* Posts by hottuberrol

42 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Feb 2018

Nvidia outlines subscription-fueled journey to $1tr revenue

hottuberrol

Ahem. Rolls Royce has been charging airlines by the hour for jet engine use for maybe a decade now....

Whats the venn diagram of people on this forum who say they wont rent hardware and people with a disney+/netflix/prime/sky+ subscription ?

And is the overlap known as the hypocrisection ?

FBI says more cyber attacks come from China than everywhere else combined

hottuberrol

Re: Redacted......why am I not surprised?

I dont know how many hackers are in Chelts but think about this. The UK standing army is less than 100000 troops for a population of 60M. China has a population of 1.4B and its more militarised that the UK. Its no stretch at all to suggest there are 23x as many hackers on the chinese payroll than the UK has in Chelts; and China has been making a living off industrial espionage for decades, its central to their ethos, so 23x is probably a bit light. So even if they added the chelts numbers to appease your strawman argument, it wouldnt matter.

Hope for your sake your pay isnt dependant on a business that doesnt take this seriously.

A 'national security' issue: UK.gov blocks Nvidia's Arm deal for now, inserts deeper probe

hottuberrol

A government awash with russian donations is concerned about national security. Mmm-kay.

Campaigners demand judicial review of NHS deal with Peter Thiel's AI firm Palantir

hottuberrol

Have a look at Thiel's history of crying out for individual freedom and .....try and square that circle with Palantir which is basically all about surveillance.

Another ideologue telling folks to look at his right hand while he fleeces them with the other.

Australian government fights Facebook news ban by threatening 0.01% of Zuck's ad revenue

hottuberrol

Re: Just goes to show how out of touch our politicians are

Not only do most other people (and in the case of some Sth Pacific and African nations, FB *is* the internet".....but FB is deciding what goes on their feed, filtering their reality.... while pretending to be in favour of free speech. Check and balances? None - Zuck has a majority share and is unaccountable to Board and shareholders alike. Manifestly bad for society.

Cisco reveals a probe of 'self-enrichment scheme' involving ex-employees in China

hottuberrol

i guess once those employees sold all their IP to huawei, they needed to find a new income stream.....

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

hottuberrol

Re: effect on small Pacific countries

Facebook's ubiquity as "the internet" is not just these nations - you'll find this in Africa as well. People dont use a search engine - they think the internet is facebook, it comes preloaded on their phones. Its truly dangerous. National opinion can be swayed by one information source, controlled by one 30-something megalomanic with a majority shareholding and no social skills. The sooner US anti-trust breaks up FB, the better - and every shareholder, bar the nerd, will be better off too !

hottuberrol

Re: Screaming from the over-entitled masses

"Faccebook arent bullies.....the bullies are Morrison and Murdoch..."

Oh, you were so , so close.

This is two billionaires having a pissing match.

In the blue corner, old school Murdoch, who influences policy and plays kingmaker through his various media channels.

In the red corner, digital challenger Zuck, who peddles influence through capturing and analysing data on us, the users.

I despise both of them, and no matter whose liptstick is used, none of this is about what's good for Australia or its people.

Morrison is the monkey to Murdoch's organ grinder.

Fancy a £130k director of technology role with the UK's Ministry of Justice? All you need to do is 'fix the basics'

hottuberrol

That salary is not going to attract anyone with the necessary technical skills, the appetite to fix an IT mess that dates back over a decade, and the ability to put up with this government's BS - and inevitably having your name publicly smeared as the scapegoat for 10 years of incompetent s**tf*ckery.

China offers world its COVID QR Code movement passport at G20 Leaders' Meeting

hottuberrol

anyone who has read Wired magazines articles about the chinese surveillance society (about 12 months ago) doesnt need to be told this is a bad thing.

Judge rules Oracle didn't have to listen to its Euro Works Council over support biz layoffs

hottuberrol

" European Works Councils are organisms ..." I've heard them called a few things before, but not that !

