Posts by astounded1

The Best Auto Response Ever - Only Because It Feels Good

After layers and layers of digging, I found out that opting out doesn't stop the ads.

So, I created my own "Go Fuck Off" message to send over to any advertiser who sends me shit I don't want. Which is almost all of them. I go to an advertiser's webpage, find the appropriate email address for info on a specific product. I log the address and when the ads for women's clothing from Golily keep showing up on my iPhone and iPad, I pull up the email I have for them and auto generate this:

"I'm a middle aged man and though I am quite fit, I do not believe I would look good in any of your clothes that are in the ads you keep sending me. So, Go Fuck Off."

It doesn't stop the ads, but I think someone might see my message, and that makes me smile.

The Goog Don't Track Me Not Never...Uhhhhh....

I search for a paper shredder. Every website I later look at has paper shredder ads. The Goog don't track me. I search for some trabs, trainers like. For weeks and months, every website I see has a trab ad. The Goog don't track me. Every search for any item, there they are over and over, all the items I searched everywhere I go.

But the Goog don't track me. The 5G don't track me. The 4G don't track me. The Alexa don't. The Siri don't. Except, I sneeze near Alexa or Siri, and I get ads for masks, pills, inhalers and Theraflu for weeks.

But - nobody tracks me.

Ah, bullshit. Who even needs a warrant? The Goog, the Amazon, the Appple, the O2, 3, T and more. They all track me and I am nobody. So, why?

This arson ejat - he stupid as mud.

Is It 'How" They Write The Code? Or Is It 'Who' And Where And What Are They Paid?

You have your code subcontractors and then you have the Boeing approach. It is not, of course, an issue confined to Boeing. Then again, lots and lots of code subs living in almost subhuman conditions in India making three quid an hour (but being billed out by job shops to their clients at vastly higher rates) aren't all working on aircraft and spacecraft.

Now tell that to 737 MAX passengers who went down. Oh, that's right, you can't, can you?

Behind those prime contractors used by the glossy names of global business that don't want to employ developers themselves anymore are young people paid just above dirt for their work hidden beyond the view of the brass at companies that think they are getting a deal - until things start falling out of the sky.

The Free-Fall Continues...

Writing from direct experience here, IBM's "cloud business" is IBM sending IBM customers to Azure. They are re-branding old, functionally obsolete products as cloud. A complete fiction. The only truly intelligent business thing that is happening there is that they have turned shareholders into robots that think what is happening is OK, OK, OK, OK...

Most Cost Metrics Do Not Take In The Entire Cloud IT Expense Impact On Savings

As a human, not an AI-driven humanoid, I wish it were not true that moving into an automated cloud setting for workloads, smart storage and data analytics proves to be overall less costly than going it alone in your DIY networks. However, it is cheaper if you manage things properly and know exactly what you need, as opposed to overdoing it.

We have gone into several very large organizations and audited their software license costs, often finding 30 to 50 percent waste. In other words, the humans were holding onto turf in order to hold the line on their jobs. If you get subsequent buy-in from the C suite for a cloud migration (we specialize in Azure/365), when you take into account savings on wasteful over-subscriptions for Oracle, VMware, various security licenses, Dell/EMC massively overpriced products - and more - you can save a big organization quite a bit of cash.

Unfortunately, a byproduct of this exercise is the loss of jobs at these operations, as they no longer need a small army of tech admins on prem.

I'm afraid this situation will accelerate in 2020. Get some other training and expertise if your gig can be replaced by AI driven VMs that are running software that is self-learning. Because these clouds are spreading and they can't be stopped.

After you figure in all the efficiencies from running only what is really required, onward to the lowering of the HR budget - cloud is usually substantially less costly than running big DIY environments.

If You Don't Have The Infrastructure You Ain't Beating AWS

Is it moi, or do any others think companies like MDB should not whine because they were able to launch an IPO on the backs of a scheme to support software that is open.

Like this business model was ever going to make a profit??? It's OPEN SOURCE and, therefore, fair game for AWS to flavour up its own service and sell it to its hosted customers cheaper than Mongo sells their stuff for.

Companies like MDB raise all this venture capital. The venture guys get to the banks to underwrite the IPO. The banks make a killing in fees. The stock launches and fund managers who don't really get what MDB even does suck up shares, driving up the price and it looks swell to everyone so long as the stock keeps going up and it's not in your retirement account when it crashes down.

It's a bloody racket making insiders rich. AWS has the perfect right to destroy them if they want. They own the damn data centres.

Just Get Some Stock Options, Then Legally Sell The Shares For Cash

Check out the legal insider trading disclosures for Palo Alto Networks. Look at all the cash those people have made by selling off their shares. My, my. Lots of money for a company that has never turned a profit.

By The Time Larry Migrates To The Database In The Sky...

