* Posts by fishdog

24 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Mar 2013

'Evolution of the PC ecosystem'? Microsoft's 'modern' OS reminds us of the Windows RT days

fishdog

There was a guy in 1995 who wrote a book called "Business at the speed of light".

... and I was cynical BEFORE that dreck was published.

Powershell, the Gandcrab infection and the long-forgotten server

fishdog

I'm amazed anyone who writes for the Reg could be this naive, and shocked that the author appears to be encouraging readers to share this dangerous fantasy.

Ever since Snowden the self-styled "security intelligence services" of the west have been trying to madly shove the genie of truth back in the nanometre-thin bottle of "trust". The one thing that none of them have done is to actually stop breaking the laws to which they so rigidly and forcefully hold the rest of us.

As is noted above, it is an exclusive club, and "we, the people" ain't in it.

Meh.

It is bad enough that our own governments steal from us and spend this ill-gotten gain on systems designed to further enslave and impoverish us to their advantage.

It is a whole 'nother thing when self-styled journalists act as their ad agencies ...

Brit Watchkeeper drone fell in the sea because blocked sensor made algorithms flip out

fishdog

The Drone is Fine

Reads like a perfect ice detection test to me.

Loose Women woman's IR35 win deals another high-profile blow to UK taxman's grip on rules

fishdog

Re: Tax is complicated

No, tax is very simple. It can be as simple as a minus operation and its most complex operation is a fraction.

But there are many vested interests - politicians, lawyers, accountants, judges, HMRC bureaucrats, and general businesses - that profit from it being made ever more complicated, swamped in rules expressed in highly specialised jargon, and incredibly expensive to resist.

fishdog

Who writes the laws?

I'm shocked that so many commenters here think that the politicians write the laws.

I'm shocked that so many commenters here think that the big corporates don't write the laws.

So when people write things like "it's the job of the politicians to write the laws so that the big corporates pay taxes" i'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. In actual fact the politicians are paid by big business to rubber stamp the laws written by big business, In other words, their actual job is to approve laws written by big business, irrespective of what you think it says in your "unwritten constitution" ... and there is no way that big business will ever write laws to make them pay more taxes, although they may write laws that say they will under very highly specified circumstances ... that rarely, if ever, occur. A secondary part of the politicians' actual job is to make a lot of outraged noises about the abuses of the public purse committed by big business, while doing absolutely nothing effectual about ending those abuses.

Now this is an American example, but with minor technical differences in execution the biggest big business of them all - government - works on exactly the same principles in the UK as it does in the USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

Forget the 'simulated universe', say boffins, no simulator could hit the required scale

fishdog

Re: "To model just a few hundred electrons needs a computer bigger than the universe"

"If I (and this has to be expressed in 1st person terms) exist in a simulation then none of you, el Reg or anyone else exist except as inputs presented to me."

This is a possible consequence, not a necessary consequence.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, such a solution would be n to the nnnth power easier to simulate, but if you're going to critique others logic you have to accept criticism of your own, as well.

My programming told me to say that.

2 in 5 top Brit biz bosses expect IT dept to drive 'technical innovation'

fishdog

Re: IT Dept Innovation?

"All they have been told is to outsource everything to India/China/wherever."

That's what is now called "financial innovation".

The headline might as well read:

Half of CEO's have Zero Clue

I will never live long enough to recount the number of CEO's & senior managers who have told me that IT is absolutely essential to cost reduction and competitive advantage, only to be totally non-plussed when I responded "Oh, do you really think so? because I'd have thought you'd want to invest in more of it, if that were the case ... "

Most managers think about IT as a necessary evil, and they're only half convinced about the necessary part.

Climate change even worse than you thought: It causes war and murder

fishdog

Re: Correlation does not equal causation

No, they were just harmless tourists ... until they got to all those hot places and the climate made them rape, pillage, and enslave everyone there.

PHWOAR! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, Prime Minister

fishdog
Mushroom

There is a fundamental difference.

Indeed there is.

