Posts by John Brown (no body)

Microsoft tests 'upsells' of its products in Windows 11 sign-out menu

Re: Free model

I was going to suggest you forgot the joke icon or the <sarc> tags, hence the downvote you got. Then I took note of the username and realised you're being entirely serious LOL

Windows Insider Program Team Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc

Does have an extra wide business card?

Unlucky for some: Meta chops 13% of global workforce

Re: Two things...

"Yes men (and women), never get the sack..."

Sometimes, they do. When the boss makes a good call, the boss is right. When the boss makes a bad call, the boss was right but it was bad advice from the yes people who should have advised the boss not to do it.

Yes, latest one here in the UK is Made.com, mail order online furniture shopping website. It seems far too many companies who made out like bandits during the switch to onlne during lockdowns somehow thought that was going to translate to a permanent situation.

Another big part of it is how companies and the stock market operates. Once upon a time, a large wealthy company had money in the bank and could weather a storm. Nowadays, money has to be put to work, so companies invest their profits all over the place and then borrow money for expansion because their investments earn more than the cost of borrowing at the historically low interest rates we've had the last few decades. Not only is that borrowing now costing more, but for tech companies hitting a post-lockdown slump after the lockdown profits are seeing their stock prices drop because they can't maintain that high profit level now. The stock market demands growth. Fail to grow, and no matter how well the business is doing, the share price falls.

Obviously there are other factors too such as inflation, fuel costs, etc that are affecting all businesses, but the ones who expanded during lockdowns seem to be affected the most because they didn't plan for the obvious end of lockdown and people going back off-line, but now their external investments have fallen and borrowing costs have risen.

While my inner cynic completely agrees, on the other hand, maybe the FB PR machine has been watching the clusterfuck of the Twitter lay-off announcement and managed to talk the Zuck into trying to appear a bit more human. His AI may have been upgrade to simulate some emotion and empathy.

China's first domestic single-aisle jet, the C919, scores 300 orders

Re: Historically

"Maybe, if the Chinese product is really inexpensive to buy and operate they might sell a few outside China. But not a lot?"

If they ramp up production to higher levels than their huge internal market can accommodate, or for "influence" reasons, they will be selling cheaper to non-traditional growing markets such as much of Africa and Asia. I very much doubt they will bet targeting the US or EU markets for at least a decade or two, maybe longer.

Re: Historically

"Even then though, you'd have thought that the major markets are likely to be Russia and African nations, and possibly South American nations. I doubt that they'll be seen in Europe or North America anytime soon."

That's not really an issue for China. They have an enormously large internal market and plan in decades, not four year election cycles.

Microsoft's $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard under investigation by EU regulators

Re: Point of Order...

"I'm sure there have been some crazy fools out there who have done it, but anyone who attempts to play that game with a controller will rapidly run out of buttons to assign actions."

XBox and PS5 already support keyboards and mice.

This ancient quasar may be the remains of the first-gen star that started us all

Re: "the so-called Population III stars"

Until, of course,. you compress H under immense pressure and get "metallic" H :-)

I don't think that's been done, but IIRC it's been postulated that Jupiter may have either a metallic H core or a layer of metallic H around the core.

LG debuts thin malleable screens made from contact lens material

I'm dissappointed...

...no comments about MOTIE watchmakers?

"Maybe if people stopped buying the bloody things by the truckload they might be arsed to change them."

Isn't that why the article reported on LG losses? People not buying TVs and panels?

Tesla recalls 40k cars over patch that broke power steering

My first ever company car was a Citroen BX. The only significant problem it had was the back box of the exhaust fell off the day before the car was due to be replaced at 180,000 miles (just over three years old!) :-) Oh, and the paint on the fibreglass bonnet didn't seem to adhere properly. Chunks of paint across our entire fleet had flaked off along the front edge.

Not having a turbo, the diesel engine was a bit slow to get up to speed though.