Oracle itself will be on an accelerating shrinking path because the people who are so stuck on not changing it are also on the wane. At 75, Larry needs to find an out. He needs legacy that extends beyond a basketball naming rights deal on a shiny new toy building in S.F.

He needs a winning cloud strategy - but, wait! - he's already lost that race and can never recover. Karma is a hard Mother when you have been auditing your customers and sticking it to them for years. The old capture and exploit routine because Larry knows it's hard to break free - but it's getting easier by the day.

What to do?

Get Microsoft to buy you. It's his only face-saving out.

Also, best wishes to Mark Hurd and I mean that. He's having a very tough go on the health front.

The Devil Has A Bad Bottle Blond Haircut

Boris Johnson is actually the devil. Sorry you southern pratts haven't figured that out yet. By the time you do, it shall be far too late for the lot of you.

Larry is 75 years old. Does anyone here think adding mostly 2,000 bods in India is going to do anything to increase Oracle's "cloud" offerings before Larry moves on to the actual cloud?

The cloud game is all over for Oracle as a meaningful player. Over in Ashburn, VA. they are cross connecting their "cloud" to Azure. Thus opening up all Oracle customers to the expanding delights of an actual global scale cloud platform imbued with every sort of application you can think up and owned by Microsoft.

As Oracle slips further off into last gen status, its share price falls to the level where it makes sense for Microsoft to pay to buy the Oracle customer base and consolidate its position in cloud world vs. AWS.

I do love the silly idea that Larry thinks the shareholders are so stupid that this stunt will prove Oracle is serious about building "the world's best cloud" as he says.

Larry, Larry, Larry - go sailing while you can still hoist a jib and sell the biz if you can.

Hi! I'm from the BT tech assist roving team of quasi expert wifi guys who are dispatched from your local high street to sort your in home communications needs....

Hey! Don't slam the door in my face! Open the door you pratt! I'm here to sort your wifi! Open up!!! Now...or I'll leave! OK, I'm leaving then. You'll be sorry...

Rusty is a proud graduate of Manasquan High School. As is the actor Jack Nicholson. The original E Street Band piano player Dave Sancious. And yours truly. We had a very diverse academic offering. How I wound up looking into a computer screen on the Wirral proves that not everyone who went to that school wound up a success!

Oh Come On, There Are Thousands Of People On Earth Who Talk With God

What they need do is release this data to that crowd so they can pinpoint down the universe zones where god is talking from at any given time. This saves very much sterling and wasted effort. For example, this fellow Jerome, who dwells in an old rock hut out on Skellig Michael (and was a consultant on a Star Wars film), regularly receives messages from heaven directing him to write commands on rocks that are then transcribed into texts that wind up being recited from pulpits all over the world every week. This radio telescope work is scattershot. Go to the EXPERTS! I have a coffee every week with a guy who works a corner in my area whilst wearing an "I am Jesus" sign. He is a smart dude. I believe he hails from Proteus 24351bxg7.

In Any Geography - Who Sells Wi Fi Repeaters On ISP Accounts?

They are ISP's broadband signals and you have to have some indication right there how'd you pull this off.

One way to do it - get an account on the local telco/cable ISP. Your primary router with associated address that links back to the ISP's IP addresses is hard wired into either a landline, or a fixed mobile broadband PoP. Preplan your target. Light up your account at a nearby residence or commercial building. Purchase a number of signal boosting repeaters available in electronic stores, or from the ISP. Connect the explosives at the endpoint to the specific wifi account. Extend this out.

One way how to thwart it - if you have places where crowds commonly gather, or will gather for an event, look at every wifi signal nearby and find out who the account holders and ISP are. Then start looking at repeater sales and rentals.

Then, good luck, you'll need a lot of manpower. #sickfuckingworld

Just In Time - NOT

I'm sure the fix, if there is one, will come as good news to the folks on the two planes. Oh, wait...

It's Not Grass - It's GLASS, You Idiots

The 1990s style stoner film updated:

Bertie And Bernie Break The Internet (No, Really, They Actually Do Break It)

"Bertie, mate, I'm freezing. This concrete hut is open. Let's go see if it's warm."

"Sound, mate, I've got the weed. We can fire up inside."

Cut to lit match falling onto some flammable liquid that then rapidly spreads into an inferno, melting the landing station and wiping out the fastest Internet route between the U.K. and North America.

Now, THAT'S Brexit...

Platinum In The Boot

My now deceased Uncle Karl was a top metals engineer who'd been brought on by a firm that was working on top-secret materials for the NASA Apollo spaceflight project. One Saturday when we were visiting his home, he brought me out into the drive where his car was parked. He popped open the boot, rustled around and handed me a heavy brick of silver metal. He had a few of them in there, haphazardly dumped in the boot bottom, covered over by a canvas tarpaulin.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked.

