* Posts by Steve Davies 3

7136 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Surfacegate: Microsoft execs 'misled Nadella', claims report

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: plausible deniability

Sorry, that only works inside the 'Beltway'. For the rest of the USA, the lawyers will be ordering more stocks of Yellow Legal Pads and Pencils.

MS at the moment seems to be like a huge ocean Liner that sees an Iceberg on the horizon and the Captain orders them to steam 'full speed ahead' right for it. He thinks that the bow wave created by his juggernaut of a ship will make the iceberg get out of the way.

Toyota, Intel, Ericsson team to get cars talking to the cloud

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

A hackers delight

Hack the cloud and send the 'stop now' or worse, 'disable' command to all connected cars.

Imagine the chaos and even loss of life.

"But Officer, the car just stopped on its own accord".

Don't these people ever think of the downsides?

Nah, that's too difficult.

Then you get all those 'over the air' updates to your car's system. Tesla already do this. Another attach vector.

Tech billionaire Khosla loses battle over public beach again – and still grants no access

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Happy

I hope....

that the SUN sets on this case soon

Sorry, couldn't resist.

UK.gov cloud fave Amazon comes under fire for tax bill

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

What is subject to VAT and what isn't

Is a minefield.

IS a Jaffa Cake a cake or a Biscuit?

Tampons are subject to VAT (there is a petition on Change,org to get rid of this)

Books are not subject to VAT yet E-books are.

etc

etc

etc

The biggest complication of the Tax Laws took place under El-gordo Broon. It is a pity the Hammond seems to be intent on adding more and more complexity to them instead of simplifying them.

But like Lawyers and Laws (why repeal one and do a lawyer out of a job) the same goes for Accountants. The more complicated the tax rules, the more accountants we need.

simples really.

What's your point, caller? Oracle fiddles with major database release cycle numbers

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: I for one...

50% in what?

Performance??? ROFL

Licensing costs??? Probably.

IMHO Oracle has been going downhill since 7.3.4

Hell desk to user: 'I know you're wrong. I wrote the software. And the protocol it runs on'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: The arrogance of certainty

I can remember going on a course (there were some once) and we looked at some code deep in the Unix Kernel.

The comment said something along the lines

"If we get here we are bacially F*****d.

followed by a Halt instruction.

The next exercise was to find a path to that bit of code.

Those were the days.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

OTOH there is the case

of getting a device (in this case a re-branded XXXXXXX Router) to do something that was not described in the manual. We found it by accident and saved us a shed load of money in doing do.

Somehow, XXXXXX found out (probably by the customer who wanted to repeat it on the cheap) and told us in no uncertain terms that

1) To stop doing it as the function was not in the license/manual

2) The next firmware release have the 'hole' patched. I huge license uptick was needed to allow it.

you can't win can you eh?

Official: Windows for Workstations returns in Fall Creators Update

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: 4 CPU's - That's a lot!

That might be an artificial limit to the 'as supplied' Kernel.

Don't forget that you have full access to the Kernel sources (and is a simple yum install away) and there is nothing to stop you building a custom kernel. :) :) :)

I'm waiting (not!) for MS to implement a per core subscription fee for Windows 10. HT would naturally be counted as a full core by the beancounters. I'm sure it is there somewhere in their plans.

Plink: Lego swaps CEO for newer piece

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

ditched?

Well, thats a slightly/very different take on it than the BBC

To quote

Toymaker Lego has replaced its 61-year-old chief executive, Bali Padda, after just eight months in the job, saying he was never expected to remain in the post long-term because of his age.

When Mr Padda took over last December Lego said the search would begin immediately for a successor.

As he was looking for a successor from Day 1, I hardly think he was 'ditched'....

TalkTalk fined £100k for exposing personal sensitive info

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Mushroom

India is not so cheap now is it?

Perhaps a few more beancounters might like to consider this particular downside before sending all the jobs to India..

No?

Thought not. Perhaps you are too busy with a long lunch on the dime of another Indian outsourcer....

Wanna try this for your next course [see icon]

Horsemen of the disk-drive apocalypse will ride upon 256TB SSDs

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Confused editor?

I was about to say the same about the Power etc.

