Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft celebrates a bumper financial year ... by making stuff pricier

Re: I predict more of this with the cloud

"once the first one blinks"

I was with you until this. But blinking implies they never intended to hike prices. You didn't really believe that, did you?

Re: "It's a trap" - Admiral Ackbar was/is right!

"But subscription pricing is the opposite of lock in."

Not really. Lock in is about making it difficult to move because of things like data format compatibility and the cost (and difficulty) of migrating (just ask TSB). Subscription vs one-off sales is about how you collect the proceeds.

MS painted themselves into a corner on the data formats issue by getting themselves ISO Standardised; regular changes to formats kept customers locked in to an upgrade path so they could be milked by having to buy the latest version of what they'd bought before. Now customers who've bought anything that opens the standard formats can just keep using it or even worse (from the MS PoV) they can use LibreOffice for free.

Cloud, however, is a great lock-in mechanism against migration. If you can get a customer locked in to your cloud stuff you have them by the balls ("their hearts and minds will follow") and they just have to keep paying month after month, year after year.

Ecuador's Prez talking to UK about Assange's six-year London Embassy stay – reports

Re: Comrade Assange?

"What I've been wondering about is why Trump hasn't embraced Assange and promised a pardon for crimes real or imagined."

Given Trump's ability to contradict anything he said previously would you trust such a pardon if you were Assange?

Re: So much hostility

"he skipped to the UK"

Which was a pretty daft course of action if he was worried about extradition to the US.

Tech Shutdown Blows: IT chaos cost Brit bank TSB almost £200m

Re: Are there any good banks out there?

"fintech businesses get to skip the tedious business of migrating existing business from a legacy platform."

Or the tedious business of supporting actual customers - those awkward people who want to save or borrow money, not the purchasing managers the sales people schmooze with.

Re: 2,500 staff in new roles

"I doubt there are more than 2,500 people in the uk with the financial tranasaction skillset required to dig tsb out of the hole."

But probably plenty with skillset to say "Your call is important to us. Please give me your number and someone will get back to you".

Politicians fume after Amazon's face-recog AI fingers dozens of them as suspected crooks

Maybe they should repeat this against a set of US tech entrepreneurs including Bezos, of course.

Re: Applause

"can they put the guns away first though?"

In this particular instance, no. That should concentrate their minds.

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

"handing over your own cash for the privilege of having "GAP" screaming across your chest in 90,000pt font "

Simple solution: don't buy it; buy something else without the logo.

Less simple solution: try to bill the company for advertising their product.

Sysadmin trained his offshore replacements, sat back, watched ex-employer's world burn

Re: Timing is everything

"How to use a barometer to measure the height of a building."

Are you also allowed to use a stop watch?

Prof claims Lyft did a hit-and-run on his ride-sharing tech patent

Re: Also Known as ....

"but its still comms..."

But with a mobile phone. And with GPS. Just like "with a computer".

It's said that the UK Patent Office would accept patents for perpetual motion machines provided they were accompanied by a working example. What a pity that isn't a universal proviso.

Brit spending watchdog brands GP Primary Support Care a 'complete mess'

"Unlike businesses, there is no concept of saving money in the bank to build up a war chest"

OTOH, if you're running a lab and are actually hands-on, unlike the management of Chris G's sister's lab, you use the end-of year surplus to buy routine consumables that aren't going to have a limited shelf-life; microscope slides and cover-slips were examples in may case. Some of the money you might otherwise have spent on those next year then becomes your contingency fund.

Re: and to think...

"seems we may well be on track to repeat the mistakes of the early-mid 20th century all over again."

Those who do not learn their history...

Intel Xeon workhorses boot evil maids out of the hotel: USB-based spying thwarted by fix

Re: There's a simple fix for USB hacking.

"rewire the internal USB connections on the server, Pin 1 - AC live, Pin 2 AC live, Pin 3 neutral, Pin 4 neutral."

You could do even better if you have 3 phase available....

Some Things just aren't meant to be (on Internet of Things networks). But we can work around that

"shouldnt your corporate network be secure enough not have hackers rifling it from the outside looking for webcams and fridges?"

But what about those webcams and fridges calling home, or at least trying to?

Re: I had to laugh

"And no one will implement any of them in exactly the same fashion as anyone else."

In fact, probably no-one will implement any of them exactly.

In Microsoft land, cloud comes to you! Office 365 stuff to be bled into on-prem Office 2019 Server

the "Modern" treatment, which Microsoft hopes will lead to more appealing and easier to navigate sites.

A triumph of hope style over experience. Or was that a typo for "appalling"?

You can take off the shades, squinting Outlook.com users. It has gone dark. Very dark

Re: If you want it. Not for me.

"Beer, because I'm having a retirement party."

Welcome.

Form an orderly queue, people: 31,000 BT staff go to Openreach in October

"Continuing to pay in would have been considered tax avoidance by the IR."

