Posts by Simon Sharwood, Reg APAC Editor

Just not cricket: Microsoft's big data Googly called No Ball

Re: "one of cricket's oddest rules"

Sight

QANTAS' air safety spiel warns not to try finding lost phones

Look I wrote the headline so of course I am going to defend it. But I don't think it is egregious clickbait. The announcement said if you've lost your phone, ask the crew to find it. I could have over-egged it way more than that!

Brexit must not break the cloud, Japan tells UK and EU

Re: Re: Dear Japan

Speaking as a resident of the Commonwealth who came to the UK, nourished your hospitality and travel sectors lavishly, paid taxes for a bit, then buggered off to where the weather is better with lots of lovely pounds in hand, I can say the Commonwealth is 100% behind Britain. If it gives us some nice trading concessions to make up for the ones it can't get from Europe any more. Also, if you would revert to being rubbish at cricket that would make us better-disposed towards you.

Dell's new story: Goldilocks and the three virtual infrastructures

Re: Re: From the usual (high) standard of stock photos used

Our production team picks most of the images. We have a licence to a stock graphics service, but try not to use their cheesiest stuff.

Sysadmin sticks finger in pipe, saves data centre from flood

Re: CROM

I was hoping someone would get that reference. Well played, Sir.

A USB stick as a file server? We've done it!

Re: More of this, please.

Noted on the "more please". Suspect I'll move on to other things rather than go deeper on this product.

Re: Stick + Battery Loader

Yup. Hence Campfire NAS

Microsoft baits new vSphere-to-Hyper-V switch offer

Microsoft will happily Azurify those for you too

Apple beats off banks' bid for access to iPhones' NFC chips

Re: Re: Confidentiality

I gotta disagree. You wouldn't want world+dog seeing the fine print. NDAs are standard procedure. The selling on consignment thing is a whole other deal designed to cynically maximise profit. But legal, for now

McDonald's launches wearable then pulls it after kid feels the burn

Re: Scolded

I contest the light heated the moisture on the child skin, or perhaps subcutaneous moisture. Hence scald.

Someone in Australia wants server sales hidden from view

Re: Airtrunk?

Yes: They've not broken ground yet, never mind plugged in a server

Labor's new comms spokesperson Michelle Rowland gets off to a bad start

Re: Connect the dots yourself, author

Feel free to support this one with data: I know of no advanced FTTP rollout canned for FTTN. FTTN and DOCSIS districts are, AFAIK, all in places the FTTP footprint just had not been meaningfully planned.

Twitter forgets followers

Re: Simple explaination

FWIW it happened for my personal accounts too.

IBM used dud DoS shield for failed online census says Oz PM

Re: Yeah but

The minister will only be standing because he's been in the portfolio for three weeks. The previous minister, however, is now hopefully one typo away from permanent demotion

Your mission, should you accept it, is to use cheap VMs before they self-destruct

Re: This has been the case for 6 months

The focus of the story was the price cut. Or I hoped it was.

#Censusfail aftermath: Here's what's happening inside Australia's board rooms this morning

Good point. My sources need to be better at naming agencies

Re: No communication between Federal and State?

Qld payroll was a monster mess, but inquiries found IBM was not wholly to blame. Government gave bad specs and let the meter run instead of controlling the project.

Re: just asking

Make your hand tasty

First Wi-Fi box ever is chosen as Australia's best contribution to global history

Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

Pretty sure Google maps was invented in Australia, but Lars whathisname wot done it wasn't an Australian.

Australia to spend a billion bucks and seven years on SAP project

Re: Oh dear, a system to change the *whole* business will be done as just a S/W change out.

Yup. If this project goes too far beyond IBM, Fujitsu, NEC, DiData, CSC and Accenture I'll be very surprised.

nbn™ switches on first Telstra HFC-powered broadband services

I wish more people would make this point. While the argument over media continues, those without adequate broadband wait. And wait.

Seminal adventure game The Hobbit finally ported to the Dragon 64

Re: Ah, Wales' answer to the 8 bit market

I learned to type on the Speccy. I maintain it taught me a style that requires fewer fingers and I rattle along at a comfortable 60 WPM touch typing. Wthi no tyops whatosever.

Cryptography vs. bigotry: The debate Australia needs to have

Re: Re: Idiot rant

I have a lot of difficulty using ADF enrolments as some kind of loyalty metric for a wider community.