Enjoying that 25Mbps internet speed, America? Oh, it's just 6Mbps? And you're unhappy? Can't imagine why

hottuberrol

Supersonic pig? I didnt know any air force was still flying my old F1-11s

I may have read Autonomy whistleblower emails about 'inflated' sales, founder Mike Lynch admits in court

hottuberrol

interesting to see if this crack widens into a chasm. $500k on its own is nothing versus the ~ $8B (?) valuation HP paid.

You're not Boeing to believe this, but... Another deadly 737 Max control bug found

hottuberrol

"" The 737 MAX is inherently stable and would fly perfectly well without MCAS.""

I thought the whole reason for MCAS was that Boeing decided that a software-enabled control fix would be cheaper to implement that redesigning the existing 737 fuselage (and any associated regulatory compliance costs including type-ratings), in order to accommodate the larger donks they now have and how these are forward-slung under the wings. Which implies that without the MCAS, it IS inherently unstable in certain situations. Am I wrong about this ?

'Happy to throw Leo under the bus', Meg Whitman told HP after Autonomy buyout

hottuberrol

Re: Is it me?

The comparison of two auction bidders leaves out the key driver: why do the bidders want it ? Bidder A might want it to make complete a collection of works by that painter; bidder B might bid because that painting was owned by their family before the Nazi's looted their town, or it might be malice because they want to thwart bidder A, or, anything else but what motivates A. Then throw depth of respective pockets into the mix. And as pointed out, the next time it might not be worth the same becuase of what is at stake at the time.

And so, introducing Oracle to the discussion of whether Autonomy misrepresented their earnings is largely irrelevant. HP would have paid up to as much as their business case could take. We don't know what that is. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it appears too much was paid.

There is some "law" (like Occam's Razor) that says one should not attribute an action to malice when poor judgement or ignorance will suffice. If Autonomy fudged their numbers, no reasonable amount of due diligence is going to uncover that; that's why representations are signed that do (or do not) warrant the accuracy of the information provided, and these direct the legal consequences that can follow. And so, here we are. Even if Leo and HP had a silly business case that caused them to pay too much, that's not necessarily a reason to forgive Lynch & Co misrepresenting their data to the market. And its worth noting that some accountants/consultants involved have settled with HP out of court rather than go to trial on this.

DXC Technology seeks volunteers to take redundancy. No grads, apprentices, and 'quota carrying' sales folk

hottuberrol

Re: What this really means

Not sure an extra month's pay will achieve that outcome. Wont there still be legacy SDS, Phillips, government, Compaq etc people on the books, with nice fat grandfathered employment terms ?

Police ICT Company kills £500m procurement, no longer wants one box shifter to rule them all

hottuberrol

Re: No overall policy from the Home Office

If you would please stop thinking up new jobs for Chris Grayling to mess up, the nation will be eternally in your debt.

Virtustream xakes xanaged, xrofessional xervices to xhe xtreme xith xStreamCare

hottuberrol

Re: EMC is not one of the federation

A fiver says the EMC brand (or D-EMC, for the pedants) wont exist in 12 months...

Cheapskate Brits appear to love their Poundland MVNOs as UK's big four snubbed in survey again

hottuberrol

Interesting to note that the endless virtue-signalling posts on my LInkedIn from Vodafone people about how great a leader they are/ how humble they are to get recognised/ how they support gender diversity/ etc have dried up since Which UK pointed out that people despise their company. Coincidence? However I do think that over the last 4 years Voda have noticeably improved their network coverage and data service across everywhere I go in the UK. I wouldn't have been using them at all, given a choice, but my employer has a contract with them; before that, they messed up adding bundles to my personal phone several times despite contacting them, and I kept getting hit with obscene overage charges. Oh, and I also had their home broadband until about a year ago; they refused to take seriously my complaints about constant service interruptions over several months (which matter as I am frequently skypeing colleagues around the world from home); I'm now with sky, same copper cable out to the street, and voila, no service interruptions. so yes...their customer service does suck.

Here's what Lynch, Hussain and HPE are saying about Autonomy pre-buyout due diligence

hottuberrol

" Lynch and Hussain also accuse HP of not having understood that Autonomy's accounting system was subtly different from the American megalith's practices"

HP has plenty of experience in reseller networks across the world, including the UK, and therefore an appreciation of the accounting methods available. This is either a daft argument by Lynch and Hussein and they will be exposed for it, or, HP really dropped the ball here because they have the internal experience to know how this stuff works.

