Posts by John Chadwick

Big Blue shipped Power6+ last fall

@All rather odd

It's because the people who control the budgets and a good many of the people who use the computers don't understand how the work, or the limitations of the architecture. And the fact that IT is a very "Me Too", industry, so if it has worked for one application it must work for another, otherwise why would we have Windows.

Sadly I'm in the school of choose the right tool for the right job, rather than most of industry these days that seems to think that making all problems fit the tool is the right answer.

Microsoft's DNA won't permit Oracle-Sun deal

Didn't they actually make PCs at one time?

I seem to remember that Microsoft, in the early days of Windows actually supplied PCs, though I don't know if they designed and built them, or just "Badge Engineered" them from Intel?

Anyone remember better?

Oracle reels in Sun Microsystems with $7.4bn buy

Assuming this isn't a joke....

It will be very interesting to see what Oracle keeps, what it bins, and what it sells. If Oracle really want to be a hardware vendor, then it makes a lot of sense.

Anybody want to guess who Microsoft will now buy.

SGI's Rackable's future supercomputers

@Apple should buy Sun and SGI...

Abso bleedin lootly, but they won't. But it does make you think, if some one buys SGI, perhaps a speculative buy out for Sun isn't such a daft idea.

What if IBM doesn't buy Sun?

Another thought

If someone if daft enough to buy SGI.....

Yes this is an opinion..

But it does raise a lot of questions about what is really going on. We could for example think that IBM has done this, only because it has seen an oppertunity to drive Sun out of business. That Sun needs a partner, if it is to remain an independent public company, I think is true.

To remain private, well that's a different matter, and probably the best solution for Sun's staff and customers, but probably not the management team.

I don't think Sun's core products will disappear that quickly, they are embedded in too many other things, and we also have no idea how the competition authorities would view this. I suspect they would be very loath to let Sun's products be subsumed by the likes of IBM or Oracle. The risks of heading for too many duopoly situations in IT springs to mind, so perhaps we could have a bit more informed comment here. Chris's comments are perfectly valid, but I think more is needed, as there's far more at stake here that the credability of Sun's management team. They are toast, but I suspect they want to be rich toast.

Playmobil Bible faces wrath of lawyers

@Winkypop - Get it right

Jesus did exist and is documented by the Roman Empire, as a minor troublemaker in Judea. How wrong could they be.

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

So does this mean..

I can actually connect my in car sat nav to the phone so that I can call up the traffic alerts, or am I still going to have to fall back to my trusty Nokia 6310i each time I drive round the M25, which is virtually every day, twice.

Court rules 'ceaseless liability' for net libel fine for free speech

For historical purposes...

Surely you could maintain the article, whilst clearly stating that it was libellous? A very small cost when compared to the libel damages.

Sun beefs servers with SSDs

Won't ne able to afford - $1,199

I guess it depends why you want SSDs. At 32Gb, we'll buy them on performance critical deliveries, as we can mitigate some of the cost of risk reduction. But I can see our hosting division wanting them, as they don't give them anything they need.

High performance disks make sense when you have middleware that needs local cache storage for hydration. Mind you, we'll probably find some new bottlenecks to replace the ones local I/O causes.

Twas ever thus.

PS you can't expect a new wizzy device to be cheap, where would capitalism be if everything went straight to commodity. I can't see Intel selling it's latest and fastest processors for $100, although, I expect they could.

Fanbois will abandon iPhone for Palm, says Wikisugardaddy

Dream on.

Why would I actually want to move to a Palm. Why would you want to change, Palm were good devices for their time, I have two old ones that lie unused in my draw. My iPhone does everything they did, and nearly everything I want it too. I like it far more than my old Windows mobile (XDA & XDA Exec), but they aren't the same, apart from the fact that neither of them have a bluetooth modems. I would have thought thought, that they are really aimed at different markets, how may people actually use Windows Office mobile in anger.

Why would I want a palm, what does it actually give me that my iPhone doesn't, I'll bet it won't have a bluetooth modem either.

I think I can cope with swapping my sim chip back and forwards betweeen my 6310i and iPhone. Why the latter, ah well, I go places that don't allow camera phones, and I also have a TomTom.

