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* Posts by Graham Wilson

890 publicly visible posts • joined 14 May 2008

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InfiniBand to outpace Ethernet's unstoppable force

Graham Wilson
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It's 30 years since the launch of Ethernet, we're eagerly watching its competition with InfiniBand.

It is now exactly 30 years since the fanfare launch of Ethernet at the 1980 National Computer Conference in Chicago; there, dangling above exhibits for all to see, a prominent yellow coaxial cable crossed the hall to interconnect Ethernet devices for the first time in public.

Ethernet, an early '70s invention of Bob Metcalfe et al and Xerox PARC, has been a remarkably successful technology which so far has been resilient to all challengers--FDDI, Token Ring etc.--principally because its Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) works so well, moreover, it scales well as its speed increases--or it has up to 10GHz.

That said, and although I've been an Ethernet devotee for years, it's always seemed to me the overhead and latency of CSMA/CD would ultimately be it's Achilles' heel, thus it'll be interesting to see whether this resilience will continue at extreme switching speeds, and hence effectively complete there with InfiniBand and other newer technologies.

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UK arms industry 'same as striking coal miners' - Army head

Graham Wilson
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Boffin

Sometimes change is not for the better but for change's sake.

"The armed forces have also traditionally been completely obsessed about obsolescence and "tried and trusted" technology. This is why they have kit which is effectively based on technology that is 10 or 20 years old. This costs (often significantly) more than something based on newer cheaper technology would be."

Sometimes change is not for the better but for change's sake. Let me illustrate different approaches to the deployment of military equipment with a few examples:

1. The Lee-Enfield rifle was first introduced before the Boer War in 1895 and lasted in service for about 70 years, even now some are still in use 115 years later. Many of these rifles have seen three major conflicts WWI, WWII and Korea and were still in serviceable order thereafter. I was issued one in the 1960s which was date stamped 1914; although then nearly 50 years old and having been through two, possibly three, major conflicts when I was issued it, it was still in perfect working order. The Enfield was truly 'tried and trusted' in the military sense.

The Enfield was eventually obsoleted not through it having ceased work or because it was outclassed by another single-shot rifle but because it was outgunned by a different class of weapon altogether, the self-loading automatics, FN/FAL, SA80/L85, M16, AK-47 etc. Phasing out the Enfield was a slow and considered process which may have been much more expensive had the process been rushed.

2. However, the military doesn't always get it right. Only a week or so ago an article appeared in USA Today under the heading 'Sand drives Army to ditch Velcro on pants'*. Desert sand is clogging up the Velcro and it's not adhering as it should so there's a plan to return to good old buttons. Here's the problem straight from the horse's mouth:

"Get rid of the pocket flap Velcro and give us back our buttons," Hatten wrote. "Buttons are silent, easy to replace in the field, work just fine in the mud, do not clog up with dirt and do not fray and disintegrate with repeated laundering."

Beautifully summed up in a nutshell. Being anti Velcro on clothes, that's music to my ears. My biases aside, how the fuck did such a stuff-up ever occur in the first place? You don't have to be Einstein to know that buttons are much better than Velcro in most circumstances--even the average male who avoids the domestic washing machine like the plague knows that lint and all sorts of junk accumulates on those little hooks and renders the Velcro useless in pretty short order. Thus, you’d reckon that even the most stupid bureaucrat could mentally extrapolate that Velcro would be nigh on useless on a sand swept desert battlefield, even before any testing had commenced.

There are similar problems with zippers. Whilst not as bad as Velcro, zippers come close. The damned things are forever jamming up or failing on me and I'm in civvy street so why would anyone risk them in the harsh environment of a battlefield? You'd think that rigorous military testing programs would have quickly eliminated them from military uniforms. I can only assume that soldiers who upon relieving themselves wanted the quick closure that zippers offer so, irrespective of serviceability issues, the military switched to them to placate whingers. Anyone have a better idea?

Sure, this is a trite example of where the military updated too fast and or failed to adequately research the matter. Nevertheless, the outcome is the same no matter the scale: leave well enough alone unless there is a truly compelling reason to change it, otherwise it will be expensive and may fail in operation.

3. State of the art electronics, military guidance systems, avionics, communications systems and encryption etc. are different. These systems are often cutting-edge technology and are usually implemented early--often whilst still in the prototype stage--to keep ahead of the enemy.