Former HP CEO Léo Apotheker tells court he didn't read Autonomy's latest accounts before fated $11bn buyout

hottuberrol

So what if Leo didn't read the latest reports. A forensic accountant needs to demonstrate that Autonomy misrepresented its earnings according to accepted accounting principles, or not. End of. A lot of you are quick to jump on the smash-Leo bandwagon (and i was at HP then, and thought Leo was an airhead) but there have been so many high-profile accounting scandals in the UK Plc environment in the past few years, yet their books are regular audited by the so-called experts in the Big 4 ....who dont catch these things (or are maybe compliant about it so they dont lose their consultancy megabucks by being "difficult" ??).... even today's BBC news highlights a call for the break up of the Big 4 accounting firms from an audit vs consulting perspective.....so if the so-called experts aren't calling out falsification, why expect a propeller-head like Leo to notice? You lot are conferring a lot of wisdom on him, and all CEO's , that is not entirely warranted.

If you can't nail Mike Lynch with fraud claim, judge asks HPE, can he score a win over you?

hottuberrol

Re: One thing is sure.

""If it *WAS* only curiously creative accounting, will shareholders sue someone (who?) for not doing proper due diligence?""

I believe HPE has already reached a settlement with the investment banks and/or consulting firms who undertook due diligence and prepared the numbers for HPE. Happy to be corrected on that point.

On the eve of Patch Tuesday, Microsoft confirms Windows 10 can automatically remove borked updates

hottuberrol

Reading emails , without making a cup of tea while each one opens, requires a laptop less than 3 years old does it ? Puh-leeease.

There are no compute or graphic-intense apps on my 5 year old, stock samsung i5 processor laptop - the win10 upgrade mess wiped them all off, i had to install the OS from scratch and work with the helpdesk to get out of the reboot cycle. Now the laptop is no use for anything much, i keep my accounts on it, but mostly do email and itunes on an ipad. MSFT single-handedly killed off any desire to invest in another WIN machine ever again, so no, i wont be resolving this problem by spending more moola on the latest laptop only to have MSFT bork it 2 years later.

hottuberrol

I'm just a dumb user. I loathe my WIn10 home PC. Just opening one email in my outlook inbox - MSFTs own proprietary email app that should be seamless - takes 10 seconds or more, and if the email has images embedded, some dont ever load. And on days ending with "y", connectivity to my default HP printer disappears and I have to set up the printer again. Now imagine a Tesla-like future (its here now) where car makers wirelessly send SW updates to your car. Cant start your car to get to work because of a 2 hour update, or a broken startup cycle requiring a week of interaction with the helpdesk to fix (that was my first win10 upgrade) ? The howls of protest from the media and consumer orgs would drive the car maker to the wall, or at least force compensation. Meanwhile. MSFT flip us the bird.

Vodafone signs $550m deal with IBM to offload cloud biz

hottuberrol

Surprised it took this long. Any business unit created in Voda that isnt about selling more consumer sim cards automatically sparks a case of organ-rejection. And I'm willing to wager a week's pay that the quid-pro-quo here is that Voda will win (or has recently won) a chunk of IBM's mobile connectivity business in Europe,

Oracle boss's Brexit Britain trip shutdown due to US government shutdown

hottuberrol

Re: WTAF?

well ....he didnt forget his ATM card when he needed to pull an account statement in order to impress a blonde lady with the size of his...bank balance. Just sayin'.....priorities....

Volkswagen links arms with Microsoft for data-slurping cloud on Azure

hottuberrol

Re: Lemme hear you say, "Duh!!"

Just to compound the irony/stupidity - i worked for a large mobile carrier whose company policy is "thou shalt not make/take work calls while driving". Wonder if that's the carrier VW is using....

