* Posts by Mikel

2643 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2008

Microsoft's rumoured $2.5bn Minecraft gobble expected on Monday

Mikel

Re: Microssoft obviously missed a track

So no H.265, VP8, VP9, WebM

Get your Indian Landfill Android One handsets - they're only SIXTY QUID

Mikel

Nice phones

I could use a few of these. Just in case an existing phone breaks. And in the meantime it would be a cool media device. Maybe even a kid phone with VoIP over WiFi.

Huawei ditches new Windows Phone mobe plans, blames poor sales

Mikel

They can't sell iOS

That makes Android 93% of their addressable market. Hard to argue against focusing on a winner.

Qualcomm pumps LTE into quad-core CPU for sub-$100 mobes

Mikel

Great!

What an amazing time to live.

iPhone 6, Watch: Hate it or really hate it, Apple's now a $604.77bn biz

Mikel

They will sell a lot of phones. I can guarantee that.

What's an Ultrabook? Now Intel touts 2-in-1 typoslabs to save PC biz

Mikel

Meh

I had hoped Intel would figure this out. But no. Windows on a tablet again.

Heads up, Chromebook: Here come the sub-$200 Windows 8.1 portables

Mikel

Re: re: There are also many who aren't happy with the limitations of Windows

>If you're not happy with the limitations of Windows don't buy a Windows tablet.

It is not a Windows tablet. They are Acer / Asus / etc personal computers. How we choose to use them is up to us, including putting our own software on.

Hot Celebrity? Stash of SELFIES where you're wearing sweet FA? Get 2FA. Now

Mikel

2FA on the front door

Back door with simple lock for ease of access.

AMD claims record with latest overclock-happy FX Series chips, again

Mikel

An 8 core chip for $147?

Might be time to build me a steambox.

Good luck with Project Wing, Google. This drone moonshot is NEVER going to happen

Mikel

I would like 1 bag of skittles

And a free drone

Twitter: La la la, we haven't heard of NUDE JLaw, Upton SELFIES

Mikel

The end of the cloud

At least it went out with a bang.

Redmond resists order to hand over overseas email

Mikel

Let's not martyr them for fighting for their money.

Larger iPad could target big biz, save Apple from low-end scrum

Mikel

Abandonment issues

What with the way Windows Phone 7 was abandoned, and with a major Windows on the way, it might be best to avoid getting committed to any new Microsoft based hardware this holiday season. No way to tell if the relationship is reciprocal or desirable.

Too slow with that iPhone refresh, Apple: Android is GOBBLING up US mobile market

Mikel

There is no room for a third OS

Android and iOS have 96% share and growing. There is just no room for a third ecosystem to grow.

Huawei: 'Tizen has no chance', Windows Phone is 'difficult'... it's Android all the way

Mikel

Majority

It is hard to argue with putting 85% of your effort into 85% of the market.

That 8TB Seagate MONSTER? It's HERE... (You'll have to squint, 'cos there are no specs)

Mikel

Storinator

360 TB in 4U? Check!

Leak: Intel readies next round of NUC

Mikel

Meanwhile...

In the US the totally awesome Nexus 7 2013 has been remaindered in advance of the release of something even more amazing.

China hopes home-grown OS will oust Microsoft

Mikel

Laugh if you want

When it comes to state information security, China doesn't fool around. They have compromised enough Windows boxes at NRC, Langley, NSA and other places to know better than to use it to hold their own secrets.

Death by 1,000 cuts: Mainstream storage array suppliers are bleeding

Mikel

Re: Bring on the Storinator!

It is ~$7k sans drives. The drives are the other half of the $14K. Some assembly required - which is how enterprise SANs come normally anyway.

All the VSAN virtual appliances offer network striping and redundancy features. That is kind of the point after all. A 3-node site-redundant SAN can be had for under $50K.

HP's VSA will work with this, as will various open source solutions, which have specialist consultants offering support levels all the way up to "permanent onsite engineer".

