language appears to be the infected pimple on a teen's face.

Now get off my lawn !

Samsung goes to US Supreme Court to wriggle out of paying Apple millions of dollars

I think you may have hit the nail on the head.

Samsung absolutely needs this case to last until the USPTO renders a final decision on that patent. With an invalidate patent, Apple will have had the rug pulled out from under its feet and the next trial will likely be very much more favorable to Samsung.

Apple is likely going to do everything it can to make the patent stick (if it can).

Ashley Madison keeps calm, carries on after hackers expose lives of millions of its users

"ALM seemingly unconcerned about families of cheaters"

Well duh, that was part of the business play since Day 1.

I don't like this kind of web site at all. That it got hacked and exposed doesn't bother me one bit, and if it folds as a result, it is no loss.

I will not, however, say that ALM is getting what it deserves. There will be personal tragedies following this and that is sad.

But ALM can bite the bullet any time.

French say 'non' to Netflix, reveals entertainment report

One niggling little detail has been forgotten

Bandwidth.

Living in France, I have tried to use the Internet TV option of my ISP for two years. Last year, I gave up and reinstalled satellite.

The reason is that I live in a rural area, not a city, and my bandwidth is 10Mbps. Not shabby for surfing or online gaming, but ghastly when it comes to watching a 25fps TV show. The instances where I could watch an entire evening of TV without pixellation, tearing or the picture freezing while the sound continued for a few seconds can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

That is why I have steadfastly refused to subscribe to Canal+, despite their yearly efforts to incite me to. I'm not going to pay even more to watch the same pixellation, tearing and frame-freezing issues.

I suppose that, with at least double the bandwidth, the issues would mostly go away, and with a proper fiber link they should likely disappear entirely. However, the nearest fiber link is in the city 30km away, and there is no timetable on when it might happen to reach my door.

So, until that glorious day, I am staying on satellite.

My point ? I have a 10Mbps connection in a rural area. That is actually rather fast around here. I personally know quite a few people who are happy to have a 2Mbps connection. Of course, I know some who are on fiber (the bastards). In majority, though, rural areas simply don't have the bandwidth to enable Netflix.

So yeah, I'm not surprised. I shrug along with my compatriots.

Now, about those frog legs . . .

Google reveals OnHub WiFi router, complete with GLOWING RING

Thank you for that.

Re: Google don't sell your data

In what universe ?

Google is an ad company.

You obviously have no idea what that means.

Or like the ring on the XBox.

I wonder if that is foreshadowing ?

Re: I’m curious to see how Google intends to handle this issue

With truckloads of Washington lobbying money, I'd wager.

One in eight mobile calls in India drops out __ ___ middle of your chat

"the national government rejects tower shortages as the reason"

That's curious. If 1 in 8 calls are dropped, I'd think that more towers would be a logical solution.

As usual, real life is generally more complicated than one thinks.

Still, adding more towers couldn't hurt, right ?

Been sleeping well lately? No nightmares? Here's a lumbering Google bigfoot bot

Boston Dynamics

Hmm, where have I heard a name like that before.

Oh, right, got it.

So, Boston Dynamics is the beginning of what will become Massive Dynamics ?

I do hope they have a good Bell on board.

Microsoft drops rush Internet Explorer fix for remote code exec hole

Re: On Windows - unlike Unix - your identity is separated from your privileges

And a fat lot of good that does most of the time.

A magic bracelet that unlocks PCs, dancing robot spiders, and more in Intel's circus

Beyond the whit, no.

Beyond the RD wallet, probably.

Adulterers antsy as 'entire' Ashley Madison databases leak online

Given your line of work (at the time), I would think that it is rather fortunate that your cock-ups were rare.

Re: "Based upon my six site research"

Wouldn't it be funny if all the members of such sites were "sex researchers" ?

Which, of course, in a way, they are.

Not to mention spam of the "Your name has been found on the list, click here to clear it" kind.

Apple: Samsung ripped off our phone patent! USPTO: What patent?

A blogger did this ?

Why didn't somebody at Samsung try to undermine the patent like that ?

Or is this exactly what is happening ?

You CAN'T jail online pirates for 10 years, legal eagles tell UK govt

@ Robert Grant

I beg to differ.

Record companies make profits because they nail the artist to the wall and strip him of all rights to his creations for the duration of the contract. Then they proceed to milk him for all he's worth while it lasts, leaving him with pennies. Artists accept that because they are young, ambitious and ignorant of the consequences - and it seems to be their only chance at getting known.

Only when an artist is sufficiently well-known to go solo does he start making money, because by that point he is capable of setting up his own recording company and giving the others the finger.

That's why Madonna, Prince and every other music superstar have their own recording companies. If they still worked under their original contracts, they wouldn't be the multi-millionaires they are now.