All the US midterm-related lies to expect when you're electing

Thanks, I just did quick search. Looks like few tried for more than two terms although limiting to two terms was more a gentleman's agreement in the past, Teddy Roosevelt tried for a third and lost, only FDR had almost four terms, dying in office and the 22nd amendment happened in 1952 limiting it to two term whether consecutive or not.

Re: You don't hack the count

So, no such thing as rehabilitation then? Doesn't the USA have one of if not the highest per capita prison populations? Sounds like there is a lot of disenfranchisement going on.

Re: You don't hack the count

"throw out voter registrations because the voter is presumed to have a felony conviction and make it virtually impossible for the record to be corrected"

Whoa...wait...what? It's not just those in prison who can't vote, but even those who have served their time and been released, if it was a "felony" conviction, can NEVER vote again for the rest of their lives? Or is there some sliding scale where even after release, they can eventually become a voter after some length of time has passed?

Re: Registro de votantes

Maybe American "Spanish" is like American "English". Almost, but not entirely unlike the original version :-)

Re: 4chan still exists?

Maybe Musk will make an offer for it :-)

"That is the law,"

Question from not in the USA. Is it the law that someone can only ever serve two terms across their entire life or is it that they can only serve two consecutive terms?

"The way the tories pick the next idiot in charge has been subject to much complaint from non-members."

How many non-members of the Labour got to vote in their leadership elections? There may be some minor procedural differences, but that's pretty much how all parties elect their leaders.

Swiss drone-busting eagle squadron grounded permanently

Re: Headline creativity

My I suggest "The eagle has landed - permanently"

Where Eagle Daren't?

At least that cable cars in it and many people associate cable cars with Switzerland :-)

Europe wants Airbnb and pals to cough up rental property logs

Re: It had to happen

Deploy? Why, when people are already installing them left, right and centre, voluntarily, at their own expense and paying to upload the video to "the cloud"?

Twitter begs some staff to come back, says they were laid off accidentally

"Does the Reg have anything to say about those reports?"

It does. Maybe you read a different article to me. They even point out that the "redundantised"[sic] people will continue to be paid and technically are still employees of the company on non-working notice.

Re: Modest proposal.

Usenet still works.

Feds find Silk Road thief's $1b+ Bitcoin stash in popcorn tin, hidden safe

Re: I Don't Get It...

I wonder which, if any, cryptocurrencies could cope with cashing $3B in one go?

Stealing $3B in crypto requires a certain skill set. Cashing it out safely and hopefully anonymously and moving it somewhere you can then use it, is a very different skill set. And IIRC, it's tanked down to less than half it's value since it was stolen. And you'd not get the full value back in cash anyway if you have to start using middle men to launder it.

Parody Elon Musk Twitter accounts will be suspended immediately, says Elon Musk

Are you implying he may "do a Robert Maxwell"?

Re: Free Speech!

"Olympus Mons is not an island. No point in having a lair if it's not on an island."

From an Earthbound point of view, it's an island in the sky. One which far fewer people could access than any terrestrial island in the seas of Earth :-)

Catching a falling rocket with a helicopter more complex than it sounds, says Rocket Lab

No extra rocket burns, it's hanging from parachutes when they try to catch it so falling fairly slowly. It still sounds bum clenching though.

Re: On what scale?

The overall "mission" succeeded, they recovered the 1st stage. But the Plan A recovery method failed so they used Plan B, which did succeed :-)

Thunderbirds had magnets strong enough to carry entire aircraft!! And that was back in the 1960;s :-)

Run a demo on live data? Sure! What could possibly go wrong? Hang on. Are you sure that's not working?

Re: chain ferry

Nah, they upgraded to an unbreakable block chain.

Sizewell C nuclear plant up for review as UK faces financial black hole

Re: Its ok

It will take legislation to reduce "green" electricity. Currently (pun intended), all energy is sold at the price of the highest priced source. This means the solar and wind generators whose operating costs have gone up only with the cost of living (in simplified terms), are making out like bandits because they are selling product at the vastly inflated price of gas generation.

