* Posts by Steve Davies 3

7136 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

World to make 1.37 billion smartphones in 2021 says IDC – about one for every six humans

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Please A 5G, or Even 4G Mast To Allow Data Receiption?

I know that most of us have been in lockdown for getting on 18 months now but people are starting to venture out into the big bad world even though Covid is still rampant in most of blighty.

That's when 5G might just possibly be useful.

That said, I can't see myself getting a 5G phone for a couple of years.

Chinese developers protested insanely long work hours. Now the nation's courts agree

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Thumb Up

Have an upvote

for using the words

Burn Out.

The last paragraph is so true.

SCO v. IBM settlement deal is done, but zombie case shuffles on elsewhere

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Who had something to gain from continuing this charade?

Just the usual suspects then... Where's Balmer these days? Living on his own island 100% powered by Microsoft... sic

Think you can solve the UK's electric vehicle charging point puzzle? The Ordnance Survey wants to hear about it

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

There is a great chance for people to educate themselves

by going along to 'Fully Charged Live' at Farnborough (hants) on the 3rf/4th/5th September

https://fullycharged.show/events/fully-charged-live-2021/

There are sessions on many of the issues that have been raised here.

I'm not associated with the show but will be going.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Charger Reliability

So far this year, I've covered almost 4000 miles in my EV. I've had one case of the charger being broken.[1]

As has been said, the reliability of the Electric Highway network has improved no end since Gridserve took over and will continue to improve as they invest more into the system.

The Gridsrve 'Electric Forecourt' in Braintree with 24 100kW+ chargers and their site at M6/J1 are clear indications of the way forward.

I'd recommend any doubters who can go visit the site in Braintree. That's how it should be done. If Gridserve rolls out their planned 100 sites then we will wonder what all the fuss is about.

[1] That happened in Shropshire. There was another charger less than a mile away that worked perfectly.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: "that's the difference..."

The USA is most certainly NOT, repeat NOT a socialist democratic republic.

The GOP is heading in the direction of becoming a Fascist Party with Death de Dantis at its head.

The UK is far more socialist than the USA. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over in USA land when someone like Bernie Sanders suggests "Medicare for all" can be heard all the way over here.

Google: Linux kernel and its toolchains are underinvested by at least 100 engineers

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Re: it's noticeable

Ever thought about posting it on the Kernel Bugzila?

At least then, there is a record of it.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Mushroom

Google getting in before

MS comes along and hoovers the whole kernel up.

A plague on both their companies.

The CEO's can eat this ---> [see icon]

Lost in IKEA? So, it seems, is Windows

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Windows lost in Ikea?

Windows lost the plot years ago so move along there, nothing to see.

Magna Carta mayhem: Protesters lay siege to Edinburgh Castle, citing obscure Latin text that has never applied in Scotland

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Social Media

Peddling brain numbing addiction since 2004

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: It was a lovely day for a coup

Nah,

A good day to bury bad news.

memories of 11th Sept 2001 and someone in the gubbermint deciding that it was the best time to reveal something bad.

US watchdog opens probe into Tesla's Autopilot driver assist system after spate of crashes

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: ElRegers who are disconnected from reality

Nah... they are all in their Tesla's with FSD engaged and fast asleep as the 'thing' drives them to work/home/wherever.

The hardcore Tesla fan is in reality, a member of a cult. Just try saying something negative about their Dear Leader in any of the EV forums. You will get shat upon from every angle.

As a long time EV owner, I applaud what Tesla has done to the industry but... Tesla is no longer the only game in town. Even if I was given a Tesla I'd get rid of it ASAP. I just don't like their design philosophy. I'm entitled to my opinion and no matter how much slagging off or downvoting I might get, I am not going to change my mind.

Microsoft fiddles with Fluent while the long dark Nightmare of the Print Spooler continues for Windows

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Their latest 'Laurel and Hardy Moment'

Another fine mess you are getting us into.

