* Posts by Gordon 10

3872 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jun 2009

No fandango for you: EU boots UK off Galileo satellite project

Gordon 10

Re: Wait, that's really his name

Can't wait to know your reaction to Jacob Rees-Mogg if you think that's bad.

TL;DR Arch-Brexiteer millionaire MP who is currently moving his hedge fund to Ireland to make sure his Brexit impacts are minimised.

Nothing to do with PRS AFAIK but would not be at all surprised to discover he has some shareholdings impacted by the Galileo decision.

Gordon 10

Re: Well

Don't forget the added sauce of the UK screwing up Ireland in the first place for the last 800 years.

We've been crapping on our own doorstep for so long a bulldozer couldn't shift it.

Woman sues NASA for ownership of vial of space dust

Gordon 10

Re: So... uhm...

Yes but no but....

That might work with the grain of sand argument but it's a whole lot different if the soldier brings back a pouch of gold nuggets even if honestly collected. You betya that there would have been military regs about taking anything of value.

Plus a whole sub-genre of war films wouldn't exist :)

Indiegogo grants ZX Spectrum reboot firm another two weeks to send a console

Gordon 10

Re: Spectrum rights

Or Verizon

MH370 search ends – probably – without finding missing 777

Gordon 10

Re: It will get found.

I think you overestimate the ability of technology to scan ridiculous amounts of square miles of remote ocean and the ability of hobbyists to achieve enough scale and attention span to produce meaningful results.

Its more likely to be found in some rush for deep sea resources, like oil or to dig up something up that are running low in more accessible regions.

Either that or during the filming of Blue Planet 3.

USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' – says Salesforce supremo Marc Benioff

Gordon 10

Sales Forces Financial year ends in early 2019 so they decided to call the Financial Year by the Year in which it ends rather the year in which it starts. Probably made sense at some point. They aren't the only ones who do this.

Britain mulls 'complete shutdown' of 4G net for emergency services

Gordon 10

Im confuzzled

So if instead of some wonder device that doesnt exist why didnt they invest the money in a Operate agnostic 4G data contract(s) and get COTS ruggedised tablets for the databit?

Then use the money saved from not screwing up another Government IT programme to subsidise the costs of the Handsets.

Given that we are now at peak phone prices (1000 for the latests handsets) - 1300 for something that just works where it needs to is beginning to look cheap.

Who had ICANN suing a German registrar over GDPR and Whois? Congrats, it's happening

Gordon 10

Re: ICANN not understand how you wrote this article !!!???

Link to complain about a BBC news article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial

Gordon 10

Re: ICANN not understand how you wrote this article !!!???

That's disgracefully one sided.

MPs slam UK.gov's 'unacceptable' hoarding of custody images

Gordon 10

Re: Polar opposite

Sorry overstayed. I'll have that passport. No ID? Then get off moi island.

Surface Hub 2: Microsoft's pricey whiteboard gets a sequel

Gordon 10
Meh

Re: Microsoft hopes users will leap from their seats and prod the screens with excited fingers

Interestingly (sorta) enough the competing Cisco spark boards do the seamless (sometimes) transfer thing. All spark apps (win, ios etc) emit an ultrasonic tone that when picked up by a Spark board offer to switch or include the meeting and content on the spark board.

When it works its cool (Chromecast for webex) when it doesnt (eg custom audio drivers in Windows BORK it).

The downside is that the Spark app pretty much does exactly the same thing as the Webex app. why 2 are needed I have not a clue.

Android devs prepare to hit pause on ads amid Google GDPR chaos

Gordon 10

Are you one of the same people that refuses to pay for any content on the internet too?

I'd love to live on your utopian internet but the fact is some services have no otherway to fund themselves.

I dont particularly like it but we are stuck with it, unless you want hobbyist/free stuff and lots of paywalls.

On balance I have come to the conclusion that a little light advertising is ok. I just avoid sites (ironically mostly owned by big media) where the scripts slow the site to a crawl. Yes I know about NoScript - but if they arent impacted by you not visiting then you are prolonging the problem.

IP freely? What a wind-up! If only Trevor Baylis had patent protections inventors enjoy today

Gordon 10
Stop

How exactly

Does all the new patent and design rights legislation address Trevors chief complaint - from the linked article?

