Posts by a pressbutton

We read the Brexit copyright notices so you don't have to… No more IP freely, ta very much

Re: TL; DR

Feeling conflicted

The Archers would certainly change - no more authentic borsetshire gibberish.

Joe Grundy made his exit stage left at a good moment

RIP.

Re: locked basement of your local library

my bad memory

or perhaps that leopard is the incarnation of project fear.

Red tape

If you want no red tape, you need to fill in the correct form on the govt website as it is now blue tape.

Supplies of blue tape may be rationed in the short term and you need to apply to the local planning office which is in the locked basement of your local library which may or may not be open when you visit it.

We, Wall, we, Wall, Raku: Perl creator blesses new name for version 6 of text-wrangling lingo

You don't meet many poor COBOL programmers.

Survivor bias imo.

The bad ones became managers or consultants etc.

Google: Read my lips. You cannot link up a G Suite account with Nest smart home gizmos

That woman has a very odd finger

does that picture disturb anyone else?

something odd with the first finger joint.

You can trust us to run a digital currency – we're Facebook: Exec begs Europe not to ban Libra

On the upside

Well, I am sure I will be able to pay my uber ride-share fee with Libra.

First they came for 'face' and I did not speak out because I... have no face? Then they came for 'book'

1 Trademark 'Comment'

2 Comment

3 wait....

4 Profit!

Has outsourcing public-sector IT worked? The Institute for Government seems to think so, kinda

Summary != Summary on website

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/government-outsourcing-reform

Expecting to see some garbage from some alt-left|right wonktank, I was rather taken aback on reading the abstract.

This is not quite what I gathered from your article. This is most of the summary of the summary and there is very little there for me to ridicule.

...

It finds that outsourcing waste collection, cleaning, catering and maintenance services has delivered significant savings and benefits to citizens. Particularly in these areas, bringing services entirely back into government hands could lead to worse and more expensive services for the public.

The report also shows that consecutive governments have overstated the benefits of outsourcing. Senior politicians regularly claim outsourcing can still deliver 20–30% savings but there is no evidence to support this.

It highlights a series of high-profile contract failures – including security at the Olympics, welfare assessments, offender tagging and probation. These contracts have wasted millions of pounds, delivered poor services and undermined public trust. The outsourcing of probation failed on every measure, harming ex-offenders trying to rebuild their lives.

Consecutive governments have outsourced services with no market of good suppliers or in pursuit of unrealistic cost savings – and without a reasonable expectation that companies could deliver efficiencies or improve the quality of services.

The report recommends that the current government must strengthen its commercial skills and capabilities, makes ministers and officials more accountable to the public and improve the evidence base that informs outsourcing decisions.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

Re: @John G Imrie American Expansionism

Don't be mean about trump.

With just a sharpie and a piece of paper he can change the course of hurricanes.

Like McGyver but better.

Only a small step from that to the 7th planet in this solar system and then onwards to infinity and beyond at the centre of the galaxy.

Deloitte man kept quiet at Autonomy's internal audit committees, says scrutiny chairman

Nuts on basic principles

Courtesy FT Alphaville 11/09/19:

We’ll leave you with this, a quote from Sun Microsystem’s founder Scott McNealy. Having watched the stock of his company appreciate nearly 14-fold during the dotcom bubble, and then collapse 95% during the bust, McNealy was bemused that investors ever considered paying what now looks like a rather diminutive 10 times sales for the computer hardware company’s stock at its peak in 2000.

Why? This is what he told Businessweek in 2002:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2002-03-31/a-talk-with-scott-mcnealy

At 10 times revenues, to give you a 10-year payback, I have to pay you 100% of revenues for 10 straight years in dividends. That assumes I can get that by my shareholders. That assumes I have zero cost of goods sold, which is very hard for a computer company. That assumes zero expenses, which is really hard with 39,000 employees. That assumes I pay no taxes, which is very hard. And that assumes you pay no taxes on your dividends, which is kind of illegal. And that assumes with zero R&D for the next 10 years, I can maintain the current revenue run rate. Now, having done that, would any of you like to buy my stock at $64? Do you realise how ridiculous those basic assumptions are? You don’t need any transparency. You don’t need any footnotes. What were you thinking?

10 times sales…

… that made me think

Autonomy was sold for $12bn 18/8/11 and revenue to the end of the last FY – 31/12/10 was $870m

That is a ratio of 13.8 times revenue.