Mainframe big boy Big Blue tries to drum up new biz via Linux

@ GrumpyOF

Thanks for the tip.

Indeed I didn't know that. Puts things in quite another light.

I conclude that we need a new penguin and to call it Admiral.

Emperor or Rockhopper, nothing in between

No Prince, Admiral or Commodore ?

No Marechal, Colonel or even Lieutenant ?

Come on, people, have a sense of scale !

Government embarks on futile mission to censor teen music vid viewing

"help parents to make informed choices"

Parents have already made their "informed choice" by either educating their children or not.

If they count on ratings to decide, then they have not educated their children.

Educate your child properly and he will be able to decide for himself if what he is watching is worth it. But that requires a lot more effort than letting a bunch of people you don't know and have no control over decide what is good "for the children".

In the end, this "effort" is moot anyway. Until you have a foolproof method for ensuring the age of the person using the browser, that is.

Donald Trump dumps on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

Re: I'd love to see that wall built

So would I. I would love to see what excuse the racists would then find to blame everyone else about the state of the economy.

Don't forget to dig a very deep trench as well, to cut off all the tunnels that apparently exist.

Has anyone lost 37 dope plants, Bolton cops nonchalantly ask on Facebook

Well who knows ?

If they're also smoking the stuff, they could well be dumb enough to think they can get it back.

After all, stupider things have happened.

Veedub flub hubbub stubs car-jack hack flap

Interesting

Ferarri, Maserati, etc...

In other words, people with money, meaning people with influence and, perhaps more importantly, people who know just how influential they are.

I wonder how quickly said manufacturers will pony up that additional $1 to solve this problem. For a business based on image, this is one heck of a smear.

Ransomware blueprints published on GitHub in the name of education

Well I hope it'll still be up by the time I get to a PC where I can download it.

I'm interested in finally getting a look see at a part of what I've been fighting against for the past twenty years (on and off, every time someone I know brought me a PC to clean).

If I can learn what they do, maybe I can better make people around me understand that THEY SHOULD STOP CLICKING ON BLOODY EVERYTHING.

Microsoft pushes us closer to the Edge: Test new web browser now in free Windows 10 VMs

Re: Big Deal

Patience.

Ours is a waiting game now.

Vista failed miserably, and look how fast MS followed with Windows 7, which is what Vista should have been.

Let's see how this 1 0 malarky floats. I'm betting that The Cloud is not going to do it any good. If 1 0 fails as miserably as it should, then maybe we'll get a proper version 11 in two years time that will actually be worth it.

US Air Force: 'Loose tweets destroy fleets'

Eminently sensible, yes

But really, the only proper attitude from a security standpoint is to not use social networks when you have a job in National Security.

And that is not something that today's young generation can accept, because contact with home is a vital element for morale.

That means that it is likely quite easy to track a given person's activities if that person is married, because there is no way that he won't be telling his wife when he's coming back home.

I approve of the warning, but realistically it is next to useless. People are people, not security drones. They need to have a barbeque every now and then, and social media is now a part of our lives.

Surprise! World stunned to learn that AT&T is in the NSA's pocket

And how exactly do the automatic transfer machines know if the person is in danger ?

As far as I understand, there is nobody flagging this or that record for transfer, it sends everything and lets God the NSA operatives sort it out.

The plan was for two. The third one was just an operational bonus.

ICANN CEO will head off to private equity firm

Personally, I love the line where they state that the candidate must have "Integrity".

That is the one criteria ICANN has never, ever demonstrated.

This requirement list is like all other ICANN PR stuff : a puff piece, all style over substance.

I do agree that ICANN desperately needs someone with integrity, I just very much doubt that such a person will survive in that position for more than a week.

Choke on it! Brit police squeeze pirate site advertising money trail

‘fishing in a cesspool’

Do they really think that people searching for wank fodder are going to pay attention to ads ?

Rambus decides to enter the semiconductor chip manufacturing game

"Somehow we got thrown into the patent troll bunch,"

Yeah, somehow.

Maybe it had something to do with the endless stream of lawsuits coupled with Intel's withdrawal of support demonstrating that RAMBUS was just a load of hot air ?

Or maybe it was just bad luck. Yeah, that's what he must be thinking.

Well, looks like we're going to see what their IP is really worth.

I'm getting the popcorn.

Microsoft replaces Windows 10 patch update, isn't saying why

Re: Never an OS update

You never get an OS update on your phone because, although Google makes Android updates on a regular basis (and I suppose Apple does as well), your provider is not interested in pushing it out because that would put in peril all the other crap that they put in.

As for MS, we're complaining because it's not just patches to the system. It's going to be entire new functions, UI modifications, the works. And they've already fucked it up barely a week after launch.

Not a good sign for the future.

And the proper thing to do would be to explain what is being fixed. MS usually did, why not this time ?

I have taken out all WU patches that concern Windows 1 0 and decided to temporarily disable WU altogether so as not to burden my bandwidth or disk space with 3GB of unwanted NSA-approved code.

Next year, when the "free" of 1 0 is gone, I may re-enable WU permanently. Until then, I'll be reviving it temporarily and poring through the proposed items with hawkish intent to root out anything that might try to bring any mention of 1 0 back onto my disk. When it is done with the upgrades I decide I need, it'll be shut down again.

And I will never install 1 0. I refuse to plug in to the Cloud and I refuse to go to the subscription model with MY computer and applications I have ALREADY PAID FOR.

Hacking Team mulled stopping Ethiopia sales – because of idiot g-men

Wait a minute

They declare having "done nothing wrong", but Ethiopia is no longer a client ?

If you've done nothing wrong, then there's no reason to stop relationships, right ?

It then follows that if you've stopped relationships, it's because you bloody well know you did wrong.

Choc Factory patches zero day Google for Work hack hole

If the deadline is reasonable, yes.

A better way would be to agree on a deadline. If you can't agree on one, there's a good chance that the company won't be patching anything anyway so by all means, impose a deadline.

But it's always nicer when people can agree to something.

Windows 10 growth flattens out to 30 per cent per week

I generally agree with what you say, and if Windows 1 0 had the usual price tag, I would agree completely.

The fact that this version is "free" will have an impact on existing PCs, and the fact that today's equipment base is, on average, quite capable of handling this new version means that the consumer's usual habits will be subject to change. After all, there is no need to buy a new PC to get this OS version to run.

Given that anyone (on Windows) not running XP can most likely upgrade his OS for free, I'm wondering what is going on. Many people are on holiday at this point, so maybe they are not able to upgrade because not at home, but I admit that I was expecting better on this first week.

Future figures will be interesting.

Hey, folks. Meet the economics 'genius' behind Jeremy Corbyn

My point ?

You need a beer.

Re: is it a slow content day?

Well, it is the week-end.

And it's slow enough for you as well, else you wouldn't be commenting here.

Re: I don't find any of Tim's articles abusive in any way

"Abusive" is a term that replaces "reality" for people who just cannot accept that what is said is true.

There are already largely enough genuine economists who haven't got the faintest idea how things work, we don't need a crackpot who failed economics to tell people how things should work.

Why doesn't this nincompoop go and invent his own mathematics ? Oh, right, he'd actually have to make that work to be taken seriously.

Still safe as houses: More CCTV for the masses

"cloud-based CCTV"

Isn't that a contradiction in terms ? The CC part is supposed to mean Closed-Circuit, right ? So plugging it into the cloud kills the "closed" part.

That being said, I often would very much like to know, when the doorbell rings, if it is worth getting up from my office chair and going downstairs to answer. It's nice to know that technology is getting better and offering more options.

Maybe one day I'll finally buy a cam to put in the bushes on the side and point it to my front door. Then my only problem will be how to thread the cable back into the house to my router. That done, I've got my doorcam and will finally be able to avoid traveling salesmen reliably.

I've seen Kaspersky slap his staff with a walrus penis – and even I doubt the false-positive claims

AV vendors "make" viruses ? Bollocks.

Enough with the lame conspiracy stuff. AV vendors don't need to make new viruses, there's largely enough asshats on the intertubes to do the job for them.

Salesforce plugs silly website XSS hole, hopes nobody spotted it

Good on them

It's nice to see a company being proactive about security, although it is unfortunate to note that the issue stems from the fact that not all sub-domains were created with the same attention to security in the first place.

But hey, no harm, no foul.

China laments 'wild guesses and malicious slurs' on state hacking

@TeeCee: Bill of Rights

So you think that your own personal Bill of Rights should be the only thing that is important in this world ? How typical.

Nontheless, I go take a look and, hey, it says almost the same thing. So your own government is ignoring them both equally.

There, happy now ?

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+: 4K-positive fun for ... vloggers?!

Re: do all you precious "no battery swap" luddites

It will apparently come as a surprise to you, but some people keep their phone for more than three months. When you get into multi-year territory, the daily recharging (because forget about actually using a phone for more than 8 hours these days) and you will find, after two to three years, that your battery needs replacing.

That is why us luddites want to be able to replace the battery. We don't want a new phone, the one we have is good enough and we want to keep using it.

How many pre-loaded Win 10 PCs did disties have 7 days after release?

Dodged a bullet ?

You can slap any UI you want on Windows 1 0, it won't change the fact that you are plugged in and your data is getting slurped on a scale Google just might start envying.

The other issue is the oncoming hail of bullets in the form of incessant Windows Updates that will not only have the potential to bork your computer, but might also change whatever UI settings you have and create new ones or delete old ones without notice.

I will be watching this kerfluffle from the safety of my underground 7-fortified bunker.