Advanced weaponry is an expensive and risky business where things can and do go wrong. Failures can be expensive but if they're of high strategic importance then money is no object. The Manhattan Project and the development and deployment of nuclear submarines by both the US and USSR during the Cold War are but good examples. Both sides suffered tragic losses when submarines failed during non-combat operations, Thresher, Scorpion, K-8 and Komsomolets for instance.

The failure of comparatively so many nuclear submarines under non-combat conditions clearly illustrates the risky nature of cutting edge military technology. It seems it's the nature of such projects irrespective of budget.

___________________

* http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-06-14-army-uniforms-velcro_N.htm?csp=34news

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Graham Wilson
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This was the inter-war argument that Churchill was opposed to (and he was proved correct).

This was the inter-war argument that Churchill was opposed to (and he was proved correct).

Irrespective of our views and opinions about the likelihood of war, the old adage keeps proving to be true: 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.' As in 1939, we ignore it at our peril.

Simply, our security depends on this very large military overhead and all the connotations that go with it whether we like it or not.

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New Aus PM may dump comms minister

Graham Wilson
Happy

Thank goodness, I hope so.

Thank goodness, I hope so.

At the risk of repeating myself, I've already flamed on this previously: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/665301

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Sozzled Oz bozos in reciprocal literal ass-cap-pop

Graham Wilson
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Unhappy

The irony of 'The Lucky Country' hurts.

It's ironic that Donald Horne made his comments about 'The Lucky Country' when I was at school.

He was correct when he made the statement in 1964 and he still is. The intervening 46 years have shown us that Australia's longstanding and continuing attitude of 'all's well in manana land' has led us further into deep water.

Pessimistically, I'm of the opinion that Australia will have to near drown and experience a near-death experience before attitudes change significantly. As we've seen, Horne's warning is nearly a half century old and nothing's changed except for the worse.

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Graham Wilson
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Unhappy

@asiaseen - The physical country's great but the system sucks.

The physical country's great but the system sucks. As a square peg in a round hole, I wish I could get out but my passport says this is home.

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Graham Wilson
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@ Magani - Re 'Think it'll make any difference? I don't.'

'Think it'll make any difference? I don't.'

...Nor do I.

As I say in my reply to Ratus Ratus, we've lost an ethos and attitudes over a long time. Reckon it'll take more time than 1st Mate Julia has to fix it (assuming she could or would).

The fix will be long process and I'm unsure Australia has the will to bother.

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Graham Wilson
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Happy

I understand your optimistic perspective even if I disagree with it.

I understand your optimistic perspective even if I disagree with it.

In a newer post further on I mention that a substantive reason for my comments is my experience working in non-English speaking countries where attitudes are very different and most of the points I've mentioned are non-issues.

Anyway, you're lucky, optimists in general have a happier life.

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Graham Wilson
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I too wish that I could disagree with my comments.

When I entered high school years ago, attitudes were very different. The education system was far from being perfect but it was strongly based on core values and rational thinking processes that have a long and successful lineage way back to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Since then, we in Australia have unwittingly or otherwise disposed with much of that type of thinking and replaced it with some of the worst aspects of postmodernism*. The same has also happened in most of the English-speaking world but Australia's culture, being younger and more fragile, stands to be in a more perilous position when things go wrong, which I believe they have.

When I was being educated, I don't believe that I would have mentioned any of these issues except perhaps for my reference to politicians. As with the frog in warming water, we don't realise these effects until it's too late.

What really awoke me to the seriousness of these issues was my experience working in non-English speaking industrialised countries both in Asia and in Europe. In many ways, these countries are running to the traditional paradigm as we once were and unsurprisingly many of the points that I've raised are essentially non-issues there.

A summary of my long-winded whinge is that we've lost an ethos and attitudes that worked reasonably well and we've replaced them without sufficient questioning. Essentially, we in Australia have chucked out the intellectual underpinnings of the Enlightenment which we inherited from and which were hard won by Britain over hundreds of years (and to a lesser extent of the USA's enlightened period--that of Jefferson, Franklin et al).

Thus, in the highly anti-intellectual climate of Australia where little serious debate takes place, it's unsurprising that much has gone wrong.

_________

* Not all aspects of postmodernism are bad; in fact, I believe some are positive for society.

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Graham Wilson
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Headmaster

Reading one's own posts is often embarrassing.

Reading one's own posts is often embarrassing and I'm experiencing the cringes. In the very paragraph where I whinge about today's education being so bad that it can't even teach the use of apostrophe I commit a similar grammatical sin myself.

