Posts by GitMeMyShootinIrons

Eight in ten IBM Global Tech Services roles will be offshore by 2017

Re: hmm.

"Laser focus? When you see a red dot on you, take cover."

It's IBM - shouldn't that be a blue dot?

Flying blind: F-35's radar software fails in the air

Re: Lockheed-Martin...

And the associated bribery and conniving to flog it to other countries. Bad enough that it was a key factor that resulted in the US Foreign Corrupt Practices act. Makes you wonder what a desperate project might do behind closed doors these days.

Q: How many guns to arm nine coachloads of terrorists?

So we have the value in Terrorists, but...

There is an alternative measure for this magnitude of weaponry - the number of Arnold Schwarzenegger action characters. For 500 or so guns and a quarter of a million rounds of ammo, the value in Arnies would be around 1.

I was going to suggest using Chuck Norris - but there aren't that many guns in the world.

SpaceShipTwo ready to slip the surly bonds of Earth for Virgin Galactic

To the negative comments...

Commercial passenger space flight has to start somewhere, if only to develop the technology and evolve passenger confidence. What Virgin are doing is no different to the first fare paying aircraft passengers in the late 1900s/1910s - a quick spin around an airfield. It's not big, but it's a beginning.

The paperless office? Don’t talk sheet

Re: Paperless office - about as likely as the paperless loo.

But how do these Dutch manage to roll their own joints if they're paperless. Surely it gets a bit messy...

Ah, that new 'baby' mainframe smell: IBM shows off z13s

New baby smell.....

Most smells coming from babies are not particularly pleasant. It gets worse as they get older - I remember one of mine eating some fish based baby food and then came the projectile vom from Hell. And now they're teenagers. Filthy beggars....

Can't upgrade, won't upgrade: Windows Mobile's user problem

"iOS9 is supported on a 4S, which launched at the end of 2011." As part of Apple's long running an-update-too-far policy to force users off older kit by grinding them to a halt. Having seen what iOS 7.1.2 did to my iPhone 4 and iOS 4.2 did to an iPhone 3G, well Apple aren't the best example to use.

My fear is that Microsoft are getting pressurised into doing the same thing here - releasing Windows 10 for devices that don't suit it. A more sensible path would be to keep older, low-spec devices on the reliable 8.1 release and keep it maintained in parallel for, say 2-3 years. Who knows, may be an 8.2 release with some feature updates as they did with obsolete Windows Phone 7 when 8.0 came out. Certainly better than promising the Earth!

Come on kids, let's go play in the abandoned nuclear power station

Re: 30 year useful life; 300 year useless after-life

Average life expectancy of a wind turbine - 20-25 years. I wonder how long the reinforced concrete bases take to degrade? And these are about as useless.

Boeing just about gives up on the 747

"Boeing don't seem to get cabin noise. Their machines are so much noisier than the Airbus equivalents." On Long haul, I'd agree. On the shorthaul though, I tend to find the 737 tends to be better than the A320 family. They do make some rather loud groans when they move flaps and landing gear. I'm reliably informed that heavy consumption of beer suppresses the noise experience...

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

I used to do quite a bit of work on NetFintiy and System X back in the day. If I remember right, late 90's/early 2000's would have been IBM NetFinity boxes with PII and PIII Xeons. In fact a quick Google found this amusing piece from El Reg - http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/04/ibm_ups_pc_server_price/

The x235 was around 2003 (http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/9/897/ENUS103-039/). For it's time, a beefy little tower that could certainly support the specs mentioned, though it's likely a P4 Xeon.

A few wires crossed methinks. Happens to me all the time. I blame senility and overdoing the coffee.

Murderous necrophiliac kangaroo briefly wins nation's heart

Fifty shades of sand...

This image is for those who think the exploits of Christian Grey aren't quite twisted enough. Combining necrophilia and bestiality in one photo....

Hyatt says hackers took card data from 250 of its hotels

Fortunately..

...I'm too poor to afford such a luxurious hotel. Sleeping under a bridge with cardboard and a paper bag wrapped bottle of anti-freeze class Vodka doesn't require a credit card.

Turkish carder scores record 332-year jail term

Doing serious porridge...

He'll be watching Captain Kirk's five year mission live from his prison cell. Well, the pile of bones in the corner will be.

Intel lobs out new Core m3/m5 Compute Sticks, shouts 'Fetch!'