I want to buy a coffee with an app – how hard can it be?

hottuberrol

Despite having a crappy app, my usual chain coffee shop lets you cash out from Quidco onto their loyalty card. Only their loyalty card isnt a card. It isnt even in their app. Its an email with a QR code. An email that has to be dug out and scanned in order to pay. After scanning their app to get the loyalty credit. And you cant tell how much balance you have left unless you click on a link in the email. A link that doesnt work (404 error) . And if you access the help team via the app, to discuss why you cant determine your card balance....they send you a link to contact another help team. What a palaver.

Brits pay £490m extra for mobes they already own – Citizens Advice

hottuberrol

The carriers are taking advantage of the same human inertia that means people stay with banks and insurance companies, even though newcomers are getting better deals. So you can make the same argument that these businesses should also automatically offer a better deal; or you can make the argument that if people are too lazy or cant be bothered, the higher rate is the price they pay for avoiding the hassle of changing. Or call it a "stupid tax". Whatever.

What makes me vomit in my mouth is that the same companies who do this - presumably to a substantial block of customers who are vulnerable/can least afford it - also love to flog their social responsibility credentials every chance they get.

Vodafone cops ads rap over Martin Freeman's vanishing spaceship

hottuberrol

When I see that ad, I am reminded that this is exactly my experience at home. Guess who my broadband provider is?

And when I call Voda about the constant yet random disconnects....even quoting the time of the last one....first they try to make me do the rain-dance of "reboot", "change the wifi channel", "unscrew the BT plate and change the plug".....and then they tell me that their systems say there are no line problems and everything is fine....

Generally Disclosing Pretty Rapidly: GDPR strapped a jet engine on hacked British Airways

hottuberrol

Re: re. Reporting a breach shows awareness

On that logic, the senior managers of some UK industrial giants I have worked with would be spending a part of every day in a police station reporting Chinese intrusion attempts.

Et tu, Brute? Then fail, Caesars: When it's hotel staff, not the hackers, invading folks' privacy

hottuberrol

Re: Tending his resignation?

Indeed. As you can see, he didn't tender his resignation, he merely threatened to go (and implied he would take his staff with him). I imagine one tends one's resignation until it is tendered. Yes?

hottuberrol

Have always hated conferences in Vegas. The company-enforced 12 hour flight in coach (or longer when the travel dept tells you its $100 cheaper to take a 3 hour layover in Chicago), the jet lag, the half mile walk to a 7am breakfast in a aircraft -hanger -sized basement, the 10 hour days in a dark presentation hall, the false bonhomie of corporate drones trying to pretend they are natural entertainers up on stage. OK I have seem some pretty cool presenters over the years I admit. And enjoyed some cheap shopping. But this year my room was entered twice by staff (whose?) delivering branded corporate bumf such as T shirts and coffee mugs during my absence. And the hotels jam you with "resort fees" on top of the room rate.....but then they dont send you the email invoice you were promised to avoid the queue*** to check out,....so more unnecessary chasing and paperwork to get that money back, even though the room was paid for in advance. And now this......

*** more accurately, the hotel avoids paying the wages to staff the front desk sufficiently

DXC Technology asks field-based techies if they'd like to leave

hottuberrol

Re: When no people are left being paid a salary...

Bingo. That's why I got out of that game. Mark Hurd killed all R&D spending at HP (whose motto, ironically, was "Invent") on his quest to meet quarterly wall street numbers and pocket his bonus and share options; and CSC never had any money to spend on inventing anything anyway.

Yes the likes of EDS, HP and CSC moved labour offshore to cut costs - the easy option - but lets not forget they once presided over the skills and the cashflow needed to invent the layers of automation that are also driving a reduced need for jobs performing break-fix and resource management and orchestration. These companies could have created new profit streams to replace declining ones, and somewhere for staff to redeploy into. But their execs are programmed to milk a cash cow and meet a quarterly number, rather than invest andcreate anything. And the Boards of these companies know even less about IT than they do, so the cost cutting will go on because its the only option they have....

Oracle's JEDI mine trick: IT giant sticks a bomb under Pentagon's $10bn single-vendor cloud plan

hottuberrol

I cant take this seriously. "Legacy cloud" and "cloud is nascent " in the same press release.

