* Posts by Harry the Bastard

243 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2008

Page:

Asteroid Florence buzzes Earth, brings two moons along for the ride

Harry the Bastard

i hope the moons are dougal and zebedee

though it all seems rather roundabout

Quantum's scale-out storage revenues didn't scale out enough

Harry the Bastard

"as part of this work,...

...we are in the process of engaging a top-tier consulting firm which we expect will help the company to identify and deliver improvements in the operating characteristics of the business over the next six to 12 months, including accretive contributions to non-GAAP earnings."

short version of top-end consulting firm's recommendations: cut expensive experienced people, hire cheaper inexperienced people, cut employee benefits (only for non-execs obvs), screw suppliers with longer payment terms, lots of flimflam to operationalize the hoohah

hey quantum, where shall i send my invoice for this top-end advice?

Cisco loses customer data in Meraki cloud muckup

Harry the Bastard

Re: That's a shame...

"I had one of their free trial AP units with 3 years licensing. Stopped working as soon as the 3 year ran out. £350+ to renew each year. "

£350??? who told you that?

even if you buy just one year, per-AP is $150 rack rate for license and hardware replacement service (LIC-ENT-1YR), it drops fast if you go multiyear... $300 for 3-year, i.e. $100/year

Harry the Bastard

Re: not happy at all

yep, they give no way to make our own backup, snapshot state, or, ideally, pull a complete copy of an instance offline to save

our policy is to keep records of everything practical, we manually document a lot even though it adds overhead, but as they claim to have our data replicated multiple times and to back it up nightly, it seemed like it really ought to be recoverable in the event of mistake!

yeah, it's not right for all situations, aside from the licensing model the configuration constraints sometimes rule it out, but if you're a corporate the overall tco is fine, and they are generally good at things like homologation and logistics requirements for global deployment - some of the alternatives are pure pain once you get outside usa/eu

Harry the Bastard

not happy at all

leaving aside the incident and clear inability to recover from backup, this isn't a trivial thing for some

we're a meraki managed service provider, every single managed organization (i.e. customer or demo instance) has lost data, some of these are global companies with many sites

the floor plans are gone, as are mounting photos, these aren't just eye candy, they are needed to help people find the correct device out of possibly hundreds

floor plans can be recovered and uploaded, that still leaves scaling and positioning every one of the buggers, that'll be many days of effort, multifloor sites are especially fiddly

but mounting photos are sent direct from the meraki app to the cloud, to replace them means someone going to every device at every site in every country and retaking them

this is the first incident on such a scale they've had, mistakes are made, that's life

but Cisco not having backup is not a mistake, especially as they give us no way to make our own

NASA whistles up electron noise from the Van Allen belt

Harry the Bastard

surely we've heard all these before

first one was from doctor who, maybe an ice warrior

second, clearly clangers

third, ipcress

Hey, remember that monkey selfie copyright drama a few years ago? Get this – It's just hit the US appeals courts

Harry the Bastard

monkeys are evil

if peta gets that macaque copyright, next thing you know he'll be running for president, then we're really screwed

UK parliamentary email compromised after 'sustained and determined cyber attack'

Harry the Bastard

that'll be mps' passwords such as...

lovelyexpenses

paidjollys

yesmrmurdoch

yesmrdacre

lookafterno1

moredirectorships

dodgetax

gongsforus

etc.

DUP site crashes after UK general election

Harry the Bastard

whenever the whips tell their sheep to do as they're told

[some words here]

So despite all the cash ploughed into big data, no one knows how to make it profitable

Harry the Bastard

it's not simply about the data

it's also about the willingness, ability (and guts) to do what the data suggest doing

if it's that large chunks of an organization could be radically transformed, shrunk, or even eliminated, the reaction tends not to be "woo yay go for it!"

Horror in space: Hot alien giant boiled alive by nasty radiation-belching star

Harry the Bastard

what's the uv index?

el reg unit opportunity here, may i propose the 'beach'

defined as the inverse of the number of seconds one can sunbathe on kelt-9b before reddening of the skin occurs

Google to give 6 months' warning for 2018 Chrome adblockalypse – report

Harry the Bastard

Re: Price per page view ...

^^^this, umpty billion times

The Big Blue Chopper video that IBM might want to keep quiet

Harry the Bastard

blue carpet too

to ensure the hallowed shoes were not besmirched by the dirty ground

had there been no carpet, i have no doubt employees would've been called upon to lay down their garb, or indeed themselves, in this cause

Seminal game 'Colossal Cave Adventure' released onto GitLab

Harry the Bastard

still have all the maps i drew in the '80s

when i was in r&d i had a mini that had the sole function of running adventure, happy days

'Tabby's Star' intrigues astro-boffins with brief 'dimming event'

Harry the Bastard

space kittens

tabbies obvs.

Pong, anyone? How about Pong on a vintage oscilloscope?

