* Posts by Magnus_Pym

1112 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jan 2010

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It's alive! Hands on with Microsoft's Chromium Edge browser

Magnus_Pym

They think long term but they don't predict the future very well. And they don't spend money when they don't need to. They have missed many important developments but have usually been able to play catch up by leveraging their desktop domination. This usually keep them in contention with a dodgy product long enough for them to either get better or starve the competition to death.They thought Netscape was dead and they didn't see Google at all so moved focus away from IE. As always they realised the danger too late. IE had fallen behind so they dragged up something from some backwater development team and threw money at it to make Edge. It wasn't enough. They have given up and gone with something that might keep their name in the game - a rebranded Chrome. Anything so long as the aforementioned average Jane/Joe don't get start thinking that Computers and Microsoft are not the same thing.

WannaCrypt outbreak contained as hunt for masterminds kicks in

Magnus_Pym

Pwnd

The upshot of this that if you were vulnerable to wannacrypt last week then you've been owned by the NSA for years.

Sophos waters down 'NHS is totally protected' by us boast

Magnus_Pym

Re: Wait a minute

As far as I know it governments had been struggling with the big question - 'which is cheaper, pay Microsoft to keep XP running or update the whole NHS?' for a number of years. Teresa May was Home Secretary and Jeremy Hunt Health Secretary when they decided to make the balance sheet look a little better and not bother with either. They were warned about the risk at the time and many times since.

For some reason they seem to be reticent to talk about it now.

Marmite's not the only national treasure hit by Brexit. Will someone think of the PCs?

Magnus_Pym

Brexit as I see it.

kids: "are we nearly there yet?"

sat nav: "at the roundabout take the third exit"

dad: "Not much further now"

kids: "You said that an hour ago and it's not very comfortable in the boot of this car"

sat nav: "At the roundabout take the third exit"

dad: It's fine up here in the drivers seat and, let me tell you, the view is magnificent"

kids: "Shouldn't we have taken the third exit?"

dad: "I don't have to do what the sat-nav says if I don't want to"

kids: "It's cramped and we can't see anything. Can we come and sit up on the back seats"

dad: "No. The sat-nav says it's not allowed. Nothing I can do about that."

mum: "I agree with dad"

dad: "Anyway we had to take all the other seats out. It's all the fault of that hitch-hiker we picked up.

mum:"I agree with dad"

kid1: "I don't think this is fair. Can't we fix this?"

dad: "No, there is nothing wrong and if there if there is is not my fault"

kid2: "Listen to the dad, he knows. This is a rubbish car"

kid1: "He obviously lying. The dad has put us in here on purpose"

kid2: "No, dad's great. The car is ruined lets set fire to it"

kid1: "Can mum drive?"

kid2: "No. Dad says she crashed the car last time"

kid1: "Everyone says it was the other drivers fault"

kid2: "Dad said h's the best driver so it must be true"

dad: "Yes kids. safest if I drive".

kid2: "Can we set fire to the car?"

dad: "If you really want me to set fire to the car I will. You know I'll do anything for my kids."

kid1: "but we are in the car on a motorway it's dangerous and we'll be stuck at the side of the road"

kid2: "Scaredycat"

later

kid1: "It's getting hot in here on account of the car being on fire"

kid2: "Cars get hot or cold. It's natural. Don't worry"

later

kid2: (shivering in the rain, hair gently smouldering, watching the traffic go by and waving goodbye to dad as he gets in a taxi) "we'll who would have thought that would happen? But still this is much better than being stuck in the boot of that car eh?"

Margaret Hodge's book outlines 'mind boggling' UK public sector waste

Magnus_Pym

Re: what changed?

Presumably this is "our team vs their team" type politics. This thinking is what lets politicians of all persuasions off the hook. However bad they are they just point to someone else and say well 'they would have been worse' and some people believe them.

I think the article itself points out the same play from all the players. The upshot as far as I can tell is that politicians should not be involved in project that are likely to last longer than one parliament, probably none shorter either.

Liberal Party of Australia: why are you paying so much for ancient software?

Magnus_Pym

Dataflex or Visual Dataflex

This is just marketing hype isn't it? 'You don't want to use that old reliable stuff. You want to buy new stuff because it's newer." I can't see where the cost comes from though. Dataflex is still available and under development BTW, or at least Visual Dataflex is.