Mea culpa That should have been tax evasion which is illegal.

Odd that commentards are prepared to condemn corporations for tax avoidance which is legal and yet condemn BT for not evading tax.

BTW what's the point of giving 10 minutes for edits when the post doesn't appear for a lot longer than that?

Re: Anyone from BT got time...

"what possible advantage there is to the market, or even BT, in having a legal seperation, but not actually making OR fully independant of BT?"

At a guess it might have something to do with the problem of trying to launch a new business with its pro rata share of the BT pension scheme deficit.

"BT stopped paying into it in the 90's creating a 12-14bn deficit."

No. This has been explained here many times before.

The IR (as then was) stopped BT paying into the pension scheme. This was because the projections at that time were that there was sufficient money to meet obligations. Continuing to pay in would have been considered tax avoidance by the IR.

Then two things happened.

1. Gordon Brown stopped tax relief on dividends paid on shares held in pension funds. That meant that the funds wouldn't experience the growth on which the projections were based.

2. The great house price bubble, steadfastly ignored by the BoE when setting interest rates (on the orders of the said Gordon Brown), led to the crash of 2007. Since then interest rates fell to near negligible and have stayed there. Pension projections depend on annuity rates. Annuity rates depend on interest rates. The annuity rates on which the '90s projections were based have been hopelessly wrong for more than a decade and don't seem likely to improve any time soon.

The IR's calculations in the 90s didn't take these changes into account. Nobody there had read the small print at the bottom on any financial product to the effect that past performance is no indication of what will happen. In consequence there's been a big hole in the pension scheme ever since entirely as a result of the payment holiday forced onto BT not allowing for HMG's capacity for screwing up the UK finances for a couple of decades between then and now and on into the foreseeable future.

Not that I expect an explanation here will prevent the marginally informed bleating about it all being BT's fault.

UK.gov commits to rip-and-replacing Blighty's wheezing internet pipes

Re: Efficient??

"6 full muxes at 100kW each - vs the four main analogue channels at 500kW each"

It will be less still. All those figures will be ERP. As it's not broadcasting up into the sky and down to the ground below the mast the actual power will be a good deal less.

Re: One advantage of copper ...

" included a battery in the box on the customer's wall to power a conventional telephone in the advent of a power cut."

A battery you're likely to find is dead when you need it.

"The problem is so few people (even those without mobiles) use conventional phones that can be powered by the copper telephone network"

I assume you mean almost everybody has a DECT phone. That doesn't preclude having a POTS phone plugged in as well.

Re: Live streaming a film you like - sensible

"an unlimited pure fibre FTTP connection"

ROFLMAO

There's always a limit somewhere. Remove one bottleneck and you just discover where the next one is.

Re: Not wanting to state the obvious

"is far more efficient that thousands of little ones dotted all over the countryside where terrain gets in the way most of the time anyway."

Far more efficient in what way? If you want to cover a large area with homogeneous programming, you're right. If you want to address smaller areas independently then it's not so good.

To take a terrestrial example, when TV broadcasting started Holme Moss (band I) covered both sides of the Pennines and was picked up and relayed to the Isle of Man; in fact I think the Manx transmitter was in turn picked up at Divis and relayed to NI. When ITV came along their band III transmitters were Emley Moor & Winter Hill, east & west of the Pennines respectively so that they could have different franchises. When UHF came along the Beeb's transmitters were colocated with ITV which allowed the Beeb to have some regional broadcasting, Holme Moss band I was closed; these days it's FM on band II. Try to do the same thing with satellite and you end up using a lot of bandwidth to provide different channels instead of the regional separation that a terrestrial network provides naturally.

Re: Others have tried

"look to the disaster that is the Australian NBN "

There's no way it will go as well as that.

Google's Alphabet hit by Europe's other GDPR: Global Domination = Profit Reduction

"Advertising is a tax on Greed, not stupidity!"

Who, ultimately, pays the tax?

Re: Oh, we "customers" or "products" always pay

"Your average commentator here never earned a honest buck in their life and has suckled off the teet of the gov't their entire life."

Citation needed.

Re: Oh, we "customers" or "products" always pay

Why should "$any_government" tax some outifit for which we ALL pay - and in turn, not share the proceeds with those who wind up footing the bill?

The money goes into the general funds. In theory it would offset taxation which is how you'd get your cut. In practice it would require a pretty big fine to be above the "noise level".

In a case like this there'd be something to be said for ear-marking it to finance other OSs. Not necessarily Android forks as such but OSes such as Sailfish or non-Google app repositories.

"The bulk of Alphabet's revenue continues to come from advertising, which amounted to $28bn for the quarter"

And el Reg keeps calling Apple's pricing a tax on stupid!

Re: Oh, we "customers" or "products" always pay

"why should the EU get all the money in this case? Or the US, or some other country in other cases?"