I'd like more info on the costs of these "pie in the sky" SSD's.

Many of us would like that Ferrari (other petrol head cars are available) but can't afford one. The same goes for these SSD's. Do I really have to sell a Kidney to get an SSD with a capacity greater than 2TB?

No, Apple. A 4G Watch is a really bad idea

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Wot!

El Reg recommending that Apple NOT do something.... wonders will never cease.

Isn't this a departure from wanting Apple to do everything (including making sliced bread /s) so that they fail even quicker as they are certain to?

Has El Reg and Apple made up and you are getting an invite to the iNext announcement thingy at the flying Donut? We deserve to know if there has been a change of heart away from the BAU slagging off that iFruity gets around this place.

So what is it eh?

Pray tell.... You know you really, really want to...

US trade watchdog puts down the phone to Qualcomm, reaches for probe, sticks it in Apple

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Why do iGet the feeling...

QC has had to pay some reallyheavy fines in Asia for how it does business so I think that going after iFruity there is a non starter.

What puzzles me is that if there is sometihng infringing QC's patents, it is the Intel Modem. Why has QC not gone after Intel?

All of this would go away if Apple bent over and allowed WC to carry on shafting them for a percentage of each iDevice sold with their modems inside.

It is as if you went to buy a car and find that there is a 5% levy for using Pirelli's and not Bridgestones.

Toshiba fires off trifecta of SSDs with 30TB range-topping whopper

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Coat

All this talk of Fabrics

I was wondering if they were Cotton, Silk or man made?

Ok, Coat, I'm gone....

Smart streetlight bods Telensa nearly double full-year revenues

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Why?

I thought that the idea of LED streetlights was that using LED saved a shed load of money. Any dynamic switching of the lights based upon traffic will be very small compared to what they have done by using LEDS.

The next step should be to add solar panels to each lamppost plus a battery and then the council can say goodbye to mains leccy costs.

Mediocre Britain: UK broadband ranked 31st in world for speed

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Unable to use a CC

As it is the holiday season, I'd just like to remind everyone that the majority of French Petrol Stations that are co-located with Supermarkets are NOT connected to the Internet except when the Cashiers cabin is occupied. And even sometimes when it is open, they still aren't connected.

So don't try to use the Pre-paid Credit Card (that you loaded your Euros onto at better exchange rates), it won't work.

When this happens, there is no way to buy fuel at supermarket prices without getting Foreign transaction charges on your card.

We aren't the only ones with silly business practices. It takes all sorts to F**k up this world.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Tell us something we didn't know

Sady to say that this is really Not News.

Now if the magic fairy were to start putting FTTP into millions of houses (naturally starting with El Reg Commentards... :) ) then it would be news.

All we need now is for :-

1) A Government lacky to spout forth saying that Blah, blah, waffle, lies and Blah. Naturally there would be no mention of money or times to get even one more FTTP connection live.

followed by

2) A spokesperson for the opposition saying that they'd get to everyone in the country by the end of next week (or words/promises to that effect) using that £350M per week that we are not paying the EU or some other mythical sum of money that is conjoured up from the back of an organically grown, ethically sourced, kosher and halal compliant vegetarian tea-bag.

Cynical? You betcha.

Foot-long £1 sausage roll arrives

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pint

but does it taste any good

Most shop bought saussage rolls that I've tasted in the past few years are pretty tasteless. The so called 'sausage' was bland to the extreme.

The best ones were eaten at a village Fete back in May. The maker had used really nice fillings. When I asked, the reply was a touch of the nose and a nod in the direction of the local brewery stand.

Needless to say, he ran out before I could get back for seconds.

Nimbus Data becomes OEM supplier of high-capacity SSD tech

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Ok, I'll ask the inevitable

How many arms and legs is a 50Tb SSD going to cost me?

Openreach pegs full fibre overhaul anywhere between £3bn and £6bn

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

"Areas Identified"???

What areas?

If we the people, (sounds like the opening of the US Constitution...) knew about what areas might just possible and with all sorts of tailing wind, brown envelopes stuffed with folding stuff and after a further year of Sundays get FTTP then we who have to pay for it might just possibly say Yes please... Can you do it tomorrow...