HP begins selling pay cut plan to European workers

@Unions are idiots

Does that mean we can all have our debts cut as well. If HP does this, then IBM will, followed by Accenture and the rest.

Economics 101, cut salaries and there's even less money in the economy because more of it goes to paying back your mortgage, thus less discretionary spend on ink cartridges. sure some people get to keep their jobs longer, but actually they would be better off with a severance package. This way more of us get bigger debts, and of because we've had a pay cut when we finally get made redundant, we get a smaller severance.

I'd take a 10% pay cut if all my debts were cut by 10% as well.

BP snips IT contractor rates

The bit I like is...

"Enjoying the benefits of deflation", any and every economist will tell you that labour rate deflation is an economic disaster as it reduces the buying power of the consumer without reducing their debt, even if they are highly paid temps, who drive big cars that use lots of expensive BP fuel, that they won't buy any more and so on.

I'd have to say that that statement has to be the most stupid thing I have heard from any spokesman in years and shows BP to be more out of touch with reality than any Politician.

It's simple, the economy works because people want to buy stuff, if you cut their income they can't buy stuff, so you sell less, and have to cut more staff, and so on. You know basic supply and demand.

Apple iPhone police censor South Park

They will kill the golden goose.

There is a serious risk that the kudos that an iPhone has will lapse and people will stop buying, because of these limitations, I probably use mine less that 50% time now because it doesn't have a bluetooth modem to connect to my car's sat nav. (Important if you drive round the M25 a lot) , All the limitations add up, I even begining to look wistfully at by original XDA Exec, I actually use a 6310i most of the time now. Younger users want media diversity, old gits like me just want a PDA Phone that helps.

US Navy orders new electric hyper-kill railgun

High Speed Rail Rail Guns

Perhaps this is the initiative that the UK needs to build it's high speed rail network from coast to coast, 25Kv overhead, plenty of amps, quick deployment. All for the cost of a couple of Aircraft Carriers.

Perhaps we should pass this one over to Cpt. Deltic for a spreadsheet or two.

(This idea is at least as sane as the IEP)

Brit porn filter censors 13 years of net history

Who are the IWF?

Who are the people behind this organisation, do they actually know anything about the Internet or the sites they ban, do they actually investigate the Sites and URLs before they decide what to ban? Likewise do the ISPs bother to do impact analysis, or even check the URLs and Sites themselves?

Apple wrongfoots iPhoneys

LOL

Perhaps this is the answer to product piracy, hype up thing and release a different product. Could bring a whole new meaning to vapour ware.

Still anyone who has bought one might have a collectors item.

Rail companies roll out barcode ticket standard

Who does this really benefit?

Buying tickets on-line isn't, so far as I've seen any cheaper than buying at the station from a human being, despite the adverts, in fact it lands up being more expensive once you've paid the transaction charge. Bare in mind that you can but any type of ticket in person at the station, from anywhere to anywhere.

The web sites also aren't capable of giving you the cheapest fare options either. Try getting a web site to give you the cheapest travelcard option for outbound after 10am and returning between 16.30 and 19.00 on FCC. It involves issuing two tickets, something the ticket offices do without a second thought, but websites and ticket machines, no way.

Ex-IBMer and new iPod boss ordered to stop work

Isn't this....

Sour grapes, and a lot petty.

Microsoft retires Windows 3.11 on 18th birthday

I keep meaning to.....

See if my old copy of GEM will boot under Windows Vista, and yeah how exactly is Windows Vista better that WFW, for us humble domestic users. (Apart from all the exploitable holes that is)

BTW. I started my GUI career on Xerox Star, and my association with the Interweb around the same time. Vista really isn't that big an advance.

But I did like WFW, did everything I wanted it too. Unlike most of its successors.

RIP

Fifty years later, steam appears on British railway

The Flying Scotsman was not....

An A1, it was an A3 designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, where as Tornado is an A1 of a design by A.H Peppercorn.

Being fair as I like to be, it did used to be an A1, but Peppercorn's predecessor Thompson decided that all his designs would be 1s, so the old A1s were relegated to being A3s. Actually his landed up being one of a kind, the A1/1.

