Posts by Steve Davies 3 7150 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
not according to the speech delivered by the Queen today is isn't.
As reported on the BBC the bill will say...
The speech referenced a planned Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill that aims to "accelerate the delivery of fast, reliable and secure broadband networks to millions of homes".
That seems to me to fall short of promising 100% coverage. Not surprising really.
Sadly, it has zero chance of happening.
OpenRetch in its current form could not get anywhere near this target even by 2030.
I'm sure their bean counters are working to that sort of timescale because of the really huge increase in their costs once the FTTP is installed.
The Fibre Network attracts a very hefty rateable value over a POTS installation.
That is a cost that isn't going to go away and will only ever increase.
Then you ask them to explain how it works and ....
I've seen one so called expert developer copy something almost verbatim from SO. The fool didn't even bother to change the variable names. The problem was that there was a huge flaw in the code. I knew that because I'd copied it myself (when on a different project) a year earlier. I found the flaw and in the end, I used the SO code as a guide but worked the problem differently.
The squirming and dodging the answer that follwed my challenge would have made a Politician proud.
That 'expert' didn't bother turning up for work the next day because he'd lost face in front of his colleagues.
That's life ain't it eh!
Since the 'hanging chads' debacle in Florida, the voting systems used in the USA have been shown to be NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.
They keep on trying to make them secure but the companies making them really have no reason to so do beyond a cursorary glance. There is far too much money riding on the [cough][cough] right result even when it comes to electing the local 'dog catcher'.
The USA gets the best politicians that money can buy but only if their voting systems are equally corrupt so as to ensure the result that money wants.
I thought that the likes of Google and Facebook had bots that did this yonks ago?
Perhaps this is Microsoft catching up (yet again)?
All those 'I am not a robot' capcha's have already been irrelevant for some considerable time.
Then there was an article about how you can't be sure that you are playing a human being at Fortnite from a few days ago.
We are doomed I tell ye, doomed!
Why don't people learn to look at a business properly before deciding to invest "loadsamoney" into something that clearly is too good to be true.
When the CEO gets a private Jet then the alarm bells should have been ringing loud and clear especially if it is just before an IPO.
I fully expect them to file for Chapter 11 within 3 months. Then the lawsuits will follow. This won't end well except for the $500//hour lawyers that is.
if this sort of thing becomes the norm.
One place I went for an interview insisted that I do an aptitude test to see if I was suitable for the programming job. I was almost 50 years old and had been writing software for more than 25 years...
I deliberately messed up the answers. no surprise when I was told that I was totally unsuitablle for writing software. I'd raised my objections before taking the test which I repeated on the way out along with words like "never in a month of sundays... etc"
Three months later I was working at the company as a contractor earning almost double the pay. No suggestion of taking the test.
My manager smiled when I told him about the interview.
"Oh so you are the bugger who got those tests axed. Well done! They've been a real PITA for years. That's why we have so many contractors..."
Go figure.
That was just the tip of the iceberg if this new thing gets widely used.
Then...
"El Reg seminars on how to fool facial recognition in job selection" {hint hint}
I'd go so far as to add
"The contents of this email do not constitute a legally binding contract. Any sum of money quoted is merely an offer unless a properly signed and agreed contract is specifically mentioned in the text."
Or words to that effect.
The last part allows an agreed contract (with signatures) to be discussed in an email. Without the requisite signatures there is no agreement.
I think I read somewhere that the USA produces more law graduates than engineers.
There is already far too many lawyers for the amount of available work.
Then most politicians are lawyers who pass laws for other lawyers to enact and make a living.
Isn't that a perpetual motion machine in operation? (sic)
Wrong. Just because your data is held hostage on AWS (other cloud services are available) and your customers/users can get at it, there is this magic layer that the operator would really rather you didn't know anything about.
Back in the dark old days when you owned your data and it was 'on-premises' or in a bit barn on some dedicated hardware, you had complete control. Now you have abdicated it to Amazon (other cloud magic operators are available) they own you lock stock and customer data.
Clouds clome and clouds go just like your data...
One small but important advantage to both parties is the reduction in the amount of copper in the ground that seems to attract the attention of 'Light Fingered Larry' and his mates. Fibre is less attractive but only if Larry and co can read the big labels that are on the cables.(unlikely)
Less copper to nick then the network should (should and not will) have a higher uptime.
1) Think of a Number.
2) Double it
3) Add 100% for contingency
4) Add 20% VAT
5) Double that
Put number down in Contract and get the brown envelopes ready.