It might have been 4am but that's no excuse. One consolation: I was educated in a system that taught me to recognise the error.

:-)

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Graham Wilson
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Welcome to Bozo Land (formally Australia) where the IQ-forsaken reign supreme.

Welcome to Bozo Land (formally Australia) where the IQ-forsaken reign supreme.

In addition to shooting each other in the arse whilst drunk, we Bozo-Landers have achieved new heights in idiocy over the last 40 or so years, we're now the laughingstock of the world fit only for providing comic relief as in this El reg article.

Here's just a few instances, there are many more:

- We've closed down strategically important industries that are key to Australia's survival in the world of the 21st Century. Longstanding electronics and other high-tech industries have been allowed to fail in a high-tech policy vacuum.

- We've closed down key defence and armaments manufacturing industries, we now assemble, kit fashion, weapons from a former enemy (another example of where the victors eventually end up the looser). We've even closed down the factories that were used to manufacture army uniforms and fatigues, now they are made offshore! (Heaven help us if we're ever involved in any future full-scale conflict a la scale of WWII.)

- We've taken no steps to replace these failing high-tech industries with new ones. Countries with comparable cultures but with only half our population such as Sweden, Austria, Israel, Finland and Norway all have industrial infrastructures together with an industrial culture that by comparison make Australia--sorry Bozo Land--look like a joke.

- To wit, almost every good Australian invention has been sold off to overseas buyers at rock-bottom prices; they then develop and market them with enormous profits them, not us!

- We've killed off or debased most trades--metal, woodworking etc.--to the extent that getting a professional job done in these industries is nigh on impossible, or it's prohibitively expensive or that the skills have to be imported from overseas. The average Bozo-Lander has the view that making something useful and practical or crafting things with one's hands is debasing--much better to be a banker who can create credit out of nothing then screw into the ground the poor unfortunates who cannot repay the morally questionable usury within the allotted time frame.

- Skilled tradesmen are in such a decline that a recent 'Green' initiative by the Federal Labor Government to thermally insulate homes has resulted in one of the great debacles of recent times. So shoddy and haphazard the workmanship of the unskilled workers, that there are many instances where electrically-conductive foiled insulation has been stapled to roofs through power cables. Workers have been electrocuted and houses have burned down. Forty or more years ago, such unprofessional workmanship would never have been tolerated. In that milieu well established trades based training schemes instilled a culture of pride in one's work and a do-it-once-do-it-well attitude across the workforce which would have seen the current perpetrators ostracised to the extent they wouldn’t be game to frequent the local pub not to mention the beating they'd have received from regulators. Overseas readers not familiar with this debacle ought to Google 'Australia home insulation scheme' or go here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/26/2882403.htm. Not only is this a Monty Python like saga without the laughs, it's a fucking tragedy caused by incompetent fuckwits.

- We've stuffed our education system, filled it with dross, fairy floss and degenerate post-modernist ideas. Where facts are no longer facts; where right and wrong mishmash into possible maybes; where rigorous science has turned into 'ooh ah--look at that pretty effect'; where mathematics stops at compound interest--for that's all banker's really need to be successful; where spelling need be only good enough for phone texting; where grammar is so bad that its, it's and its' all mean the same or are fully interchangeable with each other. And where kids rule the teachers instead of the other way around.

- Oh, BTW, thanks to the failed education system, chemistry is now so little understood that Bozo Land is full of tragics who are terrified all chemicals, irrespective of properties, benign or otherwise. Ignorance of even the most basic facts about chemistry allows the scaremongers, zealot Greenies, irresponsible news media and that leech on society--the expensive, overpriced and inefficient safety industry--to whip up a frightening frenzy in the community the instant the word 'chemical' is mentioned.

- We Bozo-Landers have an addictive penchant for fighting in other people's wars, moreover we've been at it headlong since at least the Boer War (1899-1902)--WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan for example. We're forever trying to prove to the world that we've got what it takes; it's tragic for those involved and in the wash-up we look like the irrelevant idiots that we really are. [IMHO, the only 'legitimate' war we've been in was WWII when there was an imminent possibility of the nation being invaded, the rest were, are and will remain tragic follies.]

- We've killed off free university education--the once envy of the world we've turned into one of the most expensive university education systems anywhere on the planet.

