Posts by VV

GPS spoofing countermeasures: Your smartphone already has them

Flawed

"uses other transmissions, such as TV and cellular sites, to confirm a location fix"

Except that during a war, those are normally wiped first.

Tape so does not suck, insists EMC

Re: Only sucks if you don't know what its good for.

Sure, but normally any historical data on tape would be stored offsite. In this case the lightning went through the rack because it saw an easier path to ground. A shelf or media safe would offer more protection as they are normally not grounded or "online"

Only sucks if you don't know what its good for.

Some time ago I saw some electrical damage due to a lightning strike. Impressive I must say. The lightning had arced from a concrete beam through a server rack which contained online disk storage used for archiving data. They wished they had stuck with a tape backup solution. Moral of the story... tape is an offline medium, disk isn't. Once your data is on proper tape and kept in good conditions, it can sit unaltered for many years. With online solutions there is no guarantee that a glitch won't affect the controllers.

Ethiopia to send Skype users to the slammer

Re: In that case...

Perhaps its not that simple. My country also forms part of Africa, and we have a European telco with a 40% shareholding in our national carrier. It protects its own vested interests by ensuring the law is on its side.

ZTE and Huawei execs get ten years for bribery

Bribery... Corruption....

Also know as "lobbies" in many parts of the world. i.e. Just to make corruption sound legal.

How to give your applications a long and happy life

Sorry for the silly question... but

Why is it that cloud evangelists never tell us about folks who have lost data or had downtime in the cloud?

Pacific nation prepares to flee rising seas

Re: Can an atoll sink?

Myself I live on an island surrounded by coral. Unfortunately, due to rises in ocean temperature, the coral is dying off.

So where is IBM's Power7+ CPU?

"and IBM's competitors will have some fun with that."

Depends... there aren't that many "Watsons" around. Perhaps IBM decided to get more brains into other projects rather than concentrate on processors.

Don't bother with that degree, say IT pros

or an easier prey for outsourcing...

The problem with not having a degree (in many cases) results in candidates having general skills thus making their jobs far easier to outsource. When the shareholders come asking HR "Can we find this elsewhere for cheaper?" the answer is usually "Yes"

Being able to use the tool is one thing. Applying it in an industry is another story. I.T. is used in many places. The few examples I have come across in my career are: mathematical analysis of financial statistics, chemical engineering and instrumentation design and testing.

Get a degree, find a niche and lessen the chances of the ba*tards outsourcing you.