Before the contract is signed
6) make sure that any changes (And there will be lots because the spec has been written by Civil Servants and not the real users etc) are on a Time and Materials basis
7) Inflate time rates so that even the toilet cleaner is on £100,000 per year.
Then head to the sun with that huge profit in £50 notes not far behind.
Easy ain't it eh?
Calmac are still around and working well... at least they were last June when I took the ferry from Oban to Mull and then Tobermorey to Kilchoan (Ardnamurchan) where it was just a few locals returning from doing their Saturday shopping and me on my Motorcycle.
To the locals, CalMac are essential to their way of life and treat them as something akin to a bus service. In many places, the bus meets the ferry. If the Ferry is late, the bus runs late.
Even a blind man (or woman) could have seen this happening.
Every 90 days, their masters on Wall St need to know what ritual sacrifices have been made by each and every quoted company or their stock tanks. Even if the EPS are $0.02 below average expectations, the stock can tank.
DXC is just carrying on the tried and trusted 'right sizing and to hell with customers' that they inherited from Compaq who inherited it from DEC.
This is now so ingrained in their psyche that they don't know anything else.
Those of us who have thrie POTS/Broadband arriving at the premises overhead.
Those lines that birds love to perch on.
Those lines that get work hardened in the wind
No digging up of the path/driveway to each house but Fibre won't last very long unless the cable is well armoured.
I don't hold out any hope at all for BT (or whatever they are called this week) making this happen in time.
Great post. Yeah the curse of Millenials. I left one company because my new 'still wet behind the ears and straight out of public school and uni' decided that he knew best how to develop the software we'd been building for the past five years.
As he was the MD's grandson.... dissent was not on the cards so one by one all the skilled developers left leaving him to carry the can.
The company didn't last very long after I left. Sad really because we had a good product that was reliable and selling well.
What! You can't be serious... I get those nice people called John, Steve and Alan calling me from Microsoft five or six times a week. It will be a shame not to get to speak to them anymore. I really will miss their insistence that my 'Computer has a Problem'.
Shame really. I just string them along for up to ten minutes before telling them that I don't have any computers that run Windows. But even then, they still try to persuade me that I do. PErsisten them Indian 'Johnnies' I'll give them that.
[All the above should be read with your tongue very much in your cheek]
In 16 days, I will have been Microsoft free for three whole years. Wonderful. I really do sleep better at nights as well.
Apple were sued yesterday by an NPE in West Texas over their update methods. They are accused of violating a patent that was granted to Phillips. It claims that IOS and App Store updates perform a 'reconfiguration' when the update is applied which in their eyes breaks the patent.
Nice timing! (I think not)
But the story of Apple and yesterday really has to include at least one of the lawsuits flung at them...
You wait until the Teslarti start having 'summon' races here in the UK.
For those that don't know, 'summon' is where you can tell your parked car to 'come to daddy' (or thereabouts) without you (or anyone) having to be in the vehicle.
Naturally, under UK laws etc you are not insured if there is no suitably qualified slab of meat behind the wheel but that won't matter. It will be 'Ain't this Cool!' followed by 'Opps'
These are the people who think that their car is going to earn them $100K a year as a robotaxi AND increase in value at the same time. Something does not compute here IMHO...
I know that this is off topic for this thread but this is wrong
"Oh what fun if you've bought a second hand mac and you don't have the version of the OS it ships with tied to your iCloud account."
You can download a .dmg file that contains the whole MacOS install. There are plenty of instructions on the Internet about how to convert that to a .iso which can be burnt to a DVD and installed without going anywhere near an iCloud account.
How else do you think that people build Hackintoshes?
Oh, and you can de-authorise a computer from iCloud. Again, the instructions are out there if you care to look. I sent an old MacBook (2009) to recycling and did just that before wiping it.
Toyota are into 'Self Charging Hybrids' not pure BEV's like Tesla or models like the Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, the forthcoming VW ID range.
Toyota is riding on the success of the Prius technology from 20 years ago. They do sell a PHEV but like Renault and their Batteries (rent rather than buy) you have to search hard to find one.
The main problem with Car makers producing enough EV's is the lack of Batteries. Tesla have their own battery factory in Nevada. Everyone else outside of China has to buy from 3rd parties at the moment. The market for ICE's in Norway is pretty well dead. There is it BEV or PHEV's.
Once the next tranche of EV's (New Zoe, VW ID-3, Peugeot 208E Vauxhall Corsa), the number of EV's on the road will really start to take off.
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