- We've turned our universities from education into profit centres that are good at milking rich overseas students of their money. Our universities 'sell' degrees to the plagiarised-prone. Between Wiki--the key source for the plagiariser--and the dollar, these overseas students walk away with dubious qualifications and they do so at the expense of the existing population, many of who cannot afford the outrageous fees.

- We've allowed governments to abrogate responsibly for providing just the opportunity for ongoing lifelong education; or for failing to retrain or reskill the workforce in instances where industries have been closed down or 'sold off' to other countries (usually with the blessing of the incumbent Government).

- We've close to zero technical people in parliament. Lawyers, accountants, bankers and dilettantes who are not good enough to make it in the outside world govern Bozo Land. Bozo-Landers are too blind to see what a deleterious effect this is having on just about every aspect of the nation. These parliamentary Bozos who wouldn’t know one end of a screwdriver from another are left unfettered to make decisions about sophisticated technical issues which confront our society--witness the 'Home Insulation Scheme (above). A raucous, irresponsible and equally dumb media/press aid and abet them in keeping Bozo Land free of rigorous or intellectual discussion and debate, what there is exists only in tiny enclaves that are too small for mainstream Bozo-Landers to bother killing off.

- It is no wonder Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Singapore (1959 to 1990), succinctly summed us up when he once called us 'The poor white trash of Asia'.

I've had to truncate this for exceeding the maximum post length. Perhaps I'll post the missing section later.

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Google scores major victory in copyright fight with Viacom

Graham Wilson
Grenade

Amen, at last a modicum of sense over copyright.

Amen, at last a modicum of sense over copyright.

- We now have to re-examine what constitutes 'Fair Use' in the Internet age and make certain that it is fair.

- We need to have orphaned works put in the public domain. They are works which are technically in copyright but year after year whose owners can't be found or they're deemed as unknown. Putting orphaned works in the public domain is opposed by copyright holders on the grounds that these works constitute extra competition. Simply an outrageous concept, it's a form of communism by capitalists.

- We need to re-examine what constitutes derivative works. No work is truly original, it always has some prior art contained therein--but under the terribly unfair Berne copyright convention (1886), copyright holders have total and absolute control over their works. Why does this unfair situation still exist--for authors are 'stealing' something from our existing culture and are not obliged to give one single iota back?

- We need to re-examine what constitutes a reasonable period for copyright to exist. Copyright durations are outrageously long, so much so that they're nothing more than a scandalous abuse of power and privilege.

(It is generally agreed that the vast majority of copyrighted works are spent in economic terms after 17 years or so and that it would make sense to reset copyright duration commensurate with this time. At least the 17-year figure would be a good point from which to start the re-evaluation.)

- We need to re-examine what happens when a publisher refuses to republish a work, whether it's uneconomic to do so or for any other reason. Either these works should fall into the public domain or they must be published by the author, irrespective of how small the print-run is.

…And that's just for starters.

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Aussies face 10 year browsing lock-up

Graham Wilson
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'Til now Australia's Internet policy has just been a joke, but the fuckers are serious-we need help!

El Reg et al, Australian Internet users need help!

Up until now Australia's Internet policy has just been a joke--a laughing stock of the world--but these fuckers a deadly serious. We need help from the world's Internet community to expose what's going on in Canberra.

The trouble is that we do not know what or who is really driving this totalitarian Nazi-like agenda.

This is extremely important, for if it succeeds here in Australia, then other governments will probably pick it up and run with it--you too will be knackered.

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Graham Wilson
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'Til now Australia's Internet policy has just been a joke, but the fuckers are serious-we need help!

RE: 'THE AUSTRALIAN PROBLEM'

------------------------------------------------

El Reg et al, Australian Internet users need help!

Up until now Australia's Internet policy has just been a joke--a laughing stock of the world--but these fuckers are deadly serious. We need help from the world's Internet community to expose what's going on in Canberra.

The trouble is that we do not know what is behind or who is really driving this totalitarian Nazi-like agenda in Australia.

This is important, for if it succeeds here in Australia, then other governments will probably pick it up and run with it too--you too will be knackered!

______

FYI: Here is a partial list of my recent El Reg posts where I express concern about (or where the post is related to) 'The Australian Problem'. Some are facetious, some are just hyperbole, some are serious but essentially they all relate to the same underlying issue--that of a serious problem with Australia's governance (and the Internet being an obvious focal point where it bubbles out):

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/785990

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/785984

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/785817

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/677089

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/677079

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/665301

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666189

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666268

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666300

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666292

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666307

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/666374

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/679417

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Graham Wilson
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You're right about 'The Australian Problem'.

