* Posts by Steve Davies 3

7136 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Hollywood offers Daniel Craig $150m to (slash wrists) play James Bond

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

My vote is for

Idris Elba but that would go down like a lead balloon in many parts of the USA.

Sophos Windows users face black screens after false positive snafu

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Tinfoil hats on

re Sense of humour

It was surgically removed when they joined the MS Borg.

Along with the last remnants of their common sense.

Microsoft thought of the children and decided to ban some browsers

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Think of the market share

since when did Apple have the vast majority of Desktops running OSX?

If you mean iOS then again, since when are the vast majority of mobile phone iDevices?

Microsoft had to offer multiple browsers because of their majority position in the market.

I run OSX with Firefox. I can't remember the last time I used Safari apart from to download firefox.

When FF is set to the default browser it stays that way. Unlike Windows where MS love to try to get you to use IE and Edge instead of your preferred browser at almost every opportunity as well as making microsoft.com a PITA for anything including the latest version of IE.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
FAIL

Nanny Microsoft strikes again

Another footgun episode.

It is almost as if Redmond does not want us sources of advertising data (a.k.a customers) to use their software at all OR any software that isn't approved by the Redmond 'Thought Police'.

Can one of the MS shills (downvoters) please tell me again of the compelling reasons why I should run their software?

If MS carry on this way then I feel that the ownership of the 'walled garden' will have moved from Apple to Microsoft.

Sysadmins: Poor capacity planning is not our fault

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

But....

isn't this all supposed to go away with the Elastic Cloud that we are supposed to be using now?

Need more space/ram/cpu? Ok here it is. Carry on, business as usual?

There will be a lot of PHB's hoping that what I have said above it true. If it isn't and they get found out then they'll be looking for another company to wreck.

Oh and to Java devs everywhere, writing everything including the kitchen sink to Log4J output files in not the answer to reliable systems. I've seen several grind to a halt because of the vast size of Log4J files when (cough-cough) enabled on production 'just in case' things go wrong.

McAfee-the-man wants McAfee-the-brand, Chipzilla says no

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

If he has $3B then...

Intel will probably settle out of court. Why $3B? Well that's what some financial news sites are saying that is the amount the Intel want to get for their security software biz.

Then he could have his name above the door again.

Personally, I wouldn't give as much as $0.03 for it but that's just my opinion.

FBI Clinton email dossier

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

That won't stop the calls for her

to be thrown in Jail for the rest of her life. These are mostly coming from the right, more Trump leaning voters. If she gets elected then I forsee a move to get her impeached just like the President of Brail was this week.

Google scraps its Project Ara modular smartphone wheeze

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

What's next for the chop?

Gmail? Google+

They do seem to be cutting an awful lot of things at the moment. Almost as if they are about to be bought out.

Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10 ... and Linux, BSD, OS X

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Unless you are Really Big Biz this...

"officially supported only by Microsoft’s Windows 10.

means SFA to man or beast.

I've seet MS quoted as saying that other OS's will run but won't take advantage of new tricks in the X86 microcode.

That seems to be a world of difference to 'won't run'.

To me, won't run means something like trying to boot a Solaris (Sparc) Cd/DVS on an X86 CPU.

Or trying to Run Windows 7 on a machine with 512Kb of Ram when the min is 1Gb (or more).

Or trying to stop 'svchost.exe' from using all the RAM and CPU for no effing reason.

Want a Windows 10 update? Don't go to Microsoft ... please

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

What about the ISP's who throttle BitTorrents?

Those using them might get a few hours respite from an update that borks their device?

Perhaps this throttling is not so bad after all..????

Discus?

Robot cars probably won't happen, sniffs US transport chief

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

He was...

Can you imagine what would have happened if the FAA guy had been around at the time the horse and cart was invented?

Remember the man with the Red Flag that had to walk in front of early cars?

That's his mindset.

Trains have had automatic control for years. The London Docklands Light Railway is driverless. Several other lines are automated but retain a driver.

If full ATC was implemented then we'd could dispense with the Driver bit in my mind we do need a properly qualified member of Train Crew on board. PArt of the current dispute with Southern/GTR is over changing the roles of guards. The Unions won't sit by and let their driving roles be eliminated quietly. As one Union leader has said before, 'you ain't seen nothing yet'.

