Posts by Gavin Park Weir 46 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Sep 2007
Looking at the contract I see that UK Government has signed up to a contract based on USD thus opening them up to FX risk over the life of the contract. Having signed various contracts with the government working while working for US companies they have always insisted that its impossible to to have USD rates.
This is pretty basic contract management stuff: Have a list of all your contracts and expiration dates, don't wait until the last minute to renew or update, engage with your supplier regally talking to discuss what your ongoing needs are.
I work in sales and clients who don't/won't engage until they need something get little attention and little sympathy.
Note: be ready to give free stuff to help negotiate a better price: be a reference for your supplier, agree to a case study, present at their quarterly internal call.
I don't think a multi cloud architecture will necessarily help this scenario. If one cloud reaches capacity, then all the users with multi cloud architecture will try to re-balance workloads to the next cloud, overwhelming it and so on. Automation will could this even worse similar to Black Friday.
Users really need to keep some on prem capacity to run critical workloads, if this is sized correctly then you get high utilisation and a lower cost than cloud. At cruch time you can choose to keep running your critical apps.
Of course you can ignore all of the above: the current round of security services, RAS, CDN, Teams, Contact Centre, telco core management, network managemnt tools etc etc etc are all being run in the main clouds (Azure, AWS and Google), so when the clouds evaporate (groan) all of the services will also stop functioning. IT apocalypse
One of the big worries in the illegal art work (apparently) is that fakes are sold to dodgy types because they have little ability to check if its real.
NFT would also prevent stolen art work from even being brought back into the market after its been "found" 10 years later. The buyer can check if the person selling has the original NFT. If not they are either flogging a fake or stole it. This massively devalues stolen / illegal art work.
Imagine the scene: Evil genius has been lording it over the other lesser evil types, inviting them round ot his underground layer to show off his Picasso when BAM the same Picasso come up for auction but auction version they have the NFT* to prove its the original. imagine the sniggering at the annual evil convention. What a dupe...
* OK so Picasso is a bad example due to the recent NFT thing but you get the picture.
Its a bit weird how bad the ads on YouTube are - I mostly watch on my phone. Terrible targeting.
Given I have never clicked a youtube ad maybe they are getting desperate? Women's panty liners, baby formula are just two in the last 3 days which are so massively inappropriate and unsuccessful.
Perhaps the algorithm has accidentally developed a sense of humour?
Seriously, advertisers should pay for success (clicks) only. That way all the spam would earn Google et all nothing and targeting would improve.
I might end up having to pay for youtube (never clicking anything) or lose it
Classic timing: So two yanks get the Nobel Economics Prize for their work on auctions, specifically spectrum auctions and how they maximize the value/revenue the government can generate from selling/leasing it to private industry.
Then boom - no bid deal.
My guess is that all the cronies (either party) in the US think there is a reasonable chance the current administration won't make it so they are doing their best to make hey while the orange sun is shining.
The the US telco I work for has had uCPE actually deployed for 5 years and had 10,000+ boxes in customer sites 4 years ago. We have two uCPE vendor choices now but adding more to the portfolio is hard to justify when you have to maintain a supply chain to for supply and breakfix in 198 countries. I can't believe VF are only just doing this.
I would note that it has not all be plain sailing, getting it all to work like the marketing slides has been hard work...
Funding fibre to urban or rural areas is expensive, take up varies enormously and so telcos (OR etc) sensibly try to deliver where they get a return or subsidy.
There should be a system where you as a resident or business can provide that subsidy in return for share of the profits as more people take up the service.
We got FTTP to 50% our rural village after 6 years of working with Hampshire CC and OR. The other have 50% of the village had FTTC delivered as part of the Hants program. The FTTP 50% of the village has to raise a significant sum (£25k) to fund share the infrastructure. In the end Hants returned our money as the take up of Superfast was higher across Hants than expected and so OR gave them some money back.
Some sort of bond where local funding lowers risks for the telcos and provides a long term return for those who can / will provide the upfront funding would make sense and drive community engagement.
I would have thought that there will need to be both EDFAs and proper reprocessing points? My recollection from 20 years ago is that there are 2 forms of signal reduction in fibre optics:
Attenuation - the light getting dimmer over distance
Spreading/scattering - gradual elongation of the "1" light pulse into the "0" dark due to boucing off the wave guides and glass particles etc.
EDFAs would only address attenuation not signal spreading.
Given the resources to create the app, processes, roll out, response etc are small in comparison to the national cost of extending current restrictions, why not develop both in parallel? There will be lots of parts of the process that are common: internation with testing and health teams, messaging reporting etc.
If TT was in any doubt in their case they would have settled before the tribunal. They might have played a game of brinksmanship but they would not have risked the CEO in the dock...
The cost of the tribunal woul have been ten of thousands of pounds in lagal fees let alone the distraction for the senior staff.