Quite how they are going to get FTTP to me I don't know but if they can string it to me via the pole on the otherside of the road then I'll sign up today.

Microsoft dumps mobility from its Vision

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Come on MS, say it... Windows Mobile is a dead duck.

They bet a huge part of their business on Mobile - failed mainly because it was just years late.

Now it is Cloud everything. We shall have to see if that works in the real long term for anything not related to your product lock-in (Office 365 etc)

As for their dig at POTUS

“Changes to U.S. immigration policies that restrain the flow of technical and professional talent may inhibit our ability to adequately staff our research and development efforts.”

Perhaps it should say?

“Changes to U.S. immigration policies that restrain the flow of technical and professional talent may inhibit our ability to adequately staff our research and development efforts salaries that are just above minimum wage."

I fully expect that whole departments within MS will soon relocate to India. Didn't I read that there are 350,000 Qualified Engineers unemployed in India?

Parents claim Disney gobbled up kids' info through mobile games

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: More than just this

and the BBC (boo hiss) is trialling with Microsoft (bigger boo hiss) an update to iPlayer that detects who is watching the prog being shown by listening to who is in the room.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/2/16084138/bbc-iplayer-voice-ai-experiment-microsoft-trial

This tracking is getting closer and closer to 1984 that I feel just sad, deeply sad that that there are people out there who think this sort of tracking is a good idea. It is not.

Brit uni builds its own supercomputer from secondhand parts

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Happy

Re: Pikey Computers

but could you afford the leccy?

ducks to avoid incoming....

Largest ever losses fail to dent Tesla's bulging order book

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Maybe a load of dozy old gits like gm or ford

Nice one! A wonderful description of them. Unless they get their act together big time, it will be them not Tesla that go to the wall.

GM has a few thousand Bolt EV's sitting at the factory in the USA. There are orders for more than this number from Norway alone but they won't ship them to Norway. Why? Who knows eh?

The Model 3 is built for the USA. Saloons are not the most popular vehicle type in Europe. That is the Hatchback. Tesla don't yet sell an affordable Hatchback or SUV/Crossover. That gives other makers a chance to get their act together. The Model 3 is also priced pretty high for most people here.

The new Leaf (to be build in Sunderland) is the sort of car Europe needs but it needs at least 200 miles of range and to cost less than £30K on the road. Get that right and it will be a winner.

VW and BMW are talking about 2020 or even 2022 for mass market EV's. Good luck to them.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Hydrogen cells

The only place for them in the future is for energy storage.

The reductions in the cost of Wind and Solar that have taken place over the past few years makes Hydrogen on the move silly.

However for storing excess leccy produced by wind and PV then it has a place but even that could be made redundant as the price of batteries fall and grid scale battery storage becomes economic.

Parts of California and Australia are already installing large Battery systems (Tesla) to improve grid resilience. There is a Wind Farm coming on stream next year that will include large batteries so that the power generated can be used at times when the demand is greatest.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: The future is diesel

That original comment must be from someone who works for :-

- A traditional Car maker/dealer that is not in even Hybrids

- An oil company.

- or is an employee of the Koch Brothers in the USA.

Either way, it is a load of cobblers and [redacted] [redacted]

The future is Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles. Burning hydrocarbons is on its way out, thank god.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Battery Life

I guess you don't drive an Ev or PHEV then?

I do and with my PHEV I can change individual cells and not the whole battery. Far cheaper. That should be the way things go IMHO. But in 2.5years my battery is still at around 96% of the original capacity.

Tesla generally put in more cells than is needed. One older Model S variant could be 'upgraded' with a sofware update (and $$$$) to the next higher capacity version.

Battery costs are coming down rapidly and will soon be the same price as a recon Engine for an ICE vehicle. The technology is improving all the time so for me, battery life is not the prime issue.

The biggest problem I have with EV's is Charging Points. At the moment, there are enough in place but just a fraction of the numbers that will be needed in the future.

That means I charge my PHEV at home. The power for this is mostly sourced from my own PV array (when the sun is shining).

I drive around 15K miles a year. Pretty well all my local driving is on Battery. My overall costs for that 15K miles is around 50% of what it would cost for a similar petrol powered version of my car.

What's not to like eh?