Tim Cook: EU lied about Apple taxes. Watch out Ireland, this is a coup!

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

It is a bit odd

Back in the dim and distant past, when software came on media as well as online, Adobe used to fulfil the media orders from Scotland and the electronic ones from Ireland.

IT was often a few pounds cheaper to buy the media plus shipping than the download just because of the VAT levied. The UK was cheaper than Eire.

Oh, the wonders of the Tax System. Ask 10 accountants how it works and you will get 20 different answers.

As the VAT returns have to be done quarterly and vert little remains with the people you are buying from then I'd be incluned to give apple the benefit of the doubt here. Whatever is the case the VAT paid to the Dublin Government by Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Google etc etc etc must be considerable.

As for Luxemburg, then I go ask a certain J. C. Junker about it all after all he set it up before becoming WU President. I guess it is safe to say that his home country won't be investigated in the same detail as Eire.

IBM swings axe through staff, humming contently about cloud and AI

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: IBM managemant plan

you could also say

HP is being run for the benefit of its managers - they will reap fat salaries and a decent retirement / golden handshake from this as the company slowly sinks beneath the water. Think of the Titanic, with the captain throwing ice cures off the front of the ship hoping that they will form an iceberg.

so IBM is following the example set by HP who is following the example set by IBM etc etc.

I can't help wonder if there is a general clearing of the decks before Donald 'Build that wall' Trump gets elected in november on a 'Make Amercia Great' ticket.

Exploding phablet phears phorce Samsung Galaxy Note 7 delay

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Coat

Re: If you want to prevent this..

Quote

It's so easy to design a PSU with over-current protection (in fact I would suggest that every commercial PSU has this anyway).

Err..... didn't that used to be called a Fuse?

mines the one with a load of 500mA fuses in the pocket.

Making us pay tax will DESTROY EUROPE, roars Apple's Tim Cook

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Time to punish Volkswagen - then Ireland can break from the EU

Since when did Eire vote to leave the EU?

When the UK leaves (with all the EU against it but thankful for the exit) The Republic of Ireland will still be a member.

Or are you a Daily Flail reader?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Will the real APPLE stand up

So never buy Apple. Good for you.

I really do hope that you will also boycott the likes of

Amazon, Adobe, IBM, microsoft, Google, Dell and a host of others who also have 'HQ's in Eire.

Oh and don't forget Starbucks.

What you gonna buy then?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: This:

What other EU states are preparing to leave?

I'd love to know. I'm sure others would too.

Got to dash out for some rubber johnnies? Amazon has a button for that

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Get out of my country corps

apple mode?

Isn't that the microsoft mode where it BSOD's right at the critical point and then sits there for the next 15 hours patching itself with the door to the machine locked...

And then repeats the whole thing forever.

Lawyers! win! millions! in! bonkers! Yahoo! email! snooping! case!

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Lawyers just look after themselves

A lot of Politicians are lawyers who make laws that benefit other lawyers who become politicians who make laws that benefit .....

And so the cycle goes on.

Height of stupidity: Heathrow airliner buzzed by drone at 7,000ft

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

don't you mean....

Fire the Drone pilots into Jet engines?

$329 for a MacBook? Well, really a 'HacBook' built on an old HP

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: EBay

That's what a USB (or BT connection) is for.

I use an old Dell KB with my Macbook. Bought 2nd hand for £5 at a computer fair almost 10 years ago. Still going strong. Weighs almost as much as the Macbook (sic)

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Sounds like a bargain....

They have been infected by the HUGE% markup that seems to be common in the apple world.

Europe to order Apple to cough up 'one beeellion Euros in back taxes'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: "We’re not going to bring it back until there’s a fair rate."

The USA has realised it. That's why they tax US Citizens and Companies at US rates on their Global earnings/income.

There are many former Americans who got fed up with having to submit a Federal Tax return every year even though in some cases they'd not set foot on US Soil for decades.

As for the foreign earnings of companies. Even though they may have paid whatever local tax is due on theie earnings (good rate or bad rate) if they send that money to the USA it is taxed again. Even if there are reciprocal agreements between the countries, there is still some tax due. US Tax is 40%, UK corporation Tax is around 20%. Take money from the UK to the USA and you have another 20% tax to pay.