Mikel

Bring on the Storinator!

Seriously - Google it. 180TB raw in 4U, good perf, price is under $14k with drives. Add some PCIe attached SSD and some 10Gbps ports, some virtual SAN software and it's off to the races.

Microsoft: We plan to CLEAN UP this here Windows Store town

Mikel

A challenge

Clearing out tumbleweeds.

NVIDIA claims first 64-bit ARMv8 SoC for Androids

Mikel

Bring on the Mandelbrots

Rendering Mandelbrots and maybe even the Mandelbulb should show off the performance available.

Crypto Daddy Phil Zimmerman says surveillance society is DOOMED

Mikel

Re: basic premise faulty?

Having been a student of the art for some decades, I am willing to take Phil Zimmerman's word for this. The man was inventing personal encryption in an era when encryption science was considered WMD. Not figuratively - literally. There were export controls on PGP which led to its development being moved out of the US.

Microsoft throws old versions of Internet Explorer under the bus

Mikel

Re: Product to Service

Not as suddenly as we went to the concept of paying for software. Believe it or not, once upon a time that you might charge money for that was absurd.

Mikel

Re: Best Browser

I was just explaining this to a nontechnical end user. The blue e is the tool included with Windows that pros use to install the software you need to access the Internet safely.

Microsoft blasts sueball at Samsung over Android patent royalties

Mikel

Re: > Microsoft is about to discover that they are not the boss any more.

Considering how many Samsung parts are in those Lumias, Microsoft might think better of a vicious fight.

BTW, there is no profit in consumer Windows desktops and laptops. There hasn't been for years. Threatening to cut off that line of business when it makes no profit is a hollow threat.

Mikel

Microsoft is about to discover that they are not the boss any more.

END your Macbook SHAME: Convert it into a Microsoft SURFACE

Mikel

First impression

$50k pledged? The war on drugs has failed.

Comcast, Time Warner boost net speeds in Google Fiber city – COINCIDENCE?

Mikel

They had legislated competition away

Now it takes a company the size and weight of Google to force them to compete on speed and value.

BTW, Grant county in Washington state has had gigabit fiber to the home for 14 years through their power utility. They are very rural. In Seattle's King County though, you are out of luck.

BlackBerry: We'll buy Angela Merkel's phone security company. HA!

Mikel

Many mourn the loss of RIM

Back in the day they were amazing. My right thumb may never recover from Blackberry thumb syndrome. But that was then and this is now.

Beancounters tell NASA it's too poor to fly planned mega-rocket

Mikel

2017?

This thing is never going to fly.

Climate: 'An excuse for tax hikes', scientists 'don't know what they're talking about'

Mikel

Maybe we could get a consensus

The scientists keep saying that warming is causing extreme weather. But the warming paused 17 years ago. So, extreme weather is being caused by a change that isn't happening? What's up with that?

Report: Google back in Europe's crosshairs over web domination claims

Mikel

ICOMP is Microsoft

This is skulduggery. Microsoft puppet groups will whine that people choose Google because it is good. Their own training materials and court documents show this. Google needs to be regulated to the point that it is not so good that it is everyone's first choice.

What if oatmeal vendors could get food regulators to ban bacon, or at least make it bitter? Bacon would then be less popular and oatmeal sales would soar. And pancakes.

This is not regulation for the benefit of the breakfaster. It is a war on bacon.

Boffins fill a dome with 480 cameras for 3D motion capture

Mikel

I had thought of doing this some time ago

A natural first application: porn.

Cave pits, ideal for human bases, FOUND ON MOON

Mikel

Welcome to 2012

Or 1968. We have known for a long time there are caves on the moon, mars and every other terrestrial body. RAH did a couple books on this. Come October we will see ice caves on Ceres. That will be more interesting.