Wait for the new ones to come out and snap up last year's model for a bargain - These are already around the £70 mark, so the new ones should squeeze them down further.

Windows XP spotted on Royal Navy's spanking new aircraft carrier

It'd be more convincing with the BSOD screen saver too.

Apply online to go to Mars. No, seriously

Re: I know that I would make..

Jeeves was tutting and shaking his head when you made this comment about the lower end of the working community, or how I like to put it 'the gene pool'. I believe he found that it somewhat offensive.

I, on the other hand, found it amusing - I nearly spat out my caviar and dropped my breakfast glass of Boërl & Kroff Brut.

Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950XL: Clear thoughts of Continuum with a snazzy camera

Re: Wow

Which is why Windows is so big on the desktop. Android - the mobile equivalent of PC Windows. A Pyrrhic victory at best.

Re: Could have been a winner...

"I've owned several Windows Phones and I see no evidence to suggest they're any faster or responsive than Android."

Generally, that's because the Android manufacturers have loaded the phones with bigger CPU and more RAM to compensate. My various experiences with Android lead me to feel that it's 'adequate, but fiddly and underwhelming'.

Re: the main question is...

I too have the 1020. It's Achilles Heal is this lag - largely down to driving a monster camera through a less powerful CPU. Still, I've yet to find an Android phone or iPhone I'd trade it for - 'er indoors has an iPhone 6+ which is massively over priced and offers me nothing, while my kid's Samsung was flimsy and I find Android too much of a faff.

I'm interested in the 950XL, but I think I'm going to hold off for a while and see how things develop.

"The strategy (to be fair, not only Microsoft but many Android vendors too): ship it - sell it - forget it." Actually, 7 phones got a final update (to 7.8) that bought most of the 8 features to handsets that otherwise lacked the grunt to run 8.

Of course, you could go the other way like Apple who are not above updating a product to destruction - with the oldest product receiving 'one last update' that tips it into unusable, as happened with the 3G and the 4.

Short weekend break: Skegness or exoplanet HD 189733b?

Re: Reasons for not going to Skegness

It's Skeg-Vegas - if you're a bumpkin from the East Midlands, then you're likely to suffer some form of PTSD related to the place.

Nano-NAS market dives into the cloud

Cloud data services....

Sorry, but I've yet to be 100% convinced about using cloud as a primary data store.

1 - Getting the data there and back on a home broadband connection is somewhat less than reliable or fast. My LAN is GbE, my broadband sadly is not.

2 - Broadband goes down, so does my data. My LAN might still work, but that don't matter if my data is all cloudy. I'm not sold on Chromebooks for a similar reason.

3 - I'm supposed to trust these folks with my data. It's not extenal hacks or physical theft that worries me, it's the vendor themselves. Cloud providers and there offerings come and go, sometimes at the drop of a hat. One steep pricing change and you need to move your stuff PDQ!

ISIS operates a crypto help desk – report

In other news....

Isis released a press release announcing that they were outsourcing their help desk function to a call centre in Bangalore. Staff were notified this morning, with half of them detonating in protest, the rest beheaded as part of cut backs.

Microsoft shelves 'suicidal' Android-on-Windows plan

Re: Never fear

"Yes, WinCE (aka "wince") had a respectable presence, but nothing compared to Nokia and Blackberry."

Actually, when the early Windows Mobile based phones were launched (2003), Nokia was essentially limited to the Communicator - a great device, but vastly more expensive and not all that more capable. Blackberry made nice phones (everyone liked the keyboards) that did some internet and email, but in those days (to mid 2000s) was purely locked into Blackberry services - a vendor lock in that in many ways proved its undoing later on (Note that the iPhone and Android went down the MS path of native connectivity rather than a proxy solution).

In terms of the US market, a bit of Googling shows that in 2007 (according to this article - http://bgr.com/2011/12/13/apple-and-google-dominate-smartphone-space-while-other-vendors-scramble/), MS peaked at 42% of the US smartphone market (Compared to RIM at 35%, Symbian at 3% and the new Apple iPhone at 11%). This surprised me, but, of course, MS didn't adapt - This was the Windows Vista period remember. RIM briefly resurged, but the Apple and later Android juggernauts all but gobbled up the market after that. Quite fascinating - if MS had taken the market seriously, they might still be a serious player. A pity really - the market is somewhat lacking in choice these days, particularly at the low/mid end.