These are the sort of reasons why companies like apple keep stashes of money all around the world and not in the USA.

US Tax law is a PITA even for individuals. We might complain at ours but at least things like Lottery and Premium Bond winnings are tax free. In the US? Forget it. Uncle Sam wants his cut no matter what.

Ireland looks like it's outpacing Britain in the superfast broadband rollout stakes

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: I don't think it's much different than the UK in totality.

Quote

Providing 500 TV channels 'Cable TV' is part of the financial equation.

Do you actually think that having 500 channels of crap/reality crap/ and more crap sent to your home is a good thing?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Why FTTP?

Aren't we all supposed to be going wireless?

Aren't fixed connections going the way of the Dodo?

Part of the UK Telecoms industry wants this and another part would love for people to abandon wired connections.

I'll leave the well infoemed elReg readers to fill in 'who is who' in the above statement.

Having wireless (aka Microwave) links (even if it costs a bit) for people out in the sticks would be cheaper than making the 'burbs' FTTP. I would imagine that there are more 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' types out in the sticks than in the burbs.

Notting Hill Carnival spycams: Met Police rolls out real-time live face-spotting tech

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: V

Well according to the GCSE stats from last week, it is WHITE Lower Class Boys who are doing worst at school not black boys.

Our (hence the A/C) graduate intake this year will be very multi-ethnic and at least 50% who are not white or male. The largest sector is South Asian women who are traditionally very disenfranchised by their society. Second is those from an Afro-Carribean background. Some are children of African Immigrants but still Black to those who want to put them down.

Having offended everyone else in the world, Linus Torvalds calls own lawyers a 'nasty festering disease'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Publishes its own kernel?

What you propose is exactly the last thing that RedHat should do.

There are more than enough people in the Linux world who actually hate RH and all that it stands for.

They take the side of 'How dare RH make money from FOSS' and all that.

I actually applaud RH for making a very successful business from FOSS. They contribute lots back in to the Linux world but the haters seem to ignore that little fact. This especially relates to the kernel.

RH do play by the GPL and all their GPL'd code is downloadable.

If RH were to put a leash on Linus then the uproad would be heard around the world.

Linus is his own man and long may it remain.

Apple is making life terrible in its factories – labor rights warriors

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Wot! Oh, there must be an iThing about to be announced

These reports seems to appear just about the time the Fruity Company is about to release a new iDevice on the unsuspecting world (rumours apart)

Not saying this is Apple's fault or not but don't Pegatron make stuff for other US companies as well?

Besides, wasn't there a report (Here i think) about Pegatron replacing all its workers with Robots.

When that project is complete what will these people have to complain about?

somehow I doubt that this report will stop an Apple devotee/disciple from buying the next itteration of the iPhone.

MIT brainiacs triple the speed, double the range of Wi-Fi

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: "consumers won't have to buy new hardware"

Quote:-

or are all the manufacturers going to simply issue firmware upgrades instead of selling a new shiny box?

Are you kidding?

Do pigs fly?

Did you get lucky in bed last night?

{Ok, that is a joke}

Do you really think that the makers will do anything apart from wanting us to buy new devices?

What about all those who use the WiFi device supplied by the ISP. For example the BT Home Hub. Will that get an update?

Will all those Starbucks etc throw out their existing kit and replace it with this new fangled kit?

I think not.

While this is a nice advance IMHO this will take at least a decade before it is even in 25% of networks. By then we will have something else instead of jamed WiFi networks

Currently, my laptop shows 34 other networks available and I'm well out in the 'burbs. Do we really need more range. I certainly don't want 134 networks all trying to use Channel 6 showing up.

Mozilla breathes petition-of-fire at EU copyright laws

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Errr...

I think that they (Mozilla) have been dragged into a court case for illegally displaying images that fall foul of copyright laws AND also for allowing Hyperlinks to be used and not sending money to the site being linked as happened in Germany where certain dead tree publishers took umbridge at having links to their content and them not getting paid for it.

Firefox was being used to browse these sites using these 'illegal' links.