Facebook: Remember how we promised we weren’t tracking your location? Psych! Can't believe you fell for that

Samsung phones

... not sure I can delete facebook from my Samsung note 8

yes, I have tried.

Cash carousel spun between Filetek and Autonomy, Lynch employee tells court

Re: Nothing to see here

Thanks for frying to explain this

Tesla Autopilot crash driver may have been eating a bagel at the time, was lucky not to get schmeared on road

Re: What a complete plonker!

erm

The more the system does, the less likely a driver is to be inattentive.

a)

The more the system does, the more likely a driver is to be inattentive.

or

b)

The more the system does, the less likely a driver is to be attentive.

FTFY x2

The purple SIM of fail: Virgin Mobile punters left in the dark with batch of borked cards

I see they are re-aligning their mobile service so it has the same qualities as vm broadband.

If so it is a dns failure / cabinet failure / leaves on the line / the fibres are fraying.

Clutching at its Perl 6, developer community ponders language name with less baggage

Absolutely.

It is the geeks equivalent of nationality.

(I am a citizen of Perl5 and PowerBuilder and VBA - pity me)

Brit software giant Micro Focus takes a bath after share price crashes 30%, sales tank

Re: WTF is....

Another term for bit rot?

Otto man thrown under the bus: 33 crim trade secret theft charges for ex-Uber exec Anthony Levandowski

Otto man

A uber employee treated like a piece of furniture.

He though the was so near that stock option fortune but then it turns out he was sofa.

Pouffe went those stock options

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

Re: Futureproofing for the next big thing?

how long would it be until it became obsolete due to the advent of AVs?

I think about the same time commercial fusion becomes mainstream.

~10-20 years

This has been the case since the 70s.

Charging points

There are 110 houses in my road. Some of those houses are flats - another 60 or so.

6 houses and ~20 flats could charge EVs.

the other 144 households have no chance.

I think the real answer is electric busses - a proper bus network, not one every tuesday - more car rentals - and less car ownership.

Electric vehicles won't help UK meet emissions targets: Time to get out and walk, warn MPs

Re: Hydrogen? Seriously?

"This combination doesn't apply to most people."

Where I live it does apply to all but 2 houses in the entire road.

It applies to well over half the town I live in.

(note to self, stop feeding the ACs)

Don't trust Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, boffins warn: Zuck & Co know that hash is king

Re: Wait, what?

I will be enjoying your illustration of prior art in 25 mins

Not sure why anyone is surprised.

Right now, if your bank is in a friendly jurisdiction, appropriate people can probably see what you have been spending money on. I suspect it is a relatively burdensome (rightly so).

IT / Technology exists to make things easier and cheaper - so with facebook libra appropriate people (by their definition) can probably see what you have been spending money on even if you are a dog on the other side of the world, just through an appropriate login.

if this gains a good share of transactions, Govts will love this because (as long as it is accurate) it would provide an almost real-time view on the state of the economy.

Thinking further, if that money is then passed on to another Libra user Facebook can start to develop a detailed map of worldwide money flows at a granular transactional level

For example you (joe) buy a widget from a small trader (jane) who sources those from a bulk importer (jose) who imports them from someone in china (jinjing)

If this was all in Libra and there are many such transactions, you can start to develop a map, much like the security services and telephones - except you have a bit more than metadata.

Now, with libra it may be possible to sell a list of joes to the jinjings

I am not sure whether to be horrified or buy Facebook shares.

Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

X220 forever

I still have an X220 as that was the last one that had a _proper_ keyboard.

Very few people care that this thing is 2cm thick or whatever rather than 4cm thick.

chicklet is fine for entering the name of your favourite cat video, but if you want sustained use you want a proper keyboard

most of the target market for this will use the keyboard a lot.

(the new work laptop since April is a dell and ... I am still using the 8yo X220)

Truckers, prepare to lose your jobs as UPS buys into self-driving tech

Re: Techno Fools Gold

https://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/robotic-lawn-mowers/automower-450x/967853005/

needs buries guide wires - but is GPS enabled

and

https://www.ambrogiorobot.com/en-gb/models/view/l60-deluxe

This one does not need a guide wire

Re: Delivery drivers do more than just drive

I was looking for a reason to post this link

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-49329720

"A woman said she was left amazed by an "extra special" Amazon delivery after a box of LED bulbs was apparently thrown through an open upstairs window."

