Posts by alain williams

A Year of Code timeline: History of a HYPEGASM

Message to Rory Cellan-Jones

I think that the Year of code is a good idea in principle, but:

* why only one year ? It is a skill that will be needed by all kids from now on, forever.

* 'exclusive' ? Eh ? I see the main value of the year of code as giving people a clue as to how computers work; lift them up from the level of icon button pushers. This should make them more effective users since they will have some clue as to the limitations and strengths of computers. I don't expect many of them will want to become programmers. This insight is similar to the reason why history and geography are taught in school - education on matters that are important so that we understand our place in the world.

Facebook adds 50+ gender options: Stalking your 'Friends' just got more LGBT-friendly

Re: WTF!

I was told that one large UK Gov't department has several values for gender: male, female, male was female, female was male & I think 'unknown' & a couple more where people had decided to revert to their original gender.

None of this is about preference of sexual partner - and is (or should be) of no interest in a corporate database.

GPs slam NHS England for poor publicity of data grab plan

I did not get a leaflet

I always look through the rubbish that comes through the letter box - just in case.

I had heard about this (here or on slashdot & friends emailed me) so I wrote to my GP, to be asked to fill in a form that contained the same information that I had given them in my letter. I had previously written to my GP to opt out of a similar scheme in 2010.

'No, I CAN'T write code myself,' admits woman in charge of teaching our kids to code

Lottie Dexter should be sacked

Would they appoint as head of the English Tourist Board someone who had never been to the country or even seen a map ? Of course not. However: the numpties who appointed her are so clueless that they could not understand that having some understanding and insight is necessary.

Pathetic!

CERN outlines plan for new 100km circumference supercollider

Re: How much?

Well, just slice something off government departments that do not really benefit mankind:

World wide military spending $1.7tn

NSA estimated $10.8 billion

USA armed forces 2011 $664.84 billion

GCHQ, MI5 & MI6 £1.9bn

Note that the above are annual budgets, a new collider would only be paid for once.

Hands up if you have one good reason to port enterprise apps to ARM

Re: Hand is up

If your application only works on machines of a particular endian - it is broken, full stop, no excuses.

It is not hard to make applications work on machines of different: endian or word lengths.

Vodafone's Euro revenues slump by nearly TEN PER CENT

So - no tax payment then ?

Their accountants can probably use this to magic away any profit at all.

IBM nearly HALVES its effective tax rate in 2013 - report

If the big companies need to do it ...

to be able to turn a profit, what hope us small, non multinational, businesses that don't have the ability (or desire) to evade tax by shuffling money around the world?

Politicians from different countries need to get together and agree ways of stopping this sort of thing, even if it does hurt donations^Wbribes for research^Wfavours.

Apple and Samsung STILL in bitchfight over banning ancient mobes

I wish ...

these companies would compete by producing the best products rather than hitting each other with lawyers over trivia.

The real message is to small competitors: don't mess with us, we can afford more legal firepower than you can.

Volunteers slam plans to turn Bletchley Park into 'geeky Disneyland'

Re: Says it all really

Yesterday Iain Standen phoned me back after I called to complain about the fracas. He told me that the tours had been standardised and that 90 minutes was too long for visitors.

I said that visitors should be given the choice.

He seemed to know of the discussion on El Reg; I said that he should contact them to give his side of the story.

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Phone them, tell them what you think

I just did (01908 640404), I had been asked to organise an outing there - but it will prob not happen, there now seems to be little point.

The internet is 'a gift from God' says Pope Francis

Re: Pope in believing in God shocker

and I always thought that it was Al Gore who invented the Internet!

Manipulating others

He must be referring to the church itself, after all it is an expert organisation at convincing people that its mythology is true -- in the fact of facts and lack of evidence.

The violent agression is what they threaten will happen to you in a supposed after life if you don't do what they say.

And the winner of the most reliable disk drive award is ...

Buy from different batches

All disk fail sooner or later. I always mirror disks in machines, so my main concern is if the 2 disks fail close together in time. That is why I try to install disks that are likely to not have the same lifetimes, so preferably made by different manufacturers or at least different batch numbers.

IBM's Watson-as-a-cloud: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's another mainframe

IBM should ask Watson itself

If it is as good as it is cracked up to be it will be able to tell its keepers how best to use it to earn $10bn per year :-)

Campaign to kick NSA man from crypto standards group fails

Better to have him where you can see him

Remove him and the NSA will just put someone else into the standards group, but this time it won't be known who he is. Keep Kevin Igoe and at least we know to treat all his suggestions with a shovelfull of salt.

Amazon, Hollywood, Samsung: PLEASE get excited about 4K telly

Spend the money on script writers

rather than on shoving more pixels at me.

Give me plot over special effects every time.

This seems like just an excuse to pursuade people to buy a new TV that they don't really need.

Google and Apple in DRAG RACE: It's fanboi Mercs VS fandroid Audis

Tie in ?

