* Posts by The Brave Sir Robin

105 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Aug 2010

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UK police lack framework for adopting new tech like AI and face recognition, Lords told

The Brave Sir Robin

No budget for new tech

They won't have any budget for new technology by the time the Tories have equipped all the police with jack boots and lugers.

Netflix sued by South Korean ISP after Squid Game fans swell traffic to '1.2Tbps'

The Brave Sir Robin

But the bandwidth used by Netflix on any particular home Internet connection is just a fraction of the bandwidth you're allegedly being supplied by the ISP.

If I'm paying for, say, 30mbps ISP bandwidth and Netflix is consuming at most 10Mbps then I'm only using 1/3 of my total bandwidth. Therefore the ISP should easily be able to provide the bandwidth for everyone to watch Netflix. Not Netflix' fault if the ISP is overselling their bandwidth.

Happy with your existing Windows 10 setup? Good, because Windows 11 could turn its nose up at your CPU

The Brave Sir Robin

Miffed

I'm a tad miffed. I'm happily working on a 2012 vintage dual Xeon CPU Dell Precision T7500 with 48GB RAM. Works perfectly for my needs. Been using it every day when working from home this last 15 months. No TPM and no UEFI. A massive mistake consigning good quality, perfectly serviceable kit to landfill by Microsoft.

Hopefully they'll back down on these requirements before the final release.

Self-supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server virty users see stealth inflation

The Brave Sir Robin

IBM start Redhat on road to ruin

Who'd have thought that being bought by IBM would cause price inflation and ruin any good will towards Redhat that people have. I mean it's not like there's any previous from IBM.

Red Hat defends its CentOS decision, claims Stream version can cover '95% of current user workloads'

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: The RedHat corporate spinners won't fix this

A few subtle differences that any competent Linux admin will be able to sort out fairly easily. I've been using CentOS for many years but we're moving our estate to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS from CentOS 7 rather than moving to CentOS Stream.

We use Ubuntu on the desktop and with WSL anyway so changing Ansible scripts to rock up Ubuntu servers shouldn't be too big a job.

Boffins baffled as supergiant star just vanishes – either it partially blew itself apart or quietly turned into a black hole

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Pandora's Star!

Got to keep Morning Light Mountain locked up. Luckily we haven't invented wormhole technology yet.

Three things in life are certain: Death, taxes, and cloud-based IoT gear bricked by vendors. Looking at you, Belkin

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Never buy IoT kit

Never buying Belkin has always been good policy. Learned that a long, long time ago.

In tribute to Galaxy Note 7, BBC iPlayer support goes up in flames for some Samsung TVs

The Brave Sir Robin

I'd actually pay extra for a not at all smart TV

All I want is a nice large screen 4k TV without all the smart crap. Add more HDMI inputs instead.

Too much abandonware. Seen it with Blu-ray players too.

Get a dumb TV and just use cheap add-on players such as FireTV etc.Makes far more sense.

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

The Brave Sir Robin

Rock

It's very clear it's a fucking rock.

There once was a biz called Bitbucket, that told Mercurial to suck it. Now devs are dejected, their code soon ejected

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Git

Indeed it was. Better picture quality. Double sided tapes. Perfect still frame and picture search. Hard to rent films for though unfortunately.

Now you see them... IBM made over 800 UK jobs vanish in 2018 despite improving fortunes

The Brave Sir Robin

How are IBM still even a thing ?

How do they even survive ? What do they sell that even a slightly sane person would want to buy ? Surely everything they do can be obtained cheaper and better from a myriad of other sources ?

This weekend you better read those ebooks you bought from Microsoft – because they'll be dead come early July

The Brave Sir Robin

They have previous....

Microsoft are always jumping on a bandwagon that others have already made a success. They persuade some people, but not enough of them, into buying things from that bandwagon, then they pull the plug when it inevitably fails as they were too late into the market. It is only really safe to buy into MS stuff when they already have the market sown up and they are the leader.

Sky customers moan: Our broadband hubs are bricking it

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: It's been years since . . . .

Put your Superhub into modem mode and you'll be fine (but you'll need separate WiFi APs) . I'm running a pfSense router on a APU2 D2 mini PC from

https://linitx.com/

and it works perfectly. Been running this way for several years without any problems. The Superhub doesn't crash/lock up when in modem mode either.

German cybersecurity chief: Anyone have any evidence of Huawei naughtiness?