"“How do you find people who copied an idea if they’re in the middle of China or Timbuktu?”

Airbus windscreen fell out at 32,000 feet

Gordon 10

Re: Hero ?

I'm not sure I agree being trained to handle a situation and actually handling IRL are two different things. By your logic we shouldn't call soldiers hero's as it's part of their job to get shot and wounded or killed. Ditto firemen.

Seems a trifle harsh and narrow minded to me.

Boffins build a 2D 'quantum walk' that's not a computer, but could still blow them away

Gordon 10
Joke

Does that make a problem solvable by a Quantum Computer a Quandary?

Britain to slash F-35 orders? Erm, no, scoffs Lockheed UK boss

Gordon 10

If we actually buy the entire 138 I will eat my hat

<EOM>

We will of course quietly pay the only slightly less than full price extortionate cancellation fee...

Navy names new attack sub HMS Agincourt

Gordon 10
Mushroom

Which obliges me to reply with the "How many countries has Britain invaded*" linky.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

* For very broad definitions of "invaded". It is the Torygraph after all.

Citrix snuffs Xen and NetScaler brands

Gordon 10
Joke

Re: Generic names...

But the name "Citrix ....." gives it all the brand kudos it needs </snark>

It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer

Gordon 10

Re: A logical outcome

+1 for Hovercraft full of eels.

Score one for the bats and badgers! Apple bins €850m Irish bit barn bid

Gordon 10

Re: Badger badger badger badger

plus it will be able to be powered by Johnson and Moggs hot air when they finish up f*cking us over on Brexit.

IBM bans all removable storage, for all staff, everywhere

Gordon 10
Coat

When will phones be banned?

Another day another Stoopid from IBM. Remember when they were vaguely respected?

I presume IBM has usb ports mostly locked down anyway?

Mines coat with the USB stick with a GSM modem built in, 1/4 TB of data slurpage space and an OTG lead in the pocket. -->

Stoopid CISO makes obvious (well duh) policy statement.

Former Volkswagen CEO indicted over emission cheating conspiracy

Gordon 10
WTF?

Ah wire fraud

The Swiss army knife of the American "justice" system.

If you talked about on the phone you committed wire fraud. Hope he goes down as should several other CEOs but wire fraud - really?

DIY device tinkerer iFixit weighs in on 15-month jail term for PC recycler

Gordon 10

Re: The issues was never reselling the discs

well said - have an upvote.

Apple grounds AirPort once and for all. It has departed. Not gonna fly any more. The baggage is dropped off...

Gordon 10

Re: Apple said in a statement to The Register.

Presumably when they let the PR intern answer the mail?

Gordon 10

Re: One of their best products.

@flossy in the lightning port. Its fully USB compatible.

Gordon 10

Re: One of their best products.

@Dan 55 - you are wrong on the first point. It works as a wired keyboard over usb-lightning. Yes its expensive for that use case tho.

We wanted a camera, they gave us the eye of Gemini – and an eSIM

Gordon 10
Coat

Castor your puns elsewhere.

Europe fires back at ICANN's delusional plan to overhaul Whois for GDPR by next, er, year

Gordon 10

Re: What's the problem?

Thats also fairly simple to resolve. You just mail the Domain admin and ask them for consent, and move no-replies to a parking lot with generic information.

Very little Data Privacy legislation requires an explicit delete. (i.e. see Windrush), just that you have made reasonable attempts to comply. As long as you can show it was done on risk based approach with a decision framework you will be fine. ie the Owners potential loss on the deleting their data and registration was greater than their loss of fairly low risk PII.

Gordon 10

Most site that do that kinda stuff are posting out a re-register/opt out email.

Gordon 10

I doubt they even require a warrant -from a GDPR perspective at least - there are access clauses for Legal and Regulator Enforcement. I would also doubt WhoIS access ranks large on Plod evidence gathering lists - bar a few fraud and cyber crimes.

Windrush immigration papers scandal is a big fat GDPR fail for UK.gov

Gordon 10
Meh

Re: There is no data justification

I'm not convinced it was a deliberate dry run - if only for the fact that they picked on a group that had an incontrovertible right to be here. They were not an easy target as events are now showing.