You can't look at EV's in Isolation. If you have space then put in some PV panels and even a Battery (mine is being installed tomorrow morning long with my Type 2 charging point).

Since I had the PV System (After the car) my Electricity consumption from the Grid is less than half what it was before.

So less hydrocarbons burnt and less leccy that I have to pay for and the PV system has put £10K on the value of my house so what's not to like eh?

So why do I use a PHEV and not a pure EV?

That's because I tow a trailer 2-3 times a month. The PHEV can tow 1.5Tonnes. Towing hammers the range of pure EV's. and I can't afford a Tesla that works like my Outlander PHEV. The Model X starts around £65K...

That's my worthless views on the topic. Take them or leave them but they are based upon my own experiences.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Don't worry UK

We won't be lucky/fortunate/unfortunate (delete as applicable) to get any RHD ones here for another 15 months at least.

By then the Tesla Frenzy will be enthralling the nation. Forget the queues of Fanbois/hipsters waiting patiently in line for their new Jesus Phone, this will cause M25 sized traffic jams around the Tesla outlets.

Then unless you are driving a Model 3 you are just not hip or cool.

Apple, prepare to be dethroned...You a no longer the cool company.

Joking aside, EV's are the way to go. I'm biased as I have one and love it. I just don't rate Tesla's. The Model S and X are just way too expensive. The Model 3 may change that but it is still a lot more expensive than the average family car (circa £20K on the road).

Small biz breaks out pen, paper after Brit tax collectors' Digital Form Service goes down

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: How long will it be, I wonder

Nah, they'll skip that part and go straight to fines. After all, they make the rules don't they.

To truly stay anonymous online, make sure your writing is as dull as the dullest conference call you can imagine

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

I see a market here

for an auto BLANDER app/program.

Something that makes what you say so bland that it can't be identified as coming from you.

The problem is that in doing so it will make it unreadable so no one would be interested in what you are going to say anyway.

WannaCry-slayer Marcus Hutchins 'built Kronos banking trojan' – FBI

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

This will end in one of two ways

1) He spends the next 300+ years locked up in so fed rathole

2) He spends the rest of his life helping the Feds write super unbreakable Wannacry/Kronos stuff.

The Feds will throw the book at him at the start and then his legal team (more likely a wet behind the ears public defender) will do a deal to get to 2).

There is a moral to this but it contains so many sweary words that I'd get banned for posting it.

Quite why he went to the USA in the first place is beyond me.

WannaCry kill-switch hero Marcus Hutchins collared by FBI on way home from DEF CON

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Conferences?

Lesson 2 - Don't bother GOING TO any international events in the USA from now on.

Trump as US president (in Sharknado 3)? Oh Hell No!

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Not enough Trump on TV?

Well, his daughter in law is fronting a Trump TV Show on Facebork where she tells the 'truth' about the POTUS. Only positive things allowed. No Fake news or anything about sackings or other schennagins in the White House.

She could use a lot of lessons on how to deliver this stuff. A flat monotone voice is not the best way of keeping an audience awake but the El Trumpos (those who believe that he can do no wrong) will lap it up.

No, I didn't tune in. There was a bit about it on Radio 5 this morning.

Microsoft breaks Office 365 sign-in pages ahead of surprise update

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Yeah...

Nah, that's DevOps in all its glory in action.

Code it, release it and to hang with the fallout, the Surf is Up!

UK.gov to trial vouchers for 'gigabit-capable' connectivity with SMEs

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: 'gigabit-capable'...

Yeah right... probably with speeds 'up-to' at 03:00 on a Monday morning when it has not been raining.

There fixed it for you.

Yes HMG the 'awkward' bunch if IT 'we have seen it all before' bods around here are very scepitcal (if not septic) about any of these initiatives.

They seem to suck up money with no return.

You could speed up FTTP my mandating that all new builds have it from day 1 (as well as Solar Panels while you are at it).

That could probably double the FTTP connection numbers within a year and not cost HMG a bent 5p piece.

New iPhone details leak: Yes, Apple is still chasing Samsung

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

That echoes my thoughts very well

Apple does indeed take others ideas and put them in their iDevice. However many of the ideas they take are rush and/or poorly implemented. Apple do a lot of work on them to make them work better. That takes patience and time. They get it right more times than they don't.

