Posts by Roland6

No open door for India's tech workers in any UK trade deal

Re: "Negotiating a trade deal will be easy"

Is there a website other than BorisJohnson.com that is isn't biased against BoJo ?

I'm sure with Sir Humphrey Appleby's help the government can redefine Indian tech workers as being wholly different to the unemployed tech workers and thus identify a shortage of "tech workers" which can only be satisfied by importing (cheaper) Indian tech workers.

>But you can leave out all that stuff about ox-bow lakes, nobody needs to know that.

However, everyone does need to know about the Battle of Agincourt and how the plucky English won against the French. Although, for obvious reasons, there is no need to for the siege of Orléans to be taught.

Re: Land of the long white shroud?

Trouble is once you take out financial services - the pre-eminent "export" of the UK, there probably isn't much to differentiate the UK economy from NZ, other than the UK probably has fewer sheep...

Re: Observation

And both defending the indefensible...

Trouble is, as events in Ukraine have shown, it doesn't really matter whether the UK is in or out of the EU, European security requires the UK and the EU to constructively engage; for which we need the adults to sit at the table...

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

> the contract went to the EU...

With post-CoViD PPE scandal hindsight, it does seem strange that this contract actually went to a company actually capable of delivering...

>And UK industry is in such a shape after Thatcher

The existing UK-based supplier lost because of price. Which suggests the problem isn't Thatcher but that the Conservatives still favour supposedly cheaper overseas businesses to the detriment of UK industry and then complain the welfare budget is too big because the British are lazy and overpaid, whilst awarding themselves a bigger slice of the tax take pot...

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

>A competent government could take a crack at correcting the problems

Not been one of these at Westminster in far too many decades...

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

All of those reports are deeply flawed.

For example add in the housing and infrastructure provision and you negate the fiscal benefit. ie. the economic case for largescale immigration as we have witnessed over the last 25 years is at best marginal.

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

>"The cheap EU labour has gone for a few years now. The supposedly artificially suppressed wages in the sectors you mention have not gone up. Explain.The cheap EU labour has gone for a few years now. The supposedly artificially suppressed wages in the sectors you mention have not gone up. Explain."

Too many years of institutionalised conservative thinking. Wage costs were kept down for many years by importing cheap labour, thus low wages in some sectors became the norm.

Cheap labour as you note dries up, first reaction is to increase the workload on remaining staff and only begrudgingly make token payments under duress.

Second reaction is to lobby government to facilitate the restoration of cheap labour imports and moan about how UK residents are lazy and wanting too much money.

After a few years you get to where the UK is now, "ancient" technology and working practises, too few workers and wages way out of line with reality. As the current government are slowly beginning to realise there are no quick fixes, a change in mindset and investment in people over many years (15 years in the case of the recently announced £36 bn NHS investment) is the solution.

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

Suggest you look at the history of the UK's Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 ...

Don't know about Spain etc.

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

And some other communities voted for BREXIT because they were told it would reduce immigration as the UK could take back control of its borders...

Targeted campaigning/advertising works until the differing target audiences compare notes...

Lamborghini's last remaining pure gas guzzlers are all spoken for

> Electric racing IS done

It is worth looking at EV rallying, because of the problems with battery charging the nature of the race has changed and the strategies needed to succeed over a day’s competition are likewise different.

>” The main use for services is usually for a toilet break, and stretch your legs a bit, not to fuel up.”

That’s because an ICEV typically has a significantly better range on a “full charge” than an EV…

Need to stop comparing apples with oranges…

>” We're in a position now where we don't have the time to take a generation or two to transition away from ICE vehicle (to whatever).”

We are also in a position where we cannot incur the additional emissions necessary for the large scale EV production to effect a rapid transition to EVs, hence the “to whatever” is the question we really need to define, as we really needed the answer a few decades back…

Re: Ah yes - the "there aren't enough charging points" defence...

>” Prices of used cars will probably go up, hitting drivers on lower incomes with a triple whammy”

Prices of used cars are already going up in the UK, for a number of reasons including there being a number of businesses vying for market share and so offering better prices for used vehicles. What many don’t realise is that used car prices was one of the big contributors to the increase in “Core inflation” that the Bank of England were worried about and so put base rate up by 0.5 points to 5% last month. Which the banks immediately passed on to their customers even though their exposure to BoE interest rates is circa 10% of the value of their loan book…

Re: A whole lot of depreciation

Happy to oblige :)

Re: A whole lot of depreciation

>the last ICE Lambo is likely to get special status as a collectible, especially if they sell only a limited production run.