Harry the Bastard

the 422 is ok, but i lurved my 453

back in the 80's i built a digital storage add-on for it

it was a tragic day when i let it go, sniffle

Douglas Coupland: The average IQ is now 103 and the present is melting into the future

Harry the Bastard

time to reranch the optimess

the post is required, and must contain letters

WikiLeaks promises to supply CIA's hacking tool code to vendors

Harry the Bastard
Coffee/keyboard

'Computer science professor Matthew Green added: "Assange is personally going to see those Android 4.x phones get patched."'

funniest thing i've read in ages

Dyson backs Britain plc with $2.5bn AI and robotics investment

Harry the Bastard

i assume the issue is that the same device connected to feeble euro voltage will use less power than when connected to heroic uk voltage, given the situation of a simple load P = V*V / R

dyson are free to test at euro voltage, that's the point of eu wide standards, seems like a level playing field to me

if dyson chooses to make a device that consumes more power at euro voltage that's dyson's problem, can't blame the germans for it

Finally proof that Apple copies Samsung: iPhone 7 Plus halts, catches fire like a Galaxy Note 7

Harry the Bastard
Megaphone

Re: Water damage

apple claims the 7/7s phones are "splash, water and dust resistant, and were tested under controlled laboratory conditions with a rating of IP67 under IEC standard 60529"

the 7 in ip67 indicates ability to survive immersion to a depth unlikely to be found indoors in domestic circumstances, certainly far deeper than any normal household sink or bath

if your scenario were correct, it would mean apple lied and the phones explode when wet

it seems more likely that the phone had a fault resulting in catastrophic heating

Radioactive leak riddle: Now Team America sniffs Europe's skies for iodine isotope source

Harry the Bastard
Mushroom

there's an icon appropriate to this

yet it has not been used

seems clear evidence of a cover up

now, where's my tinfoil hat, i'm sure i saw it earlier

i saw this, and thought of el reg

Harry the Bastard

i saw this, and thought of el reg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_AHnqxy8i4

Stop replying! pleads NetApp customer stuck in reply-allpocalypse

Harry the Bastard

surely this is a...

...blatant move to increase netapp storage sales by embiggening the email archive size

Meet the Internet of big, lethal Things

Harry the Bastard

Re: Do you own it, or not?

you do, you are absolutely entitled to write your own software, if you can't manage it that's tough, deere is under no obligation to help you, and nor should it be

the eff's ludicrous position, apparently supported by some down-voting twats, is that if you buy a product x that should entitle you to the producer's source code and other proprietary info so you can make your own changes to it

by that logic eff should be demanding that buyers of iphone's have the right to apple's source and info so that they can make changes to their "purchased property", which is exactly what many government's would like

Harry the Bastard

the eff is way out of line here

people are free to start from scratch and write their own tractor driver

there's no right to the source code of deere's software (aside from any bits covered by license requiring disclosure)

the eff is acting like any other another spoiled brat who's argument is essentially "waaaaaa, because i want, waaaaaa, look i'm being oppressed, waaaaaaa"

the interweb has a lot to answer for

Apple drops requirement for apps to use HTTPS by 2017

Harry the Bastard

re: What does one do when neither the carrot nor the stick are working?

elect a carrot-coloured guy with the brains of a a stick

Latest loon for Trump's cabinet: Young-blood-loving, kidney-market advocate Jim O'Neill

Harry the Bastard

Re: I've figured it out ...

i'm sure bluto would be a great success as president,

trump is not bluto, he's neidermeyer

Team Trump snubs Big Internet oligarchs

Harry the Bastard

"Blackstone ... employs six times as many people as Google"

it may well do, but many of the companies it acquires soon cut jobs/cost, it's also no stranger to offshoring jobs

what'd be more interesting is blackstone's overall net effect on jobs at it's acquisitions, i suspect it's negative

Plastic fiver: 28 years' work, saves acres of cotton... may have killed less than ONE cow*

Harry the Bastard

presumably the outraged are aware that...

"The polymer in virtually all of the world’s plastic bills is made by a single Australian company, Innovia Security.

Innovia are the makers of Guardian, a substrate used to manufacture the polymer currency of 24 countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico and New Zealand.

Tallow does not appear to be a stand-alone or critical ingredient in Guardian, but the by-product got into the substrate because it is used in processing by Innovia’s resin suppliers.

“Polymer substrate used as a base for bank notes contains additives that help with the polymer manufacturing process, similar to many commercially available plastics,” wrote the Bank of Canada in a Wednesday statement after contacting Innovia.

“Our supplier of polymer substrate, Innovia Security, has confirmed to us that these additives may include extremely small amounts of tallow,” the statement added. "

...and...

"Indeed, small amounts of processed cow parts can be found in everything from [...] to brake fluid. In fact, almost all of the images ever featured on historic Canadian currency would have first been prepared by an artist using tallow as part of the engraving process."