So management hubris is not a new thing. Sadly no Chief Engineer would be allowed to do this today's world where it's never mind the quality, look at the bottom line. I wonder how many current executives grand children will be able to say my Grandad built that. One wonders how many computers will still be running over 100 years after they were designed, as many steam engines still are.

I'll get my Anorak now.

UK Govt to spend £100m on three-city electric car trial

If they were really serious.....

The government would insist that Royal Mail, the Government Delivery Agency, TfL and others invested in electric vehicles.

But you won't find many private sector users going for them, most fleet vehicles these days are leased over fixed terms tied to contracts, electric vehicles are more expensive and have very long life spans. Look at the age of some milk floats around London!

The maintenance company one of my relatives runs would love to use them, but the market is too competitive, contracts are too short as little as two years, so the lease rates would be astronomic. They only make sense for long term users who don't have to worry too much about their business levels.

BTW can you imagine our favourite estate agents in London swapping their Beetles or Minis for a electric vehicle they had to keep using for 40 years. Ho! Ho!

OLO promises Foleo-style iPhone-Air laptop combo

A Nice Concept...

If you get rid of most of the crap you get with the O/S in most PCs, what do we actually use them for, web browsing, the odd document or spreadsheet, and not much else. So why do you need Vista, Activ Sync, a core 3 duo and 4Gb of memory, why not just use your smart phone and it's arm processor, and plug it in to a docking station.

Full marks, pity it won't sell.

Oh and I like my iPhone, and I'd like it even more if it had a 3G modem, but then I hated my O2 XDA which had more functions, but not a 3G modem either, thank god I still have my T630 for those moments.

Scotland Mountain Rescue turns on Ofcom

Here's a thought...

The RNLI and Mountain Rescue could just refuse to pay, and continue to pay the old fees. One wonders how keen the media savvy OFCOM would feel about prosecuting the RNLI and Mountain Rescue services.

Would you want to be the CEO who closed down the UK's rescue services, somehow I doubt it. Not only that, would you want to be the CEO of a telecomms company who bought the spectrum out from underneath these services.

Wireless-data LED lamps to replace lightbulbs - US profs

Yeah but...

What use is a data transfer mechanism that only works when:

a) The lights are on.

b) The lights are the brightest available light source.

And what happens when:

a) There's a mirror or two in the room.

b) The LED's begin to fail.

I look forward to the results of this research with interest, I can't see this kind of light bulb being cheap. I use LED lighting at home and it does flicker. Oh and light does bend round corners, and reflect off all sorts of things.

Sun jilted in Oracle big-systems love

&Oracles sales mantra "anyone but Sun"

Just for the record a T5440 would require 12 Oracle CPU Licences, but then it has these things called domains which allow you to partition up your server, so you can buy the number of licences you need to suit you processing profile. 4 Cores for database, 4 cores for Application Server, quite a bit of grunt. Oracle's core multiplier is .75 for a T2 compared to .5 for x86, but .5 would be fairer.

12 CPU licences still cost an eye watering £282,504.10 including maintenance, but then a T5440 does actually pack a hell of a lot of processing power into a small box, like 16 cores and 128 threads, all be it at 1.4Ghz, compared to a core 2 duo at say 2.8Ghz and how many threads?, it's a different beast entirely. More like an E25K, without the I/O bandwidth.

I also hadn't notices Oracle were any less inclined to sell their licences on Sun.

Marketing body condemns 'draconian' Olympic law

So does this mean....

The Olympic Police will be breaking down the doors of the RHS and its allies for awarding a 2012 gold medal for my prize cucumber.

Will we see Dermot Gavin hauled away from Chelsea for awarding the Gold Medal for the strangest concept garden....

Will CAMRA and countless other organisations be banned from awarding gold medals in 2012.

But then the Lawyers won't be able to award themselves a 2012 gold medal for making pots of money for trying to defend or prosecute a stupid law.

Royal Society says goodbye to creationism row vicar

God's last message to creation

Was I believe, "Sorry for the inconveniance".

As a Christian, I believe that there is a god and he's omnipotent, and he could very well have created the universe in six days. However, if that's what he did, why has he left us so many clues as to it's being many billions of years old, that life has evolved from a simple organic soup, and so on. I'd guess, that he wanted to teach us something.