Then there is the

Fiddling while Redmond Burns.

MS seem to refuse to want to deal with the big issues.

Thunderbird 91 lands: Now native on Apple Silicon, swaps 'master' for 'primary' password, and more

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Primary?

Don't forget the 'Master at Arms' title in military

Then there is 'Master' locks.

and so it goes on.

Woe betide anyone with the name Masters.

Where will it end?

Amazon delays return to office work until 2022 at the earliest

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Delayed until 2022

They'll need that extra time in order to build a few temporary toilets for the drones that pick the orders. I say temporary because the human drones will be replaced by robots as soon as Kapitan Bezos can make it so.

Microsoft's Cloud PCs debut – priced between $20 and $158 a month

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

This is just the opening salvo

in the war to move everyone inc on-premises hardware to a subscription model. £20.99/month + VAT. They'll stop selling software licenses and switch to a 100% subscription model. The only question in my mind is when...

Nuisance call-blocking firm fined £170,000 for making almost 200,000 nuisance calls

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Boffin

I'd sentence the directors

to one month in the public stocks.

There would be long queues of people wanting to get at least a bit of pyrrhic revenge.

BT says it's trading in line with expectations as revenue slides and pre-tax profit shrinks

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Which is the least worst?

Vermin had been on holiday around here this part two weeks. Up/down/up/down slow, slow quick, quick, slow.

BT had just been its normal self.

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Skimmers on Charging Points

In the FastNed (and Tesla) systems, the Car sends its VIN (or another number) to the charging system using the comms channel contained in the charging cable connectors.

Your VIN number is plainly shown through the windscreen of many cars. I strongly suspect that there is other information sent from the car to the charger. Pretty hard to skim IMHO.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Overcharging for Leccy

Motorway Services impose a surcharge on almost everything over off motorway prices.

The only exceptions seem to be things like Newspapers, Books and Magazines AND

EV charging.

Electic Highway charges 30p/kWh everywhere even if the charger is not on a Motorway.

The same goes for Ionity but they are fast pricing themselves out of the game with 69p/kWh.

I don't mind paying a bit extra for a faster charge but some companies have the nerve to charge the same for a 7.5kW AC charge as for a 50kW DC charge. That is taking the piss... Are you listening Geniepoint?

(and others) who charge 32p/kWh for a 7.5kW charger and they impose a 65minute time limit. It is any wonder that no one used them?

Many charging networks take contactless but the next step is 'Plug and Charge'. That requires implementing the ISO standard. FastNed has done that in the Netherlands etc. No cards or app, just plug the car in and charging starts. The back end systems take care of the billing.

Windows 11 comes bearing THAAS, Trojan Horse as a service

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Vendors who lie

You were obviously not running Microsoft Linux...

With Alphabet's legendary commitment to products, we can't wait to see what its robotics biz Intrinsic achieves

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

How long will this last?

Given Google's world renowned habit of announcing something that was going to change the world and killing it off only a few short years later.

Will this just turn out to be another flash in the pan?

Microsoft has a workaround for 'HiveNightmare' flaw: Nuke your shadow copies from orbit

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: unlikely to be hit.

Said the Actress to the Bishop...

I hope that those words do not turn out to be your 'famous last words'.

UK celebrates 25 years of wasteful, 'underperforming' government IT projects

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Everyone will end up working

or TATA or some Chinese PRC owned mob.

We are doomed I tell ye... doomed.

Windows 11 gets chatty as Teams integration turns up

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Escaping Microsoft's messaging platform

Sadly MS has set its sights on taking over Linux by stealth.

BSD or (shudder) macOS is more of an escape from the ever-expanding and intrusive tentacles of MS.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Where are the Anit-trust Congress critters?

When you need them eh?

Oh wait... They are bought and paid for and will look at the likes of Apple rather than the behemoth that is Microsoft.

Cynical? you betcha.