But dont expect the reflexive authoritarian apologists to understand the difference between (A) discrete business operating (or not) filters of their choice as part of their own sales & marketing approach, and (B) their customers doing likewise, as responsible parents, and (C) government imposing a mandatory & centrally coordinated filter system on every business and individual.

The opportunities for abuse in the one case are relatively minor and contained; in the other, they are universal and inevitable.

Already Cameron has tripled the list of VERBOTEN! categories from kiddy porn to kiddy porn + violent porn + 'self-harm' sites (and no freakin idea what he means by that, as I suspect he has no idea what it means), and the filters arent even working yet.

If you're not bothered by this proposal you are either (A) an idiot, (B) an authoritarian, or (C) both, i.e. David Cameron.

YES, Xbox One DOES need internet, DOES restrict game trading

fishdog
Mushroom

Xbox One = Vista 4 Gaming

What else is there to say? The Vista approach - lock everything down and charge like a wounded bull while treating your customers like criminals - didnt really go over big with customers, although certain commercial interests loved it. This seems to be deja vu all over again.

A once-famous company becomes, inevitably, infamous.

The only really astounding thing here is that Microsoft will follow the same dreary path to oblivion that has been trod by so many companies before them:

hubris, hubris .. and, oh, look; more hubris!

(Try reciting that last line in the voice of Sam Gamgee talking about Lembas. It's the only feeble laugh in this otherwise idiotic tale.)

Forget phones, PRISM plan shows internet firms give NSA everything

fishdog
Big Brother

in the UK the government simply puts you in gaol

Yes, but they cant put everyone in gaol.

That's the whole point of democracy.

If they could, the UK would still be a monarchy.

Oh, wait! ...

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

fishdog
Linux

My head hurts ...

Microsoft honcho pleads with media: 'Stop picking on us!'

fishdog
Facepalm

Re: It has to be expected

Winston Churchill, speaking of the Americans, said you could trust them to always do the right thing, after every other possibility has been tried.

Microsoft is, a la your comment, a truly American company.

fishdog
Mushroom

FUD and Irony

Microsoft learnt all they know about sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) as a hold-the-market strategem, from IBM. Just sow the seeds and watch the 'nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft' people, who never take any risk they can't blame on someone else if it goes pear-shaped, hold off purchasing until their favourite supplier has a product in their space.

The irony is that MS became the behemoth it is today at the expense of IBM, because MS served the corporate desktop customers (i.e. the real money in PC shipments, the people who pay license fees every quarter) better than IBM did.

With Windows 8, MS threw all those people under the bus so they could chase the fondleslab market with the idiotic mantra from MS Marketing of 'one version of Windows, running on everything'. I mean, who the fuck cares?

The additional irony is that they did this out of nothing but FEAR. Fear that Google and Apple would own the next big thing in computing (which is what Frank X Shaw is talking about), the mobile, always connected, 2.0, bla bla marketing speak bullshit buzzword soup hypescheiss.

In the 80's, the biggest IBM customers, the people who needed them the most, were the people who hated them the most. The people who would, and did, jump at any alternative that looked promising. The corporate desktops. The money.

Today, these same people, who rely on MS more than anyone, hate them more than anyone, and for exactly the same reasons.

One further irony is that Windows 8 on a mobile device without a touchscreen, like a classic notebook or laptop, is a maddening experience that makes you long for the days of XP.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.

And so it goes ...

It was the Reg what won it: Online Hitchhiker's Guide thriving

fishdog

not 'wildly' inaccurate, but ...

"h2g2 *boosts* 10,000 peer reviewed entries on everything from the HP sauce story to how to cope with a tomato ketchup shortage."

It may indeed be quite accurate that appearing at h2g2 boosts these articles, but I am fairly sure the author intended to say that h2g2 boAsts 10,000 articles ...

NZ plans interception law refresh

fishdog
Mushroom

national security

This is the US' telecom immunity crap all over again.

The government breaks the law, for no good reason, and when it gets caught it cries "national security" and changes the law so its tyrannical authoritarian bullshit isnt illegal any more.

We ought to be outraged, but we mostly just shrug and look away ...