I've already said in previous posts that if I could get out I would.

Only a day or two ago in these pages on El Reg a Canadian said he was just waiting for his Canadian passport to come through so as he could escape Australia.

Poor and imbecilic governance is really is an issue here in Oz.

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Graham Wilson
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Australia's answer would be to just ban encryption. And there's a possible precedent.

Australia's answer would be to just ban encryption.

There's a sort of precedent now--Drink Driving laws. Drink Driving laws do not state you have to be drunk to be charged, only that you are over the prescribed level of alcohol.

Simply, using encryption--PGP or Tor etc. would be illegal irrespective of the activity one is involved in.

If or when this happens you'll know for certain that you're in a totalitarian state.

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Graham Wilson
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Because it would be illegal to use them.

Because it would be illegal to use them.

Encrypted data streams may not be able to be cracked by The State but they certainly can detect them.

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Graham Wilson
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Gates Horns

At this rate perhaps we should relocate Starlin's tomb in Canberra.

Yeah. At this rate perhaps we should relocate Starlin's tomb in Canberra.

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Aus gov shakes up cyberdefence strategy

Graham Wilson
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Absolutely correct.

@ Combat Wombat

Absolutely correct.

You're lucky, you can escape the lunatic asylum, unfortunately I'm stuck here.

(They say when you have Alzheimer's you don't realise it. Well, here's a country that's become the laughing stock of the world and it hasn't clue that it has.)

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Graham Wilson
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Here's why mate:

Here's why mate:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/665301

In summary, shock-jock radio and irresponsible media are barking loudly.

In any normal country this gibberish would be seen in perspective, but here in this backwater of the South Pacific where the national pastime is shopping and sport and the average IQ tends towards room temperature, when the sheep dog barks the bloody-mined sheep herd terrified in the paddock corner.

Since the 1980s Australia has become irrelevant in the grand schema of things. I can only assume why El Reg and others report stuff from here is for its amusement value.

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Tories declare students a burden on us all

Graham Wilson
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You're right about the baby boomers and education too.

You're right about the baby boomers and education too.

From this baby-boomer I can tell you my generation fucked it up properly. The only thing we haven't fucked up on is creating another world war--not yet anyway (and that's probably more because of the previous WW-II generation who were determined not to have another war).

From the great promise and optimism of the 1960s, the boomers have degenerated into greedy, mean have-it-alls. My generation is responsible for the recent financial crisis, the war in Iraq and others, failing to educate our kids as well as we were educated, unbelievable greed on a massive scale, heading large socially-irresponsible multinationals which we once despised, creating a greater divide between rich and poor than anytime in history and so on, and so on.

We boomers will be the first generation in history to demonstrate beyond doubt that being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth is disadvantageous for society. As a generation, we've turned out an unethical lot whose morals are in the gutter.

Tragedy really.

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Graham Wilson
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An excellent spot-on post!

@ Steven Jones

An excellent spot-on post that cuts to the core of the issue!

As I said in my post, this education problem is not confined to the UK, unfortunately it's endemic to most English-speaking countries.

Getting to the cultural root of the problem seems half the problem.

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Graham Wilson
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Correct.

Correct!

...And we'll chuck out the Internet too, that came from people learning stuff didn't it?

Q.: What's the next advance in trade courses going to be?

A.: Rubbing two sticks together. (We'll all want to keep warm in our caves won't we?)

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Graham Wilson
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Education is as important as national security.

Sooner or later the English-speaking world--UK, US, Canada, Australia, NZ etc.--will wake up to the fact that education is as important as national security. Unfortunately, methinks they will do so when it's too late.

From my experience, you won't find any logical argument for cutting back on education in many Asian countries, irrespective of circumstance.

Moreover, I believe that the decline in education in the aforementioned countries over the past 40 or so years is a major reason for their decline.

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ToryDems stoke ID card 'bonfire'

Graham Wilson
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Joke

Where's Hacker and Sir Humphrey?

Where's Hacker and Sir Humphrey?

I think Sir Humphrey would have considered the introduction of ID cards as an extremely brave decision.

:-)

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Graham Wilson
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It ought to be popular! The principle of keeping 'The State' in check goes back to Magna Carta!

@Mr Jolly

It ought to be very popular!