My school Biology teacher was a creationist, and so far as I remember all his pupils thought it was looney. I'm also fairly sure most of the uniformed branch of the church in the school thought so too.

So now where's my Total Perspectivity Vortex, I'm thinking of putting a few creationists in it.

Inclusion of creationism as a viable alternative to science is stupid and dangerous. Not only that it's insulting to the vast majority of Christians.

Artemis Fowl scribe to pen sixth Hitchhiker's novel

Outrage, what Outrage?

I doubt anyone can actually replace Douglas Adams, or imitate his style, any more that you could Terry Pratchett's or any of many other loved authors, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't build on their ideas and world with your own.

I'm personally looking forward to seeing how you follow up on "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish". Perhaps we could even have a new Dirk Gently.

So long as Eoin doesn't try to be Douglas Adams and develops the character with his own style, we could have some good reads.

Go for it.

Microsoft will show world+dog how to write secure code

Yes but...

People will believe them, worse still, people will think that writing with Microsoft tools intrinsically makes your software secure.

Talking about dogs, I'll bet it'll run like one though.

Wall Street shudders under Lehman collapse

Who'd of thought it...

That Estate Agents (Realtors) would bring down Bankers. Still if you put your trust in the devil, you get burned. Now we know which is the bigger wunch of unprincipled greedy bar stewards.

We can but hope that when they re-invested their ill gotten gains, they were advised by Lehman.

I'd laugh, if the repercussions were not so serious.

Apple code of secrecy imperils Aunt Mildred

Here's a handy hint....

I've always found that being polite and constructive with support forums, analysts and whatever gets you a lot further than being abusive and sarcastic.

Give yourself a derogatory name and you really won't get taken that seriously.

BTW, you should know by now never to download an x.0 of anything, always wait for x.1, unless you just want to test it.

Tikitag lets anyone become Big Brother

And for you Model Railroaders out there .....

You can stick tags on your rolling stock so you know where it is, and computerize your waybills. Might be cheaper than infra-red detectors and reed switches, but it does depend on the detect range of the readers.

Actually, if it's cheap enough and you can run a network of readers off a PC then there are as many possibilities for this as there are for RFID, if not more.

Big and bendy e-ink displays on way

Can I read it in the bath.....

Great, if it weighs less than a mass market paperback, and I can drop it in the bath and still read it after drying it out on the radiator.

That's two reasons I'm not buying a Sony.

Oh yes, it's a Murcan size coz Murcans will buy it first in quantity.

Apple faces lawsuit over wobbly 3G claims

I'm not having any problems with mine.

3G is fine, call volume is fine.

Does what it says on the tin.

Now all I need is the bluetooth modem for my Sat Nav, Apple are you listening, just like my trusty SE630 which I keep having to swap the sim into when I drive, and no google maps won't do.

(By the way this is no different to my XDA's, which also won't connect to the Sat Nav)

All in all, I like the iPhone a lot more than Windows Mobile, oh yes an iTunes has no problem syncing unlike ActiveSync.

Forgot your ID? You must be a terrorist

One wonders.....

When too much information becomes the weak point....

Amazon Kindle set to go massive

Has anyone tried.....

Dropping a kindle in the bath, drying it on the radiator and picking up where you left off.....

No, I thought not.

Most of us dedicated readers have several books on the go at one time, one by the bed, one by the armchair and one in my briefcase, and probably one in the bathroom as well.

It saves having to carry your book around with you all the time.

Me I like my library, with lots of shelves full of books, the idea of putting it all on an electronic device in the corner seems quite sterile to me.

Research firm emails 20,000 addresses in the clear

To err is human...

......but to really foul things up you need a computer.

I don't remember who said it first, but it still holds true. Damn those distribution lists.

Apple pulls posted pulled iPhone modem app

How about Sat Nav data?

I'd like it to work with the traffic reports on my in car Sat Nav.

Having to change phones every time I want to use the sat nav is a real pain, it's why my XDA sits unloved in a pile of Junk.

And with UK Police paranoia about touching mobiles in your car who wants to use the Phone's Sat Nav.

Blighty's nuke-power push stalled as EDF buy falls through

Is it just me?

Does the fact that a French state organisation owning the British Nuclear resources worry anybody, just a bit.