The legislation is required to unlink the "strike price" of gas from non-gas sourced generation. Despite all the hot air coming out of Westminster, I'm not seeing any suggestion that the Government is even considering this, let alone acting on it yet.

Elon Musk reportedly outlines horrible Twitter layoff process

Re: The blue bird rises like a Phoenix

"Voting rights are not being unduly restricted in the US. There is simply a fundamentally broken electoral system that favours VAST bureaucracy and complexity in order to employ a vast number of people."

I didn't say they were unduly restricted in the US. I was disputing the claim that they are more restricted in Europe than the US. On the other hand, your statement above seems to confirm that voting is more restricted in the US than it ought to be even if only by incompetent bureaucracy rather than ill intent.

AIUI, in the US, the onus is on the person to register as a voter. In the UK, at least, every residential address is regularly sent a form (annually, more or less) listing those who live there that are registered to vote, which can be ignored if there are no changes, or any new eligible voters can be added to the form and sent back to the returning officer to update the Electoral Register. It's generally very simple although in some cases new residents at the address may need to go in and show ID to prove who they are and there eligibility to vote

Ah, but hat was the SEC and The Law telling him what not to do, and he's rich. This is sacrosanct Employment Contracts he's talking about. Far more powerful and easier to enforce, not matter what silly clauses may be in them, especially if you can't afford a decent lawyer.

Re: Meh

I would suggest they take up Ballet, since the ballet dancers all went of to re-train as coders :-)

Twitter employees sue over lack of 60-day layoff notice

Re: Idiot dot com'ers..someone not in the Bay Area I'd guess..

That's a pretty shitty attitude to have for the people who do most of the actual work in most companies. Not everyone can be the queen bee like you because the queen bees like you NEED the drones to survive.

...except, in some jurisdictions, such as the UK and EU at the least, they are NOT fired. They are on notice of redundancy and therefore still employees on the payroll depending on how long they have been employed for. The notice period is normally 1 week for every full year employed after the first year. And that notice period starts AFTER the legally mandated consultancy period of a minimum of 30 days (I assume the EU is the same since UK laws haven't changed much if at all since Brexit)

If their UK contracts include stock options, then illegally "firing" people without proper consultation and notice period will quite likely mean that in law they are still employed for the relevant period and therefore also entitled to any benefits they would have got if not illegally laid off.

IANAL but have some experience of being made redundant..

"They didn't invest in AI for the moderation (which is the only scalable solution)"

Sorry, can't reply because I'm laughing too much!!!

7,500 favoured friends? That's stretching "jobs for the boys" a bit! Or maybe they are all Facebook "friends"? ;-)

Re: Idiot dot com'ers..someone not in the Bay Area I'd guess..

"As long as there is a reasonable severance package people should not complain."

The problem with that is that it's only the 1%ers who get those sort of severance packages. The other 99% get offered a basic contract, take it or leave it. If you leave it, there's queue out the door waiting to take it. Almost everyone in a position to negotiate their employment contract is a 1%er.

"When the cost of the office space an employee occupies exceeds their salary, you have a problem."

Just make them work from home, simples. Oh, wait. This is Musk. He *hates* WFH :-)

Re: handling layoffs

I suppose it depends a lot on the law, how it's worded and how their employment contract is worded.

The last time I was made redundant, I was on 12 weeks notice and working it, not sitting around at home. On top of that, I was entitled to 12 weeks redundancy pay, due at the end of the 12 weeks notice period. I applied for and was offered a new job within 2 weeks of the formal notice period starting, with a start date at the beginning of week 4. Once notice has been given, my current/old employer has no say over when I actually leave other than they don't have to pay wages for any remaining notice period but still have to pay the full 12 weeks redundancy pay I'm entitled to, and cash for any unused holidays.

If they had chosen to not have me work my notice period, I'd still be entitled to those 12 weeks pay for as long as I don't find new employment, but that doesn't affect the redundancy pay but will affect the unused accrued holiday pay. In my case I left with 8 weeks notice still to go so "lost" those extra days annual leave I would have accrued. Which doesn't matter of course, because I'm now being paid by the new employers, accruing annual leave in the new job, earning more than the old job and have 12 weeks worth of wages/redundancy pay in the bank, and no unpaid time off work :-)

UK government set to extract hospital data to Palantir system without patient consent

Is the pandemic over yet?