Microsoft rolls out first 'major update' to Windows 10

Re: Work In Process

Name me a desktop OS that is finished (ignoring those that get 'finished' through abandonment or those burned into hardware)?

All OS, whether distributions of Linux, OSX and Windows remain largely unfinished. The earlier they are in their release cycle, the more issues crop up. I'm not saying Windows is perfect, but over the last 20 years, I've yet to find a completely flawless OS.

Perpetual fixes for bugs - ah, you mean patches. So these don't exist outside of Windows either? And as for phones, well, do we really need to go into flaws and bugs in Android or iOS, let alone Windows Phone/Mobile/Telex/Fax...?

The more features and twiddly bits people want, the more complexity rises and the greater the risk of faults creep in. Unless you want a really small, functionally hobbled install (which can really only be achieved with Linux), then its an inevitable evil.

Damn! Where's that in the start menu? Or do you have to use a seductive voice and ask Cortana nicely?

TELL ME! NOW!!!!!

US military readies drone submarine hunter

Re: Skynet

I, for one, welcome our slightly damp naval Overlords.

Complete with Blue Squid of Death.

Drones are dropping drugs into prisons and the US govt just doesn't know what to do

Extreme solution

Instant termination on being found guilty of a crime. Any crime.

No prisoners = no prisons = no drone problem.

Problem solved!

Re: Kaboom

"If a rare bird gets accidentally downed by one" - let me make that more accurate - "if a rare bird gets accidentally turned into red mist by one"

If MR ROBOT was realistic, he’d be in an Iron Maiden t-shirt and SMELL of WEE

I've not watched it yet...

..but will it ever beat the accuracy and acting talent of the BBC classic 'Bugs'?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_(TV_series)

Ever been burned by a bad IT decision? Of course you have!

Not holding a grudge but...

I did once buy an Orchid Soundwave 32 SCSI sound card. When Microsoft released Windows 95, Orchid refused to release drivers for it saying that they only supported their new Orchid NuSound board. What a con!

I'm not bitter....

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Son, you do know we don't need these to see what bears do in these woods...?

THESE ARE THE VOYAGES of the space probe Discovery

NEOCam

But it needs more than cameras - perhaps something in the multiple megaton range, or perhaps Bruce Willis and a bunch of mining engineers?

Sure, it'll be nice to see the object before it destroys all life on Earth, but perhaps the ability to do something about it would be a nice bonus...?

Roku 4 specs leak: Yes, it's got 4K streaming and a games controller

Re: Amazon prime video?

"Why?

Because Amazon want to sell you the streamed video AND the player. And the content of their app store."

A little unfair given that Amazon do clients for smart TVs (Samsung and LG for a start), Xbox, iOS and Android devices.

Lies from VW: 'Our staff acted criminally but board didn't know'

Re: German pronounciation

"Sadly, I don't use a handy German to read my articles to me. I have to make do with reading them to myself, in my head."

You don't? I always keep one around. I sometimes get Jeeves to harass him with a fake moustache and a swagger stick. Most inappropriate, but terribly funny after a few G and T's....

WATERPROOF iPhone 6Ss? Old news. Check out the OTHER 7 SECRET FEATURES

But.....

Does it have an Infinite Improbability Drive?

NIST's quantum boffins have TELEPORTED stuff over a HUNDRED KILOMETRES

Duuurrrrhhhhhh.

My brain hurts. I'll stick to knitting.

Cisco shocker: Some network switches may ELECTROCUTE you

Re: Huh, techies using the wrong screws?

Now where did I put those B & Q 3" Masonry Screws.....

Microsoft starts to fix Start Menu in new Windows 10 preview

"I've got 4,600 executables in $PATH on my laptop (Gentoo)."

Bully for you, old chap. And the point of the exercise was what, exactly, besides wasting disk space? Is this like some form of stamp collecting, or collecting train numbers?

Salon Privé: The UK's billionaire-friendly answer to Pebble Beach

Getting toward range you can live with.

So long as the range figures are 'real world' and not something like VW American emissions testing, then we're getting to range figures that you can live with. Just a shame these cars are a little bit out of my price range (my price range for an electric vehicle is more second hand milk float...).

Doctor Who storms back in fine form with Season 9 opener The Magician's Apprentice

"Overall the new 8 previous Dr WHO series have been cheesy and lame. About time it grew some balls like the old ones used to have."