With English-speaking people, those of the UK, US, Canada, Australia, NZ etc., keeping 'The State' in check has been a fundamental doctrine that goes back to Magna Carta (if not earlier to the Charter of Liberties).

DO NOT FORGET THE STATE IS OUR SERVANT -- IT IS NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND AS SO MANY INCORRECTLY ASSUME.

If we ever forget this important principle of freedom then totalitarianism will enslave us. Mealy-mouthed apologies for an unpopular and wrong decision made by 'The State' are unacceptable. If it's wrong then it's wrong and it must be corrected!

In recent years, for many it has become acceptable to believe that 'The State' has the best interest of its Citizenry at heart. This is ABSOLUTELY WRONG unless 'The State' is in the complete hands of its Citizenry.

Unscrupulous power-hungry politicians, too many international and corporate interests, propagandists and lobbyists have been systematically trying to destroy democracy by various means--divide-and-rule for instance. By dividing the Citizenry over issues, they are the ones who gain and control the power. Thankfully, they have not totally succeeded but they have significantly skewed power in their own interests.

The scrapping of this ID bill goes part way in redressing that power skewing but there is still much to be done before a proper balance is restored.

It might be a corny old line but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It applies just as much to 'The State' as it does to an external enemy.

____

NOTE TO ALL REDNECKS AND LAZY LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES: What I am saying is not for one moment carte blanche to fraudsters and terrorists. These problems must be addressed but in ways that do not undermine fundamental freedoms and liberties of the people.

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Graham Wilson
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Well said.

...And soon we'll be able to count the slimy little shits (and post their names up on the the Internet for posterity).

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Graham Wilson
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10 out of 10 seanj. That's telling him in words even he should understand.

10 out of 10. seanj. That's telling him in words even he should understand. ...Although these scumbags have hides like a rhinoceros.

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Mr Ballmer goes to Washington for China pirate gripe

Graham Wilson
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There's nothing wrong with Linux except it's going nowhere!

There's nothing wrong with Linux except it's going nowhere!

The world works on Win32/64 APIs, that's the fact. Until there's a competing O/S that runs them as well and as transparently as does Windows then the price of Windows will remain outrageously high. That's how monopolies work, it's always been this way.

The Linux fraternity has consistently been blind to this for years. It's this zealot-like blindness that's kept Linux wallowing in sub-1% figures from its beginning and it will keep it there.

If the Linux fraternity were really serious they'd modernize Linux by converting it to Win APIs and then better Windows by bolting on a proper database authenticating filing system that's in keeping with the needs of the modern world. Linux's filing system is just as arcane as Windows if not more so, thus in real usability terms Linux offers no advantage over Windows other than incompatibility and inconvenience.

When users are prepared to pay hundreds for Windows over 'free' Linux then you don't have to be Einstein to know there's something very wrong with Linux.

Linux devotees should stop bellyaching about Windows and modernize their now very antiquated operating system to properly compete with the Microsoft juggernaut. By out competing Microsoft with better and more forward O/S technology they'd do the world a real service instead of just increasing the background noise.

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Graham Wilson
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GIMP - Get the facts right please!!

"I don't want to learn Gimp".

Get the facts right please. Gimp is a lame dog when compared with Photoshop, only a fool or someone ignorant of the facts would make that comparison.

Gimp's developers might be familiar with image processing algorithms but they've absolutely stuff-all idea about how to speed up its memory (image) management. In Photoshop, preview is hardly needed as the main image updates almost instantly, in Gimp we have painfully slow screen redraws that are 20 to 100 times slower than the equivalent function in Photoshop. To a Photoshop user, Gimp's ergonomics are such that it is essentially unusable.

No one more than me would like to see truly effective competition to Photoshop, but on just about all quantitative measurements Gimp isn't even in the same league.

Gimp's poor performance is one of the primary reasons users cite for not using Linux.

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Graham Wilson
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The question is how does Microsoft know those piracy statistics with any accuracy.

The question is how does Microsoft know those piracy statistics with any accuracy, especially in a country such as China.

These vendors are either guessing and this latest upsurge of anti-piracy activity is part of the usual noisy rhetoric from this mob or it’s the spyware within M$ Windows etc. that's giving them exact figures.

My bet is on the latter. On evidence that's seeped out over the years, it seems that Microsoft et al collect much more information than just piracy figures. It's time we knew much more about this, if for no other reason than it secretly further advantages their monopoly.