IoT manufacturer caught fixing security holes

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Household insurance

Er???? Isn't it a condition of most Home Insurance Policies that you fit a lock approved to one of several BS (British Standards) otherwise you give the Insurance Company a huge loophole for them to wolk through and not pay you a penny in the event you are burgled?

So, the questions are...

1) Are any of these locks approved to any British Standard?

2) If so what BS number is it

and

3) Do any UK Insurance companies accept that locks meeting that standard are ok for normal home insurance policies

Yes, I know that it is early on a Friday and a Holiday weekend looms but isn't this a prime time for people to do DIY on their homes?

Excel hell messes up ~20 per cent of genetic science papers

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Devil's advocate

You make some good points. Many of the posts here show frustration with MS for making the tool try to do your job for you when if it just left well alone we'd (or most of us) would be a lot happier.

A case in point is the use of the ' at the start of a value.

Great but... when you use that data after some manipulation in excel as input for another application is when the problems really start.

All many of is need is a way to stop Excel from making any assumptions on the data we are importing/using. Don't drop leading zero's, don't convert numbers to scientific notation (normal people don't understand that anyway) etc etc

If MS were to do that an awful lot of people here and in other forums would go away happy.

It is not too much to ask is it? It is our data after all or has MS laid claims to that now?

Kindle Paperwhites turn Windows 10 PCs into paperweights: Plugging one in 'triggers a BSOD'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

These are all part of the MS 'Cunning Plan' to make anything that isn't carrying the MS brand or Windows Inside sticker inoperable.

How many printers no longer work with W10? Why don't the H/W makers update their drivers?

Or what incentive was there from Redmond to make them not work?

I really don't know what the real reasons are/were but the continued footgun events that surround W10 makes me think that is something that only Baldrick could dream up.

It never ended well for Baldrick and I see no signs that this will end well for MS.

Windows Update borks PowerShell – Microsoft won't fix it for a week

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Raising the White Flag

and giving MS the Finger.

I did that for my own personal use back in 2009. I just got fed up with the annual OS re-install and product load you had to go through as your machine craweled to a stop.

Bought myself a MacBook to run Photshop. That MacBook is still running today. Not had to do an OS re-install on it either. Runs with an SSD and thanks to TimeMachine moving from spinning rust to SSD was easy.

MS simply does not listen to users. It goes on its merry was towards self desctuction.

Sadly, I have to use Windows (W7) for work but as that job is comintg to an end in 5 weeks it might be that I can say goodbye to MS once and for all and you know what, I won't regret it one little bit.

Unlimited mobile data in America – where's the catch? There's always a catch

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

How much?

$50 for 2GB???? What on earth are they thinking? Almost as bad a EE with their 500Mb plans.

Stop lights, sunsets, junctions are tough work for Google's robo-cars

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Roundabouts...

4-Way ALL Stop junctions are a lottery. It seems that he who puts their foot down first wins the game of chicken. It is a wonder that more people aren't killed on them than they are.

Frankly, they are mad but the alternative is a 4-way stop light system.

Sadly, the road planners in the UK have got 'traffic light madness' these days.

Everywhere you go they seem to think that the ONLY solution is to put traffic lights in even when other solutinos have worked well for decades.

Well, that and painting acres of road with white lines this reducing the usable area by up to 50%.

Google to block web views from using its OAuth

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: More for Google

It is what the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple do with that data once they get it.

Oh, and don't forget Microsoft. They don't/won't want to be left out with all that effort they have put into getting it from you with W10.

Do the companies mentioned above either sell the data or use it to sling ads for 3rd party crap at you? Those are the most important things to ask yourself (IMHO)

Das ist empörend: Microsoft slams umlaut for email depth charge

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Microsoft or Americans?

Having lived and worked in several parts of Germany, the answer is ... it depends where you are if the locals speak English.

In many of the larger cities it is easy to speak english and be understood. A few times in Bavaria, I was asked to speak English because my Hamburg accent was so bad they couldn't understand it.

In places where the British Army had bases a lot of the local speak English because they integrated more into the population. Not as much in areas where there were US bases as they mostly remained on base.

There is no simple solution to the problem.

