Posts by sjb2016reg

Arm reportedly warns Qualcomm it will cancel its licenses

Pyrric victory

As the first poster says, this seems like a bad battle to be having for Arm, and does show their hubris. Having worked there for a few years, I can see how that might happen ;)

But really, what is the upside here? Qualcomm is already a licensee of some sort, so surely if they bought Nuvia, then Qualcomm has a licence either way (either their own or Nuvia's). Obviously, I am not a lawyer.

Seems like these kinds of battles will push the lower end (but absolutely massive quantities of chips) to RISC-V, because compatibility and performance aren't required for these embedded chips. So, it might be harder for the high-end to leave the Arm ecosystem, but if Arm are bullying "partners" then the partners might try and put the effort in to make RISC-V more viable on the high-end. And surely, Apple is already working on RISC-V designs because they're Apple.

UK government's bank data sharing plan slammed as 'financial snoopers' charter'

What could possibly go wrong...

This data will be all over the internet, or at least the local JobCentre watercooler before the first £100 is recovered. As the article states, the DWP already has the power to view this information if they suspect someone is doing something dodgy. Snooping on people should be difficult and done only when there is genuine suspicion, snooping for snooping's sake never ends well.

Verizon snaps up Frontier in $20B fiber power play

Does it actually harm competition?

Telcom/Internet provision is a joke in the US. Most areas have a legally sanctioned monopoly cable provider and a monopoly phone company, so your choice is between those two options alone. The article states that Verizon buying Frontier will reduce competition, but were they actually in competition? Seems that more likely (in most areas) that Frontier was the locally sanctioned phone company monopoly, and Verizon is now just taking over those customers. I could be wrong, but that's what is more likely happening (mind you, I haven't lived in America for over 20 years, so maybe things have changed, but my mother in upstate NY certainly still has a choice of one cable company or one phone company for her phone/internet needs).

O2 punters lose cool over Google Pixel 9 delays

Doing me a favour

As I was young once, I can understand the frustration of ordering the new and shiny and then it not being delivered as quickly as I had hoped. However, now that I'm middle-aged, this seems very much like a non-story. Having said that, I thank all the people that buy Pixels early and then sell them on ebay a year later, still in pristine condition, for a third of the original asking price. This enables me to have decent phone hardware on which to run GrapheneOS. I thank you for your service first-day purchasers!

Microsoft punches back at Delta Air Lines and its legal threats

I would guess I've flown on non-budget airlines 40 times over the last 30 years. So not a frequent flyer, but I've lived in a few different countries, and now live permanently in the UK but most of my family live in the US. If the airlines says ""Delta has a long track record of investing in safe, reliable and elevated service for our customers and employees," I know they're telling porkies, at least about elevated service for customers. Every time I fly, the experience in economy class is worse than the time before. Except maybe the screen in the seats which do generally give more choices than they used to (or there were none, back when I first started flying). With the exception of JetBlue, which was a refreshing change when I flew with them. But every other airline seems to provide RyanAir levels of service while charging Concord prices.

Founder of Indian ride-share biz Ola calls for 70-hour work week

Re: Walking to School Barefoot in the Snow, Uphill Both Ways

Can one every have enough Weird Al references in a comments thread? Didn't think so. And screw all the techbros, let's go live in an Amish Paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's tech museum closes, sells off collection

Re: It would be nice if...

I took the family to this museum back in 2016 when we had two days in Seattle, so it has been a while. It might have been a tax wheeze, but even if it was, it was just as good a computing museum as any other. At the time, you could create your own punch cards, which was fun. Although I agree, you'd think a billionaire might have set up some kind of endowment, but there you go.

Having said that, the best computer museum is the https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ in Cambridge. Great couple of hours out with the kids (definitely not for the adults ;) ) as they get to experience playing real consoles from the past! Anyway, I digress.

Doom is 30, and so is Windows NT. How far we haven't come

Re: Overland Park

I've been to Overland Park, but only because my mother grew up in Southern Missouri and then moved to Kansas City. So we used to visit her friends in and around Kansas City (both in KS and MO). I was born and raised in Central NY, so more than a few hundred miles away from Overland Park, KS. But now I'm living the dream in Bedfordshire, UK!

First Brexit, now X-it: Musk 'considering' pulling platform from EU over probe

Re: Homeopathy or Supplements

@Steve Button

I'm not going to agree with everything you say, but if you don't already listen, you need to listen to the No Agenda Show!

https://www.noagendashow.net/

You'll feel like you're among friends. If you already listen, In the Morning!

IBM cuts deep into workforce – even its Watson and AI teams – as it 'pivots' to cloud

Re: Wow, that's cold

"Never trust a conglomerate. You're nothing but a number there."

I worked at IBM for about 2 years. It would have been both an honour and a privilege to have been treated as a number. Sadly, most didn't even get that.

You know this Land of the Free thing, yeah? Well then, why allow the FBI to trawl through America's browsing history without a warrant?

Land of the free?

The land of the free?

Whoever told you that is your enemy.

Compromise

Conformity

Assimilation

Submission

Hypocracy

Brutality

The elite

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All..of which...are American dreams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4smim2MNvF8

Why I just bought a MacBook Air instead of the new Pro

FanBoi

I used to be a fanboi. Indeed, have been a Mac user since my dad bought a used Mac 512K back in 1986. In the early 2000s I bought stock at less than $20 a share and I have done very nicely from that, however, I can't take this anymore!

I write this on a 2012 Lenovo Thinkpad T430 that I bought on eBay for less than £250 and still has on-site warranty until January next year (already used it once). I still have a Macbook Late 2007, but it's dying so needed a replacement and there was no way I was buying any Macbook from later than 2012 as I like having the option to upgrade RAM, HD and replace the battery. None of which is possible now, and I wasn't going to pay north of £400 for a used 2012 Macbook. I still prefer the MacOS or whatever they're calling it now, but if I really need to use a recent version of OSX, I fire up my Hackintosh desktop.

It's such a shame. All my family use Macs because I said I wouldn't offer tech support if they bought a Windows PC, but I can't make that recommendation due to a shocking lack of value for money and the inability to fix anything yourself; leaving aside the fact that the tech is old, which for all of our use cases, isn't a huge issue, just the icing on the sh!tcake.

Shares down?! But, but, but ... Apple just made $50bn – that's the way the Cookie grumbles

This is it

I've been an Apple fanboi since 1985, when my father brought home a used Mac 512K with an extra external floppy drive. Still have the training audio tapes somewhere. Indeed, I'm such a Fanboi that in 2001, I bought 10 shares in Apple at $20 a share. This proved a wise investment as I still have most of them (have had a few splits since then). Just wish I had bought 100 :)

Anyway, our late 2007 Macbook is on its last legs after years of abuse. It's still usable because of RAM and hardrive upgrades, and cheap replacement batteries. I even recently replaced the thermal paste on the processor. I want to buy a new Macbook of some kind, but I just can't justify it at the current prices. I paid a premium 8.5 years ago because I knew it would last a long time with the chance to upgrade and perform basic repairs. However, paying several hundred £s over the odds for a machine that will need to be replaced in 3 or 4 years seems stupid. I prefer OSX, but it's not that much better than Windows 10 or Linux Mint anymore, Like my father-in-law says, "nothing ever gets better".