Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: How could you

"The parallels between Liz and Musk in their management styles, consensus building, and short-sighted policies has been astounding this year."

Musk seems to be keeping his distance from Amber Heard these days. Might there be an open for Liz in Musks boudoir?

(Try not imagine any offspring they may produce!)

Re: Clean Up In Aisle 3!

"When I saw the first suggestion my dentures were across the room before I could help myself!"

Same here :-|

(Not, not a proper "smiley" since it looks awful with no teeth in)

I am also rather flabbergasted by the poll results so far. El Reg claims that it's readership is primarily North American these days, hence their change in house style. The poll results seem to indicate that either not be true or BoJo has cracked the US market in his search for fame.

Re: Numeric Keypads

I wonder just how many people do enough numeric data entry that a separate numeric keypad area is actually required? Certainly back in the pre-Windows days, a LOT of PC (and early computer) use was just getting the data into the damned machine in the first place because so much of it arrived in printed form. I'm not an office based person, so don't really know what most people do in office based situations these days.

Re: No, I don't think so.

Yeah, they do. But will a USB A to USB C adaptor provide enough power to run the CPU/GPU/display combo? Or would you need an adaptor cable with an additional PSU? And anyway, who in their right mind, being frugal enough to not own any USB C sporting devices would spend $349 on a keyboard? :-)

Re: Cat hair and crumbs

"I guess you could offset the graphic for where your head normally is in relation to the keys, but if you shift around in your chair they'll be misaligned again."

First paid-for upgrade. Webcam head/eye tracking to adjust the effects for the optimum "experience" (Which will always be just ever so slightly off and laggy, causing nausea for the users) :-)

Re: dd

I think what they really mean is "it's too hard to run all my favourite Windows programmes on Linux". Which is true in many cases :-)

Re: YOU WILL BUY.....

EVERYTHING is advertised on the internet. You might not be buying as a result of seeing it advertised on the internet, but pretty much everything you do buy is advertised there. And even you think you are not buying as a result of seeing it advertised, they are still building brand awareness which might lead you yo a later purchase that you only think you independently chose.

Advertising is a tangled web and we're all stuck in it, ad and script blockers not withstanding.

Re: I wonder whatever happened to...

To be fair (spit), the IRS or HMRC are not stand-alone "corporate enterprise" but the revenue generation subsidiaries. The "product" is things like the judiciary system , defence, road building, education system etc., (might vary in some countries that don't have a national education system etc) so not really a great comparison since taxes do pay for stuff we use. Whether you agree with all or even none of the uses of taxes, you do use and benefit from stuff paid for from them. Even the 100% committed anarchist living totally off grid and off the land is still benefiting from the rule of law that says a bigger boy can't just come along and take away your toys :-)

Re: Foresight is a wonderful thing

"Lot of old keyboards out there companies are too cheap to upgrade."

When the BOFH needs to LART the PFY, he doesn't use a lightweight modern flexi-keyboard with parentage from the realms of laptops. There are good reasons to keep old keyboards, mass being one of them :-)

Re: TWAIN being the other thing that leaps to mind from that era...

And if you try to do orchestral manoeuvres, you need a conductor too, who also have a union. You can open Windows, but not the doors, that's the conductors job :-)

Re: Memories

"AT power connectors had keying. They also came in pairs that also were keyed to each other. I'm not saying you couldn't connect them wrong, just that it would take some effort."

As a field engineer during that time, I can say with absolute confidence that they were NOT all keyed. It did eventually become a sort of standard, but it most certainly wasn't originally. I had case where a new PSU was to be fitted and the connectors on the leads had the key tags on them but the connectors on the system board did not or the key tags were in the wrong place A quick couple of snips with side cutters to remove the key tags and we were back in business, being careful to make sure P8 and P9 were the correct way around :-) (and yes, double and triple checking that it wasn't a special OEM PSU with the same connectors but different wiring before starting the replacement!)

Re: Slow moving

"Indeed BBC4 (BBC channel we watch most) is Python parrot like as a free to air service (will soon be online only)"

They already tried that with BBC3, failed, and brought it back as a broadcast channel. Being aimed at "the yoof", that makes me wonder if they simply got it wrong with the format or if "the yoof" actually quite like broadcast TV for some use cases.