At least the great orange cheetoe in the White House has the decency to contradict himself in separate tweets, not the same one.

IBM wins five-year whole-of-government deal with Australia

hottuberrol

Re: Remember the 2016 Census

Certainly was IBM that ran the census. A monumental clusterf**k.

And then there was the Prime Minister's highly advertised "innovation nation" election promise to drive technology development and industry in Australia....

So let's solve both problems at once by giving the work to a non-Australian company with a track record of failure. And yet , people wonder why I moved my IT career from Australia to Europe.

CIOs planning to snub Oracle for other cloudy vendors – analyst

hottuberrol

Re: How odd

" Indeed, most bullies and bullshit merchants eventually get what they deserve."

Big fat golden goodbyes ? That will be Hurd's second in a decade. Winner winner chicken dinner, while shareholders. employee 401K's, and customers take it in the shorts....again....

What can you do when the pup of programming becomes the black dog of burnout? Dude, leave

hottuberrol

Knowing people who've been through the black dog, mental health is not an issue to be trivialised. And it can be helped with the the smallest gestures I once ran a 20 minute session on "mindfulness" in one of my team meetings .... turns our I had one chap who simply couldn't settle into it , restless as hell.....we unpacked that later 1:1 and it turned out he was carrying a load of stress not just from work . Just the simple act of talking about it lifted the burden for him so much that his wife noticed the difference when he walked in the door that evening.

Good to see this topic getting some cover on El Reg.

Microsoft says Windows 10 April update is fit for business rollout

hottuberrol

why would I complain to MS about all the apps and software i had to spend days and days finding and re-installing after the update in january bricked my machine ? Not as if they are going to compensate me for that.

Tech’s big lie: Relations between capital and labor don't matter

hottuberrol

"" While the lumbering old leviathans who had been with the company for decades (and who desperately wanted early retirement) were kept on as they were too expensive to axe.""

Not always too expensive ! A mate of mine who was at IBM for about 20 years received tiny annual salary increases over this time; but new PM's hired off the street had to be paid bigger salaries. He's over 50, has no kids, paid off his mortgage, hated what IBM had become, and wanted to take a package when packages are being offered every week - and couldn't get one. Why? His boss flat out told him - he saves more money making redundancies to the newer, younger, more expensive guys. What surprised me most is that they were letting people go IRRESPECTIVE of the customer and revenue impact of that decision. No wonder IBM suffered 22 consecutive quarters of shrinkage... yet somehow the CEO keeps her job!

Airbus ditches Microsoft, flies off to Google

hottuberrol

Re: Silly move - give a US company the keys to whatever you do?

Having sold to Airbus in the past, I can assure you they are not stupid. I found their procurement very organised, considered, and robust.

However, since then, there is a new CIO , ex-Qantas, who I recall went down the O365 route before he left....did he have a bad experience with that ? (I dont know . Anyways.... Airbus will be under immense cost pressure as a result of the A380 order book .... and Brexit probably is bothering their supply chain....and a key supplier (GKN) is under takeover threat from a VC (and VC's are notoriously short-termist and profit-centric in their operations).... ongoing subsidy disputes seem to suggest the biggest market in the world (the USA) is acting to protect chief competitor Boeing (opinion divided on that one).....all in all, if Airbus are fighting for survival as some pundits suggest...well you can "blame the beancounters" all you want if they chose the low-cost option, but I'm not sure the beancounters created any of these issues causing it ?

Bloke sues Microsoft: Give me $600m – or my copy of Windows 7 back

hottuberrol

i want a slice of that $600M

I'm with Frank. Two weeks without my home laptop because the latest win10 auto update borked it. Couldnt even access a boot USB stick. 5+ hours spent with MS tech team on Monday night, with them calling me back every 30 mins for an update on progress. In the end I think I found the way to access the USB, not them ! Lost all my apps since a cold install was required...more time still being lost as I recover those. All this on a consumer laptop that was originally win8, but not a low-spec machine. Absolute shower of a company that takes little responsibility for the trouble it causes....every auto update, hell even the original win10 online install, has been fraught with freezes and excessive downtime.