The very last ICE Lambo off the production line will be a limited production run of one.

Re: Lamborghini going EV ?

>I also like seeing supercars out and about, they are getting used.

In my 20s whilst in California, a (UK) friend and I were astounded that a car rental company would rent us a Ferrari for $400 a day, needless to say that was a $400 well spent and enjoyed.

>"Petrolheads" and insist that an EV can't possibly scratch their itch

An EV doesn't have that hot oil and burnt hydrocarbons aroma, nor the sounds and vibrations your stomach feels...

My son and friends a few years back got the full immersive experience at Armourgeddon Leicester wen they started their restoration project Chieftain tank for the first time...

However, given back in the early 90's my then local cornershop in Tokyo had a machine that puffed out the aroma of fresh baked bread, it would not surprise me if they don't do similar for EV's.

Google says public data is fair game for training its AIs

Boot on other foot: Google’s ad analytics network is far game for training ad blockers

Can see more sites putting extra “prove you are human” hoops in the way of content access.

But definitely, the best form of defence is attack, so perhaps we need tools that for example can authenticate web crawlers and so decide what content (real or honeytrap) to expose… tools that can generate honeytrap rubbish in quantities LLM training require… perhaps an opportunity to prove a 100 monkeys with typewriters…

It's time to mark six decades of computer networking

Re: Now forgotten

Searching for something else and came across this resource:

https://historyofcomputercommunications.info/

Those sections covering areas I was involved in, seem to give a fair representation of events.

Re: Now forgotten

>What are you talking about?

Didn't say they were all wired the same and thus having a break out box and an ability to wield a soldering iron were useful to a "programmer"(*) :)

I wasn't aware of the IBM special Modu 10 pin connector.

(*) For those fammiliar with the saying "Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers" and variations there of, a soldering iron isn't a screwdriver...

Re: Now forgotten

>Funny thing is I (in my jeans and T-shirt) was making more per hour than any three of them (in their three-piece Armanis)

Mid 1980's £40 p/hr for Unix system skills, I wonder how many independent contractors are getting £120 p/hr today?

Re: Now forgotten

Tanenbaum seemed to do a good job of catching both the focus of the moment in the various editions and the changing view of the past, making each edition worth keeping as there was little real overlap.

Perhaps Bruce could consolidate his researches into circa 1960 data networking into a “prequel” volume…

Re: Now forgotten

Uucp might have been weird but it did work. Back then it was common to have to deal with the weirdness of differing vendors Unix platforms, where it seemed the only Standard were RS-232 terminal ports…

The OSI reference model was good navigational and educational aid and hence has relevant today. Personally, it would be good to review and update based on 40+ years of experience, where we have moved beyond telnet, file transfer and email.

The objectives OSI were good and the Internet does embody these.

The OSI services and protocols were well thought through, but at times the “absolutists” and need to accommodate differing vendors viewpoints was irritating and ultimately tainted OSI. interestingly, some of the newer (ie. Post circa 1990) work on the Internet Protocol Suite either originated in OSI or has benefited from tools developed to support OSI standards development.

Re: And earlier...

> And any history of networking in the UK must…

Include the Cambridge Ring, the Coloured Book protocols and JANET.

Re: Wonder....

But they did get a few acknowledgements…

>” I realized that there was a lot going on in the networking world 60 years ago too”

Computer Networks 1st edition by Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1981) gives a good coverage of the state of networking back then, before the Internet Protocol Suite came to dominate.

Brit broadband subscribers caught between crappy connections and price hikes

Re: Speed issues

> my kids do not understand the difference between "WiFi" and "the internet"

Neither do BT marketeers …

How a dispute over IP addresses led to a challenge to internet governance

Re: Leasing IPv4 addresses

One of the benefits of IPv6 is that it puts the entire address space on the same Ts&Cs - unlike IPv4, specifically all address blocks are leased and not owned.

Re: Time for IPv8

> They can't do that, for various reasons.

I would not be so sure, if they effectively control both the regional registrar and the resale of allocations to users, there is plenty of opportunity for profiteering…

Because the world turned its back on OSI…

Re: The issue with V6 is... NAT

>” The other issue with v6 is its complexity and its mixed autoconfig / discovery / announce functions, which are a security/management mess”

I’ve not had enough exposure to confirm, but it does seem many router/firewall vendors configure the IPv6 stack through the transposition of the IPv4 configuration and then give little visibility of the IPv6 traffic…

I dislike how there are multiple ways to configure the IPv6 connection to a 4G mobile network, yet only one will work and the mobile operator provides no information as to which one you should be using. Suspect similar will apply to fixed lines - although expect everything to be straight-forward if you use the ISP provided router.