Boeing's X-Wing 737 makes first flight

Magnus_Pym

Re: World's most popular airliner

As in the mode rather than the most beloved

Uni of Manchester IT director resigns after chopping 68 people

Magnus_Pym

Re: his work there is done

"always baffled me how serial screw-ups go from one highly-paid position to another, leaving devastation in their wake"

Boss: We need to improve services and reduces costs. Can you do it?

Applicant1: It's not possible and there are already too few staff.

Applicant2: It's not possible and there are already too few staff.

Applicant3: It's not possible and there are already too few staff.

Applicant4: Easy. And I can do it and make the board of directors look good too.

Guess which applicants are telling truth? Guess who gets the job?

Get 'em out for the... readers: The Sun scraps its online paywall

Magnus_Pym

Woop-de-do

Could give a toss about that rag I just hope it doesn't mean that Murdock will laying some cash on Google et al to promote his drivel organ in the result rankings in a pathetic attempt to drive traffic back.

Joining the illuminati? Just how bright can a smart bulb really be?

Magnus_Pym

Re: Burglar attractant surely

Burglary and housebreaking are not usually considered high IQ professions though.

Scout Association's shelved database won't be back until next year

Magnus_Pym

OSM?

I'm trying to get our Scout Group interested in OSM but because of the Compass debacle there is a worry about online security.

Only a CNUT would hold back the waves of the sharing economy

Magnus_Pym

How would it go if ...

... App controlled mini cabs had to abide by the same legislation (insurance, knowledge, wheelchair access) as black cab drivers? Would that be acceptable?

IT supplier? Got a customer who won't pay? Dob them in to the Insolvency Service

Magnus_Pym

Re: "they will also be guaranteed payment from the insolvency practitioner"

I think you have misread it. You would get pennies in the pound for any invoices up to the point the shark/insolvency practitioner steps in but full payment after that. Why would it be a benefit otherwise?

Things you should know about the hard work of home working

Magnus_Pym

Re: Agreed but you forgot loneliness.

"Edit: Oh yes, you would be surprised at just HOW MANY SALESMEN actually call at your door in the day."

And how many parcels your neighbours have delivered.

Unions call for strike action over 'unusable' Universal Credit IT

Magnus_Pym

This is more of the 'I don't care how you do it, just get it done' bluster style of management from people who don't know what they are doing but went to right school so feel they must be better than everyone else. Stupid ideas don't get shot down early because 'politics' so the people at the front end are just left looking like the idiots when really it's idiots above and all the way up.

NHS IT failures mount as GP data system declared unfit for purpose

Magnus_Pym

Re: Employ their own consultants

The one thing you have to understand, if you really want to know why things like this happen, is that the ONE overriding concern of everyone involved in government is THEY MUST NOT BE ABLE TO HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE.

FTFY

Magnus_Pym

Re: Not fit for purpose?

The Government can't get those sort of clauses into an IT contract because everybody knows the project will fail before it starts.

Why OH WHY did Blighty privatise EVERYTHING?

Magnus_Pym

privatisation principle?

"Quite apart from anything else it's not the pursuit of profit that makes organisations more efficient: it's the prospect of having whatever profits you might be able to make competed away leading to the death of the organisation that does."

So it's about compete or die? That assumes that the only way a private company can fail is by having it's market stolen by another more efficient provider. A bit of an over simplification I would say, there are many ways for a private company to fail not least financial ones. If a private company could leave vital services unfulfilled then there must be some protection in place to make sure it can't happen. If there is protection the 'or die' part is taken away and whole privatisation model falls apart. If the service cannot be allowed to fail then it cannot be truly privatised.

How Music Got Free and Creatocracy

Magnus_Pym

Worse?

How did we get a system that's actually less ethical than an industry that was founded on close links to organised crime, payola, dodgy accounting and monumental waste?

I think closer inspection will probably find is exactly as unethical as before but with fewer players. The industry used to support rank after rank of unscrupulous middlemen between the artist and the public each with a hand in the till. Now there is just one big till and one big hand but the result is pretty much the same.