Re: Slow moving

"For me, one of the main attractions of BBC (mostly consumed via iPlayer) is the lack of advertising - I can just dive in and watch a show uninterrupted."

This is why streaming took off in the US. The ad breaks are so infuriatingly long and frequent that switching to streaming was a backlash from the viewers and "no brainer" leading to the phrase "cord cutters". Once it took off there, it was inevitable it would spread even to markets where the advert "problem" was nowhere near as bad, to the detriment of the often reasonably good incumbents.

Here in the UK, we often looked enviously cross the Atlantic at the many TV channels they could choose from. What we didn't see was the ad breaks they suffered and problems having so many channels to fill when there's a finite amount of good content. The rot set in to the BBC and ITV when satellite and cable came to the UK but took a long time to really set in. Yeah, only having two channels, eventually five, to pick from doesn't seem like much, but is there really that much good content on the 300+ channels we have now? Even the higher end documentary channels like Discovery and NatGeo have very little new content, they are 90%+ repeats. Once you've seen all the stuff you want to see, suddenly you find there's not a lot to watch.

Re: Slow moving

Oh FFS, that was shit! Did he not do ANY practice? That looked like he'd never been on the ice before in his life!

Re: Slow moving

"They're in it for the long game, as the BBC used to be, before those working for the Beeb, just began exploiting it for their own gain by making cheap, crap TV, to fill the schedules, ignoring the long term consequences of doing that. Allowing a top-heavy management structure to develop."

For good or ill, mostly ill in the long run it seems, the BBC was forcibly "broken up", spinning off much of it's production into private, commercial operations. That's why so many "BBC" productions don't appear on iPlayer for very long after initial broadcast, because they have to pay for those rights. The BBC has an enormous back catalogue going back decades, but not so much from the last decade. Rather than put that back catalogue on iPlayer, free to those who paid for its creation, some of it is on Britbox so we have to pay again to watch it.

For those talking about the "obsolete" iPlayer and BBC Sounds, I find them no more difficult to navigate than Netflix and infinitely better to navigate than Amazon with it's many interleaved "channels" in the guide that are paid for extras.

Amazon is the worst for browsing, iPlayer more or less on a par with Netflix,although none are actually good for browsing. Most streaming service front ends are only really good if you already know what you are specifically looking for by name. Even genre searches are poor IMO. You'd think all these streaming services with the $millions of development funds would be able to compete with the many interfaces and customisation options the free Kodi media player can manage. I have Kodi running exactly the way that suits me with a skin of my choice and the options that work my way, ie many text based titles I can read per screen with a description in a sidebar, not silly "thumbnails" I sometimes struggle to identify with maybe 6 or 8 per screen and much scrolling.

TL;DR Streaming services: Great content, shit interfaces

Re: Too many "heads in the sand" technophobes run the BBC

"I worked for a commercial broadcaster who didn't like the license fee. However they also didn't want the BBC taking advertising or sponsorship. Neither did the idea of encryption/subscription go down any better. People apparently might find the idea of two monthly charges unwelcoming and ditch the commercial one."

So, in summary, the commercial broadcaster didn't like the idea of a big competitor, no matter how it's funded. Sounds like every other commercial business in the world :-)

Re: complete mystery.

He's "only" a backbencher these days. But sadly he still has influence.

On the other hand, the number of government departments still buying in large numbers of laptops and tablets, I suspect those departments at least are not panning a mass return to the office any time soon. Local councils too. Many are selling off or mothballing office space as fast as they can, and not just for budgetary and running costs reasons.

Some Local Councils were already implementing partial WFH and closing offices before covid because it was cheaper and better for them. At least one I know of commissioned a study back in 2018 and a tried a pilot scheme in 2019 which showed increased productivity and fewer sick days, putting them in the perfect position to go fully WFH when the pandemic hit. They had to scramble a bit to beef up the servers for full remote working and get PCs and laptops into peoples homes quickly, but did it far quicker than most others managed.

Re: Why (please explain)?

"IME the "notebook refresh cycle" is strictly a function of whether parts and support are still available from the notebook vendor. 3 years seems to be typical, though the notebooks themselves will last much longer."