Re: Time for IPv8

>” Frankly, almost all of the arguments about IPv6 boil down to”

You omitted a big one: not supported by ISP.

It is obvious here businesses such as Cloud Innovation and NRS have little interest in IPv6 because they can make (lots of) money from the scarcity of IPv4 addresses. I expect having established the business model for IPv4 they will simply transfer it to IPv6, as most people won’t understand..

Want to feel old? Ethernet just celebrated its 50th birthday

Re: Rings

That’s because you don’t play fairly and pass it on.

Microsoft signs 1.5 million seat contract for Office 365 and more

Re: Value for money

I get it’s more than teams and email.

However, for the majority of NHS employees their need to directly use 365 is very limited.

I doubt the NHS previously had a similar number of Office 13/16/19 licences.

Re: Not an MS apologist

> NOW if the NHS had it's own build of Linux…

Point the finger at the Cabinet Off8ce, they had the full picture of UK government IT expenditure, yet decided to throw money at Microsoft rather than invest in UK IT skills and industry…

It’s taken along time for the Conservatives to realise that having 42 independent and “competing” (when the. conservatives set up the health care trusts they prevented them from working together to get benefits of scale or in some areas needless duplication of service) health trusts meant the UK government and taxpayer weren’t getting value for money.

Re: Value for money

I presume the NHS deal is based on Microsoft 365 E5, full price is £52.40 user/month and charity/nonprofit £20.20 user/month.

Which would still seem to be a lot for Teams and email, given the majority of staff would only be using the medical applications and entering patient data directly into these.

Google accused of ripping off advertisers with video ads no one saw. Now, the expert view

Re: It Pays to Advertise?

> I have never yet seen an advert and bought the product.

I have researched the product, selected a supplier etc. and left my basket without checking out. Then clicked on the ad a day later that offers me a 10% discount on the price I was originally quoted…

They probably do, as do others looking through the ad revenue distorted lens….

It is interesting to note the complaints about the new ITVX app/service is the level of adverting that can’t be skipped or turned off and requires user action to play - so no making a cuppa whilst the ads play to an empty room.

Likewise Amazon Prime, all was “okay” until Amazon started doing “free with ads”, these break my setup - for these features they don’t support my normal setup: iPad hdmi connected to my TV, funnily (both Prime and ITVX) support streaming without complaint of such ad supported features via my Windows laptop similarly connected to my TV…

Microsoft's GitHub under fire for DDoSing crucial open source project website

Re: Lessons learned

>” Periodically check if your "server grade" infrastructure still meets modern standards.”

WTF does that mean in this context?

About the only thing that is relevant, is ensure you have put in place limiters so that you don’t get hit with stupid bills resulting from third-parties overloading your servers.

Now Apple takes a bite out of encryption-bypassing 'spy clause' in UK internet law

Re: PGP exports

The other way that has become popular is to print the algorithm on a tee shirt and so it becomes a work of art, even in the machine readable form….

Network security guy in extradition tug of war between US and Russia

Would not be surprised if he gets sent to the US, his time in prison will be curtailed, provided he accepts the job offer…

Microsoft's Activision fight with FTC turned up a Blizzard of docs: Here's your summary

Re: Sony

Being better than MS is a low hurdle; doesn’t mean they aren’t bad, just not as bad as MS.

Re: Here's a novel idea

The FTC could go full antitrust and force MS to divest its entire games business, office applications etc. leaving MS to choose to be in only one market…

Re: Sony

Yes, because they can’t out spend Microsoft…

Metaverses are flopping – hard – says Gartner

Re: Noooo! Reeeally? Who would've seen that coming.

First step would be a modern implementation of ubiquitous computing as demonstrated at Xerox Palto Alto Research Labs in the 1980s… There were several overview articles in Scientific American.

However the system was driven by smart badges and room detectors which effectively tracked every badge within the building.

Re: Noooo! Reeeally? Who would've seen that coming.

>” OK, they could have the manuals in the van, or know a few models, but the AR headset could contain details for thousands of models.”

The engineers I called out, have a mobile data connection on their laptop, they simply keyed in the boiler / dishwasher / washing machine etc. model number and they gain access to online documentation. Not sure if having the ability to use a camera to recognise the appliance actually adds anything, likewise the use of AR headset.

SAE says yes to making Tesla EV chargers an American standard

SAE Standard = Telsa relinquish patent rights + control of design

Ie. Learn the lesson of mobile FRAND patents and McLean’s intermodal container.

Nothing less should be accepted.