The Brave Sir Robin

Maybe banned because there are no back-doors

My suspicion is that Huawei kit is actually secure and there are no back-doors or spyware in it. No phoning home or anything dodgy going on at all. I strongly suspect they are banned in various countries precisely because of this. The governments on question can't spy on people using Huawei kit and thus don't want people using it. I'm more inclined to believe in Huawei's honesty over the US, Australian, UK and New Zealand governments any day.

Official: IBM to gobble Red Hat for $34bn – yes, the enterprise Linux biz

The Brave Sir Robin

Fuck !

That is all.

VPNFilter router malware is a lot worse than everyone thought

The Brave Sir Robin

Ditched SOHO kit

in favour of pfSense on a miniITX board. Highly recommended. OPNSense is also pretty good. Just got used to the GUI on pfSense.

Select few to watch World Cup in 4K high dynamic range colour on BBC iPlayer

The Brave Sir Robin

Fantastic

We can get terminally bored in very colourful high def. Can hardly wait.

Netflix and Prime are going to get a lot of use.

Ubuntu 17.10 pulled: Linux OS knackers laptop BIOSes, Intel kernel driver fingered

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Accidental Aardvark

Totally agree. Poor design. UEFI is a dreadful pile of dingo's kidneys. There's no way an OS should be farting about with BIOS code/settings and able to fubar your machine. Modern OSs are big and generally full of bugs and have no business messing about in the BIOS. I'm surprised this sort of fuckup doesn't happen more often. All mobos should have dual BIOSs to get you out of these situations and BIOS flashing/setting should only be possible from with the BIOS itself.

Musk: Come ride my Big F**king Rocket to Mars

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: (Don't mention) Moonbase Alpha

UFO was far better IMV.

Android O-mg. Google won't kill screen hijack nasties on Android 6, 7 until the summer

The Brave Sir Robin

They'll fix it, but users won't get it

The big problem with Android still exists. Users of anything other than brand new models will never get the updated Android with security fixes. Once you've paid your cash, phone manufacturers don't give a crap any more. People's only option is to flash a 3rd party Android on their phone, something which the average Joe won't have the skills for.

Google really need fix the problem of users being left out in the cold.

It's been two and a half years of decline – tablets aren't coming back

The Brave Sir Robin
Coat

Re: Consumer device

"I'll save my money for that trip to Iceland next year"

You shouldn't need to save up that much. Their prices are very reasonable. I particularly recommend their own brand fish fingers. Very good price for a packet of 35.

No, Microsoft is not 'killing Windows 10 Mobile'

The Brave Sir Robin

Recently went back to Android but wish I hadn't had to

For various reasons I returned to Android (I hated using an iPhone when I had one for work), mainly for some specific apps I need for work. However, if I could run everything I wanted on my Win Pho (Lumia 640), I'd go back in an instant. I much prefer it to Android. I gave the Win Pho to the wife and she really likes it.

I notice that updates for my Huawei Android phone are coming through thick and fast, NOT !! In that respect, MS are doing a better job than Huawei. Had the same abandoned feeling on my last Android phone which was a Samsung.

Consumers go off PCs as global shipments continue their decline

The Brave Sir Robin

Because modern laptops suck

A few years ago you could buy Inspiron laptops with 1920x1200 screens and fast HDs. You could customise on purchase with a choice of screens, memory, graphics cards, hard drives and upgrades to Windows Pro.

Today, affordable laptops aren't customisable, have really shitty 1300x760 screens, slow hard drives and not enough RAM. You can't get a good mid-range PC as good as the ones from a few years ago. So why buy a new one when it is more than likely not as good as the one you already have.

PC manufacturers are their own worst enemy here. Make the machines as good as they used to be and people will buy them.

User jams up PC. Literally. No, we don't know which flavour

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Turbo Button

Turbo buttons should've been called snail buttons. When 'on' the PC ran at its normal speed. When 'off' it was slowed down so older badly written games would play properly.

Batman v Superman leads Razzie nominations

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: only a fool would go to watch a musical if they don't like musicals

"Especially fools who love their other halves."

Or is trying to woo an object of their desire.

I remember sitting through the nightmare of Grease back in the day hoping for a romantic result. No romantic result was worth sitting through Grease for though.

Busted Windows 8, 10 update blamed for breaking Brits' DHCP

The Brave Sir Robin

Not ISP related

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1947168-dhcp-not-working-on-windows-10?page=1#entry-6448641

Star Trek Beyond: An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: I'm going to see it anyway

So am I. I've rather enjoyed the first two reboot films. Entertaining. Which, after all is the aim of a film isn't it ?

