Posts by AIBailey

Not all heroes wear capes: Contractor grills DXC globo veep on pay rises, offshoring, and cuts to healthcare help

I've been through the mill with DXC, and several years before with CSC. In both cases I was TUPE'd over.

They are interested only in maximising their profits, to hell with the employees.

As expected, the service given to the customer is a shadow of what it was before, however DXC/CSC are happy as they're making money from the customer, the CEO's of the customer companies are happy because they don't have to pay for IT employees anymore, however it's always the people in the middle (both customer facing in DXC and the people in the client business that now have to deal with DXC) that get the rough deal.

There's a special place in hell for outsource providers.

Time to Ryzen shine, Intel: AMD has started shipping 7nm desktop CPUs like it's no big deal

Last year I built a cheap-as-chips basic gaming PC based on a Ryzen 3 2200G.

Bang for buck it's been outstanding, and renewed my faith in AMD.

With news like this, AMD should make further gains into Intel's market share, and that can only be a good thing.

Microsoft has Windows 1.0 retrogasm: Remember when Windows ran in kilobytes, not gigabytes?

Re: Not an entirely fair comparison

...both the Amiga and Atari ST had large portions of their OS's in Rom

True, however bear in mind that early TOS versions were only 192KB in size so even factoring that into account, the ST had a total of just over 700KB for the OS ROM and working RAM. The screen memory had to come out of that too, reducing the available memory by a further 32KB.

Furthermore, very early ST's had to load TOS into RAM from floppy disk, and some ST models were released in Europe with only 256KB RAM.

The same is true for very early (KS 1.0) Amiga's - they had to load in Kickstart from floppy and still only had 512KB to play with.

In all cases, they were still capable of much more than Windows 1.0.

The graphical shell demanded users get to grips with a mouse, didn't allow overlapping Windows and had some hefty hardware requirements (for the time) to be usable.

It's interesting how many GUI's were emerging at the time, and that by the time Windows 1.0 was released, there were more functional and feature rich environments available, and not just the obvious one on the Mac.

The Atari ST had GEM, and whilst that was still fairly basic, allowed windows to overlap. The Amiga's Intuition and Exec allowed that and much more, including multiple screen depths and resolutions (allowing that amazing-for-the-time party piece of sliding one screen down to reveal another) and pre-emptive multitasking. Both ran comfortably in 512KB.

Blackburn ain't big enough for the both of us: Mr Creamy and Mr Whippy at the centre of new ice-cream war

Stuck in the middle with you

Mr Whippy, Mr Creamy and Mr Yummy? Is this some kind of council estate remake of Reservoir Dogs?

I'm just waiting for the scene where they argue over who's Mr Sprinkles.

Brexit? HP Inc laughs in the face of Brexit! Hard or soft, PC maker claims it's 'no significant risk'

Why should they worry?

People will still need ink for their printers, and Brexit or not, the cartridge costs will continue to fuel the gravy train.

Finally in the UK: Apollo 11 lands... in a cinema near you

Re: Amazing...

At first I simply though you'd missed the joke icon.

Then I realised you were serious.

Will that old Vulcan's engines run? Bluebird jet boat team turn to Cold War bomber

So let me get this right?

The restoration work on a world record breaking boat has ground to a halt, so just for something to keep them amused, these guys are restoring and restarting a Vulcan engine that's not been run for 36 years.

Just for something to do?

There aren't enough of these ( ----^ ) for them!

Microsoft: OK, we admit it, spring is over. Here's your Windows 10 19H2

Woo hoo, the latest version of Windows 10...

...said nobody ever.

Facebook staff sarin for a bad day: Suspected chemical weapon parcel sent to Silicon Valley HQ

Re: Nobody expects the PR Inquisition!

With apologies to Michael Palin

Nooooobody expects the Facebook Inquisition!

Our chief priority is safety... safety and connectivity.... connectivity and safety...

Our TWO priorities are connectivity and safety... and integrity...

Our THREE priorities are connectivity, and safety and integrity... and an almost fanatical devotion to the shareholders....

Our FOUR... no.... Amongst our priorities... Amongst our priorities are such elements as connectivity, safety....

I'll come in again.