As for speaking french in France.... Several of my friends (around Annecy, in Brittany and south of Lyon in the Rhone valley), speak almost perfect English but refuse to use it when Americans are around just because they don't even try to speak French. most Brits at least try these days.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Please!

A bug in Outlook 2016

Microsoft is a bug factory. That's all we need to know about Redmond. Everything they chuck out is riddled with bugs that are left to us poor (well, we are coughing up their license fees aren't we???) users to discover.

Your wget is broken and should DIE, dev tells Microsoft

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

They are quick to shutter services

when they "embrace" a company (absorb them into the MS-Borg) yet when they clearly make a balls up they say that it will have to go out to RFC because someone might have used their shite in a week?

And because they want to play by the rules....

After a while the RFC will be forgotten and people will accept the MS versions of wget and curl as the defacto ones.

I just get a feeling this is the first attack in their plan to subvert the FOSS movement from the inside.

If that is the taste of MS to come then watch out FOSS.

come on Redmond, just pull the Powershell release from Github until you fix it properly. Otherwise folks, use at your own risk with wearing a full Hazmat suit and a 40ft barge pole.

Microsoft's kinder, gentler collaboration war: Evernote, you're first

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Millions of records

Knowing how many objects there are in the db is one thing but knowing how many came from Evernote is a very different matter. My guess is that they troll through the metadata (giving them the benefit of the doubt about reading the data itself).

I would not trust MS with one tiny bit of data of mine (the same goes for Google)

HPE sharpens knife for next salami-slicing staff redundo round

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

£300/day contractors

last year those same roles were £400+/day

more money for those exec bonuses

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Will the last one out

please switch the lights off and shut the doors.

Honestly, how many are there left to sack apart from those with corner offices?

Former RN flagship HMS Illustrious to be sold for scrap – report

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: It's always hard

ditto for the USS Alabama in .... Alabama. A WW2 Sub is moored alongside.

Paper mountain, hidden Brexit: How'd you say immigration control would work?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: I still have 'friends' saying...

Point your friends at the Exchange rates.

Perhaps they want £1 == $1 == 1 Euro or worse?

I saw £1 = 0.95 Euros last week at one exchange.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Simple is best

Agreed. BREXIT may bring about a unified Ireland sooner than even the IRA might have dreamed of.

Then there is the lack of pressure on the UK to have another referrendum until we gave them the right answer (like they did in a few other countries in the past). That leads me to suspect that the EU can't wait to see the back of us.

That leads me to start thinking that we shoud not leave just to piss them nasty europeans off even more.

Microsoft can't tell North from South on Bing Maps

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Re: Maybe this explains the Aussie Olympic team's disappointing performance?

nah,

This was the first time in recent history that they haven't had to travel to the Northern Hemisphere for the Olympics. Besides, putting it where it was, the trip to Tokyo for 2020 would be just a short hop for any athlete based in Melbourne (Australia) and not the one in Derbyshire.

iPhone: Apple's Mac battle with Windows rebooted

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

Apple phone business is not doomed, but it will be very difficult for it to get market share from Android, unless they can find somewhere some new highly desired unmatched feature - beyond status symbol ones.

The question is something a bit different (IMHO)

Do apple Actually want a huge amount more market share?

sure they'd make shed loads more $$$ but they'd face Monopoly investigations.

While they are a minotiry they can continue to charge lots more $$$ for their bling and make more profit.

Remember that the margins for every other mobile maker are pale in comparison to Apple's.

Apple needs Android who needs Apple.

Intel needs AMD needs Intel

etc

etc

Uber and Volvo take on Ford in race to launch self-driving vehicles

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Could this mean . . . .

Don't matter. They'll just follow the lead of Alfa and VW and make the actual lights so small that you can't even see them at night.

UK IT consultant subject to insane sex ban order mounts legal challenge

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: I don't even know where to start...

But...

" his case does qualify for legal aid, but whether or not he fulfils the financial hardship criterion is not known."

If it can be 'proved' that he made himself homeless then he can be denied everything.

Sad but I do think that the Plod are really out to get him by fair means or foul.

I cn only hope that the publicity of the case will make some lawyer who is a human rights expert to take his case pro-bono. No matter if he is guilty as sin, he does deserve a proper defence and proper representation in court.