...and until their demands are met will cease ride in any vehicle not certified animal free

Enterprise vendors offering big Black Friday discounts

Harry the Bastard

hundred quid off the eyewateringly priced macbook pros

at john lewis - while stocks last

price still eyewatering though

Quantum traffic jam of atoms could unlock origin of dark energy, physicists claim

Harry the Bastard

sans paywall

https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.02549

Mark Zuckerberg is dead – Facebook confirmed

Harry the Bastard
Paris Hilton

you build up my hopes

then you dash them

damn

Tesco Bank limits online transactions after fraud hits thousands

Harry the Bastard

Re: Headers check

first rule of the interweb

though shalt not blame open source for anything

Hitler's wife's lovely lilac knickers fetch £2,900 at auction

Harry the Bastard

how do we know they weren't his rather than hers?

and now i need some mind bleach

UK prison reform report wants hard-coded no-fly zones in drones to keep them out of jail

Harry the Bastard

Re: are the powers that be SO stupid!?!?!?

actually they are even more stupid

Brexit may not mean Brexit at all: UK.gov loses Article 50 lawsuit

Harry the Bastard

when people downvote mathematical fact, the outlook is bleak

have an upvote from me

Dark matter? More like diet matter: Super-light axions may solve universe's mass riddle

Harry the Bastard

this one on arxiv....

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.07494.pdf

...looks like it may be the paywall-free equivalent, same diagrams

Want to spy on the boss? Try this phone-mast-in-an-HP printer

Harry the Bastard

"...plays them Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called To Say I Love You"

...sure sounds like malicious intent, i'd throw away the key

KCL out(r)age continues: Two weeks TITSUP, two weeks to go

Harry the Bastard

lost opportunity for the subhead...

Now IT bricks it: A 'Series of Unfortunate Events'

BT will HATE us for this one weird 5G trick

Harry the Bastard

i see what you are saying, but...

...i expect the reality will be...

to trench and badly fill many more roads, then allow them to further degrade, increasing the misery of sunken, cracked, potholed roads ever further as rain, frost and traffic take their toll, in central london there are holes big/deep enough to damage cars let alone cyclists

add more poles because sharing with other public/private entities is too complicated or seen as a revenue stream by desperate local councils

or maybe we end up like much of the world where the streets are lined with dangly cables, and poor sods making a living up dodgy ladders maintaining them once we exit the eu and its pesky health and safety rules

A robot kitchen? Whatever. Are you stupid enough to fall for this?

Harry the Bastard

Re: £100 a week for a year with Tesco's delivery service comes in at about £26,000 cheaper

welllllllll, bear in mind...

tesco's notorious reputation for screwing suppliers down to minuscule overall margins or even into loss, dairy farmers are quite outspoken on the subject

plus the supermarket industry's appetite for rebates//bungs/ransoms/whatever you call them, exacted from suppliers to place product in more favoured positions

...and it's possible that just a few % cost increase pushes unilever underwater

tesco is playing the pr game to paint itself as the defender of consumers, but without knowing the facts rather than the spin, i'd treat anything either side says with a heavy dose of scepticism

Burger barn put cloud on IT menu, burned out its developers

Harry the Bastard

that was no cauliflower...

...it was brains of last customer

Cisco president: We've lost to AWS et al on the public cloud

Harry the Bastard

Re: Cisco just jumped the shop …

they're mounted above head height, so they get a full view of the punters

some systems piggyback on security cameras, others are self-contained

if you go into a branch of any mass-market retail chain, assume you're being counted and categorised at least on entry, possibly throughout the store, and maybe even correlated with your smartphone's wifi burbling

Cabinet bare of Apple Watch

Harry the Bastard

awooga! awooga!

fanboy alert

Facebook pays, er, nope, gets £11m credit from UK taxman HMRC...

Harry the Bastard

Re: Suggestions?

me as global dictator with super powers and a fleet of hypersonic sharks with frickin' lasers

soon sort it out

Elon Musk: I'm gonna turn Mars into a $10bn death-dealing interplanetary gas station

Harry the Bastard

not sure why the pessimism

after all, if he can announce new cars and ship them on time, what could possibly... oh, er...

Here's how to see Tim Cook or SatNad strut their starkers stuff

Harry the Bastard
Happy

would liven up the apple keynote presentation

not that this article will improve el reg's chances of being at the next one

What says Internet of Things better than a Bluetooth-controlled smart candle?

Harry the Bastard

maybe i have a suspicious mind, but surely...

...this is just an off the shelf remote-ish ignition solution for a wide range of nutters

position flame emitting orifice ready to ignite stuff that'll burn/explode

retire to safe distance,

whoomp

Russia MP's son found guilty after stealing 2.9 million US credit cards

Harry the Bastard

re: I'm wondering what would happen if another country pulled that crap....

presumably they'd carry on regardless...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

First Wi-Fi box ever is chosen as Australia's best contribution to global history

Harry the Bastard
Pint

wireless LAN, but not wifi

predates it considerably...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaveLAN

but have an amber nectar anyway

Page: