Posts by h4rm0ny

I wouldn't burn your coal yet. If we do get another global cooling period, wolrd energy consumption is going to be horrifying.

All the more reason we should be building nuclear power stations as fast as we can and stockpiling fuel. Britain cannot *afford* the fuel costs we'd have if we saw another period like in the 17th/18th centuries if we're subsisting off oil and gas.

"Ermm, those of us who are not geeks, numpties or nerds (ie normal people with a normal life)"

So people who wouldn't be posting on a NAS review discussion on a Bank Holiday Monday morning, for example?

Okay, my original comment was slightly tongue in cheek but not entirely. I would expect El Reg's readership to be mostly okay with putting in a home server rather than a thing like this. It offers advantages only to a very specialist group in comparison to an actual home server and for significantly more money and with significantly fewer capabilities. I miss-called it above: it's not even a NAS, having no network capability. It's basically an external drive with a Thunderbolt interface. Yes, it can transfer a 25GB file in maybe 2 minutes, rather than say 4 minutes for USB 3, but (a) I don't think that's a big deal and (b) it's at the cost of using an interface which isn't very common and isn't likely to become a standard either.

And before anyone takes the argument that just because something isn't a big deal to me, doesn't mean it isn't a big deal to someone else, I do some graphics and video work and whilst most of it is under 5GB, rather than 25GB, the files are huge enough that transfer speed is an issue. But if I'm going to be working on something 25GB in size, well, the two minute difference isn't going to concern me. The moment something falls outside the 'click it and it opens' category, I plan around it. If I'm working on a 25GB file, I drag it to my local system (which already has 3TB of data in RAID-1 (6TB disk space total, just to be clear), get my drink or whatever else I need to do before I start work, and then work faster than even Thunderbolt would let me from the internal disks.

Yes, there is a v. small sector out there that really needs super-fast external storage, but it's really very small. The rest are just people who like big numbers. The most that most people will do is serious graphics editing where you might get image files of 50MB (I have image files that sort of size lying around). Over 1Gb/s network, they take a few seconds to open which is a tiny fraction of the time I'm likely to be working on them.

So I see this only really for people who want to do serious, serious video-editing or want to physically transport the files easily and are sure they wont be encountering any systems that don't have a Thunderbolt interface (which is most).

That's a legitimate sector, sure. And if someone falls into that sector and wants to spend over half a grand on this, then fine by me. But for anyone else who wants to physically carry files around and save some money and gain wider support at the same time, get a USB 3.0 device for less. And if you don't want to be carrying the files around with you places, have a home server which can be expanded to have massively more storage, will still be plenty fast enough and can do a lot more besides.

I just don't see this being a good buy for most people.

Ooops

I just noticed the price. Okay - surely this is one for those who are high on money and low on tech-tolerance. For that amount of money you can get a nice fanless m/board with onboard CPU, e.g. the AMD Hudson (about £100, maybe less if you're okay with fewer than five Sata 6GB/s ports), the necessary case and PSU (< £100 even if you don't have these lying around from old systems). And you can whack whatever drives in there you fancy. Let's compare like with like (e.g. you want 6TB). A pair of 3TB drives will cost you slightly over £200.

Then you stick Debian on it (or Ubuntu server, or whatever) for free.

So for about £150+ less than the cost of the 6TB model, you get something with equal capacity, 1GB/s network capability (this has no network capability at all), USB 3.0 (for greater compatability than Thunderbolt), far greater upgradeability (take it to 12TB if you want or change the disks in the future when they're cheaper), eSata. You can even use the PCIe slot and put in *additional* SATA ports if you want for really insane amounts of storage. And I haven't even touched on all the extra things you can do with it being your own Linux system: put on VLC and make it a media server, incrememental backups that let you go back in time. If you're Linux-phobic, you can stick on Windows Home Server for about £40 (way less than the amount extra you'd have spent on this), but Debian is best for all your server needs.

Anyway, you'd save over a hundred quid, get a much more capable system with greater expandability, don't even have to fit a CPU and as a fanless low-power system it's quiet and only sips power. And all you're giving up is Thunderbolt. Really, it's way too expensive for what it is.