Our Friends Electric: A pair of alternative options for getting around town

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Plenty of talk about robotaxis and autonomy

30 or 40 years?

Not true... Well, it isn't is you are a disciple of Elon 'the new messiah' Musk.

There are an awful lot of politicians to be persuaded/bought off in order to make this happen this decade.

Money makes the wheels go round.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re: As far as I can tell, a lot of cycle infrastructure is designed by planners...

Nah...

It should be

As far as I can tell, a lot of infrastructure is designed by planners who come from a galaxy far, far away.

There fixed it for you

Facial-recognition technology gets a smack in the chops from civil rights campaigners

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Customer Service

Don't forget that includes raising prices for frequent shoppers and lowering them for first timers.

Once they are hooked... then they are fair game.

Cellnex and CK Hutchison have just 5 days to prove mass mobile tower sell-off won't harm competition

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Childcatcher

Two into One does go

go... towards increasing prices for all users which will naturally be passed on to us mere plebs as vastly increased prices.

Same old, same old. nowt new there then. Move along now. Nothing to see. etc etc etc

NEC to move its IT into Azure and give staff – all 110,000 of ’em – a cloudy Windows desktop

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

NEC?

Next

Enterprise

to

Collapse

Lenovo says it’s crammed a workstation into a litre of space – less than three cans of beer

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re: the obligatory RJ45

And not forgetting crapple.

with them, it is either a dongle or in the power supply brick.

NASA signs $1bn deal with Northrop Grumman to build studio apartment in lunar orbit with room for 3 vehicles

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Room for 3 vehicles?

Oh yes.

1) for Beardy Branson

2) for Baldy Bezos

3) for Bitcoin Musk

Get them all up there and move it out past the Lagrange point. Job done! :) :) :)

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: At workers' expense

The bearded one is a mere amateur when compared to old baldy at treating workers badly.

Oracle files $7m copyright claim against NEC's US limb over 'unreported royalties' from database distribution

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Boffin

Re: It’s 2020

Sorry... but you seem to have missed a year. It is 2021.

Back on topic.

I once proposed a FOSS solution to a business. Not only was it cheaper as in zero cost but we could have the source as well. We ran benchmarks and the performance was just as good as Oracle.

The FD put his foot down and they went with Big Red.

19th Hole Rules and all that. Three years later got hit by the 'Oracle Audit' scam.

Karma called big time.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Same old... Same Old

Oracle

How many times have we heard/seen the words

"Oracle carried out an audit of [insert company/org name here] use and distribution of its database software."

We all know what the result will be... A hefty bill for the org being audited. This is just SOP for Oracle.

Even if at the last audit you got a clean bill of health, the next time you will be stiffed for loadsamoney even if your usage has not changed.

This is all part of the cost of doing business with Oracle. It would not surprise me to learn that savvy Financial Directors have/are putting aside some money for the inevitable Oracle fines.

Quite why companies continue to do business with this bunch of [redacted][redacted] barstewards is beyond me.

Microsoft defends intrusive dialog in Visual Studio Code that asks if you really trust the code you've been working on

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re: So what do I do?

Find another job perhaps?

All those frameworks are a disaster waiting to happen unless they have been forensically examined line by line. Who knows what shit has been included in them for nefarious reasons?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Is there any guarantee that VS Code is not inserting bad code

or more likely a whole bunch of telemetry that phones home to MS every time the user does something.

Nanny MS is really pushing things here.

Now everyone can take in the sights and smells of a London tram station shut for 70 years

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Oh dear...

According to my Mother, the closing of the tram lines in 1952 was a PITA for her as she was pregnant with me at the time. The replacement busses were not as convenient when she was working in Holborn.

Apparently, I've been through the tunnels even though I didn't know it... As much as I like exploring old railway lines, stations etc, £45 quid is a bit steep. I guess it will all go towards bailing out TfL. (sic)

Calling all fanbois: If you can't wait to glimpse iOS 15, Apple is running a public beta now

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: You can check out any time you want?

