Posts by Pascal Monett

Hey, Bill Gates! We've found 14 IT HOTSHOTS to be the next Steve Ballmer

Re: "the uptake of Windows Phone is increasing rapidly in almost all markets"

That may be true, but double of not much is still not much.

Call me on that when the uptake of Windows Phone reaches the 50% market point.

Re: Microsoft is a Server and OS company

It doesn't matter what MS is at the moment. What matters is a CEO that understands that MS has to become something else.

Computing for the masses has moved from the PC to the tablet and the smartphone. Does MS want to be on those markets ?

Gaming is mostly done on consoles. Building games is expensive and risky, successes are few and far between. Does MS want to stay on that market ?

Business and servers are the top-of-the-line margin makers, but the Cloud is capable of eating MS's lunch. Ironically, it's MS's fault already, since Office is doing everything it can to move people away from PCs (where it sells Windows) to the Cloud (where it doesn't). I see a disconnect there, one that MS will pay for dearly in the years to come. Either that or MS has already understood that the PC is a dead dodo (for the mass market that is) and tablets are the future.

Come to think of it, that explains a lot about the Start button issue.

Servers are where its at, margin-wise, but MS already has plenty of healthy competition there.

No, I'm sorry, but any way I look at it, MS as it was is finished. It is time to boldly go . . . somewhere. The choice of CEO is going to be a very interesting one for a lot of people.

Women in IT: ‘If you want to be taken seriously, dress like a man’

Re: A competent person is a competent person and it has nothing to do with gender

Quite true.

Unfortunately, many, many people operate on impressions and preconcieved notions. I do as well, up to a point.

Let me give you a personal example :

One day, I had to change my running shoes. I thus took my noon lunch break to do so, and found my way into a sports shop. I was mosing around the aisles without a clue, and a clerk noticed me and intercepted me. He was young, had a mohawk, a wifebeater shirt, army leggings and some sort of black boots, with the complementary assortment of metal sticking out here and there in the most improbably places. Not the kind of individual I generally entertain a conversation with.

I expected to be conned into buying some expensive pair after a round of marketing platitudes. Boy was I ever wrong. He asked me pertinent questions about the type of activity I was planning, the type of terrain I was going to be on, the frequency of my activities and my weight. He asked me to walk in front of him, explaining that the way I walked would condition what type of soles the shoes needed. When we were through, he pointed me to two different models, explaining to me why he believed that those were the best choices possible in my situation.

In short, he was competent, polite and professional, a very far cry from what I was expecting. I left with a good pair of shoes (for a price, true) and a humbling recall that the clothes do not make the man. Before leaving, I made a point to thank him for his help.

So I try very hard to not judge people by their outward appearance - up to a limit (if you stink, are unwashed and unpleasant, I don't care if you're the best in your field - you can go on living in your mom's basement).

On the other hand, as a self-employed consultant to banks and other financial institutions, I wear a suit. If you come to me for an interview, I will expect you to know the field and dress appropriately. If you don't, I'm sorry but you will not be working in my market with me.

Re: "Ridicule never got anyone anywhere"

It's also rarely kept anyone from getting somewhere.

I mean we've all laughed at Monkeyboy, and many (including me) are cheering at his departure, but the fact is he's still got more money than 99% of the world put together.

Quantum crypto nearly ready to go mobile

Unless you reverse the polarity, in which case they invert them.

Kiwis (finally) confirm software ban under new patent law

Re: "They are set instructions and commands already in the public domain"

Let me give you an analogy : a hammer and saw are tools that are commonly available in the public domain, yet you can use these tools to create something unique, that could eventually be patentable.

That, in any case, is the excuse for the existence of software patents. As a justification, I can just about understand it.

Then they turn around and patent "one-click" operations, or sending data securely via TCP or some other such nonsense that we've all been doing since the beginning of time (i.e. the beginning of the Internet), and the whole house of cards falls right on its face.

I don't care what your arguments are for software patents - it's all just a sham to make more money out of litigation and stifle competition instead of actually making something better.

Boffin snatches control of colleague's body with remote control brain hat

Meanwhile, in a secret underground lair next to an active volcano somewhere . . .

Moto X teardown shows US manufacturing adds mere $4 to handset costs

"giving the handset the ability to listen in on its surroundings"

Wondeful, the new NSA phone is now available !

Obama prepares to crawl up NSA's ass with microscope

Yes, you did get it right.

And by Special Order 1287, you are hereby banned from taking any public office or speaking in public in any official capacity. You will now come quietly with us as we bring you to a reeducational facility where you will be reprogrammed to be a good citizen and appreciate total surveillance for your own good.

Thought the PC market couldn't get any worse? HAH! Think again

PC's have become fridges now

You buy one and you replace it the day it dies, because until then it does what you expect it to do.

The PC market is not declining because of Windows 8, nor is it declining because power is flatlining. The PC market is declining because tablets and smartphones fill the computing needs of 90% of the population, and consoles do it for gaming. Thus most people simply have no incentive to buy a new PC any more.

Why have tablets and phones taken over ? Because they are much simpler to use, and more reliable as well. A PC is a fickle thing - click on the wrong web page and it dies a horrible virusy death. Users don't care about security (if they did, Facebook wouldn't have a billion users), and PCs require them to learn and worry about technology.

Phones and tablets don't. With those tools, people just do what they want to do, and what they want to do is Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. Then they go to their TV and play on their console.

That is why the PC market is declining, and that is not going to change any more. Of course, phones are becoming malware targets, but it's rather easy to avoid if you don't root your phone or download apps from a non-approved store. On top of that, phones are under the control of the providers, and it is not in their interest to have viruses knocking around on their network. That means that any large threat is probably going to to be taken care of, unlike the PC market where nobody had any incentive to crack down on malware since it doesn't hit anyone's bottom line. Your PC is a zombie spam center ? Your ISP doesn't give a flying monkey's, and it's not Microsoft's problem. Besides, they now have Microsoft Security Essentials, so their image is safe (MS has actually been congratulated for it).

The PC market is in for a big shrink. Computing lifestyle has changed, and all computing partners are just going to have to deal with it.

Which is not necessarily a pleasant perspective for me. I like PCs, and I'm a gamer. I'm already bored with games designed first for consoles then badly ported to PCs, and this is not going to make things any better. On top of that, computing has always depended on the PC to innovate and drive computing power up. If the PC market becomes a pale shadow of what it was before, if a PC user becomes the equivalent of the bearded Cobol programmer, then where will computing innovations come from ?

Boffins' keyboard ELECTROCUTES Facebook addicts

I, for one . . .

welcome our keyboard-shocking timewasting overlords.

Long Live The Shock ! May it forever jolt you into transcendance.

Another big SAP project hits the rocks in Oz

Re: the equivalent of a construction quantity surveyor

Because in IT there is no such thing - it's all replaced by marketing sharks before project signing, then by promotion-searching sharks once the project is signed.

Nobody in that bunch is interested in making sure that the initial specs are "good", only that the project is "a challenge" that will result in good marks and a reference on their CV.

Re: SAP "empowers the users" and makes them think they can "do IT".

So, a lot like Sharepoint then ?

Microsoft Xbox One to be powered by ginormous system-on-chip

PS4 has "xbox" in its name ?

I hadn't noticed.

Tesla cars 'hackable' says Dell engineer

And there's the issue : how long can we avoid it ?

Yeah, but by unlocking the door he leaves no trace and makes insurance claims impossible.

So double bummer.

Re: I suspect it will be fixed quickly.

I seriously doubt that.

Attention has been brought to it, so something will have to be done. But this system, with the flaw of the 3-month token, was brainstormed, approved, designed and implemented as is.

I'm not sure it will be easy to change, nor am I convinced that it is a priority job for Tesla.

Of course, it is not good for the company image to have a "security breach", but Tesla can very well downplay the issues, obfuscate the consequences and play for time. It's not like they're selling the thing by the millions anyway.

Microsoft: YES Windows 8.1 is finished, but NO you can't have it

Microsoft really needs to get out of the "one Windows for all" mentality. You don't take a cargo truck to go shopping, nor do you use a convertible to move houses. There are different types of computing platforms, they need different levels of OS (and UI) functionality.

That means that Microsoft should not try to bundle everything together all the time. That's how they screwed up the tablet market the first time.

At install time on a PC, I really don't see what the problem is in detecting whether or not the user has a touchscreen-capable screen, and if yes, asking the user (yes, you should still ask) if he wants to install touchscreen functionality. If the answer is no, don't bother the user with it again. On the other hand, put it in the list of Windows options that can be installed at any time.

If the user installs the OS without a touchscreen, then buys one and hooks it up, by all means ask him if he's interested in using touchscreen functionality once the OS has detected it, but don't force it.

This is not rocket science. Microsoft already did with disability aids, why should this be so different ?

If the user is installing on a tablet, by all means include the touchscreen stuff - it's needed there and is obviously useful. But Microsoft could still make it an option to uncheck, for the hardcore keyboard-mouse aficionados who would still prefer managing their tablet like a PC. Might not be smart, but there is no reason Microsoft should not allow it. After all, I can imagine very well someone buying a tablet for a specific purpose (say home automation) and bolting it to a wall in the cellar or something.

Yes, it might not be all that smart, but computing today is about letting the user find a solution to fit his needs, not ignoring them and imposing something a big company thinks is better.

I'm convinced that at least 50% of the angst around Windows 8 is because of that restriction to our available choices. We, as a user base, have grown accustomed to expecting things to work the way we want. Right or wrong, it is obvious that companies go against that at their peril.

And Microsoft has long since forgotten how to listen to its users.

Why Teflon Ballmer had to go: He couldn't shift crud from Windows 8, Surface

And now that innovation is no longer taking place on the PC, MS is a boat without a rudder.

Whether or not they're heading for the falls is something we yet have to see.

Re: Do we really want a good CEO at MSFT?

I'm pretty sure that, if you could put Google's board in Microsoft's place back in time, things would have turned out pretty much the same as far as good/evil is concerned.

Money corrupts. Billions upon billions corrupts quite nicely, thank you.

Re: Bad bosses adn failures

Windows 7 is indeed a rather excellent product - but only because it corrected all the major blunders of Vista, which Microsoft could have avoided if it had listened to its true customer base (i.e. us, the public, and not Fortune 1000 IT directors).

Windows 8 is the same mistake, pie-in-the-sky thinking followed by complete disregard of public input. The fact that Ballmer made the same mistake twice is likely what sealed his fate.

Finally.

United Nations to grill US over alleged NSA bugging of its HQ – report

Re: Move out?

You forgot the basic rule : keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

Samsung to bring 55-inch MONSTER curvy-telly to the UK

When you have the money to burn on that kind of luxury, I'll bet that when you step out into the world, it's with a glass of champaign in your hand and a beautiful creature at your arm, that you can lead to your expensive car for a (very) nice ride.

And if you have all that, I'm pretty sure you think that you're having a pretty good life.

Tesla tops $20bn as Elon Musk claims arm-wave design tech

Gesture Design is obviously Italian, and will obviously be fabulous. If it were French, it would be called Glaring Design, and you would know it's your fault even before you build it.

Facebook unwraps SHARING IS CARING photo album function

Re: "El Zuck should calm down a little"

Why so ? He's adding a new ad platform to his ad distribution network. He's probably going to rake in even more dough before the end of the year because of that. These days, that's probably the only thing that can get him excited any more.

Apple's Siri 'hurls insults' at Google Glass

@Evil Auditor

Ah haa ! The penny drops !

I was, of course, oblivious to that fact. Which, in fact, somewhat proves my point :D.

I will bear it mind when reading your future posts, which I await now with non-negligeable anticipation :)

Re: "It's the Germans that don't have a sense of humour"

I think you may need to revise your opinion here.

It is a seriously enlightening read.

ISPs scramble to explain mouse-sniffing tool

"Perhaps we should be working out how much we're prepared to share before we start sharing it"

That boat has sailed, my good sir, and the answer is that, for the general, non-technical population, we don't give a rat's ass about it.

That's why the general unwashed post their private life (or their excuse for it) on their "walls" and can think of nothing more important on holidays than the next time they can connect to post some more drivel on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the more intelligent, privacy-conscious people will be banning ad servers, locking down scripts where they see no interest, and generally throwing all sorts of spanners in the intricate surveillance clockwork of the admen.

Because let us not forget one thing : the NSA would be a pipe dream today if Google and Co hadn't done the groundwork for it.

Meet the world's one-of-a-kind ENORMO barge-bowling bridge of Falkirk

"Children may be sold in a single turn "

So, they sell children nowadays ? Well I'll be. and what's the going price, on average ?

Poison Ivy RAT becoming the AK-47 of cyber-espionage attacks

When do we get a white paper from the NSA ?

This is actual cyber-terrorism, is it not ? Or does the fact that this is a threat against companies and citizens, not government, make this a non-item for NSA surveillance ?

Star Wars revival secret: This isn't the celluloid you're looking for

Re: "why use a crane to get him into an X-Wing"

Just a nitpick, but maybe R2s thrusters in a such a cramped space might not be such a good idea - if not for the X-wing, at least for R2 itself.

So I think the crane is perfectly justified. Unlike the few other occasions R2 could have used its thrusters and didn't.

Do you know about Star Wars Uncut ?

I think you might like it. I know I did.

Re: "I'm really not into CGI for space scenes"

I found that it was done right in the Battlestar Galactice series remake.

Wall Street traders charged with stealing company code via email

I agree with your point entirely, but I am tired of the self-censoring that is continuously going on here.

We're all adults, there are no kids in these forums (much too boring for them, it's all text and no titties). So, if you want to use the word asshole, let's all be adult enough to use it. And reading "f*ck" has always made me cringe. Come on, people, everyone knows what you're writing, so have the balls to write it properly or write something else entirely.

There, PC rant ended.

NASA: Full details on our manned ASTEROID SNATCH mission

Probably because the energy profile of the mission is a lot lower without entering the Moon's gravity well. And a lower energy profile means less fuel to lug around.

After checking, the lunar lander had a bit less than 300kg of propellant. That does not seem much in itself, but that was for a dedicated landing module that only had to get back to the Command/Service Module (that was the module intended to bring the lander to the Moon and bring it back to Earth after).

The lander itself was almost 5 metric tons of mass. The CSM was a bit more than 30 metric tons. So that makes for about 35 tons of mass "just" to land on the Moon.

This mission is not concerned with a Moon landing. Adding that to the list would likely add a fair share of those 35 tons, or more, to the new mission's mass profile. Then you have the issue of bringing that mass into Earth orbit in the first place. The biggest launcher Earth has at the moment is the Ariane 5, which can lug up to 21 metric tons. So we've already lost Moon capacity, since the Saturn V rocket used for the Moon launch could bring at most 120 metric tons into orbit.

Think of that for a minute - in the 1960s we were capable of doing 6 TIMES MORE in space than we are today. We have regressed.

And that is why NASA is not adding a Moon landing to the list. It's not a picnic. Every new mission item has a mass budget, and we just don't have the means any more. Even if we had the money, which we don't either.

And now, if you don't mind, I'm just going to go sob quietly in the corner over there.

Botched court doc outs Google as respondent in national security flap

You're talking about a civil servant. Prison, for those people, is forbidding access to the cappuccino machine for a day. The worse he'll get is a year's delay in the promotion schedule.

And yes, they have word search, but that's just like self-cleaning ovens - you still have to launch the procedure.

And that's hard to do if you've been banned from the cappuccino machine, man ;)

Google cripples Chromecast third party replay

Re: "I don't see any benefit at all for Google in doing this"

Google does.

Google sees all.