Biz tells ransomware victims it can decrypt their files... by secretly paying off the crooks and banking a fat margin

Re: Doesn't matter

If I were to ask you whether you could print me a JPG photograph, you may well tell me that you will be able to do that. If I then give you a file that contains random data rather than a real image, would that make you a liar because I know that you cannot possibly do what you claimed?

Nope, sorry, they’re very different things.

You’re asking me to perform a task, and only after I agree do you give me the information I need. However in your example I'd probably agree, as there shouldn't be anything inherently "dodgy" about a .jpg file - there's an expectation that it should print.

That’s not the same scenario. However, let’s rework it to make it a little more relevant.

In your example you’ve sent me a file containing garbage and asked me if I can print the picture inside. The file looks like it’s random, but you’ve been told that a bloke down the pub knows how to print it. You don’t want to deal with that bloke however, as you don’t trust him. Instead you send the file to me, because I’ve told you I’m good at “techie stuff”.

I can’t make any sense of the data at all, so ask the same dodgy bloke in the pub (that I’ve never met before, and who’s not seen that specific file), whether he can do it. He agrees that it can be printed, and it will cost £10. I then assure you that I can print your picture, and it’ll cost £40. Obviously, I don’t tell you I’ve just asked in the pub, I inform you that I’ve checked the file and am pleased to confirm that I’ll be able to print in within a couple of days. The level of trust between us comes from my reassurance, and my “reputation” as someone that can do this.

Regardless of whether you yourself know that the file is invalid, I’ve assured you I can complete your request, whereas in fact I can't open the file and have taken the word of someone that is inherently untrustworthy. The truth is that I can’t print the file, and am relying on someone that I don’t know or trust, and who wants payment up front, in order to complete your request. That person may not even fulfil his part of the bargain. I know that this is a risk, yet I’ve explicitly told you that I can fulfil your request. This, by it’s very nature, is a deception, and therefore a lie.

Re: Doesn't matter

The person that set up this trap confirms "It is impossible to decrypt the files I provided to the data recovery company at all, because they contain nothing that could be decrypted to begin with

A response from RM of "I am pleased to confirm that we can recover your encrypted files. is therefore a complete and utter lie, and is used as a means to fleece the "victim" out of almost $4000. Even saying "...we should be able to recover your encrypted files." would give them a bit of wriggle room.

There is absolutely no way that the files can be decrypted, because they're not even encrypted in the first place.

To earn over $3000 in profit for a couple of days work that (even if they were working with a "honest" blackmailer that provided a working decryption tool, consists of nothing more than running a provided decryptor) is ethically questionable. It's nothing more than those dodgy roofing companies you see on TV, that prey on the elderly by replacing a couple of damaged tiles and charging them £10k.

Re: Trust

Fair points you make there. I'm obviously confusing this "business" with a reputable and ethical one.

Re: Trust

They would, if the scenario had been played out to the last, have taken receipt of "decriptor" software from an unknown source, logged in with admin privileges to their client's systems, and run that dodgy software.

Not necessarily. Surely a much more logical approach would be for the client to send over the files that need decrypting, and for RMDM to either use a re-imagable non networked computer or, more likely a VM to run the decryption process?

Re: Doesn't matter

"we talk to the guys, negotiate a bit of a discount, purchase bitcoin, send it to them, obtain the decryption tool, run it on your data, and you pay us to do that"

But that's not what they're doing. It's more like "we talk to the guys, negotiate a discount, tell you that we can recover your data, ask you for money, hopefully get a decryption tool and run it".

In this instance they've already advised the customer that they can recover the data, implying that they've evaluated the files that they've been given. This in itself is a lie, as there's no data to recover. They're chancers, nothing more, and are profiting from blackmail just as much (in fact more so, looking at the margins of their markup) as the scumbags that wrote the code in the first place.

Microsoft: 2TB or not 2... OK, OK! 2TB. OneDrive dragged kicking and screaming into selling more storage

Re: "Once upon a time, Microsoft's cloudy storage was unlimited"

The problem with "unlimited" in relation to storage space is that there's no real (sensible) upper limit

Things like mobile phone contracts can offer "unlimited" voice, knowing that even if you talk for 24 hours per day, there's a hard limit of ~720 hours in a month. Likewise, "unlimited" data is limited by the transfer rate, and this can always be manipulated by the telco in order to keep things within flexible boundaries. In both cases, after the initial cost of infrastructure has been covered, it's all about sending packets of data, with no additional hardware resource.