Cheesy and lame - like the terrible, kids show scripts that poor Sylvester McCoy had to put up with? Or how about the third Doctor's Whomobile? While the newer run has had ups and downs (Clara...), the good old days weren't always that good.

Windows RT gets new Start menu – but no Cortana or Win 10 apps

Re: Personal Touch.

"And a grovelling apology for foisting such crap on you in the first place."

Calling it crap is harsh. It was a reasonable version 1.0 product that was about as appreciated as the finest steak sandwich would be at a vegan food conference. And bought by about as many too.

Less Windows RT, more RIP.

What Reg readers really think will affect IT in the next three years...

3D TV

Yes, This will be the year of 3D TV. And Linux on the desktop. And we'll all be zipping around with Jetpacks, while roasting chestnuts on our home thermo-nuclear pile.

Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?

For me, the worst would be Sylvester - but I tend to think it more the fault of the scripts and storylines than the actor. By this point, the series had truely devolved to a children's TV series. If Auntie aren't careful, Peter Capaldi could be heading down a similar path - a good actor hamstrung with poor storylines.

For me, though, the best would be Tom Baker. It's the hat, scarf and maniacal eyes!

Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership election

Re: Congratulations!

"That just sounds to me like balance. The Tories have fucked up the economy four times in my lifetime too. And they've fucked up the railways, the NHS and the schools in between.."

The railways were screwed way before privatisation (about the time it was nationalised). The civil servants ran it at the behest of the unions and left it, slow, late and filthy (now it's less late, a bit faster and much cleaner - just over-priced). The NHS is a wonderful, but flawed ideal that is based upon a myth of being "free" and yet consumes (tax payers) money like a Hoover, while offering services well beyond its remit (boob job anyone?). Schools have been under Union rule for decades - and God help anyone who dares question them or quantify their competency.

As for the economy, only four for the Tories? Every time Labour got in, they left it in worse condition after. Labour inherited an economy on the rise in '97 and took us into a deficit unlike anything in UK history. Oh, and look back at the left wing consensus in the '70's with Heath (barely a Tory) and Labour systematically allowing the unions destroy the UK economy, even as the oil started flowing from the North Sea. Or how about Labour wasting cash nationalising businesses the state had no reason to be involved with (cars, chemical, even sugar!) - money that would have been better spent on a multitude of areas that are the role of government- like infrastructure, defence and perhaps even the lefty favourite- decolonisation. When Labour screw up, they do it big time, every time.

I know the left are associated with red, but let's draw the line at looking at the past with rose tinted lenses.

However, I agree with balance - his election will add a comedy factor to parliament that hasn't been seen since Labour's 1983 election manifesto. Plus, the anti-Europeans have now gained a powerful ally - that might make the euro-referendum a little less rigged.

C5 tablet-using newsreader hotness

Re: Obvious really, its...

"Or a midget in a bikini*"

Surely, after the Snow White dwarf discrimination debacle, this should be "friend in gender-neutral swimwear"?

'A word processor so simple my PA could use it': Joyce turns 30

Amstrad PC

I remember having an Amstrad PC1512 (with dual 5/25" floppies!). We also had the PC version of LocoScript too. Worked like a charm and pretty straight forward too.

I had a few games too, but they looked terrible in CGA (Microprose F19 Stealth Fighter in cyan, magenta, black and white....).

Ah, ye good olde days!

It's still 2015, and your Windows PC can still be pwned by a webpage

Re: Yawn

"Start at the bottom and outside and work up and in."

Now that's a wonderful phrase in so many ways!!!!

Heigh ho, oh no! Politically correct panto dumps Snow White’s dwarfs

Re: Political Correctness Lunacy

Agreed - didn't we outgrow this stuff in the 90's? However, if we follow their logic the Soviet Socialist Republic of Leicester has made a major mistake. They still call the lead character Snow White. Surely, this too is discriminatory in a racist way - perhaps "Snow Counter-Racist-Approved-Pigmentation" would be a good alternative. I really think that this works for a new PC title....

Snow Counter-Racist-Approved-Pigmentation and her Seven Friends

Really rolls off the tongue (*rolls eyes*)

British killer robot takes out two Britons in Syria strike

Re: How would they have hurt anyone in the UK ?

In the case of this strike, it could be argued as "tidying up some of our mess".

After all, the pair came from the UK to take part in rape, murder and destruction - the RAF has prevented further participation, without a boot on the ground. Problem solved, no tears to shed.