And then hands it over to the NSA.

Pulsars: the GPS beacons of the cosmos

Black holes cannot explode. Merging black holes do not explode either - they just suck harder.

I agree that galaxies cannot explode in the Cameron sense - however if you have ever seen those simulations of a galaxy going through another one, well let's just say that your statement can be found incorrect for certain values of explode.

Top 10 Steve Ballmer quotes: '%#&@!!' and so much more

I totally agree with you. The usage of computing has changed.

Once we all used PCs because that is all there was. MS dominated there, no discussion.

Today, people have discoverd that they do not need a PC to do their mail, their monthly spreadsheet and the occasional letter. They have discovered that smartphones can fill their computing gaming/toy needs quite nicely without having to pay for a PC and learn all that boring technical stuff like creating a folder.

Computing has actually left the PC world for the consumer, and MS is not present on that market in any significant manner.

Of course, PCs will still be used for a long time - by developers, "serious" gamers and people who just like tinkering with them. Banks and large organisations will need them for decades to come as well - you won't see a bank teller with a tablet any time soon.

But as far as the consumer market is concerned, the PC is indeed dead, and with it, Microsoft's future.

The next CEO had better have that in mind. Microsoft has an uphill battle to stay relevant, and all its billions will not be enough in its current state.

Re: "have it carried by and passed through MS powered servers around the internet"

That'll be a small part of the Internet then.

As of August 2013, MS has a 22% share of the internet server OS market. More than I thought, I admit.

So one in five, which is already not bad, but hardly enough to justify your sentence. You would have had to be talking about Apache to say that.

BILLION DOLLAR BALLMER: Microsoft chief makes $1bn simply by quitting

What, you don't even have $150 bucks ?

Fiorina would be brilliant

She would gut that bloated whale and make sushi out of it before she finished brushing her hair on the first Monday morning.

Then she'd spend three years making sure that anybody who didn't hate Microsoft yet started doing so.

The she'd leave with a hearty self-congratulatory patting on the back and a ginormous check in her purse.

Russian spyboss brands Tor a crook's paradise, demands a total ban

Re: In soviet russia,

In soviet russia exit nodes ban you ?

Re: "All politicians, government agencies and their employees are lying scum."

I have the solution !

Let's ban them !

Let's not get carried away, hmm ? The United States has seriously tarnished its Medal of Freedom, that is true and a stain of shame that will take a long time to remove.

But in the US you can still criticize your government without having a black van show up in the middle of the night to knock your door down and take you away for extended "leave" without explanation.

So let's refrain from comparing Russia to a "freaking paradise" compared to the US. The US is still better, but it's on a damn slippery slope.

Going down.

BALLMER TO RETIRE FROM MICROSOFT

Nah, universities don't have the kind of office furniture budget Microsoft has.

Report: Secret British spy base in Middle East taps region's internet

Re: "Just release the cache of documents, then lets see where the chips settle"

That would hardly be a responsible thing to do. We're not talking about a cache of cat pictures. There will be names and places and dates in those documents, and neither you nor I have the slightest idea of what could happen if those data points became public knowledge without being carefully overviewed first.

See where the chips settle ? How about a a number of bodybags, is that what you want ? Or do you not care because you don't know them ? Well I'm ready to wager that if anyone did die, it wouldn't be anybody responsible for the NSA or the clusterfuck that this whole thing is heading for. So I'm against doing that.

If, on the other hand, there were only the names of those responsible for flaunting worldwide privacy so casually, well then yeah, let the chips fall...

Germany warns: You just CAN'T TRUST some Windows 8 PCs

Yeah, but judging from Microsoft's past history in the DoD affair (and multiple others), they'd say that anyway.

Now they're just saying that whilst thinking to themselves "and we really can't say anything else this time !".

Tat bazaar eBay takes a rest for 'scheduled maintenance', goes offline

Wow

The NSA is really covering all bases.

Workers at world's largest – and most remote – telescope go on strike

Probably the same day they grow a brain.

In other words, don't hold your breath.