World recoils in horror as smartphone maker accused of helping government snoops read encrypted texts, track device whereabouts

Someone should have said "xaiomi the evidence"

Why did the WSJ think they would get huawei with such reporting?

Donald Trump blinks in his one-man trade war with China: US govt stalls import tariff hike on Chinese phones, laptops, electronics

Re: Toys R Us

I think you would find that the _shelves_ were made in china.

Top 5 greatest anime crossovers: Samsung deploys Microsoft at Note 10 hootenanny

Fingerprint reader

does the fingerprint reader work if you have a screen protector?

I have a tempered glass one on my note 8 - and it is the second one - and I will need to replace it soon.

Cloudflare punts far-right hate-hole 8chan off the internet after 30 slayed in US mass shootings

Land of the free

The left pondians do seem to like their positive freedoms a lot.

- free to speak

- free to shoot

- free to drive

- free to be shot

They seem to be less worried about some negative freedoms

- free to not be shot

- freedom from illness - free healthcare

I would not criticise them, all cultures are a complex balance of freedom-to and freedom-from.

But when their leaders tell us 'this is terrible, it must stop' (*)

and then pass by on the other side of the road and do nothing, I get more than a whiff of false virtue

(* No, not particularly pointed at Trump, at all people over there in power who said ... it must stop ... and did nothing )

Our hero returns home £500 richer thanks to senior dev's appalling security hygiene

Passwords with long lives

... in my experience, some database passwords have not been changed since the mid 90s

If at first you don't succeed, Fold? Nope. Samsung redesigns bendy screen for fresh launch in September

The market for folding phones..

- Certainly in Asia (Korea / China / Japan etc) people have a phone and quite often no other device

- Young people who want share content irl

- people who want to be able to read that **** website who do not has 20/20 vision

Indeed massive.

They are not really selling to westerners age 20-45 who have a panoply of kit (probably a lot of el reg's audience)

no, I wont be getting one either - in my case because it needs 2 hands to use.

and i want to see someone else use it for a while.

'We've done it, we've wasted further time!' Judge raps HP over Mike Lynch court scrutiny

Step 1

I think Rabinowitz's strategy is to try to establish that Lynch did read - and so know - things he has said earlier he did not know.

(Rabinowitz hopes to prove that Lynch knew Autonomy was fraudulently bulking out its revenues to make itself look like a tempting takeover target.)

Step 2

Building on that he can then say that he has had a controlling hand and influence over other things

(Rabinowitz hopes to prove that Lynch influenced or controlled the bulking out of revenues at autonomy)

Step 3

Then he can claim that Lynch committed fraud

... Looks like he is stuck on step 1

How does UK.gov fsck up IT projects? Let us count the ways

Re: CoD

Managing projects through the medium of a team based FPS.

Like your style.

Literally rings our bell: Scottish eggheads snap quantum entanglement for the first time

I need to think about that.

Isnt that an abbreviated bad haircut?

Accounts whistleblower blackmailed Autonomy for a payoff, Mike Lynch tells High Court

No one is innocent - or guilty

HP clearly paid too much for Autonomy

HP clearly did not do appropriate DD for a $12 bn aquisition

The HP environment was clearly not a good fit for autonomy

Autonomy flattered it's accounts - but at the time, a lot of people were doing that and it was not necessarily illegal at the time

I do see a lot of mud being flung, but I see no dirty deals done (yet) and do not expect a perry mason moment.

I think the judge will decide both sides are awful and he should get his life back.

Tesla’s Autopilot losing track of devs crashing out of 'leccy car maker

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

"Computer-driven cars only have to be shown to be at least as safe as human drivers to be successful."

No

They have to be _much_ safer than human drivers

and

Regulators have to decide who is to blame when the car does kill someone.

If Tesla sell FSD as true self driving, well, it is not the passengers, is it?

Who goes to prison for mowing down that child on a bike?

Poetic justice: Mum funnels £100 into claw machine to win single Dumbo teddy for her kid

Re: Did she learn nothing?

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing - Margate Fhtagn

www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFfSLnRTMkgY&usg=AOvVaw1Em2RxKP_p6BoUUTsyTD1X

It's official. You can get FUCT, US Supremes tell scandalized bureaucrats in rude trademark spat

dont get his ancestors started on the waltz...