I'm not sure I like the idea of subsidising the French tax payer through my electricity bill!

Microsoft to kill Windows with 'web-centric' Midori?

And we need this why ?

Sorry, why does Steve Ballmer think everybody needs, or even wants this kind of computing, have they done any market research.

Is this a return to dumb graphical terminals? I remember my old DEC and Tektronics with so much fondness, ah the graphical interface to VMS.....

BAA 'invented green superjumbo' to OK Heathrow plans

As I've said before... By Rob

I lived in Blackheath, not exactly close to Heathrow, but 5.00am in the morning, I got woken by the sound of all the red eyes turning in and throttling back for final approach. Didn't hear them when we viewed the house, nor consider that it might be an issue, but then who views houses at 5am. I noticed later in the day they tend tobe closer in to London.

I now live near Luton airport and when the wind is in the right direction get the full force of aircraft turning South and East on take off. Again you'ld have to be there on the right day to hear it. At least Luton starts a 6.00am.

Around London there are an awful lot of places on airport flight paths, soit's a bit difficult to avoid it. Around London you have Heathrow, Gatwick, Stanstead, Luton, City, Southend, and loads of smaller airfields, in fact I'd think you'ld be hard pushed to find somewhere in the southeast that wasn't under a TMA, now where are my Aerad maps. So why do we want any more aircraft? let them go to Manchester, EMA or Paris and lets have some nice quiet high speed rail links.

Still if you really want aircraft noise try V-Bombers landing and taking off from Hatfield when we still had an aircraft industry.

MoD in £1.75m rush order for SAS backpack radars

Hmmmm..What about the wild life?

How can you tell the difference between a crawling man and a sheep at 1500m, apart from the wellies?

Seriously though picking up a moving biological object with radar isn't much use unless you can tell what it is, and where it is. I'd have thought a crawling man or sheep, at 1.5Km = Water Buffalo at 2Km, Cat at 1km and rat at .5Km.

So attaching it to a visual recognition system might help.

Cambridge congestion charge plans shelved

@Manchester

Hmm, a referendum, as noted above Turkeys & Christmas, now that's a waste of public money.

DSGi profit plummets 30%

I know..

Why don't they just sell out to Best Buy?

3G iPhone not ready for the enterprise?

@Even without encryption

Have to agree, I go out of my way not to use my Trion, my SE T630 is much easier and more versatile as a phone. Pretty crap at pocket office though, but then I don't use it, because it's too pocket.

I'll be giving the new iPhone a whirl.

Pentagon hacker vows to take extradition fight to Europe

No problem with the US wanting to procecute.

This guy is bang to rights, he has done what he is being accused of, and cleaning up after him will cost money. Mind you if he's any good perhaps the US should consider a community service punishment and make him work for them for a while.

Where I have problems is that US law always seems to be about vengeance and not justice, so why should we extradite anyone to that kind of barbaric legal system.

Not only that, WTF are we doing honouring a one sided treaty, the law lords should just say come back when you ratify the treaty then you can have him.

Perhaps one thing we should take to the court of human rights is the right of any signatory to extradite to a non-signatory.

RAF strafes Next in pirated duvet copyright rumpus

Well which one

The RAF, has over the years used several roundels, so I should think at least a few would still be in copyright.

But hang on isn't it a trademark?

Mobiles help UK malls track shoppers' every move

If I was a retailer I'd be more worried.....

If this tracks people in and out of the shops, just think your average property company would be bound to latch on to the idea of:

A. Raising your rent because of the number of people visiting you shop.

B. Kicking you out because you aren't attracting enough business.

C. Raising the rent of the coffee shop net door because there's more passing trade available.

D. Raising the rent because of the average amount of time customers spend in the shop.

Personally, I don't give a stuff who knows where and when I am, but I would like to know they know, and who they can give the information too.

Ofcom sharpens cutlasses for pirate radio assault

Nope, the Pirates are still out there in London

I still get pirate radio stations breaking in around Canary Wharf and the Woolwich flyover, some even use the TA to hijack the radio and broadcaste event information, but I have to say it's less annoying than 3 Counties Radio which seems incapable of using its TA correctly, don't mind the traffic news, but I really don't need anything up to 10 minutes of chat afterwards.