"agreed not to extend Palantir's contract beyond the pandemic without consulting the public."

Who decides/has decided the pandemic is over? I'm sure the pandemic is over/not over depending on who you ask, when you ask them and whether there is profit or political capital to made from answering yes or no.

Re: Hidden backlog

And 50% of the appointments will be people wanting to talk about stuff that years ago we dealt with ourselves with a quick trip to the Chemist. The other 50% will be people who went in for something seemingly minor and were told to take a couple or paracetamols and call back in a week or two if it hadn't cleared up, by a busy and overworked GP mostly trying to do their best with few resources.

Google cut contractors off from online 'Share My Salary' spreadsheet, union claims

Yes, MS would have no reason to block access, but Google might be adding a very specific URI to their firewalls :-)

Maybe people working for/at MS should do the same, but store their data on Google while the Googlers move theirs to MS?

Re: Google knows everything

Soylent Google is MADE FROM CONTRACTORS!!!!

Dell hit with Oz court case for misleading prices on monitors

Re: If it was a genuine mistake

Interesting that they had to be told about this "error" that seems to have been raking in extra profits for well over two whole years too (at least!).

Did it really take that long before anyone noticed? Or does "justice" take that long to wind it's way from the consumer complaints to the "system" officially informing the vendor?

Assuming Dell were told of this quite early on by consumers and they did nothing about it implies that either the complaint was never passed up to someone who could take action or Dell figures the fine will be less than the extra profits they made. Either way they are guilty of something. But leaving it for so long will strongly imply to a judge that it was deliberate price gouging and Dell will most definitely be able to identify every single customer by purchase order who is affected. This ought to mean refunds of the difference, possibly plus compo and bigger fines for the offence.

Lets hope it goes to court and not end up with some wishy-washy out of court settlement where the lawyers take most of the settlement and the punters get a $5 voucher they can spend back at Dell (ie it's worth £1 in actual cost to Dell)

BT re-enters pay talks to prevent further strikes, says union

It's not how you read it, it's the actual words.

"making a different" should be "making a difference".

"We have called a meeting of your local branch official" possibly should be "at your local branch office" or maybe "with your your local branch official" and in the same sentence, "next steps ifs our talks fail to meet an acceptable way", "if" instead of "ifs" and fail to meet an acceptable way" sounds very wrong to me :-)

The problem with poor grammar and spelling and saying "I read it as..." leaves it open to interpretation by others in a different way. It's why we have so many issues with project managers :-)

Hot, sweaty builders hosed a server – literally – leaving support with an all-night RAID repair job

Re: Movers

Not had that, but at least two occasions where the delivery would need stair crawlers and four people, we paid for that, ie "delivery to room". The delivery company had subbed the final leg of the delivery out to a company and only paid them for "delivery to kerb". The two of us there to commission the kit Were Not Happy, to say the least.

Re: Botched Aircon

"Apparently the master switch had to be located there rather than internally. It is now protected with a lock to prevent unauthorised switching, and better temperature monitoring..."

Sounds like the emergency isolation switch for use by the emergency services, especially fire crews. Putting a lock on it may not have gone down well at the next inspection, assuming they remembered they were supposed to check that.

Re: Botched Aircon

"a proper aircon unit that was somewhat overspecced for the job."

There was this one customer I used to visit every now and then who had a freezing cold "server room". It was quite a large room, maybe 50 feet by 30 feet. It contained 7 servers, a couple of switches and the usual ancillary gubbins. One of the servers was in the rack with the switches and patch panels. The others were floor standing beasts from before it was standard to but kit that fitted in racks. And it was bloody FREEZING in that very large, almost empty room! Even at the height of an exceptionally hot (for the UK) summer, I always took a coat with me :-)