"Linux is for people who aspire to be computer literate, but haven't yet achieved the workload which requires them to stop wasting time learning arcana about stuff that doesn't matter."

If you want to argue that Win7 is a nicer desktop envrionement and easier to work with than KDE, you can argue that. If you want to say it's better than the hideous thing that Gnome has become, you don't even have to argue that. But to say Linux is only for people with low work-loads is just trolling. I have Windows 7 for my main desktop and then I have Debian running alongside it for development work. I would not want to be without either one and I can assure you that my workload is high enough, thankyouverymuch.

Re: Linux

You might want to check if there's something specific to your set up. I would check your graphics card drivers for a start as stutter suggests the CPU is decoding things. (Not sure about Nvidia but my AIT card handles all the decoding on the card and I'm sure any recent Nvidia must provide the same). Just for reference, my Debian system can play DVDs with no problem (and Ubuntu is built on Debian). Now getting it to play Blu-Ray was a challenge, but I got there in the end.

Re: Wow.

"It's not so much tribalism as Brand association."

Tribalism. I can clearly see people in this comments section taking issue with others making different choices. That's not "I associate traits with someone who uses a particular brand", but 'I attack those who are different to me,; and 'I automatically downvote those who belong to a rival group.' Tribalism.

"Just watch a group of people at a pub/airport or business meeting with phones in their hands or sitting in front of them. Regardless of what brand of car they own or what they are wearing, you make value judgements "

You might. Others might. Not all of us are so shallow that we judge people by their phone. I'm slighly offended you think everyone is like you in this regard. Judging someone by their brand of phone is - honestly - a reprehensible attitude. I can see how people get sucked into it - having people cooing over my Lumia is a novel and gratifying experience. But I didn't buy it for that and I wont (I hope) be letting it influence any future purchase decisions.

"teenagers overseas.

Yet to talk to anybody with a WP phone in the wild, but if I did, I would probably assume they were from an MS only development shop or were given it by a business in some form or another"

Then I hope from here on you will lose this incorrect, and quite frankly strange, preconception. I've never worked for MS (I believe they were one of the buyers for some software I worked on, but that was UNIX networking software for reference). And yet, I bought a WP7 phone, because I liked it and it seemed better to me than other phones. And I bought it myself, it was not issued. So you should recognize that your perceptions are skewed and rather than object to reality not fitting your perceptions, you should adjust your preconceptions.

"Not a positive brand association in any case."

Which brings us back to bias and prejudice. Google are to privacy what salt is to slugs. Apple are world leaders in lock in and marketing on fashion rather than functionality ('I'm a well-dressed Mac, I'm a suit-wearing PC and slightly overweight'). No better than MS in my opinion, but you wont see me having a go at people for using Android or iPhones. Nor will you see me reflexively downvoting any post that lists their positive features. You agree that judging people by their phone brand is bad, I hope? Though your post gives the impression you think its okay if it is a WP7 device.

Regarding your final point, I imagine non-Nokia providers will continue to sell WP7 and later Windows 8 devices. If there's a market there that you're well equipped for, you sell in it. You don't just leave it to your competitors uncontested. HTC make phones that are fine. The O/S is as important to buyers as the hardware so they will probably not rule out a portion of their hardware sales for the sake of the O/S.

My understanding is that one of the problems for the hardware makers is that MS is setting hard rules about how their O/S can be deployed on what. That's bad for providers and carriers who want to load it down with crap or bugger about with it. But it's good for us the customer.

Re: The only way M$ will rescue Windows Phone

"Exactly, the Lumia is ok. It does a most of the things the other phones do, but why then would you expect people to toss their current phones and jump on WP?"

Who said I did? Nowhere have I said anyone should. I just object to the insane bias that some are showing here - to the point that they will mod down simple factual posts or attack someone who just says they like it. It integrates better than any of the others with my work systems and I prefer the interface to Android or iPhone. No big deal. No-one has to throw out their existing phone. But I expect not to be modded down to oblivion for it. Perhaps I have too much faith in humanity or perhaps as others have said, there are shills amongst us.