As long as I don't need a particular sort of phone depending on what sort of car I have. That would be a nightmare!

ICO to focus only on 'serious, repeat' data-protection offenders

Should we send them an Xmas prezzie ?

A truck load of nice, soft pillows - since they are now trying to do even less than they do now.

Speaking in Tech: The Snowden Effect... Why 2014 will be the year of PRIVATE cloud

Re: It's sad

Try shooting those who he exposed as doing wrong -- not the messenger.

NSA spies should clean up their act, says Prez Obama-picked panel

The real report ...

starts with 2 recommendations:

1) Don't get caught again

2) Make sure that we catch whistle blowers in time

How the UK's national memory lives in a ROBOT in Kew

Backup copies ?

I hope that all of those many TB of data are mirrored in a couple of protected data centers a looong way away from London. Then nightly rsync to keep them up to date. Probably not very expensive considering what these copies are protecting.

Re: Lots of dead trees

given how hardware and software changes over the years, it seems to me the only real way to make sure all this stuff is archived for future generations is to print it.

That is why the UK government should madate the use of a properly specified document format such as .odt (Open Document Format). The use of proprietary or poorly documented formats such as that various changing Microsoft .doc/.docx should be outlawed (they are not properly documented in spite of Microsoft committing fraud by buying enough ISO voting countries to be awarded is ISO number).

The same should be applied to other storage mechanisms, eg: CAD & GIS - proprietary formats abound and the major vendors frequently change them so that users constantly need to buy new versions to be able to read what people send them.

EU legal eagle Legal: Data protection reforms 'very bad outcome' for citizens

A one-stop-shop will be a bad thing ...

for lawyers, there will be less demand for their over-priced and under-delivered services if people can do it themselves.

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

If they allow copyright on APIs ...

then they should also make the following sorts of things proprietary and charge people a fee for building compatible parts: anything that uses a nut/bolt type thread; anything that uses an AAA battery; anything that uses a 3 pin plug; readers of books published in a new font; ...

The EU courts wisely say that APIs cannot be copyrighted. Hopefully the USA judges will take note.

Brit inventors' GRAVITY POWERED LIGHT ships out after just 1 year

Brilliant appropriate technology

I hope that they do well.

Australian political games could see full TPPA treaty revealed

How far in advance ?

2 minutes ? Or something equally slim to avoid changes before it becomes law.

US Supreme Court says 'no sale' to Amazon's New York sales tax appeal

Back taxes ?

So will Amazon have to pay back taxes ? They might claim that they should not because they did not collect them from the consumer in the first place - but the tax man could deem that 10% (or whatever) of what was paid WAS sales tax so please hand it over (correction: they would not use the word 'please').

That might be an interesting tussle.

Best budget Android smartphone there is? Must be the Moto G

Re: Charger

Good: I have too many old chargers from all sorts of things. The lack of a charger will save the environment and a few pounds. This is exactly why the EU mandated that all 'phones have the same USB connection.

REVEALED: How YOU PAY extra for iPHONES - even if you DON'T HAVE ONE

Message to mobile operators

Just don't sign the Apple contracts. Apple need you more than you need them.

When a new iphone comes out put a message on your web site saying: we cannot sell you an iphone as we refuse to agree to Apple's outrageous demands.

If the meme catches on with several mobile carriers, they will not lose out to their competition and Apple will have some incensive to behave properly.

Boffins baffled after Sun fails to fry satellites

The sun growing up ?

Maybe the sun has finally stopped being a teenager and all these disfiguring spots will be a thing of the past.

HP redundancies all about getting 'cheaper, lower skilled' bods

Oh no - more monkeys!

Good for sorting out problems where they can be given a simple procedure to follow. Hopeless when there is something unusual.

Whovians, your Doctor needs you: Take back the Day from One Direction

How much is El Reg being paid to push Who ?

OK: I do like the show but it is just a bit of fun ... will readers of this site make a significant change to viewing figures ?

PUNISHMENT gluttons: The Dr Who monsters that come back for more

Ood as foes ?

The Ood are more victims of other various baddies. If they have acted against the Dr it is because they were compelled to.

The title is wrong, rather than 'foes' put 'species' or 'characters' or something.

UK.gov BANS iPads from Cabinet over foreign eavesdropper fears

What about the direct feed to Cupertino ?

Forget malware, what about these things being tied to the Apple HQ? All the settings and other stuff that Apple ''helpfully backs up'' and so sucks down to its data centers. The NSA will have a copy of that! iWhatevers belonging to MPs, civil servants and industry top brass are going to be of special interest.

I have been yelling at my (Tory) MP about this since he got elected, the message has still only got partly there :-(

Blighty's laziness over IPv6 will cost us on the INTERNETS - study

Re: alain williams IPV4 best for the general public

Wow! It is not just your head that is in the sand.