Land Rover's return: Last orders and leather seats for Defender nerds

Magnus_Pym

Soon to be lost?

There is a statistic that is often quoted that 57% of Landrovers ever built are still running. I don't know if that is strictly true but I do know they tend to get rejuvenated every so often. I think it will be a long time before they are gone altogether.

Why does Uber keep its drivers' pay so low? Ex-CFO: 'Cos we can'

Magnus_Pym

Re: "no comment"

"This article is about Mr Novogratz saying that Uber's 'cut' is too high - Uber is overcharging for it's matchmaking services. If he's right, a free market will create a competitor which will kill Uber. One who is willing to take a lower 'cut' and thus is able to charge lower fares (which will steal all of Uber's customers) or pay the drivers more (how well would Uber do if their drivers all left Uber to work for a higher paying competitor?)."

Once 'entrepreneurs' smell the money they will all want in. There are/will be hundreds of wannabe Ubers trying to take the market by being looking cheaper, safer or nicer than the incumbent although usually they just advertise heavily and litigate, They throw money at it, lots of money. To defend against this intrusion Uber will need money, lots of money. They have to get what they can now or lose out later.

Cross-dressing blokes storm NSA HQ: One shot dead, one hurt

Magnus_Pym

Tinfoil helmet time

Obviously they were two guys considered 'no longer useful' by the CIA so they engineered the most preposterous way for them to be die at the hands of a rival agency to stop people looking too closely for the real reasons and the real culprits.

Universal Credit could take 10 YEARS to finish, says Labour MP

Magnus_Pym

Re: IT Angle?

"It's not that UC is so complex, it's that the current range of benefits and systems are and they don't 'talk' to each other in any kind of sane way, the nasty old legacy systems are tied together using people and paperwork."

I think that backs up what I'm saying doesn't it: The main IT project is not UC. The current hotch-potch of weird and wonderful legacy bollocks is were the project fails and that is independent of UC or whatever crap was tacked on top of trying to redevelop Benefits IT into something coherent.

The big problem is that the minister wants a major project completed during his/her term in office so they can claim credit for the sucess however in doing so they guarantee that they preside over another failure.

Magnus_Pym

IT Angle?

Universal Credit is a policy on benefit payments - There is an IT system to support benefit payments.

I really can't see form what the politicians have said why the two are tied so closely together. The Universal Credit policy could be implemented by pushing bits of paper around and a new IT system could be implemented to support any benefits system yet somehow the IT part is the problem ...

... unless the Universal Credit policy is so complex and unwieldy that only a super computer backed implementation can work it out within the lifetime of the claimant. Now that could be the reason for the delay.

CONFIRMED: Tiny Windows Server is on the way

Magnus_Pym

Re: What's tiny?

"And in the *20 years* since, Google and Facebook have robbed your privacy, apple have created the ultimate walled garden, huge unix security holes have been found that affect virtually every installation, google have shipped the android malware, and you're not supposed to mention (or do?) anything personal in front of your Samsung TV as it reports back to God-knows-who. Oh and the mobile phone companies knew about voicemail hacking in the year 2000, and managed to completely dodge the bullet when the shit hit the fan ten years later."

TL:DR Everyone is guilty of something therefore no-one is guilty of anything.

Samsung's spying smart TVs don't encrypt voice recordings sent over the internet – new claim

Magnus_Pym

Only Samsung?

As I understand it only Samsung admit to this in their TAC's but the use of outsourced voice recognition is quite common. So many many things could be transmitting what you say over the internet.

M0n0wall comes tumbling down as dev throws in the trowel

Magnus_Pym

Re: Financial models matter

It depends on how you define success.

YOU. Your women are mine. Give them to me. I want to sell them

Magnus_Pym

Re: WOW

I think I'll post a video of trees rustling in the wind and claim all tube content filmed outside infringement.

Is it humanly possible to watch Gigli and Battlefield Earth back-to-back?

Magnus_Pym

Re: "So bad it's good"

"Do we get many truly awful movies these days? Studios are becoming more risk-averse so we're seeing more "so meh it's hmm" titles."

I hear what you are saying but I'd counter with 'Hector and the Search for Happiness." And use a phrase that occurs so often in this thread that it probably needs an acronym. The only film I ever walked out of. TOFIEWOO.