IME, the number of laptops failing during warranty has risen. Not all are in warranty in terms of the repairs, ie "user damage". Broken screens seems to be on the decline now after a sharp peak during and immediately post-lockdown. Damaged charging ports, whether barrel or USB are steady at the new plateau reached with WFH. Spillages on keyboards and into the gubbins have dropped too from an early WFH peak. The hazards and working environment is very different at home than in the office and many of those people suddenly dropped into WFH had never done so before and may not have even used a laptop before then so didn't understand how to take care of it properly. Most people never plug anything into an office based PC. A home based laptop probably gets the PSU plugged in/out at least daily and was something people had to learn to do properly and carefully.

Now, none of that that indicates a shorter refresh cycle. It just indicates that some of the laptop estate will need replacing a little more often than than the lengthening desktop PC refresh rate, which is currently about 5 years for most of our customers, not accounting for the lack of use during covid. Although it seems most customers are buying with 3 year on-site warranty and just scrapping anything that comes back "broken" outside of the warranty period.

I'd say if any business has been hit hard by WFH, it's the office printer business. I see a number of customers with entire sections or even floors of their offices effectively abandoned but with big heavy duty office printers on lease agreements that may not have even been switched on in 2+ plus years and likely never will be right up until the lessor comes to take them away.

Re: We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..

On the other hand, there can be a social side to some team meetings that doesn't/can't happen online when only one person at a time can speak. People who don't "do" social", which I know are some of the people reading/posting here, clearly don't miss that. But most people do have a social element to them and may well have actual friends they work with and may have worked with for years, so a face to face meeting can be a lot more than just a business meeting for them.

Because of the remote nature of my work, there are people I've "worked with" for many years, but have only ever very rarely, or even never, met in person. I'm ok with that, but on those rare occasions we do meet face to face in two's or three's, we usually end up chatting about anything and everything other than the job :-)

Two words. Commercial interests.

Why would an American company try to make reactor fuel when no one will buy it if they can get it cheaper from elsewhere. Doesn't matter where, so long as it's cheaper. That's capitalism. Legislating for use of a US production facility is "too much regulation", at least until you find that you can no longer buy the cheaper fuel and there is no other suitable source and it becomes a "national security" issue with a minimum 10 year lead time.

Re: Yeah, smart appliances are DUMB.

LOL, yes. oops :-)

Re: I'm appalled

"Just more toys / pram behaviour."

And just to prove it, he's now banned live links to Mastodon on Twitter as "potential malware", apparently very shorty after links were posted showing where the @elonsplane has found a new home, which I'm sure is not related any way nosir! :-)

Re: I'm appalled

"In case it's not clear from the above: no, this is not about being pro someone or against someone. This is about fundamental ethics and a sense of moral responsibility. I would write the same whether we'd be talking of mother Theresa, Stalin, or the guy who stole my bike. Criticism, yes. Hate, no (and that goes for those who foment it as well)."

On the other hand, Twitter et al are already doing exactly the same with all of their users data, profiling them, probably selling on the results etc etc. Because that data has "value", they don't make it public, but is it really any different morally? There are people prepared to pay to get far more sensitive data about Twitter users than the location of a flight they may be taking. What Twitter et al actually sell may be aggregated, but the people collecting the data have it right down to the last detail.

The data on Musks planes flights is publicly accessible, just as Twitter users data is accessible to Twitter. We get told if we don't what to be tracked by Twitter, don't use Twitter. If Musk doesn't want his plane tracked, then go by train or car. He has the same choice we do.

Re: stalker

out of curiosity: WHY would anyone want to do that ?

Apart from what Jake and others have said, there are many people out there who's lives revolve around "following" their current celebutard and having a live feed of where they are and what they're doing is exactly the sort of thing many of them are doing every day.

After all, isn't this one of the premier USPs of Twitter in the first place? Fans "follow" their "heroes" so they can vicariously "live a better life" and bask in the reflected glory by re-tweeting the missives of their "heroes" and increase their own follower count.

Re: Business as usual, then

"I suspect that one motive might be to grab the bandwidth licenses and go into business selling terahertz WiFi access points into the SOHO market. But with the obligatory monthly cellular bill instead of being consumer owned and free."

If that were to be something that might be considered, the incumbents would object to the need for licencing at all. Short range signals barely able to escape the room they are broadcast in is pretty much the definition of unlicensed spectrum. There would be a LOT of "stakeholder" reaction to attempts to licence that type spectrum.