I'm a Star Trek fan and have spent a fortune over the years on VHS and DVD copies. But looking objectively I would say about 50% of all Star Trek episodes from all the series are a bit rubbish, 25% OK and 25% excellent.

Microsoft sabotages own Lumia smartmobe flagship launch

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: No comments an hour after posting.

I recently bought a Lumia 640. After several Android devices over the years I have to say I love the Lumia. Bloody cheap and yet does everything I need or want and I really like Windows Phone. Far more satisfied with it than the Galaxy S3, S2 and HTC Desire that preceeded it.

Fedora 22: Don't be glum about the demise of Yum – this is a welcome update

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: DNF

Did Not Finish

This has been my experience with dnf. Gets almost to the end of a dnf upgrade and then just hangs.

So tablets, if you want to get anything done travelling get a ... yes, a laptop

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Wrong tablet

Dell Venue Pro-11. Fully capable laptop replacement. Works excellently as a tablet and a laptop with Windows 8.1 Pro. Never managed to properly incorporate my Android Transformer tablet into 'proper' work. With the Venue I can do most things my full sized laptop can do.

Microsoft stands on shore as tablet-laden boat sails away

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: "I rather like the Windows 8 interface on a fondle slab"

I believe thats what I said. I like it on a fondle slab but hate it on a mouse driven laptop or desktop.

You need a choice. Why not have full fondle interface on a tablet and a start menu with Metro apps in floating windows for laptops/desktops. How about a check box to switch between the two modes ? Not a big deal for MS to provide that. Maybe they'll come to their senses and do that in Windows 9.

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: I was very pleasantly surprised...

I happen to think that netbooks were a good idea. I really liked mine. A bit too slow unfortunately. This tablet is much, much faster. The Venue 11 has a lot going for it in that its not an iPad, more useful than my Asus Transformer TF101 for actual work use in that it runs Office properly and stuff like Cisco VPN, can join a domain and can be managed by Enterprise software. It is much faster than the old netbooks and has a massive battery life. It also has a fairly good touch interface and a active stylus for note taking.

What's wrong with any of that ?

The Brave Sir Robin

I was very pleasantly surprised...

...when I bought a Dell Venue Pro 11 from the Dell Outlet at a rather fantastic price. Its a great piece of kit and I've discovered that I rather like the Windows 8 interface on a fondle slab. I hate it on a mouse driven PC or laptop though, The price I got it for was in the 'take a punt' area. Not sure I would have at the full retail price.

I find the Venue Pro much more usable for 'real' work than my Android tablet and I'm using it in preference nearly all the time. Battery life is awesome and the speed from the quad core Atom CPU is more than acceptable. I just wish there were a few more and higher quality 'apps' in the store for fondle use. I end up having to resort to the desktop with the optional keyboard dock much of the time due to poor quality apps or the unavailability of them.

Due to it running a full copy of Windows 8.1 Pro it can be fully managed in the domain setting and can run any corporate utility and security software.

I really, really like it much to my surprise. Enough that I'm going to recommend trialling them at work. They could do with a price drop though.

Microsoft compliance police to NHS: We want your money

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Government

In order to stop the constant and unnecessary government interference and inefficiencies you'd need to find a government not made of public schooled fuckwits.

So, what exactly defines a 'boffin'? Speak your brains...

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: A plea: bring back real boffins on TV!

Having said that... There should still be as much of Professor Alice Roberts on telly as it is possible to fit in. I feel that I learn an extraordinary amount from her.

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: A plea: bring back real boffins on TV!

We need a Magnus Pyke and a Heinz Wolff for the 21st century. Bring back "The Great Egg Race".

UK govt preps World War 2 energy rationing to keep the lights on

The Brave Sir Robin

That's because..

...the people in charge are a bunch of self serving, greedy, useless, public school fuckwits no matter what colour badge they wear.

Microsoft tries to trademark 'Mod' in the US

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: TIFKAM

Oddly enough. I was going to say exactly the same thing but prefixed by the word utter.

Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A

The Brave Sir Robin
Pint

Re: Search as primary means of navigation?

This is one of the most true and wise posts I've ever read here. I am in awe.

The Tomorrow People jaunt back to the airwaves

The Brave Sir Robin
Thumb Up

Re: That awesome Tomorrow People theme

I used to love the Tomorrow People when I was a kid in the 70's. The music really set the mood. Feeling nostalgic and very old right now. I hope they do a good job on this. Supernatural is one of theirs and that is excellent so they can make good telly if they try.