Dual stacking by adding IPv6 is not hard, I cannot see why you are afraid to do it. Google and Akamai (to name but two) support IPv6, they would not do so if there was little point. I respectfully sugest that they know more about it than either you or me.

Do not make excuses for inaction.

Your suggested solution of adding another couple of octets to the IPv4 4 octets would be just as disruptive as the move to IPv6 with not as much of the gains.

Re: IPV4 best for the general public

Sticking your head in the sand will only result in you getting sea water up your nose when the tide comes in. You might be fortunate that most of the web sites that you want to go to have IPv4 addresses, in the West we got allocated lots of IPv4 addresses, that is not true for, eg China. It will change.

BTW: Pinset Masons is reporting old news, that report has 2012 written all over it!

El Reg not IPv6

Indeed. My own external servers went IPv6 4 years ago; I went IPv6 at home a couple of years ago. It is not hard. Unfortunately I did need to change ISP - my old one did not know what IPv6 meant.

May I use this comment to offer my services to help El Reg implement IPv6.

They've taken my storage hostage ... now what?

Daily incremental backups

What is so hard about it ?

OK: I know that many do not do it, but no serious computer user can pretend that they have not been told to do it.

Having said that: it took an arson attack next door to their offices to get some customers to agree to my nagging to install a backup server.

UK.gov open to hiring ex-con hackers for cyber reserves

Computer misue act ?

I thought that attempting to crack/access/... someone else's computer was an offense under the computer misue act ? Does doing it while working for the government make it OK ?

This is different from going to war and killing people while you do it. (Murder is against the law innit ?). The point is that sending troops to somewhere is very publically visible and needs a debate in parliament. The trouble with ''cyber troops'' going on the offensive is that I can see this being authorised by some minion, or perhaps a government minister, - but without oversight. I can see this being used many, many times a year to attack ''obvious bad 'uns'' ... but ''obvious'' to who ?

I can see this being abused/misued.

Volvo: Need a new car battery? Replace the doors and roof

Bang the car, short the battery

It looks as if a tiny prang would bend it, short the battery and in no time at all the car will not move.

Hmmmm

NHS preps spammy mailshots advertising 'BIGGEST medical data grab in HISTORY'

Who is the NHS contracting to store this info ?

Because if it is a USA company (or has ties to the USA) then it will be grabbed by the NSA using the Patriot Act. I don't have any embarassing diseases, but I still don't want the USA gov't noseing around in my privates.

Why a Robin Hood tax on filthy rich City types is the very LAST thing needed

Do they know what ''science'' means ?

''The 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences''

Economics is not a science, the closest that it gets is to be a branch of psychology. In spite of what the egg head bean counters want you to think - you can only make vague predictions and forget the notion of rigorous repeatability.

Facebook throws servers on their back in HOT TUBS of OIL

Is it really worth the effort ?

How much CPU time does it take to generate a typical facebook response ? How significant is that CPU time compared to disk/network delays ? What is the cost (build & maintainance) of putting machines in oil ? Would they not be better just installing a few more machines ?

Overclocking is good for long running heavy CPU situations where extra paralellisation does not help; weather forcasting comes to mind.

NSA tactics no better than a CYBERCRIME GANG, says infosec'er

What is the fall out cost

of all of this to innocent business/individuals that have to deal malware and other crap that these people throw around ? Where do we send a bill ?

TWELFTH-CENTURY TARDIS turns up in Ethiopia

So, how many still missing ?

100(ish) just found, but many of those would have been ones that were not 'lost' and so not so spectactular a find.

US spy court says internet firms can't report surveillance requests

Re: In which case ...

BTW, I keep hearing that US sysadmins of multinationals now should not be allowed into data centres in other nations - anyone know why?

Because such sysadmins must obey the laws of the USA. This means that they can be ordered by their government to spy (copy data, insert backdoors, ...) from where they are employed, even if their employer has nothing to do with the USA.

If you handle anything remotely sensitive you should not use a USA citizen. I find this amusing, when I were a lad you would not employ a citizen of the USSR for much the same reason; how the world has changed!

US regulators seek public input on plan to investigate patent trolls

Re: Hunting trolls? You're doing it wrong!

You want to get rid of trolls, FIX THE FRIGGIN' SYSTEM!

Far more fun would be to let the large USA gun lobby have a go!

Oracle sued over $33,000 bill for SaaS: STRIPPERS as a SERVICE

Pictures or it didn't happen

Thus providing an excuse for an e-Reg hack to flex their corporate credit card...

The NSA's hiring - and they want a CIVIL LIBERTIES officer

Protect you much as does your local mafia rep ...

''that is a nice little data center that you have there, it would be unfortunate if it were compromised''.

OK: they don't want your cash[**]; my point is more about use of English, claiming to do one thing while doing something very different. Those who want to believe it will do so and loudly shout that they are the good guys.

[**] well, not directly. They get it indirectly via the taxes that you pay.