"Ummm, lead," I ventured.

"No. It's platinum. It's worth more than gold." This was in the days when Sean Connery was still playing Bond and who could forget Goldfinger? Especially the parts where Jill Masterson is painted gold, or when Bond drops the bar of Nazi gold on the golf green?

I was impressed but confused. "Why are you carrying it around in the boot?" I asked.

Now, he drove a typical genius engineer's ride - a tan ford with a few dents and scratches. It was a completely unremarkable and rather ugly four-door sedan.

"Who is going to try to steal anything from this?" he asked me, laughing.

He shut the boot and I have never forgot that moment.

My uncle was a real secret agent. It also proves, as does this story, that materials engineers aren't exactly careful with, well, their materials.

Backdoor, Frontdoor, Sidedoor, Petdoor, Roof vent, Sewer Line...

So many holes. So many ways to turn them on. So long as the cyber spooks have access to the same spying as everyone else, the only losers are the civilians.

If A Russia Disconnected The Internet In The Forest...

Would anyone know it?

My Tongan Beach House Is Offline

The sat solution for the undersea cable disruption is s-l-o-w......so slow, sessions all time out.

In effect, we are off grid for awhile.

God it's beautiful!!!

I'm sending this comment from the boat's sat account.

Is It Still A Startup - Or Is It A Form Of Gambling?

By the time this Rubrik'sCcube gets sorted, the next data storage magic cube will appear out of the quantum particle dance competition.

In this case, IPO actually means: "Thanks very much...I'M PAID OFF!!!"

Look At That Honey - Hillary Has Horns Under Her Fake Hair!

President Trump can make pigs fly, too! Let's share this one.

A Good Man With A Very Dry Wit And A Big Brain

I knew Dr. Roberts around the time he founded Anagran. That company was more successful then you may think. He built traffic prioritizing "flow routers" that captured the attention of Microsoft, which then introduced Larry to a number of Pentagon types and the flow routing technology was suddenly gone underground. He didn't pass away broke, I can assure you. It's a very useful technology for giving network transit priority to packets like near real-time battlefield data flow, as you might imagine you'd desire, if a network is also carrying other, rather less critical information like supply chain logistics and an assortment of additional non-time-critical data. Versions of his discoveries in packet identification/prioritizing are under development all the time in the non-secret world. Related technology to flow routing allows mysterious network operators to throttle your excessive streaming of various stuff and such.

True story: Larry was stood before an audience in the Seattle area at a conference some years back where I was fortunate to share a panel with him. He was presenting slides to some 800 or so rapt audience members on the development of the ARPANET when he dryly intoned to the audience that "we didn't design it to be a television network." This received a big laugh, although I do not think Larry was kidding. (You could never tell, however, due to his aforementioned dry wit.)

The good doctor spent a lot of time thinking about packets. It's quite good he did, as it turns out. Dr. Larry, please prioritize my packets to a good place when I step across the river, if you wouldn't mind. See you then.

So Shut Up And Pay Us For Premium Dark Web Insurance

Look, if we didn't surf our greed and disregard for you digits out there into this magnificent fuck up, we wouldn't have jumpstarted our hot, new dark web scanning business so you can watch how your stolen info we let get stolen is put to work.

All for just 75 quid a month.

Once you see your privates on the scary side of the web, you won't be surprised anymore when your bank balance suddenly goes to zero. We will have warned you.

That's all we do here. We lose your shit, then we charge you to warn you. So fuck off.

This Annoying Saudi Guy With A Saw Out In My Garden...

I've been posting a few things about the big amphibian Mohammed Bin Salamander and his evil ranks and, wouldn't you know it, they came back up my light streamed packets and there they are, having tea outside the window, waiting for me to step outside.

Fortunately for me, I have an escape tunnel.

Wait, what? The UK spy kit means they now know I have an escape tunnel?

Hold on...Oh no! The saw guy is holding up a sign. It reads, "We know you have a tunnel."

Shite.

Hi, I'm Admiral Clepto...

Dr. Shifro is in my group therapy session. We suggested to him that he has a valid business model and that he should be open about the fact that he can get your encrypted stuff decrypted - for a fee on top of the ransom request.

In some places they call this kind of shit being a lawyer...

Go Ahead, Make My Payout

I know what you're thinking. Did I lose 600 million, 800 million, a billion in the quarter? Come to think of it, in all this excitement leading up to the shareholder vote, I kind of lost track myself. Since I've got this .44 magnum pointed at you, the world's most powerful handgun that can blow your head clean off, and I want to cash out of this dinosaur business my private equity bucks got sunk into, I guess you've got to ask yourself a question - are you gonna vote yes? Well, are you punk?

In Ten Years Oracle Will Be Wanged...