The problem with offering unlimited storage has always been the fact that this storage capacity has to translate into physical disks or SSD's somewhere along the line, and so your hardware requirements will have to scale in line with the needs of your customers.

Vulture gets claws on Lego's latest Apollo nostalgia-fest

I've not played with LEGO for years

I've still got some in the loft, from the old 80's TECHNIC range - a still-built pneumatic digger, and the early car chassis in bits.

I can't believe the cost of LEGO these days, even the spares. I remember a few years ago that some bits had got damaged on the chassis (mostly universal joints) and baulked at the cost of replacing them.

However, If anything would tempt me to part with some cash for more LEGO, this is the one.

Bill G on Microsoft's biggest blunder... Was it Bing, Internet Explorer, Vista, the antitrust row?

In some cases, Microsoft has indeed purchased other companies in order to improve its portfolio, however several of your points are plain wrong.

Internet - Spent years trying to catch up

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. I assume you're referring to internet browsers. Bill Gates suddenly became very excited about the potential of the internet just before the launch of Windows 95, and so Internet Explorer was included as a last minute thought. Considering the scale of the browser anti-trust lawsuits in the early 2000's due to IE's dominance in the market, I'm not sure how they can have been spending years catching up?

Games - Had to buy DirectX to compete with other API's such as Glide (3Dfx) and PowrerVR.

You miss the point with this. For starters, DirectX wasn't bought in, it was developed by Microsoft themselves. Furthermore, it wasn't to compete with Glide and PowerVR - they were both bespoke API's for their respective cards, and so any games for Windows would require the appropriate code for the specific cards. DirectX provided a single API for all developers to code for, and all video cards with the right hardware specifications and drivers for DirectX would work. It signalled the end of games that only supported one API outside of software rendering, and shifted responsibility for supporting hardware features in games from the coders to the video card manufacturers.

Then had to throw money at XBox to make it successful.

As have Atari, Nintendo, Sega and Sony. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Any console release will have an eye watering marketing budget behind it.

Languages - Had to copy Java to create C# (after losing a battle for Visual J++)

Though they were initially very similar languages, they're now quite distinct in their differences. While on the subject of languages, Microsoft have a pretty good track record with their support for both languages and developers. Right back from their early days they've been developing programming languages, and variants of existing ones, and nowadays Visual Studio is probably one of the most used IDE's around.

Smart phones and tablets - Too little, too late

They definitely got smartphones wrong, though in regards to tablets they were one of the first companies to give it a try with the Tablet PC. It wasn't a success, but you certainly can't say they failed to predict the trend. They were actually too early to market.

We all like a bit of Microsoft bashing at times, but you're going to have to try harder than this.

Must watch: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece... of modern techno-insanity

Re: A reason for no physical reset

The reset sequence is insane, but there's a valid reason why they might use one instead a physical switch.

@coconuthead - You do make a valid point, however as others have mentioned, the reason for needing a reset is going to be because the software has gone awry in the bulb. Unless all bulbs have gone rogue at the same time, you should only need to reset one.

As you said, you've then got the further fun* game of re-pairing all the bulbs again.

* - Other fun games are also available, including watching paint dry, herding cats and pushing custard up a hill.

Re: Good reason

Put a reset hole in the base of the bulb between the terminals. A small capacitor could provide sufficient short term power to flip a RESET bit in the flash memory, and the only way to trigger the reset is to take the bulb out, so away from mains voltage.

But then, what do I know, I'm only looking at it from a common-sense point of view.

Re: The GE Nishika 3D Light Bulb

It's as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8

Imagine being charged to take a lunch break... even if you didn't. Welcome to the world of these electronics assembly line workers

Re: working time directive.

You're close in what you say.

The law actually states that if you will be working for a period of more than 6 hours, you are entitled to a break period of at least 20 minutes. It doesn't mean you can't work more than 6 hours in a stretch without a break, however the break must be taken at some point in the middle of your shift, and not at the beginning or the end (so you're not meant to use your break period as justification for starting late or finishing early.)

Unless explicitly stated somewhere in your T&C's the break is usually unpaid,

This isn't Boeing to end well: Plane maker to scrap some physical cert tests, use computer simulations instead

Re: Really?