Cockup over conspiracy every time I'm afraid.

Gordon 10

There was a policy

Everything I read in the Grauniad about this suggests that the policy was that the Landing Cards should have been passed onto the National Archives.

So potentially what we have is a breach of policy either by ignorance or deliberately.

Who will fix our Internal Banking Mess? TSB hires IBM amid online banking woes

Gordon 10
Unhappy

I pity the poor schmoes working on this.

Now not only do they have a badly planned, poorly managed cut over to repair they are also going to have a bunch of senior muppets from IBM looking over their shoulder second guessing them with the benefit of hindsight.

I bet somewhere in the depths of TSB's tech dept there are a number of people muttering "told ya so" under their breath who were ignored when they raised issues.

I don't see what value IBM can add at this point other than making things worse. I get a very strong whiff of "something must be done"

AMD CEO Su: We like GPU crypto-miners but gamers are first priority

Gordon 10
Headmaster

Re: Grammar

There is a correction button for Grammar pedants. If you were motivated enough to post about you could have been motivated enough to use it.

Gordon 10

Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

Also the timing of the crash will heavily influence GPU's reaching the market in a torrent or a (comparative trickle) - if most miners have moved to ASICs and FPGA's before the crash happens there will only be a small impact on the GPU market.

Also correction/addendum to the original post - the actual driver is not the cost of electricity but the cost per coin per watt. IE if more efficient mining hardware keeps the cost per coin per watt dropping ahead any long term downward fluctuations in the coin price everyone stays happy.

Blighty stuffs itself in Galileo airlock and dares Europe to pull the lever

Gordon 10
FAIL

Re: EU Army

Derrr maybe by definition you cant have a federal state where the military is controlled outside of that Federal State (ie the US).

You big bag of fail you.

Gordon 10
FAIL

If this was....

If this was a pack of cards we'd be playing Patience whilst the EU is placing Free Cell.

If this was computer gaming we got the Netbook whilst the EU got the Neon Gaming rig with the VR Goggles.

If this was DC superhero movies we would be Batman vs Superman and the EU Wonderwoman.

If this was Marvel superhero movies we would be Ang Lee's Hulk and the EU Age of Ultron.

If this was famous directors we would be Roman Polanski and the EU Steven Spielberg.

If this was famous producers we would be Har

If this were real life all the regions who voted for Brexit will be the ones who are most likely to suffer the worst under it.... oh wait scrub that one...its not an analogy.. its true.

Gordon 10

OMG

I find myself periliously close to agreeing with an AC. Whats obvious in the EU positition on all this is that the same Hawks who argued for the semi-white Elephant that is Galileo (everyone else has one so why can't we) in the first place are obviously an overlapping set with the EU Army Hawks. Lots of interesting internal tensions behind this one, mostly around the assumption that the EU army is going to at all effective without NATO. At best it will be a beefed up UN peacekeeping force (Nato-lite) at worst it will it will be like forming a team from the runners up of WW2.

NATO works because the Brit-Europeans are surrounded by 2 800lb Gorillas - the "good" Gorilla of the US and the "bad" Gorilla of the USSR*. The EU army wont have that "healthy" pressure.

Not having to be involved in the EU Army is probably the only good outcome from Brexit. Its an adolescent wank fantasy brought on by resentment of the Yanks.

*Yes I know its not called that any more.

Yes, drone biz DJI's Go 4 app does phone home to China – sort of

Gordon 10

Re: But that doesn't mean it's spilling all your beans, data audit finds

Because taking the chance is going to be far more fun than hiding under your bed with your tinfoil hat on?

Based on this audit it still seems that the biggest security risk is the Android* phone you install the app on, and I'll worry about the Chinese slightly after I worry about Google thankyouverymuch.

* Yes I know its on iOS too. But the fruity one doesn't have a business model that absolutely requires hoovering up of your data.

ICANN takes Whois begging bowl to Europe, comes back empty

Gordon 10
Happy

Re: 'no solid plan for what to do'

You are being a bit too broad brush there. This is an ICANN/US registrars thing not a US thing in general, I've had plenty of updates on GDPR from US companies it's just those lot who somehow think they are special.