Several of the Apple fanboi sites have instructions for reverting back to a fully released version of IOS.

The best bet would be to try it out on a phone that is not your main one but ... if you can't then it is at your own risk naturally.

IBM President and former Red Hat boss Jim Whitehurst quits

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Alert

I didn't think that he'd stay this long

After IBM gobbled up RedHat. He did a pretty good job at RH but IBM is a totally different kettle of fish. IMHO, it (IBM) is just about unmanageable.

Another JEDI saga that doesn't need a sequel: Oracle petitions Supreme Court over Microsoft Pentagon contract

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pirate

Which one should fail?

That is the big question...

I think I should come down on the side of MS. Oracle just don't know when to give up and go back to shafting everyone in sight. I mean both customers and staff.

Richard Branson plans to trump Jeff Bezos by 9 days in billionaires' space race

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Do we have to let them back in ?

Just tell them (after they have taken off...) that they'll need to quarantine up there for 2 weeks before they can land anywhere on earth. After all, we are still in a pandemic, aren't we?

Why won't you copper-ate? Openreach offers capped fibre line rental to wholesalers in bid to shift all that FTTP

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Alien

I predict an almighty shambles

As most ISP's can't even roll out IPv6 to the masses switching to a copper-free network is going to work very well, NOT.

Then most ISP's are still rolling out FTTC broadband to the great unwashed there is an awful lot of kit that is going to endup in landfill in 2025/26.

The words,

"Another fine mess" seem quite apt really.

Get your 4G/5G/6G/7G/Starlink backup plans in place for when the whole UK PSTN goes TITSUP probably on 1st April.

Bitcoin doomed as a payment system and its novelty will fade, says Federal Reserve Board of Governors member

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: the black economy

I guess that is why Elon 'yes, I do smoke dope' Musk loves it so much?

Anything for a fast $$$$ that the IRC can't track. No different to all really rich dudes then.

Developing for Windows 11: Like developing for Windows 10, but with rounded corners?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: Better hope they sort out the CPU and TPM support

OTOH,

The PC makers will be gearing up for a bumper Crimble as the domestic lemmings all dash out to get the latest and greatest version of MS saga 'Lipstick on a Pig'.

Cynical? you bet.

TBH, I'm thinking of going to somewhere nice and remote for Christmas just so the relatives can't ask me for help getting their new PC to work 'just like the old one'. It is always the same with MS releases. They break lots and lots of stuff. This may be accidental but because it has gone on for so long I think it is deliberate.

London Greenwich station: A reminder of former glories. Like Windows XP

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

re" FORMAT C:

I was thinking more of a 12lb hammer. Far more permanent.

The world has a plastics shortage, and PC makers may be responding with a little greenwashing

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Mushroom

The world has plenty of plastic

It is just in the wrong place... like

- the middle of the Ocean

- in our drinking water

In fact, there is literally nowhere (other than under an Antarctic glacier but probably not for much longer) on this planet that has not been invaded by this stuff.

Happy with your existing Windows 10 setup? Good, because Windows 11 could turn its nose up at your CPU

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

re: they think they own your PC.

They do. After all... they have graciously allowed you to run their little baby on your system. Isn't it a fair return for them to get ownership of the hardware in return?

Yes, I'm being cynical. MS is shite and is increasingly getting more turd like with every passing day.

Pub landlords on notice as 'Internet of Beer' firm not only pulls pints, but can also clean the lines

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pint

Re: And Newky Brown tastes really weird, but maybe that's an acquired taste...

In my "Youf" it was Courage Tavern Keg, Grotneys Red Barrel or Newky Broon. I chose the latter. It might have been an acquired taste but at least it had some taste when compared to the opposition.

These days, I prefer a nice pint of Harveys Best (Lewes) or when I'm close to the brewery, Wadworths 6X or Surrey Nirvana (Hogs Back Brewery).