I struggle to see how I am punching down in the direction of a Senator-elect.

Re: What evidence do you have?

Firstly, I say stopping migration won't "of itself" stop terror attacks. Secondly, consider the many people who have become radicalised after first encountering ideas online. No local contact with migrants was required. Immigration was not a factor.

Howard had a good long waft at it. And under the current government we got data retention and site blocking. the piece makes no comment on which side of politics does this stuff. just explains what's happened in the past

Just sniffing the breeze. the same breeze that has of late blown in Brexit, the possibility of a Trump presidency, Hanson back into Australian parliament. I don't know this will happen. But I do know debates about crypto are already happening. And intuition tells me this piece - which is presented as comment, not news - is likely.

nbn™ talks up HFC upgrades to gigabit speed

Why do it at home? It will almost certainly be cheaper and more reliable to use a cloud. And then your home broadband connection won't be an issue. Genuinely curious about your choice.

nbn^TM names six shops to re-build Telstra's HFC network

Evidence of corruption? Serious corruption? Any large organisation will foster some low-level favoritism and nepotism. But corruption? Keen to learn more ...

Re: What nbn?

Same as me at home. I'm lucky to get 15Mbps ADSL2+. But I wish there was as much outrage about the slow rollout as there was about FTTN vs FTTP.

Virtual mirror on the wall, what will happen at VMware's ball?

Now now .. no need to be nasty ;-)

Linux 4.7 delayed

Re: Re: Lets Hope...

I passed through Heathrow Terminal 3 the other day. The experience was not a very welcoming welcome to Britain. Left at London City, which was like a tiny LEGO airport.

Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer

Re: Old news

It's news that the theories have been confirmed and detailed, IMHO.

McDonald's says bigger fonts cooked up improved profits

Re: Re: Really? Fonts?

Read the transcript - he called out fonts as an example of a small thing that is making a difference

Storage array firmware bug caused Salesforce data loss

Re: Re: Bugs, eh?

It's a little homage to the TV show Breaking Bad. We like to slip in the occasional pop culture reference to show we're down with the kids

Airbus to build plane that's even uglier than the A380

Re: A380 ugly?

I've lived under the flightpath for 16R in Sydney for 10 years now and never tire of seeing aircraft go past. The A380 looks like a 6-year-old's lumpen plasticine failure. It's nicely quiet on landing but rather strident on takeoff. The few 747s still in use are far louder. The 777 is splendidly quiet. The more new-gen aircraft come into service the easier it is to live here.

Linus Torvalds releases Linux 4.6

Re: Driving me mad ...

fixing it now.

YOU ARE A VERY BAD HUMAN

Salesforce.com crash caused DATA LOSS

Fair call. Maybe I should have said WTF was Saleforce doing allowing new data to be created while its systems were too fragile to handle it.

Wasps force two passenger jets into emergency landings

Re: No such species

I failed Latin. And biology. Actually I studied neither.

VMware signals new open source and developer push with FOSS-meister gig

Agreed - nothing says VMware wants to contribute. But there are hints it is keen to do more. And also stronger hints VMware thinks the FOSS community is doing things it can learn from

Boaty McBoatface 'wins'

Re: Re: Democracy in action

You remind me of some classic racehorse names:

* Hoof-hearted

* Bucket Of Vine

Say 'em fast.

Waleed Aly's NBN intervention is profoundly unhelpful

Re: 2016 versus 2020

I think we can get a good idea. We know that in H2 2015 nbn added about 200k FTTP premises. There's nothing I have ever read suggesting that that continuation of all-FTTP policy would have resulted in those connections being made any faster, given that nbn stuck to the already-planned FTTP footprint for its own FTTP efforts

When Steve Jobs was away, Apple's designers snuck out a penis-shaped remote control

Ahem

Re: Not sure it was even an Apple device..

You're right - it was made by Philips but Apple re-designed its version

The Register to publish Mindful Sysadmin adult colouring book

Penises here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/01/when_steve_jobs_was_away_apples_designers_snuck_out_a_penisshaped_remote_control/

Re: Is this a compulsory practice in DevOps?

You're right - callous of us to leave out developers

Nope, with history.

Wait an hour. we'll have penises then

Mwahahahahahahaha