Because the US doesn't care about monopoly abuse in the same way as the EU so it doesn't prosecute. If it did they'd have to pay fines in the US as well as in the EU. If China or Oz or whatever enacted the same legislation and acted on it they'd be fined there as well.

Robo-drop: Factory bot biz 'leaks' automakers' secrets onto the web

"Level One takes these allegations very seriously and is diligently working to conduct a full investigation of the nature, extent and ramifications of this alleged data exposure,”

But no mention of working, even casually, to fix it? After all it's only an allegation.

Is this sort of response just PR or does it also reflect the thinking of the management that got them into this position?

I predict a riot: Amazon UK chief foresees 'civil unrest' for no-deal Brexit

Re: make up your minds

It's the EU that expects to can dictate terms,

Beggars can't be choosers.

Re: make up your minds

"Today we have Jeremy Hunt saying the public will blame the EU if there is no deal. "

It's not surprising. Leave was all about wishful thinking.

Re: As previously

"neo-liberal'??? Is that like new Labour - 'liberal' generally has a different meaning this side of the pond."

Dunno but I do get pissed off with this neo-this, neo-that stuff.

Re: "Where is the evidence to suggest that would happen?"

"This constant appeal to the Good Friday agreement by remainers is very interesting."

It's because it's an international agreement which places obligations on the UK govt. It's something the Leavers ignored. Or maybe they reckoned if they were going to repudiate one agreement they might as well repudiate another. BOGOFF.

Re: "Where is the evidence to suggest that would happen?"

"there is going to be a LOT less enthusiasm for looking the other way while they raise money and buy guns in the U.S."

I'd like to think so but presumably there's still an Irish-American vote to placate.

""Like any business, we consider a wide range of scenarios in planning discussions so that we're prepared to continue serving customers"

Translation: we'll be stocking petrol bombs and balaclavas.

IT biz embezzlement brouhaha leaves bloke with $456k migraine

"an order enjoining him from future violations of US securities law. "

This is an odd penalty. It implies that normally it's OK ton violate US securities law.

DXC CEO confirms boss of its field-based techies is OUT

"roll-out of Bionix."

Did I misread that?

UK spies broke law for 15 years, but what can you do? shrugs judge

Things come to a head when HMG tries to get an equivalency ruling from the EU for data exchange post-Brexit. They're going to have to take steps to show that they've cleaned things up and they don't have much time to do it. More critically, they don't have much time to realise they have to do it. Even if they did the EU would be well advised to demand inspection rights by their own staff. That'd go down well with the Brexiteers. Not that any of those noise-makers would have anything to lose by the UK not having a Privacy Figleaf of its own; any of them with business interests likely to be affected will have moved them out of the UK by then.

How much do you think Cisco's paying erstwhile Brit PM David Cameron?

He was a PR man by trade so who's surprised to see him doing PR again?

Re: BFH

"They seem to want a return to the 70's"

Or the first half of the 50s. Then they could re-run Suez and get it right.

Sysadmin sank IBM mainframe by going one VM too deep

"He's the only one to ever use that term."

Octothorpe was coined by AT&T who invented the symbol so I wouldn't be surprised if they use it sometimes. Why leftpondians call it a pound sign is just an indication of their strangeness.

Microsoft still longs to be a 'lifestyle' brand, but the cupboard looks bare

Re: Games too!

"That alone is why Windows hasn't lost half it's installed user base."

I doubt it. The majority of the installed base is surely in business and most corporations won't take kindly to their staff playing games (other than office politics games) at work.

Re: isn’t there a risk?

"They’ve already fecklessly dropped mobile, which is a kinda natural counterpart to fatter clouds."

Which is pretty well what SatNad said when he got the job.

I think there seems to be a sense of entitlement there now. They seem to have assumed that all they had to do was buy into the phone business and expect everyone to come running because of who they were. It doesn't work like that. They needed to put a good few years hard work into it to slowly build market share against a couple of incumbents. It didn't happen immediately so they dropped it.

Doctor, doctor, I feel like my IoT-enabled vacuum cleaner is spying on me

Re: IoT foolishness

"So you / I can control it from the comfort of $wherever you like$ without having to physically go and fetch it."

But do you need to control it from wherever you like? If you drop crumbs on the floor within range of the cleaner you don't need to be able to control it from somewhere else. The control never needs to go outside your WiFi zone. Your use case is valid, it's the implementation that fails.

Re: Useless warranties

"you can literally see the looks on their faces"

Unless I were present I literally couldn't.

Either my name, my password or my soul is invalid – but which?

Re: Plus sign in email addresses is often fun

"Forward everything to another a/c"

Why? Just use that domain as your email domain. All the aliases come into a single mailbox (you can check the alias name in the To: field if you need to see who spammed) and set up, tear down or set to bounce as you please.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter make it easier to download your info and upload to, er, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter etc...

"the misinformation and ads platform has decided to build a data takeout service for account holders"

And what about the data they've built up on non-account holders?