Competitors expect to play on a level playing field.

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Pentagon looks to revive Nazi space-bomber plan

Graham Wilson
Boffin

What a remarkably sophisticated engineering proposal that 1944 document is.

Well, all I can say is that when I heard of the Silbervogel / Silver Bird years ago there was little more to it than just noise. Then, the popular understanding was that it was just another one of Adolph's rants about some fanciful far-off pie-in-the-sky 'greater and more destructive' replacement' for the then exiting Vergeltungswaffen / vengeance weapons, the V1 and V2, and that the closest it'd had ever come to reality would have been little more than a conceptual freehand drawing on a paper serviette. In fact, the PDF shows it's remarkably sophisticated, none less than a complete high-level proposal for a completely new weapons system.

From our present perspective of some 65+ years on, it's easy to be dismissive of WWII technology as we now think everything is much more advanced. It is, but for the early 1940s, the sophistication of that 'green paper' proposal (PDF) is simply breathtaking, moreover the experimental work was underway.

Having used, pulled apart or modified much WWII surplus stuff when I was a kid, I thought I had a reasonable handle on where the development of technology was up to by the end of the war, but the sheer boldness and engineering rigour of the document marks a new high-water point for me. What immediately strikes one is that the document was produced by the cream of a highly organised industrial society. Even today, its development would pose major development challenges.

The similarity between the proposal and parts of the space shuttle is quite remarkable. I'll bet Allied top brass were a little more than surprised when the document first lobbed on their desks. If you haven’t already downloaded it, then engineers and nerds you'll find it fascinating.

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DIMENSIONAL PORTAL INCURSION AT THE LHC!

Graham Wilson
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Stop

Ah you're wrong mate, it's no joke.

Ah you're wrong mate, it's no joke. And it's been hyped up a bit by El Reg who've overstated the story. This is a better analysis of the facts. Seems that when the LHC hit 6.91TeV microscopic black holes started to form--this is considerably lower than the predicted level of approximately 8.89TeV. Despite the idiotic scaremongering, these microscopic black holes are not an issue in that they are dangerous, for at that size they just evaporate into Hawking radiation in approximately 6 or 7 femtoseconds. Essentially a non-issue, except that the LHC will behave a little differently than expected or predicted.

From preliminary results it's been ascertained with a 0.9 probability the reason for their appearance at this lower energy level is that around about 6.85TeV Planck's Radiation Law becomes non-linear and starts to behave in a manner more akin to that predicted by the earlier Rayleigh-Jeans Law. Needless to say, with non-linearity setting in at 6.85TeV both Planck's constant [6.626 . 10^(-34) m2 kg / s] and the related Stefan-Boltzmann constant will start to deviate from their calibrated values. Moreover, if at these power levels Planck's RL starts to behave as if it were Rayleigh-Jeans, then the conundrum raised by Rayleigh-Jeans--that of the Ultraviolet Catastrophe problem--becomes an issue once again (The U.C. is where observed radiation levels failed to reach theoretical predictions--a once major problem for physics, and it seems perhaps so once again).

What does all this amount to? As we know from CERN press reports, the LHC is soon scheduled to be shut down again for maintenance and recalibration. What CERN is not telling us is the exact reasons why. When we have a machine that requires recalibration because an established law of physics behaves non-linearly at super high power levels and that this is concomitant with the formation of microscopic black holes--even if harmless--then some massaging of the truth is likely to occur.

At this early juncture, CERN doesn't want to excessively frighten the horses in case the funding gets cut off.

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Microsoft clutches open source to its corporate heart

Graham Wilson
Reply Icon

Hey, that should be "Rotten April Fool's Joke".!

Hey, that should be "Rotten April Fool's Joke!"

1 1

Nuclear synthi-jetfuel plants wanted for US Afghan bases

Graham Wilson
Troll

Stop it! Tradition says this nonsense should stop at midday!

Stop it! Tradition says this nonsense should stop at midday.

It's well past that now.

0 0

MS sees Windows 7 leap, but XP workhorse refuses to die

Graham Wilson
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Grenade

That's a pathetic way of letting Microsoft off the hook.

That's a pathetic way of letting Microsoft off the hook.

You automatically assume that an old Windows product can't be good to begin with and that one has to upgrade to get rid of zombified machines.

Well why the hell did MS allow a product onto the market that could be zombified in the first place? (Moreover, now that XP is there it should be fixed which negates the need for any upgrade.)