At any rate, I hope we have not become so tribal that people will mod down actual facts or reasonable statements because they see users of another type of phone their enemy. Or that it's so inconceivable that someone can simply be stating their preference without someone assuming that they must be telling others they have to ditch their exisitng phones and "jump on WP7". Try it if you have an open mind and see if you like it, next time it comes around that you get a new phone. But we're not all extremists here who are demanding that others use phone type X.

Re: Lets keep this in perspective

Poster A: "I fail to see why I should ever need to edit a hosts file on my phone."

Poster B: "Well there you see you showed your complete ignorance and also showed yourself to be a paid MS shill"

Your logic is infallible. The poster does not see a need to edit a hosts file and is therefore paid to be posting by Microsoft.

"and that my friend is why the WinPho/WinCE whatever the heck it's called now"

Wow. And you dare to lambast someone else for ignorance. That's like saying "the BeOS/MS-DOS/iOS whatever the heck it's called". WindowsCE and WP7 are almost entirely different systems.

Re: And oh, it *does* have Bluetooth, fyi.

"And can you send contacts, pictures using it ? No, thought not."

Well the Lumia imports contacts via Bluetooth, don't know about the rest. I haven't needed to export contacts, etc. from my phone as I only bought it last week. It neatly transferred those contacts I wanted it to in and out of Outlook which is a big pluss (along with my calendars). If you're someone who needs to transfer pictures by Bluetooth and it doesn't do it, get something else or wait until the functionality is added. It's a non-issue for me. Anything I want to transfer I normally do by WiFi. 3G or cable. But the phone does have Bluetooth, which a post up above strongly implied WP7 phones did not so I was just correcting that (along with other things).

Re: Lets keep this in perspective

"Good great now how about avoid being an anonymous coward if you are going to trumpet your purchase (AC half the time are astroturf marketing drones paid to blog)."

Does that apply to the more numerous ACs up above who are ranting about how rubbish the Windows Phones are? Or do you only apply your accusations of bias against those you disagree with? That's a rhetorical question: you only have levelled attacks on people for saying positive things about the WP7. It's not people liking or preferring iPhones or Android phones that I dislike. It's the slathering bias and misinformation on show here. For evidence of that, look at all the downvotes the GP got just for saying they did a comparison of the features they wanted / didn't want and found that the WP7 came out as their preferred choice. Not very incendiary, not anything factually wrong. Downvote after downvote because they aren't slating Microsoft. Bias bias bias... If you want to level accusations of "astroturfing", isn't it more logical to look at the campaign against it as that seems to be more one-sided, more loaded with bias and ad hominems?

Re: The only way M$ will rescue Windows Phone

Is it me, or are there a lot more Anonymous Cowards on the Reg these days? I bought a Lumia 710 the other week. Connects to my calendar systems, neatly integrates my different email accounts, as apps for anything I've wanted Apps for so far (I think 95% of apps out there are either duplicates or crap so I really don't care much about that). It may be single core but the software runs everything I've wanted it to run smoothly so who cares. Plus it cost me £160 SIM free for something that does everything I'd want from an iPhone.

I'm not saying anyone else needs to or should buy it, but I can't understand all these ACs appearing here (assuming they are different ACs) and ranting about how it is complete rubbish, etc. It's fine. Does everything I need and does it well. People are even looking at it and going 'oooh', etc. whereas iPhones are ubiquitous and cliché. Not that I care much about fashion, but it is an unexpected surprise to find myself regarded as a fashionista because of my phone. ;)

And oh, it *does* have Bluetooth, fyi.

Re: On a brighter note

That's not a brighter note. I could have got a nice bonus from the government if I was willing to become an ICT teacher (I had applied for Mathematics, though in the end I went back into private industry for the money). But I did not want to be an ICT teacher because I think the subject is a very bad idea. Teach children decent language skills, teach them maths, teach them history. Don't teach them word processors, spreadsheets and Wikipedia. So many children are lacking the fundamentals that teaching the tools to use those fundamentals is ridiculous. You can learn how to use Word in an afternoon, Excel in a couple of days. If you need to. It takes longer than that for a child to learn algebra however. So focus on that.

And I'm speaking as someone who has programmed professionally, on and off, for over a decade. Keep programming at university level where it can be taught properly. Make spreadsheets and word processors some optional (and short) vocational certificate to put it back in its place. And spend the time showing school children how to write, to perform mathematics and a bit of history. Actually a lot of history. Our politicians would get away with less if more people knew their history.