Microsoft's summer update will be called Windows 8.1

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Come back Vista. All is forgiven.

I'd take the POS that is Vista over Windows 8 with TIFKAM any day.

The Brave Sir Robin

Re: Numbering

Come back Vista. All is forgiven.

The Brave Sir Robin
Unhappy

Surely a more appropriate name would be

DESQview 2.8. 'cos that's more or less what the new bloody awful user interface is like, only worse. At least DESQview could have more than two windows open at the same time.

I do hope that sense prevails in the end.

'Million-strong' zombie army devours Raspberry Pi's crunchy base

The Brave Sir Robin
Headmaster

Research Machines. Now there's a blast from the past

I remember playing with the school 380z a very long time ago. It was one the only computer the school had until the BBC Model B and a 48K Spectrum turned up.

Those were the days. I remember giving the physics teacher (who had responsibility for the computers dumped on him) tutorials on it. I had to teach him how to use CP/M and code in BASIC and Pascal (which I'd been learning for O level computer science at an FE college 'cos my school couldn't teach it) .

iOS 6.1 KNACKERED our mobile phone networks, claim Vodafone, Three

The Brave Sir Robin
Facepalm

Fanbois possibly responsible for sat nav failure ?

A heck of a lot of UK Tomtom sat nav users have been unable to connect to the Live Traffic HD service since Feb 6th. The service is hosted on the Vodafone network. The error is something along the lines of "Can't establish wireless data connection".

I'll be well miffed if my getting stuck in traffic is Apple's fault. Not content with buggering up fanbois navigation they want to bugger up everybody else's.

Have Brits fallen for Netflix, or do they still LoveFilm?

The Brave Sir Robin
Flame

Re: Netflix for me

That argument is bollocks. Netflix runs on Gingerbread and even Froyo. The whole Android "fragmentation issue" is also bollocks. Developers need to write their code properly. Netflix runs on anything with Froyo or newer. The only issue potentially is for someone running a cheap and nasty budget phone/tablet.

The market share argument for supporting Apple over Android is a non-argument and there is no fragmentation issue for Android if the code is properly written. The BBC and Sky seem to be populated by Fanbois IMV or they're in Apple's pocket (probably in the case of Sky anyway). It is fundamentally wrong of the BBC to waste license fee on supporting the Apple platform over Android when there are more Android using license fee payers.

Cut off 50% of their customers ? How can they cut off 50% of their customers when they don't bloody have any customers ? BBC iplayer on Android is lazily and badly written, relying on utterly rubbish Adobe technology to bodge in DRM. Sky Go is so crap it's not worth bothering with even if it does work on your device. Amazon just want people to buy Kindle Fires so they won't support other devices even though there's no technical issue why not.

If Netflix can produce a quality product on a wide range of Android devices then there's no excuse for Sky, the BBC and Lovefilm not to do the same.

The Brave Sir Robin
Thumb Up

Netflix for me

With Netflix I get HD content with 5.1 surround sound on my WD TV Live STB and great HD video on my Android phone, Android tablet and PCs. Using the DNS bodge I get access to the US content. Currently working my way through some series I missed such as Warehouse 13, Eureka and Breaking Bad.

Lovefilm doesn't support Android which is a big no-no for me. Especially as there's no reason for this as they do support the Kindle Fire. Also no support on the WD TV Live.

It amazes me that Netflix can provide HD quality streaming on Android tablets and phones with DRM but the likes of Lovefilm , Sky and the BBC can't. Perhaps they should license streaming technology off someone who knows how to do it like Netflix.

New stats: Blighty's PC market ended 2012 on its KNEES

The Brave Sir Robin
Meh

There's very little reason to buy a new PC...

...unless the one you have is broken. I'm a s/w developer and I'm more than happy with my 5 year old Dell laptop which is very heavily used and serves my needs perfectly. My wife and son are also pretty happy with their Dell laptops too, both of which are even older than mine. All the machines do what we all want, so why spend money on a new one? We may have to replace the wife's machine which is suffering from very floppy hinges but it won't happen until the day it breaks. I expect there are many people out there with perfectly adequate older machines just like us. Windows 8 is certainly no incentive to buy a new machine given that it is crippled with TIFKAM.

Microsoft to end Windows 8 discounts on January 31

The Brave Sir Robin
FAIL

Yeah

Good luck with that.

NRA: Video games kill people, not guns. And here's our video game

The Brave Sir Robin
Coat

They'd better ban Team Fortress 2

'cos there's bound to be a mass outbreak of teenagers beating people to death with wet fish.

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