Windows 10: The Microsoft rule-o-three holds, THIS time it's looking DECENT

Magnus_Pym

We will tell them it's free - Muuhahahha

'The upgrade will only be free in the first 12 months after release and will last for the "supported lifetime of the device." '

Translation. Unlike XP and win 7, This version will die when we tell it to die.

Buggy? Angry? LET IT ALL OUT says Linus Torvalds

Magnus_Pym

How do you think 'script kiddies' get away with it for so long

just because you don't know about the flaw doesn't mean no-one does.

London teen pleads guilty to Spamhaus DDoS

Magnus_Pym

Re: Kid's these days...

In all fairness to the guy we don't know that. He may stand motionless and silent in court with only a Wolfie Smith style freedom salute as answer to 'The Man'.

NOKIA - Not FINNished yet! BEHOLD the somewhat DULL MYSTERY DEVICE!

Magnus_Pym

Maps

I wonder if it will come bundled with whatever the old Nokia Sat Nav is now called. I know it was spun off some time ago but I really liked it on my N8 and the lifetime updates made the N8 pretty good value.

Could YOU identify these 10 cool vintage mobile phones?

Magnus_Pym
Holmes

Best selling?

The best selling list makes interesting reading. Not surprisingly a Nokia is reconnected to be the best selling of all time, not the 3310 though it is apparently the 'emerging markets' 1100 with 250 million units sold. In fact of the 12 phone models that have sold more than 100 million only 2 are not Nokias; the Motorola Razr v3 and the Samsung E1100.

I think that shows just how badly Nokia messed up.

Why Comrade Cameron went all Russell Brand on the UK’s mobile networks

Magnus_Pym

"Basically, it's imposing a universal service coverage on all phone companies, but allowing them to delegate the service on to their competitors."

An operator will put up a mast if the number of calls passing through it will cover the cost and the up-keep. In rural areas that is a risk. So one operator puts up a mast in a village. All their competitors share the coverage and so all of them know the economic case. If it turns out to be a good place for a mast the competitors can put up their own masts reducing the value of the first one. If not they can leave it on it's own and let the first operator carry the costs of an under-performing cell.

Magnus_Pym

Figures please

Exactly how much of the land area is covered by a some but not all carriers? That is the only part that this plan will have any effect. The area not currently covered by any carrier is, I suspect, much larger.

Magnus_Pym

But ... but ... but ...

... free markets encourage investment to the benefit of us all. The government just need to keep out of the way.

What's that you're saying? Free markets are free to channel investment in short term, high profit, low risk operations if they want to? Who would have guessed they would do that then.

P.S. Where is good for Vodafone coverage? I know It's not somewhere I've ever been.

Magnus_Pym

Yes you are missing something. Three passes on the cost to the customer, They all do. The customer doesn't like this. All customers in that area migrate to O2. All five of them. Three doesn't care, Three doesn't have to invest in the additional infrastructure, doesn't incur additional cost and so is cheaper than O2 for the millions who live in high traffic areas.

The fact is the economics of the mobile phone cell network break down below a certain user density. That means it needs to be done a different way or funded a different way.

Microsoft: Cloud-o-bile still only small slice of softening revenue pie

Magnus_Pym

Re: hmmmm

"firing on all cylinders and kicking ass!"

Microsoft have invented gas powered ass kicking machine? What do they want that for?

Happiness economics is bollocks. Oh, UK.gov just adopted it? Er ...

Magnus_Pym

Ignorance is bliss?

That's what this articles logic seems to lead to. We were happier when we didn't know what we were missing. Or perhaps 'we were all better off when people knew there place and stuck to it'. No wonder the millionaire Dave 'bring back Victorian values' Cameron endorses it.

The problem here is that at first 'happiness' is used as a label for a definition of the thing the we all want and pursue and then, later, it is found that we don't necessarily want or pursue that thing. So then the conclusion is not that the definition is wrong but that we don't want that thing we all want.

SLOSH! Cops dethrone suspect - by tipping over portaloo with him inside

Magnus_Pym

Possibly armed guy in an opaque box

This is the classic nutter in box problem. The box is opaque but thin walled. They can't see him, he can't see them but anyone approaching the box is vulnerable. The door opens outwards even if he isn't armed he could still batter someone attempting to open the door or throw shit or what ever. If he is armed he could shoot out at random at any time there is no protection in the area for police or civilians.