Being first is not always the best.

Just look at what happened to the first Comet aircraft and how Boeing by being second were able to not make the mistakes the De Haviland did.

A phone is a tool to me not some fashion accessory. As a fully paid up member to the GOM (Grumpy Old Man) Club fashion is just not on my radar and hasn't been since the advent of Glam Rock. But, I use an iPhone because it does what it says on the tin, with a minimum of fuss and I get iOS updates unlike the majority of Android devices (with the android OS).

Using an iPhone is not PC around this place but I really don't care so downvote this post all you like. It won't stop me from replacing my iPhone 6 with an iPhone 7 in Oct/Nov when the fashioistas sell theirs to secondhand dealers etc so that they can be seen with the latest iToy.

Apple might be evil but nowhere near as dangerous as Google (IMHO)

Creditors urge Toshiba to consider bankruptcy – reports

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: NK MAY settle all their problems before then.

If they do then we won't have to worry about getting downvoted here any more.

No where's my submarine?

Autonomous driving in a city? We're '95% of the way there'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: 95% done or 95% of the work remaining?

. . . and you'll never get to 100% - the lawyers will see to that.

There fixed it for you.

Windows Subsystem for Linux to debut in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Windows is a fish

Specifically, a "Flounder".

UK waves £45m cheque, charges scientists with battery tech boffinry

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Exploding Batteries

Your existing ICE car has another explosive device other than the Fuel. That is the lead acid battery.

Just take the voltage regulator out of the charging network and it will go boom.

Clear August 21 in your diary: It's a total solar eclipse for the smart

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

The solution is...

To put both lots of douchbags in a swamp area before the eclipse with NO Mossie Repellant.

As the sky darkens the mossies will think that it is night and start flying in their billion.

The willer will be the ones that survive being eaten alive.

Simple really.

The ultimate full English breakfast – have your SAY

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Proper Full English

Bacon - yes to nice and crispy but not burnt to a frazzle like them Yanks.

Sausages - A nice Lincolnshire (with extra seasoning) is perfect for a full english.

The problem is getting a really good one. Thankfully my local butcher is a prize winner when it comes to Sausages but even his aren't a touch on what I used to get as a child from Reynolds Butchers shop in Chatteris. (mid 1960's). They were really special.

USA to screen tablets,
e-readers and handheld games before they fly

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: The surprise message is

The TSA already want all Amtrak passengers to go through a full Airport style screening before getting onto a train. Long distance busses will be next I'm sure.

Think you could deliver a Register lecture? Tell us why

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Getting the attention

is easy. JUst tell them to switch their effing phones off for the next two hours.

That's the touch paper lit...

Rioting will ensue.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: These are not the speakers you are looking for....

Yep. Same here.

I did a talk a few weeks ago to a Local Natural History group about Life in Madagascar.

Again, not an IT angle but it seems to go down well.

TBH, In recent years, talks on anything IT related tended to send me to sleep in a matter of minutes. That might even be a few seconds after a few beers... Hic.

Wisconsin badgers Apple to cough up half a billion dollars for ripping off chip designs

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Wisconsin court rules in favour of Wisconsin U

The judge's alma-mater also happens to be the University of Wisconsin.

There's Apple's appeal hook for starters. He should have recused himself.

IANAL etc but there is precident in other cases in that Federal District.

Take that, gender pay gap! Atos to offshore hundreds of BBC roles

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

The Beeb is just following precident

of a whole boat load of companies and even Government Departments.

This is news?

The whole UK IT Industry will soon be based in Bangalore/Chennai/Mumbai/etc.

Just a sad fact of life here in 2017.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

You know who to blame

when your house get burgled then....

iRobot just banked a fat profit. And it knows how to make more: Sharing maps of your homes

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re: would you like to buy...

or you could get adverts from Amazon (other etailers are available for the time being) that give you a picture of your room with the item of dross they want to flog you shown already in situ using AR.

With all that IoT and its inherrent insecurities and now this thing, it is going to be harder than ever to keep what goes on inside our homes a secret from the outside world.

Does anyone sell a kit to turn a home into a giant Faraday Cage? (and don't say Amazon...)