How I nearly sold rocket windows to the crazy North Koreans

fishdog
Mushroom

"as a lesson to others"

Like, as a lesson to the only nation to have ever used nukes on civilian targets? That kind of lesson?

It may well be a problem that the North Koreans live in an insular fantasy realm, where they are likely to start a war they cannot win purely on the basis of ignorance about not being able to win. What the author misses in this article is that it is also a problem that certain nations in this world KNOW with absolute assurance that they will win any war they start (or at least wont lose in any way that seriously damages them or their political class).

That, too, is a logic trap the West has fallen into a number of times, and very recently.

When was the last time North Korea fell into that trap, again?

Library ebooks must SELF-DESTRUCT if scribes want dosh - review

fishdog
Childcatcher

Re: Back into medieval times

Indeed. The smart thing to do would be to close all the libraries, run a single ebook service, and use the money saved to make sure everyone has access to it.

Pay the authors a single lump sum if they have to be paid, or tell them they can take their chances in the hard-copy marketplace.

Soone or later we have to stop trying to make the future look like the past, just because we have a sentimental attachment to the past.

HP's 'historic' Project Moonshot servers aim at hyperscale future

fishdog
Alien

Power

"And those data centers will cost on the order of $10bn to $20bn, she said, and would require approximately ten power plants to juice them up – about the equivalent of two million American households."

Maybe Google, Facebook, and Amazon, should be investing in WAMSR reactors?

http://transatomicpower.com/products.php

Steve Jobs to supervise iPhone 6 FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

fishdog
Meh

oh yes, people are dumping iPhones for Windows phones all day long. SURE they are.....

Sure they are: it says so, right there in the article ...

"... as growing numbers of global smartphone users switch to Android or Windows phones."

After Leveson: The UK gets an Orwellian Ministry of Truth for real

fishdog
Mushroom

'Self-Servicing'

Being of a libertarian inclination, I'm all in favour of freedom of the press. But having this much-vaunted freedom for 300 years has not prevented Britian becoming the most-surveilled society in history. It has not prevented the government from launching illegal wars of aggression based on flat out lies told to the citizenry. It has not prevented them selling the idea of "austerity" budgets while consuming 47% of GDP. It has not prevented the government from enacting secret courts in which secret evidence will be used to convict people only 'suspected' of the desire to do somebody some kind of harm.

The press, in these critical areas touching the public interest, have not even risen to the level of uselessness. On the contrary, they have eagerly trumpeted the government's most hysterical, ridiculous, and totalitarian impulses from every front page, providing an air of legitimate intelligence to these demented, ahistoric, uncivilised ravings.

Fuck the free press and the government both.

Review: Renault Zoe electric car

fishdog
Thumb Down

Re: Aaand we have the obligatory idiot

That's just un-necessary.

What's the life expectancy of the batteries? (Boeing 787 anyone? How about the exploding laptop?)

How will they be (safely) disposed of? .. somewhere out of sight, no doubt

This car wasn't made in Britain, so your points 1 and 2 might be apt or they might be irrelevant. (Wiki lists burning of coal, gas, and oil as about 65% of electricity generation).

There's a lot more to being green that driving an expensive, impractical, publicly subsidised marketing gimic.

fishdog
Childcatcher

Re: Fail

"I maintain that that makes me far more green than buying a new electric car."

Indeed. No mention of the disposal of the batteries, either. Imagine millions of these things ...

... people who think that being Green = 'hiding the mess from me' make me want to slap them.

Redmond slashing Win8, Office OEM rates for small devices

fishdog
FAIL

Re: ..verry funny article...

funny you should mention research.

Here's what the professional UI researchers have to say:

"The situation is much worse on regular PCs, particularly for knowledge workers doing productivity tasks in the office. This used to be Microsoft's core audience, and it has now thrown the old customer base under the bus by designing an operating system that removes a powerful PC's benefits in order to work better on smaller devices.

The underlying problem is the idea of recycling a single software UI for two very different classes of hardware devices. It would have been much better to have two different designs: one for mobile and tablets, and one for the PC.

I understand why Microsoft likes the marketing message of "One Windows, Everywhere." But this strategy is wrong for users."

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/