What should they do if he doesn't want to come out? It's either a siege or a shoot out. OR some novel approach like this. I think they did OK: the kicking was a bit OTT but no-one ending up in hospital or the morgue.

iPhone 6: The final straw for Android makers eaten alive by the data parasite?

Magnus_Pym

iPhone vs ?

Our office moved over to IPhones this year. Some of the toys you can get for it are great but I still miss features that were standard on my Symbian phones years ago. It certainly doesn't hold a call so well in poor reception areas either. As a hand held computer device it is peerless as a mobile communication device, not so much.

Open source and the NHS: Two huge disorganised entities without central control

Magnus_Pym

Re: The possibilities are endless

Brain Surgery : OpenMind

Haematology : OpenVein

Proctology : Hello

Plucky Playmonaut parties as LOHAN hits Kickstarter goal

Magnus_Pym

Not sure about the one in the bikini ...

... but aren't the other two Mel and Sue off of The Great British Bake Off? I wondered what they did the rest of the week.

iCloud fiasco: 100 FAMOUS WOMEN exposed NUDE online

Magnus_Pym

I'm starting up a course for media types.

£1,000 for a two hour session on how to protect you on-line persona.

It consists of 1 hour 59 minutes drinks, nibbles and introductions and then I'll just tell 'em. Don't ever get drunk or horny and especially not both at the same time.

Any takers?

Magnus_Pym

Re: "Knowing these photos were deleted a long time ago"

OR they could have been stolen a long time ago. Before they were deleted.

Twitter: La la la, we haven't heard of NUDE JLaw, Upton SELFIES

Magnus_Pym

mass hack?

Given that at least one of the victims says the images were deleted long ago some these images may have been copied and kept secret for years. It seems likely to me that someone has gathered together a lot of other people 'secret store' of images. Maybe hundreds of password guesses by hundreds of different pervs some of whom struck lucky a few times over a long period of trying.

my guess in that this is less of a single huge hack that represents some huge security breach but a gathering together of the usual drip feed of unwise/unlucky celebs privacy invasion that represents poor password security.

Hackers' Paradise: The rise of soft options and the demise of hard choices

Magnus_Pym

User choices

PC sales were based on cost and ease of use. If you could say 'Our PC compatible will calculate your spreadsheet in half the time of theirs' people would buy it. If you said 'Our PC compatible will calculate you spreadsheet more reliably than theirs' or Our PC compatible will calculate you spreadsheet more securely than theirs' they wouldn't. MS networking outsold Netware on familiarity and ease of use (mainly).

The market got what the market thought it wanted and now has to live with it. Even today idiot users routinely disable anti-virus because it 'slows the PC down' and find secure passwords too much hassle.

X marks the chop: Microsoft takes axe to Nokia's Android venture

Magnus_Pym

Re: why does this remind me of IBM

Hmm. yes. The IBM PC was initially dumbed down so it didn't compete with existing IBM divisions that couldn't keep up. IBM were so self obsessed they thought the only competition was with themselves. The suits said 'yes the PC very nice but it will confuse the customer. They won't know which IBM product choose? make it less powerful'. In the end they chose Compaq.

Microsoft: NSA security fallout 'getting worse' ... 'not blowing over'

Magnus_Pym

Cloud with chance of...

The first reaction of a lot of IT professionals when reading about internet connected business was "why the hell would you do that? It a security nightmare". Similarly the same reaction when the various different definitions of "the cloud" were mooted. Now everybody appears to be surprised that the cloud is indeed a security nightmare. As far as I'm can see this is just the long tale of computerising business still wagging from the 1950's.

In the old days a business had one set of ledgers that where locked in the safe overnight. Messing with the post brought serious jail time but you still didn't send anything in a letter if you didn't want the anyone else to know. Couriers carried locked cases to which they had no access. You shredded or burned everything when it became obsolete. Everyone knew the rules and knew that not sticking to them made you vulnerable. Eventually these practises will be duplicated electronically as the necessity for each is re-discovered.

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