True, yet...

Many of us here know how to set something like this up right now. Most of the rest of us could hit a few forums and get it working if they wanted to. But none of it is convenient.

Sod blowing things up. If an organization like this really wanted to piss off the Intelligence community and governments, they spend their time putting together a simple, three click install and set up system for others to set up a similar network. Legal, fewer people dead and inifinitely more hassle for the Intelligence agencies than a bomb in a bin (which they just use to justify bigger budgets anyway).

Re: Another blow to the public.

"Bow unto me, for I have shared my medical history online!"

Errr, you seem to have ticked the Anonymous Coward box. I assume you're going for irony here?

Re: Title

I had some really stupid arguments with people about NHSnet when I worked in the NHS. Well, to be precise I had some arguments with really stupid people. Trying to get them to understand that NHSnet wasn't some safe, magical land in which no security breach could ever occur was an exercise in frustration. Yes, my frustration got *a lot* of exercise in the NHS.

Re: Oh, just give me the controls you idiot!

Unfortunately there seems to be an increasing tendency these days to regard the user as an idiot who *can't* be trusted with responsibility for their own system. And actually, I can see where the O/S makers are coming from. Apple have really blazed a trail when it comes to lock-in for others to follow. If you were in charge of Apple, or Microsoft, you might be tempted to make your new systems a locked down system that the user finds hard to fuck up too. Windows has been around for decades. In real terms, it's about as secure as Linux these days. But we still have problems because there are always users out there who will install some random exe they are sent. (Just as if Ubuntu were the dominant desktop these same users would happily sudo any command they were told to or enter their password at any prompt).

It's a terrible trade-off. At least it seems terrible to those of us who actually can show some responsibility for looking after our own systems. But we're not everyone. If we were producing a phone O/S and were faced with the drooling hoards of click-anything type users, would we too be tempted to create a walled garden?

Re: female engineers

"So, you are in a position to sack someone. You did sack a male 'programmer' that you judged to being 'just so bad' - at programming / software engineering I assume."

Correct. Though their gender is relevant only in so far as to show that there are female programmers who I would not have had to sack so it shows gender is not the criteria for sacking.

"What are basic programming principles? Specifically those that you judged the male to not understand. Was the lack of understanding of these principles the sole reason for you to sack this male?"

Specifically? They didn't understand inheritance, classes, passing by reference... They were a nice person and fun to be around socially, but they were a web-designer who thought they were a programmer. And my deadlines don't afford the luxury of someone treating their job as a training course and they *definitely* don't afford the luxury of me spending hour after hour babying them through the development process. So yes, technical ability (along with no sign that they were trying to address their shortcomings) was the sole reason.

"'There are female programmers who are better than any of these.' Oh dear - now you have fallen into the same rhetoric."

No. Your logic is very poor. That there are female programmers who are better than male programmers shows that gender is not the deciding factor. You said that you'd only ever met one female programmer who was better than male programmers which implies something else entirely: that one gender is better than the other at programming. How you can call an argument that gender isn't the deciding factor "the same rhetoric" as you saying it is, is beyond me.

Well, it's not really beyond me. It's obvious that you saw me say I knew male programmers XY and Z, who were better than female programmer XX and were immediately primed for an argument about whether women or men were better, despite it being obvious that what I was saying was that it's not Men vs. Women. It's competent vs. incompetent.

Why? I said they were so bad that I had to sack them. Why is that a "trite or dull remark" ?

"I've worked with people who work as programmers / software engineers that do understand the 'principles' but still do shoddy work - may be they are afraid of being sacked."

I don't know why you put 'principles' in quotes like that. You seem to be implying that they're not important. Maybe you work at a job where they're not. With me, they are. If someone does shoddy work because "they are afraid of being sacked," then they're responding to the threat rather badly imo. The correct response is to do good work, not shoddy work. Then you don't get sacked. In either case, gender is completely irrelevant so I think you're just dragging your own side-issues into this.