That WHOOSH sound is the joke going over your head.

Or a 737 MAX in a nosedive, it's hard to tell these days.

ALIS through the looking glass: F-35 fighter jet's slurpware nearly made buyers pull out – report

Re: Please explain...

As others have already pointed out, a Harrier couldn't perform a vertical take off when fully loaded (it was more of a party piece), but could perform a short take off, using partly vectored thrust to provide extra lift on top of that generated by the wings.

For this same reason, Navy harriers that returned from sorties with a full weapons load and plenty of fuel remaining might be required to reduce weight by dropping external fuel tanks or weaponry in the ocean before they could land vertically.

Why the F-35 can't do a short take off on a normal runway instead of full vertical isn't clear.

Re: America : the #1 hypocrite

The fact remains that any country buying this airframe is basically giving Uncle Sam the complete overview of its strike capability

I'm not a military expert, but it seems that there are many alternative planes out there that are faster / more reliable / cheaper / better armed / better armoured / more manoeuvrable / more easily maintained / unencumbered by severe operating restrictions *

I'm sure that most countries that do buy any variant of the F-35 are doing so for mostly policical reasons rather than because this place represents the best option.

* - delete as applicable

March 2020: When you lucky, lucky Brits will have a legal right to a minimum of... 10Mbps

Re: What does it mean when they say "BT or KCOM"?

I'd understand BT in this instance to actually mean an internet connection over an Openreach network (i.e. not cable such as Virgin Media). Many (most?) ADSL connections via telephone will probably meet this criteria anyway, regardless of ISP.

Musk loves his Starlink sat constellation – but astroboffins are less than dazzled by them

Re: Debunked?

Nope, Musk will take the total to 12,200 (as someone just pointed out).

That's 61 times as many.

Apple kills iTunes, preps pricey Mac Pro, gives iPad its own OS – plus: That $999 monitor stand

...and as for the watch...

There's also a new watchOS Noise app to alert watch users to excessive ambient noise

Have Apple users got to a point where they need a device to tell them about ambient noise?

I've had something that does that for my entire lifetime. They're called "ears".

I see that Job's promise to "destroy" Android is still playing the long game.

iOS finally gets support for USB mice? Android had that licked years ago.

Re: But....surely a number of Apple products

That probably explains the $1k monitor stand. It was $50 before the latest tariffs were applied.

Planes, fails and automobiles: Overseas callout saved by gentle thrust of server CD tray

Re: Brad, of course, was in Europe

As you've gone with a FAIL icon rather than a Joke Alert, I'll assume you're serious.

Please, PLEASE read up on the difference between the continent of Europe and the European Union.

No amount of bluster from Farage and his pals will remove the United Kingdom from Europe

Tim Peake's Soyuz lands in London after jaunt around the UK

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Last time I visited the US, I was amazed that a selling point on a pack of cheddar cheese was "Made with real milk". I still haven't figured out what else you could use. Fake milk?

I also saw Hersheys syrup that boasted it was "genuine chocolate flavor". Instead of fake chocolate flavour?

It's 50 years to the day since Apollo 10 blasted off: America's lunar landing 'dress rehearsal'

Re: Grit

Is the mass of the LRV 700Kg, 450Kg or 210Kg?

Wine? No, posh noshery in high spirits despite giving away £4,500 bottle of Bordeaux

Re: For those few who may not be in the know...

Hmm, I'm not sure. It matches the audio on "The Final Rip-off" that I have here.

For those few who may not be in the know...

As Monty Python memorably said (read it in a heavy Australian accent) -

"A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity, as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palette, but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

'Black stump Bordeaux' is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good 'Sydney Syrup' can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines.

'Chateau Bleu', too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.

'Old Smokey, 1968' has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian wino society thouroughly recommends a 1970 'Coq du Rod Laver', which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this, and you're really finished -- at the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is 'Perth Pink'. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is BEWARE!. This is not a wine for drinking -- this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is 'Melbourne Old-and-Yellow', which is particularly heavy, and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of 'Chateau Chunder', which is an Appalachian controle, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation -- a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a 'Hobart Muddy', and a prize winning 'Cuiver Reserve Chateau Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga', which has a bouquet like an aborigine's armpit."

Should have gone with an Australian wine...