Want to beat Verizon's slow Netflix? Get a VPN

Mikel

John Gilmore

John Gilmore famously said that the Internet is designed to route around damage, and censorship is damage. Here is an Internet user interpreting a network congestion point as damage and routing around the damage using a VPN. These stories have been around for years and ultimately someone will come up with a distributed VPN router that will eliminate this problem for everyone all at once. For now though, as we often have had to do while we wait for these cures to come online, you can fix it yourself manually as this fellow has done.

Oh girl, you jus' didn't: Level 3 slaps Verizon in Netflix throttle blowup

Mikel

Re: More ports is still the wrong answer

@Lost all faith...

Netflix is a third of prime time backbone traffic and absurdly redundant. In other cases where there is also huge redundant traffic like ad networks and YouTube yes, a cache server benefits all netizens and is the right thing to do from a technology standpoint. None other both has as much traffic and is as redundant as Netflix. The content is huge and static - you get the same movie as everybody else. This makes the argument strongest for doing this with Netflix.

Mikel

More ports is still the wrong answer

ISPs should just take the cache servers Netflix offers for free and they won't need the ports because an episode of 'Orange Is The New Black" will then be shipped across the Internet backbone to their network only once instead of hundreds of thousands of times. This will help prevent the redundant copies from clogging an already burdened network and improve service for all since those redundant copies are a huge share of all background traffic now and for strict engineering purposes are entirely unnecessary. It will also improve the available quality resolutions and latency to their customers.

Level 3 wants them to add ports because they get paid to carry that redundant traffic.

FBI: We found US MILITARY AIRCRAFT INTEL during raid on alleged Chinese hacker

Mikel

Leaks

As much as this classified data is leaking from the military industrial and espionage complex, they may as well arrange for hosting it on Archive.org directly.

Canuck reader threatens suicide over exact dimensions of SPAAAACE!

Mikel

Ah

That would be the Everett-Wheeeeeeler manifold universes hypothesis.

Google Glass HOLED: Techno-specs' inventor jets off to Amazon

Mikel

Jets?

Amazon's Seattle offices are just a few blocks north of Google's. It's more of a stroll than a jet trip actually.

Satya Nadella: Microsoft's new man presses all the old buttons in LONG memo

Mikel

86% Opportunity

At WPC they are making a big deal of their 86% opportunity: their software is NOT on 86% of the devices shipping today. Since the day they signed the DOS deal with IBM they have never had more market share to gain. Woohoo! New worlds to conquer for their new Alexander.

In other words they are standing on the dock with their floppy disk in their hand watching HMS Mobile Opportunity sail away.

Mikel

Re: No Thanks

You bought the wrong device. My Nexus 7s have even higher rez, go all day and all night. And they were cheap.

Microsoft wants to lure biz users with fondleable Windows 8.1 'Apportals'

Mikel

Try fermented chicken livers.

It is more tempting bait.

Forget the mobile patent wars – these web giants have patented your DATA CENTER

Mikel

No worries

The US supreme court is about to hold that software is not patentable subject matter. That will solve this whole problem.

Get ready for LAYOFFS: Nadella's coma-inducing memo, with subtitles

Mikel

Short timer

What the company really needs right now is a long series of short term visionaries to repurpose the whole organization, downsize confuse and demoralize the employees before being forcefully ejected, in turns. If Microsoft could work in some boardroom scandal shenanigans as well, that would be great. They've announced own-brand servers and storage, so that should just about do it for hardware partner support. Maybe they could attack software defined networking so as to enrage all three of the server room's Holy Trinity.

We haven't seen what Stephen Elop can do at the helm yet. That should be fabulous.

Mikel

Re: Installed office 2013 today

Thanks for taking one for the team.

That AMAZING Windows comeback: Wow – 0.5% growth in 2015

Mikel

Gartner

This is a serious pullback from Gartner's prior report. Remember that last year Gartner swore the PC would have a tiny sliver of growth. But then in January the dire news: down over 9 percent.

You may expect them to post a similar update six months hence. The macro issue of Windows 8, combined with an imminent release of Windows 9 is going to have consumers putting off their purchases until they see if the new one is also a stinker.