Posts by Doctor Syntax 42029 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
They won't, for the most part, be going anywhere.
Of those that are capable of being upgraded and are in the hands of businesses which care, some will have been upgraded and some will be being held off until the last minute because their users don't want W11 sooner than they have to have it.
The rest, which aren't capable of being upgraded, and which you see as landfill will be being used by those for whom the existing updates are a monthly nuisance and will be quite glad to see that stop. Their users are not going to spend good money to climb back onboard that bus once they've got off.
Unless Microsoft were to send out a bricking update - which I don't think even they would expect they could get away with - they will continue working. The only difference in their users' view is that they'll stop getting upgrades. Nothing else. Zilch. Nada. They continue to be PCs running W10 until their PSU caps bulge.
I take it that the $30 extended upgrade offer is a realisation by Microsoft that that's the situation but they can try to screw extra money out of some of the irreconcilables.
"was stolen by suspects allegedly driving a silver Land Rover Discovery on October 21."
It was stolen by culprits - or thieves if you prefer the term. If the police don't have any names lined up they don't have any suspects.
Easy rule: it's culprits whodunnit; it's suspects who you suspect dunnit.
File it instead under "Reasons why email addresses are crap user IDs". Two other reasons are:
1. Email addresses are likely to be widely known. If I email people as fred@example.com then anyone who I've emailed, or has seen a forwarded email with that address can guess that that's my login on example.com's systems and possibly at other online sites then part of their work is done for them.
2. If I use fred@example com because example.com is an email provider, or even worse, an ISP, I'm stuck with them however I might wish to migrate because it's going to be a nightmare trying to change user IDs with every service where I've used that; it's even going to be a nightmare trying to remember all the places where I might have to change it.
Are we thinking just public sector here or some level of private sector as well? It certainly ought to extend to those bits of the private sector that come under the heading of critical infrastructure and those handling contracted out public sector operations. Should it also extend to what the EU call gatekeepers? Or beyond to those holding large amounts of personal data?
Have you ever been on an interview panel? You have multiple candidates fro a single position all meeting the criteria. You can't appoint them all, neither can you provide reasons which would be clear and objective enough to meet such a requirement as to why the unsuccessful ones would be rejected. It may be a matter of how they present on that particular day, how you think they'll fit into the organisation, how you think you'll be able to work with them etc. It would be a nightmare.
If the job is advertised publicly with the intention to fill it internally then ISTM it would be difficult to argue that any legal requirement to advertise it publicly has actually been met. It might be difficult to prove that the advertisement was fraudulent but it might be even more difficult to prove that it wasn't.
Once you've died you tend not to hang onto your house just for the sake of it.
I and a couple of our neighbouring families are living in our parents' old homes. Another neighbours' house was sold when the husband died and the wife moved away to live with one of her children. As it happens there has been ongoing building round here so that our own daughter and grandchildren are able to live not far away.
"Incidentally, rural types tend not to want any development - neither housing nor data centres. They also don't want pylons, solar farms, turbines or vehicles travelling at more than 20 mph."
A lot of rural people would like to see a few houses built that they can afford because so many of the existing ones are bought up by townies for weekend homes, holiday lets, etc.
Pylons? If they'd increase the reliability of our electricity supply round here, fine. Actually, being near a National Park we're not in prime pylon country but there are plenty of what the distribution industry refers to as low voltage lines going here & there for what good it does us.
Solar farms? Eating electricity isn't good for you; for eating purposes you need food and that comes from real farms.. However if you think 240V would be a good snack I'm not going to stop you.
Turbines? I suppose you mean wind turbines; f rural types don't like them how come they're putting them up.
Vehicles travelling at more than 20mph? Even in Wales 20mph limits built-up areas but as someone else said, the nature of some rural lanes is a bit limiting anyway.
One of the areas of concern among current industry chiefs is said to be the "lengthy bureaucracy" and cost involved in hiring skilled people from abroad
I suppose those trying to hire workers for less politcally glamorous roles, say in medicine or social care, can put up with lengthy bureaucracy.
"What will he different in a year?"
They'll have $30 from each of the punters who bought into it.
The alternative of doing nothing gets them nothing. The alternative of not requiring the extra hardware spec gets them nothing and upsets the H/W business who are wanting to sell to those who are prepared to replace H/W.
They're making the patches anyway for other long-term commitments so the marginal cost is just about zero. The people they'll get the $30 from are those who aren't very likely to splash out on new N/W. I'm not sure what MS get per OEM licence but maybe not very different from that $30 so they've monetised that segment of the market even if their buddies in H/W manufacture haven't. It's squeezing the last few $$s out of the market.
Why is the obvious so hard to see?
"browse albums by the cover art, ... cannot find a single player for Linux with this ability. Really?"
I'm not sure quite what you mean by that but by coincidence this popped up on a news link elsewhere today and seems as if it might be what you describe: https://www.linuxlinks.com/recordbox-simple-sweet-music-player/2/
They are not shooting themselves in the foot. H/W has been good enough for a long time. New H/W wasn't selling in anything like enough quantities for the manufacturers and from Microsoft's point of view no H/W sales means not new licences. They make nothing at all by letting you upgrade W10 to W11. They make money if you want W11 and have to go out to by new H/W because that sells a new licence. It would be allowing all the older W10 machines to upgrade that would be shooting themselves in the foot.
So why, do you ask, are Microsoft now making this offer to those who won't upgrade? The answer to that is obvious; $30.
Follow the money.
"A potential solution would be for companies to move to open source operating systems like Linux and employ a few hundred technical software employees to update their own operating system."
Could you explain this a little more
On the one hand you say "open source operating systems" in the plural but "like Linux". That in itself needs explaining as it appears contradictory.
But then it seems to be the company's own operating system. I suppose there's a philosophical view that an open source operating system is everyone's own but I doubt that's what you mean. It sounds contradictory.
Oh, hang on, I've just re-parsed that. Maybe you're telling me that you haven't the faintest idea about using Linux and imagine it must have a gross upgrade system like that of Windows you envisage alt he employees would be updating the OS on their own PCs and they'd have to be some sort of technical expert to do that. Ah, bless.
"what impressed me, let them keep their office equipment assigned to them"
With an ever shrinking workforce they have no further use for them and it would probably cost more to collect then and sell them 2nd hand than they'd get back. I doubt they'r doing out of the kindness of their hearts.
Let me get this right. To get round this as not being electoral interference he presents it as a prize draw. On that basis he's prosecuted by a state as running an illegal lottery. As soon as that happens he's presenting it as electoral interference to take it out of the state courts.
Which is it? Perhaps both and he can do jail time on both counts.
It makes more sense to keep quiet and hope he could be inveigled to take a holiday somewhere outside |Russia where he might be snapped up. As it is he's now warned it wouldn't be safe to do so. What useful purpose is served by a PR stunt like this?
Oh, of course, it's an election year in the US.