Live in rural Hants and all the local roads are effectively what I would call "cart track". Going over 30mph is a risk to the vehicle.
I find it hard to believe that sat photos are a better solution than one of the below
- cameras on bin lorries with "AI" to spot holes
- Deal with Google, Waze or other to correlate user pot hole experience (is driving, phone shock detected, with position etc)
- making it easier for users to report issues
I'd think having existing road users as automated detectors would be best.
I agree with some of it but the point about "company should re-reimburse lunch because you are travelling" is dangerous. If your job requires travel and you sign up to it knowing you will be inconvenienced then why should your company pay for lunch?
You can pack a sandwich in tupper wear and take it with you?
Having been a supplier to the NHS in the past. The reason none of us greedy bastard, no good, only out for ourselves, shoody outfits provide the right high quality solution is this:
NHS: Can I have a good thing to update / fix / provide (delete as needed) this service
Supplier: We would recommend X which costs £Y
NHS: We can't afford Y because we are not able to negotiate the budget we need to fix update / fix / provide (delete as needed). What can you for £Z?
Supplier: How about this 2003 PC running XP?
One of the huge benefits of automated vehicles is that we can rip up and pave over the ridiculously inefficient railways.
Their use of capacity compared to a road is tiny and cost per passenger mile is huge. Convenience (lack) is a joke - drive to station, park car, walk in rain to platform, wait for train (late), arrive destination, wait in rain for taxi etc etc. We can use the capacity in addition to the existing roadways.
I also would like to see a change in ownership models. Out family currently have 2 cars that spend 95% (or more) of the time idle. Either parked in the train station or by the house. I assume that automated vehicles will turn every trip into a taxi ride. Everyday commute: small single passenger unit. Family holiday to wales: bigger unit etc.
In which case, if people are not buying cars who will the big manufactures be selling to?
Agreed - we are 7.5km from the exchange but despite BT finding that they have existing ducting between the exchange the village which they could put fibre in, they decided not to because they don't want to cough up for a cabinet in the village.
The irony: it is a rare day when there is not a BT (or several) van on 7.5km stretch between the village and the exchange. The annual cost of the engineer time must be many multiples of the cost to fibre and put in a cabinet which would dramatically shortening possible length for the copper to fail.
Estimated 240 copper pairs over 7.5km = 3600km of copper most of it installed 60 years ago.
I can sort of see this happening. Parents of students are mostly unaware of the ghastly and generally dangerous stuff their little darling gets up to in their absence.
No doubt a reasonable portion of the student body have done a number of illegal things that generally not widely known about.
So when a researcher makes up something uncomfortably close to the truth the subject make it fit.
I am sure that for the completely innocent there would not be convinced.
I would like to know what time of day this was tested?
about 6 months ago I had a 2 hour wait in Waterloo from 4pm to 6pm. I connected PC via tether and ran a ping test throughout.
4pm I was seeing around 120ms.
By 5:05pm rose to around 2200ms
by 5:15 stopped working - no packets were pass
All tests to bbc.co.uk using Vodafone 3G.
This bears out my daily commute experience which is that I can't do anything internet in waterloo at rush hour.
Given I have wifi at home, wifi at work and wifi in the pub I only need it when commuting. Generally a bit rubbish then.
If someone wants to break in they will. If the burglar is in anyway organised cameras will make no difference as they will avoid being caught.
However as much as anything its about making your property look difficult / riskier than another one they drive past: If you have good security lights, gravel that makes lots of noise, good quality doors and windows, powered burglar alarm and cameras then you look prepared and probably not an easy target.
It does look like you are protecting something but to a casual thief probably one to avoid. The types of thief who target you for a specific item are well prepared but I have nothing that valuable.
If companies had a little more backbone when acquiring they would bind the banks the to the value of the deal. Offer to pay cash based on cost of the bankers work and then shares in the new company that only vest after 5 years.
That would tie the bankers income to giving good advice all round.
Great article if only because it reinfornces what I have been thinking is probably true (I don't want my theories tested).
My thought is why can't my roof be generating H2 for me to use when I want it? I could fill my car, run my house etc. Additionally it would make a big difference if our grid did not have to support a very peaky power usage profile. Even out the peaks and Nuclear (traditional or thorium), wind etc could be more efficient.
We would get round big electric organisation the moment local generation costs in without subsidies.
Why are these guys moving all the data around? Why not have one big datacentre and have everyone log in via VDI. The cost if 10gb/s connections is high and would support 10,000s of VDI connection. Typically only high frequency traders can justify international 10gb/s connections and they max them out 24/7. I bet these pipe are empty most of the time.
When you actually need to move the finished product around, send a person on a plane with hard disks - cheaper and probably as quick.