A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity, as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palette, but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

'Black stump Bordeaux' is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good 'Sydney Syrup' can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines.

'Chateau Bleu', too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.

'Old Smokey, 1968' has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian wino society thouroughly recommends a 1970 'Coq du Rod Laver', which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this, and you're really finished -- at the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is 'Perth Pink'. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is BEWARE!. This is not a wine for drinking -- this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is 'Melbourne Old-and-Yellow', which is particularly heavy, and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of 'Chateau Chunder', which is an Appalachian controle, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation -- a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a 'Hobart Muddy', and a prize winning 'Cuiver Reserve Chateau Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga', which has a bouquet like an aborigine's armpit.

That hint of glaze on QNAP1 also showed an impaired subjective noise floor elsewhere. In hi-fi parlance, QNAP2 had the blacker silences and deeper spaces between notes

My BS meter just exploded :(

Self-taught Belgian bloke cracks crypto conundrum that was supposed to be uncrackable until 2034

Re: GPUs?

Just done some more reading. Mine would have been a Celeron 300A - it did include cache (128KB compared to the 512KB of the equivalent P II), and I had the PPGA version in a slot1 adaptor board.

Having the cache on-die made up a lot of the performance deficit against a PII's of the time.

Re: GPUs?

Back when CPU speeds were in the MHz range, a 5-10% overclock was often very noticeable to the user, even just in recalculating a large spreadsheet.

...and a 50% overclock was phenomenal. Back when you could buy the Intel Celeron that was meant to run at 300MHz on a 66MHz clock but could quite happily run at 450MHz on a 100MHz clock instead.

I can't remember the actual costs involved, but it was certainly a way to get performance that was close to the top-of-the-line Pentium II's of the time for a fraction of the costs.

User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

I've never experienced people mistreating floppies with magnets in that way, though when I was a tech support bloke in the late 90's, we had one user that had reported a HDD failure. The HDD was duly swapped out, and we thought nothing of it.

A couple of months later, and the same problem occurs again. Another HDD, and subsequent re-image, and again, we're thinking that's the end of the issue.

Fast forward another few weeks, and that HDD also failed. So now we're suspecting a problem with the PC motherboard. We paid a visit to their desk, made out a further swap of the HDD anyway, while we then plan to go and place an order for a new base unit, but this time we happened to hang around longer than usual, and spot them replacing all their collection of tat around the PC (ornaments, figurines, photos etc), along with a "motivational plaque" that has a large magnet on the back. They stick it on the PC case, right in the area that the HDD was mounted!

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

I would play a tune on my violin for him...

... but it's so small I lost it in my coat pocket. -->

Make America Infringe Again: Trump campaign video pulled over Batman copyright

Wrong choice of film music

He should have gone with "From Russia with Love".

Ethiopia sits on 737 Max report but says pilots followed Boeing drills

Re: Fought yo the end and it appears they did try to disable MCAS

Thanks for posting that. It's an interesting, and somewhat eerie read.

One thing that does stick out is how much duplicated sensors vary - not just the AOA sensors, but airspeed and altitude as well.

Huawei's 2019 flagship smartphones: 'Things nobody else can do' but baby I swear it's déjà vu

Oh for goodness sake

1080x2340 OLED (19.5:9)

Please, PLEASE start rounding up or down to the lowest whole numbers. I'm sick of this silly ?:9 nonsense.

Last years fad was for 18:9 (2:1)., now we're at 39:18 ratio.

Does anyone really care that obsessively about the aspect ratio these days?

Aussie engineer accuses 'serial farter' supervisor of bullying, seeks $1.8m redress

So many euphemisms in a single article. It made me chuckle, and the author definitely deserves a beer or two.

Re: To jump to a philosophical issue

Just to be clear, nobody accurately claims that we're descended from apes. What's actually hypothesised is that humans and apes are ultimately descended from a common ancestor.

Just look at Q! Watch out Microsoft, the next Android has a proper desktop PC mode

pholdables

As we must now call them

Don't.

Just don't.

Bombs Huawei... Smartphone exploded in my daughter's pocket, seriously burning her, claims dad in lawsuit

Re: Original charger (or at least a good one)?

Not sure how a cheap charger has anything to do with this, as her phone was in her pocket at the time.