Tbh ICANN could have dodged the whole bullet if they had just said to the registrars you must make whois compliant - here's a couple of models (eg Nominets approach) knock yourselves out.

Instead they were blinded by thinking they were King Dick, giving far too much weight to special interests, and unwilling to give up an iota of control. In short BAU at ICANN.

Now pass me that popcorn.

Mad Leo tried to sack me over Autonomy, says top HP Inc beancounter

Gordon 10
Unhappy

Unfortunately I suspect this case is relying on the difference between the Autonomy CFO being tried for Fraud vs the HP CEO being tried for Malfeasance (insert appropriate legal term here).

Both can be true about the deal - but HP is only interested in pursuing 1 of them. Lets say hypothetically the CFO knowingly recognised $100m of revenue in a dodgy manner - thats still fraud, and leaves the HP management to blame for the the other 8.7Bn. But the CFO will be in the clink and they wont. At worst they have kicked the can on their just desserts for another few years. At best they have a jailed scapegoat and job done.

I would imagine this whole case will rest on whether there is any provable fraud or not - HP incompetence is out of scope.

Super Cali health inspectors: Tesla blood awoke us

Gordon 10

Re: There's a denominator and we demand to see it.

No no no no. You are all getting it wrong.

Its the people who keep getting halved.

US government weighs in on GDPR-Whois debacle, orders ICANN to go probe GoDaddy

Gordon 10

Re: US Govt weighing in

More like IWONT as in I won’t implement a simple solution coz it impacts some of our registrars get rich quick schemes and offends those nice IP lobbists who keep giving us those nice lunches and bribes consultancy fees.

Autonomy pulled wool over Brit finance panel's eyes, US court told

Gordon 10
FAIL

Except when they are fake news. Or distorted, or partial, or taken out of context etc etc etc.

Gordon 10

This makes no sense (context is everything)

They dismissed the complaint out of concern that the complainant was unreliable. This has no bearing on what revenues Autonomy were reporting at the time and therefore logic would suggest unless there was an Enron style accounting failure the decision would have been the same.

Reading between the lines I wonder if the Head was asked a theoretical question based on later circumstances. ie if they had been asked to investigate when the Vatican deal was reported as a failure in the news and the complainant was reliable would they have dug further?

It also begs the question as to whether he is an expert witness for the persecution and therefore "motivated" to paint things in a bad light. One wonders on what terms he is enjoying a stay in the delightful US of A.

Donkey Wrong: Arcade legend Billy Mitchell booted from record books amid MAME row

Gordon 10
FAIL

It begs the question as to which moron thought a self recorded sessions was good enough evidence in the the first place.

You wouldn't have caught Norris and Roy making such school boy errors.

Boeing CEO takes aim at Musk’s Starman-in-a-Tesla stunt

Gordon 10
Mushroom

Hmm

Dear Boeing,

Actions speak louder than words.

Best

Elon

Hey, so Europe's GDPR privacy deadline for Whois? We're going to miss it ... by a year or so

Gordon 10

I for one would like to see ICANN themselves being used as an example by the EU.

If I am reading rightly they had about $300m turnover last year so they'd be in line for the 10m/20m fine level rather than the 2%/4% level.

Gordon 10

Re: private registation

Would someone like to explain the downvotes on this post? Was it about the GDPR bit or the cooperating with the FEEBS?

Isnt "Private Registration" a valid solution? Just that most providers have been using it as a money spinner and don't want to give it up?

Reminds me of the Upton Sinclair quote most that usually gets applied to wayward bankers:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary/bonus depends upon his not understanding it!"

O2 wolfs down entire 4G spectrum as pals fiddle with their shiny 5G band

Gordon 10
Thumb Up

Re: Who care, still cannot get a fecking signal

Let me guess another GWR commuter? The reception on the Great Western Mainline which parallels the A4 in a lot of places has always been dire...

Ironic given that all the Operators but EE have their HQ's within spitting distance of that line and the A4.

The mobile black spot (gotta be a jammer imo) at the "train end" of Paddington Station with LOS to Voda Group HQ always amuses me - when I'm not desperately trying to make a call or load some data that is.