Re: female engineers

"I have only ever come across one female that's been better than a male in ICT, and she was an Indian engineer"

Better than a male? Which male? Any male? Because I've worked with a tonne of male programmers who were inadequate, didn't understand basic programming principles. I've had to sack someone because they were just so bad (and they were male). There are female programmers who are better than any of these. So why break it down along gender lines. Your logic is terrible.

Re: Felicia Day

What a lot of personal attacks. You don't seem to understand people's issues. I've never met her. She may well be very gifted at mathematics. And that's a good thing. She may also be a wonderful person. (Though we'll just put down the "Queen of the Internets" thing to your crush, shall we?). The point is that you keep raving about how she is a "Geek" and the question that is being put to you is how on Earth does being a "geek" make one a role-model for people wanting to become programmers? You talk about her playing scientists on TV or computer games or appearing at "Dragoncon". I fail to see what any of these have to do with computer programming. There seems to be some incredible short in your brain whereby being a "geek" (which I interpret as some American High School export vaguely to do with being into comics and computer games) has to do with, e.g. being a programmer or an engineer. There's no intrinsic link - just this weird sub-culture that infects the profession in the USA. It doesn't match up with my actual professional experience in the business in over a decade as a programmer. There have been some people in places I've worked that were into comics. A few more that were into gaming (as that's a pretty mainstream hobby). And the occasional one that had a beard and smelled bad (one). But of the three biggest "geeks" in my professional and social circle, two of them are unemployed and couldn't write Hello World. A third is a nice guy but works in Sales (similarly knows nothing about IT) and a fourth who likes to talk about Star Trek is, quite frankly, a really lousy programmer (though slowly getting better).

There's no intrinsic link between IT work and "geek culture", barely a superficial one. And when looking for role-models for female IT professionals, you keep touting someone because they are a "geek". That's the issue. Felicia Day - having done a quick search - is stunningly attractive. From what you've said, she's also very smart. So by all means have your enormous Internet crush on her. I could practically have one myself if I were inclined. But please stop saying that a role-model for a young girl with an interest in programming, is an actress and celebrity gamer, rather than, you know, someone who is actually a female programmer by profession.

And if, by any chance, Felicia Day reads this - please accept my apologies and be assured I'm not denigrating anything about you. I'm just taking issue with Trevor_Pott's stereotyping and muddled thinking. Because the Geek image *does* put people off programming. Girls and boys, I'm sure of it. The sooner we can detach this "Geek" image from an otherwise fun but ordinary profession, the better for the field. No career should have a cultural stereotype attached to it which dissuades people from outside that culture from trying it.

Re: It works in the opposite direction

Women and men are not opposing sides in some battle. A woman who inclined to go into IT and finds resistance to that, is not okay about it because some other woman somewhere else has an easier time of getting a job in HR (ooh, HR, how exciting!). Sexism is treating people by gender rather than as individuals. Were it the other way around and you wanted to be a programmer but found yourself being pushed into being a primary school teacher because that was more suitable to your gender, would you say: "it's okay that women have an easier time being programmers because men have an easier time being primary school teachers?" Or would you say: "sharing a gender with someone doesn't mean I'm the same as them."

Next up, disliking one White person because a different White person nothing to do with the first one was mean to you. Same principle: treating people as a group instead of as individuals.

Re: Cool?

"And while hard work may* lead to better pay, rewarding experiences, and a successful life, it has never been COOL."

Really? So if you're a jet fighter pilot or an astronaut, that's not cool. The architects who designed the Chrysler building oversaw construction of the Burj Khalifa, you don't think they introduced themselves and everyone thought they were awesome? Or you don't think it's cool to have written or published a novel or who become state champion in MMA or to have studied and become a really good painter whose prints are sold in a local gallery. What is it you dispute? That people will look at such individuals and say: woah - cool,.Or that they're not hard work. Because they're definitely the latter and I'm pretty sure of the former. Many people, myself included, happen to think success is also cool in and of itself. Or perhaps you are working some No True Scotscool angle and only certain types of social recognition count as social recognition^H^H cool. So why should the hard work* of programming not be similarly well regarded but be tarred with this geek label?

(*I don't actually think programming is particularly hard work. No more so than most jobs anyway. It just takes practice, a bit of study and a methodical approach. But what do I know. I started off doing C for embedded systems though. Maybe HTML is harder or something.)