I agree with the evolution sentiments. Life will continue. Its the individual and collective mankind that is causing all the fuss. I.e. I don't want life to be much harder. I too am sceptical over the science.
The most important thing to discover is what if any impact is our activity having and what do we need to change to minimise negative impact. I.e. Spending money on carbon reduction is pointless if the ecosystem will scrub it out of the atmosphere.
I like the untethered design space elevator. Basically you balance the (~30km) bit of string so that one end is at say 20km above earth and the other is beyond geo stationary.
It must help solve some big issues. Lots of the friction will happen lower down with air, you can leave it in the shade or sun as you need. I'm thinking that balance would be done with liquids and pumps.
Mines the one with the infinitely strong carbon nano tube in the pocket.
I work in sales for a global SP. I am constantly amazed at how few of the IT leaders I meet can easily and coherently articulate the company's strategy and how IT are aligning their projects to match.
IT needs leaders in the same way that any organisation needs leaders. Where IT is brilliant and aligned to supporting the business the organisation is given a boost in every area. Where they simply providing services at the lowest cost with no focus on the major initiates then they are drag holding back the whole company.
Using SPs is not the critical factor in the success of IT.
PS - if you are going to us SPs then find one you trust and get them to help you sell to your business. You will have to trust us though.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the backhaul.
In order to sell 4G they have to upgrade the backhaul in area where people use their phone. In order for EE to sell anything approaching a significant number they are going to have to invest in a huge backhaul upgrade. That will be time consuming. To get to a useful number of masts I expect 6-9 months. For good coverage 24 months?
Assuming my time scales above are correct....the others can start the backhaul upgrade now and by the time they have the spectrum they can launch with decent presence giving EE only a nominal advantage.
Look at sales of 4G in the US. It only happens once the area consumers live in has the technology rolled out effectively. Here is a link to AT&T's map: http://www.att.com/network/
Does anyone have any experience of the standard BT Home Hub 2.0. I'm getting rubbish transfers across Homeplug and I suspect the router.
I tried connecting the NAS and a PC together just using ethernet (without Homepulg) to the BT router but speeds did not improve much. There could be other culprits (PC or NAS, FTP method etc) but my next plan is to change the router. Anyone else done similar and got good results?
ISPs just don't get it. They are currently charging the maximum they can in their market to both the content providers and consumers.
If they want a slice of the content revenue then all they have to do is to create content the consumers want. Creating content is a much riskier business than infrastructure. Some bets pay off and others don't
If their distribution method is so valuable they would be able to charge more than they are. As it is competition keeps the prices where they are.
OK so I work for a global telco and part of our business is providing large organisations (Google etc) and ISPs (Tiscali or Vodafone etc) with large chunks of bandwidth. We operate in a competitive market and sell GB of bandwidth and try to make margin.
We need to keep upgrading our fibre backbone around the world to keep up with capacity that our customers increasingly demand. However the cost to upgrade the backbone keeps falling per mb.
As we operate in a competitive environment this means that as the Googles and ISPs of the world order more bandwidth they buy it cheaper per mb.
The challenge for ISPs is to estimate if the future cost of BW is going to to drop faster than user demand rises. If does then they make margin, if not they lose money.
OK so everyone has 10 or 100mb to their home and starts to use it. The local exchange is going to need to be in 1gb to 10gb range. Local backbone in the 40 -100gb range (currently just about available) and national backbone into new and as yet undeveloped 1tb+.
The cost of this equipment is astronomical even when you consider the numbers of users involved.
Getting this kind of change wrong will bankrupt a company and its not easy to see what the actual revenue from these services is going to be.
That is such a minor change in the status quo. 5bn cut in IT spending but over how long? The only thing now that can save the government deficit is if RBS and other banks we own somehow manage to gain in value and the gov can sell them to get our money back.
Sadly all the good (I mean successful) bankers are going to leave and the non gov funded banks are going to make millions taking all the profitable business while we end up holding all the toxic debt.
Have a look at this amazing floating sucken shop just off the coast. Scary place stay away.
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=t9nz4pgm31y9&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=29551600&ss=ypid.YN1076x198195459~pg.1&sp=Point.t9nz5hgm31r7_Junkers%3F_Rotate%20the%20birds%20eye%20view%20until%20you%20get%20to%20the%20one%20with%20wind%20blowing%20on%20the%20water___&encType=1
It seems to me that web site owners are complaining to the wrong audience. If the advertisers were putting out acceptable adverts then we would not need ABP. Problem solved.
Also the general user population of the internet has no particular head or structure. I'm sure that ABP could be shut down but that would really piss all the users off who would go even further to avoid the adds ultimately having a negative effect.
On the advertising side you have a nicely organised group with good lines of communications. Why not complain to them and get them to change. Fighting a battle with the who internet community is not something website owners are going to win.
Gav
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