HP CFO Cathie Lesjak didn't even read KPMG's Autonomy due diligence before $11bn biz gobble

This is just nuts:

Page 9

- Management estimates the underlying organic growth to be about 15% to 17%

-Target has maintained a consistent gross margin since 2009. Target expects the gross margin to decline slightly in the future with the growth in the hosting business

-Free cash flow after interest and tax is estimated to be slightly more than $200 million in 2011.

Page 14

-Target’s organic growth rate has declined in both its core business and overall business

- Target includes the results of its acquisitions in its organic growth calculation immediately after acquisition.

Page 16

- Target has $193 million of deferred revenue at June 30, 2011. The balance at closing is estimated to be a similar amount.

- Management did not provide detailed information to support the fair value estimate. As such, we have based the calculation on aggregate data and market comparables.

The hosting offer was growing but so was the capex to support the hosting.

------------

so...

- it is a profitable company

- growing about 17%pa and possibly slowing

- gross margins likely to fall

- red flags over acquisitions (not exceptional at the time tbf)

- red flags over deferred revenue (not exceptional at the time tbf)

as to the value...

I am not sure what an appropriate valuation metric would be but back in '11 the price - fcf ratios were

microsoft 3

apple 4

ibm 5

opentext 6-7 (competitor at the time)

unilever 8

autonomy

12,000m / 200m = 60 - clearly nuts

To me it seems HP management thought they knew something the world did not and paid $12bn for a ~$1-2bn co

- and later on it turned out they did not, and that made them sad.

It's official! The Register is fake news… according to .uk overlord Nominet. Just a few problems with that claim, though

Re: Nice write up! Excellent fact checking!

The laws of supply and demand also apply in the digital economy. Tripling the supply of domain names should reduce the value of any single domain to almost zero due to oversupply.

Not true.

The value of $a_very_long_name_that_is_not_very_memorable_or_relatable_to_a_commercial_or_other_entity.uk

will indeed -> cost of provision

but

$a_short_very_memorable_name_commercially_useful.uk

will -> lots

not quite a veblen good, but sort of.

When two tribes go to war... Intel, AMD tease new chips at Computex: Your spin-free summary

Re: Definitely of Interest

One more than eleven?

WikiLeaks boss Assange acted as a foreign spy, Uncle Sam exclaims in fresh rap sheet

Manning was pardoned.

Then a grand jury was constituted. Then she was jailed for refusing to testify. Then that jury ceased. Then she was released for a few days.

Then a grand jury was constituted. Then she was jailed for refusing to testify.

This is the nature of asymmetric 'justice' (well, it isnt really justice is it)

$ millions spent on prosecuting Assange / Manning

$0 on even investigating the things she leaked.

I used to think spending £191m on the Saville / Bloody sunday enquiry was wasted, but now I see it as a tribute to the quality of justice in the UK. Might not have made the republicans / army etc happy, but at least they had a good look at ourselves.

Hopefully there is enough 'cruel and unusual' in the US's treatment of Chelsea Manning - effectively imprisioning her until she agrees to testify against assange that the judges will stop extradition without this having to go to a politician.

No prospect of fair trial etc.

Land of the free...

... yuh.

I can't say Mike Lynch knew about Autonomy dodginess, star witness tells High Court

Re: Oh dear

I think the problem is that for a very long time, the American legal system has been stating that it is the American "justice" system.

There is a lot of evidence that this is not so but it is usually about poor people.

We are seeing the latest piece of data now because the defendant is v.v. rich - and white.

Airbnb host thrown in the clink after guest finds hidden camera inside Wi-Fi router

Realistic pics below headline pls

From the Article, the security researcher was a woman.

The photo is of a bloke pointing and a woman going 'oooh'

Would not normally point this out but it just feels not quite right in the context.

Now you can officially dox Scrabble players, thanks to the new dictionary definitions

We add rules in our family

a) dad is allowed to look up words on his turn

b) everyone else cannot look up at all and needs to know what their words mean

Huawei, Huawei. Huawei, Huawei. Feeling hot, hot, hot: US threatens to cut UK from intel sharing over Chinese tech giant

Re: Quite right too.

Inexpressible.

A grayling always evaluates to 0

as in 0 trains

or 0 ferries

Re: Quite right too.

With brexit costing us 1.3bn a week...

...Readers should be told that you are within +/- 1 Dianne Abbot of the correct value