As in a runaway market leader to Wang Terminaled...as in Finito Mussolini...ripped apart by its own business model. They will simply have no more customers left to audit.

Brutal how many jobs AWS is going to cost the IT world in the next ten years. Larry always can go sailing. So why should he care?

Cool Way To Get Rid Of Crap You Don't Want Anymore

Fill a storage cube with your crap and put one of these locks on it and dump the cube in a dodgy neighborhood. Wait 24 hours. Come back and retrieve the empty cube.

You Gotta Have Backhaul, Oh you Gotta Have Backhaul If You Want 5g...

Makes for a catchy tune. In order for the mass rollout of 5G to deliver promised wireless speeds of a gig, there is going to be another round of fiber going in the U.K, the Continent and the USA.

Nothing like a mobile carrier arms race to create a terrestrial network with enough fiber that even BT would think of hooking up your manse.

USA? Oi vey! AT&T and Verizon already at each others' throats. Because of mobile billions, the major networks have no choice but to enable gig or the competition will. The mobile guys don't cooperate on "regions" like the cable guys do. They have to have your blood and they'll spend to get and keep it. This report doesn't touch on the backhaul reality of all that mobile data needing to be sucked into the ground but fast and routed to its destination in a few milliseconds. Only sweet Corning Leaf is in order.

Thus, me droogies, said report is bollux.

El Reg Is The Only Place I Ever Post Anything...

No Twatter account. No Facecrook. No LockedIn.

Nada.

Just here. That's it.

Is it a triumph of will? Or the tragic story of one lonely technology misfit living a withdrawn life devoid of digital "friends?"

I'm building a communications cube sat programmed to talk to me from space.

I'm naming it God.

I Thought 007 And M Handled All This In S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

And Blofeld is in prison.

Now, you're saying the Brits and the U.S. are about to collaborate on exactly the sort of system that Bond uncovered and put down?

Who can believe anything anymore?

Um...Creepy Smart Thieves Love Big Privacy Invading Ad Schemes Like Google

Google is justifying itself as a victim in all this. The cookie monster is actually pretty damn stupid.

This is why it allegedly took 16 ORGANIZATIONS AND YEARS TO BRING THIS SCHEME TO HEEL.

Or You Can Use The Cloud To Entirely Ditch Cisco...

I'm weighing all this heavy Cisco kit. Did I mention, it's heavy? I moved a wagonload of work to Azure and, guess what, I don't need so much heavy Cisco iron anymore. Should I call them and tell them I want some more, anyway? You know, just to help out?

Yesterday's Fabric Needs Yesterday's Machines

Isn't that why you have conversations over drinks, whispering in the corner, about how much longer you can milk the current gig?

Rebranding The Titanic

Citrix's New "Immersive North Atlantic Experience"

In other words - Aw, shucks, most of the stuff we make is going to be obsolete.

When You Don't Test And Train And Your Setup Sucks...

Active:active without estrangement between the two is a flying farce. In other words, your secondary live site must be autonomous, not interlinked. You move to it with no electrical interplay. What kind of collective ignorance is at play here?

Nobody loves the smell of fried computers in the morning. Or do they?

Bruce Springsteen put it best in the anthem, "Your Hometown."

"Foreman said these jobs are going boys

and they ain't coming back

to your hometown..."

When will we stop hearing the BS about how "the cloud" is a great opportunity for these dinosaur legacy companies like HPE, Dell/EMC/VMWare, IBM.

Take every reference to "the cloud" uttered by every company except Amazon, Microsoft and Google and, when the word "cloud" comes out of an executive's mouth, substitute it with the term "dotcom."

So, it would read like this:

"We look forward to the unlimited growth opportunity awaiting us and our new products in the dotcom (cloud) world."

Get the picture?

In A World Full Of Twits...

Don't be one anymore!!! Stop using this sort of shite and pare down your own e mail heap.

Imagine How Many More...

are living in hell over at Uber trying to figure out what to do about it and they can't say anything. I'd rather starve on the street before going through that. Oh, wait, I practically already am because I refuse to go through that. Run for your lives! It's not worth it.

And, If You Don't Like Dirty Air...

This guy - look at him - won't be around much longer and I mean literally. That said, his logic can be extended to a variety of issues:

If you don't like dirty air, don't breathe.

If you want to combat global warming, build more air conditioning.

If you want to be left behind in this modern world, don't use the Internet.

It makes total sense coming from a real visionary.

Krashzilla

NVM pricing already on way to bottom race. Toshy types thinking they will reap billions for this? Buy my Yugo, please!

Top Notch Prison Training

Using fragnets to build a think boxes: first rate

Using think boxes to hack into prison net: crafty

Using prison net to commit financial crimes: ironic

Defeating moron prison IT admins: simple