It never ceases to amaze me why people are continually being apologists for companies that make shoddy products--and with respect to security--Windows is perhaps the shoddiest product (and the most significant) ever made.

Again, it's proof that Goebbels was right when he pushed the 'Tell a big enough lie and people will believe you' argument. It's excellent proof that propaganda works, whether it comes from Microsoft, The British Government, Washington, Moscow or the Third Reich is immaterial, many people osmotically suck up the crap and turn it into gospel.

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Graham Wilson
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Thumb Up

Right. Functionally, Windows 2000 is the best O/S Microsoft ever produced.

Right. Functionally, Windows 2000 is the best O/S Microsoft ever produced. It was clean, efficient and fast.

I still use W2K on some machines but I had to go to XP on this one because of driver issues.

I'm damn pissed off that W2K has been made obsolete because the need to keep Microsoft financial.

Ultimately, this is the main reason for going to open systems such as Linux. Open systems have considerable problems but at least they don't have the imperative of having to be made obsolete every few years. As such, they have the potential to develop over many years into very mature products and yet still have an excellent functional life ahead of them.

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Graham Wilson
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Flame

You're absolutely so right about Win 7 Explorer being a sick dog.

@ Turtle

You're absolutely so right about Win 7 Explorer being a sick dog.

Being in IT and having worked with many users who use Win 7, it is obvious to me that those who actually praise Win 7's UI and it's mongrel Explorer are those who you wouldn't call power users.

Instead, I classify those who praise it as 'procedural' PC users, they primarily come in three species:

- Neophytes and timid computer users.

- Those who have very fixed routines (and surprisingly these can be advanced programmers too). They've set themselves up with strict daily work procedures and they've adapted to those routines.

- Those flighty types who love eye candy over function (you know the types--those who change their fashion jeans every season).

- There is of course the fourth type--the true Microsoft believers. They love it because doctrine dictates it so. 'Nuff said. (For any objective analysis of the Win 7 usability problem they should be equated out of the equation.)

The main haters of Win 7 UI/Explorer are power users who use their PCs for a wide range of different functions and whose daily work routine varies greatly. They do not have to be IT types although they often are. These are the people who expect much from their PCs, they're the ones who are hot swapping drives, moving files from one to PC to the next etc.

Watching these power users work with Win 7 is both painful and instructive. One's repertoire of highly descriptive adjectives is vastly expanded not to mention learning new and imaginative ways of concatenating these words into long strings.

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Graham Wilson
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Grenade

Would you have said the same had you not been an Anonymous Coward?I

Would you have said the same had you not been an Anonymous Coward?

Probably not, as someone would catch you out for telling porkies.

1 0
Graham Wilson
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Flame

Win 7 is far too little far too late. XP is the end of the road for us.

@ The Unexpected Bill

I too agree 100% with your comments re Windows 7's messy UI. The Win-7 UI is so slipshod and illogical that it takes an inordinate amount of messing about to cut to the chase and get something done. This mollycoddling user interface may be OK for those with a room-temperature IQ but it's a pain in the A. for experienced users.

Why the hell can't it be turned off, or why didn't M$ allow the UI to be switched back to the XP UI? (As it is, I switch my XPs to the Windows 2000 UI as I reckon it's better than XP's default. Thus, as far as I'm concerned, Vista and Win 7 UI usability is somewhere off in cloud-cuckoo land.)

Frankly, I'm damn tired of these authoritarian 'social engineers' in M$ who keep making we users the centre of UI usability experiments (and pawns of the marketing department). The Common User Access (CUA) standard was worked out as far back as 1987 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access) and every time M$ comes out with a new O/S they deviate even further from the standard. Vista and Win 7 are now at a point where the CUA standard is almost unrecognizable.

(I wish the El Reg editors and others would point out that every time MS makes changes to the UI it costs users, industry--everyone--money for unnecessary retraining. It's expensive junk retraining for something that shouldn't need relearning and it benefits no one except Microsoft. Economically, it does not make sense.)

Why has MS done this, and to what end or purpose? None as far as I can see--other than marketing, which has obviously failed. (It's turned me and my company off for starters, we won't touch Vista or Win 7 with a bargepole). Moreover, why has M$ forbidden users to switch back to an earlier UI?

Microsoft has to learn that its obsession with the corporate image of its products--that is Microsoft only allows strictly limited changes of O/S's UI and themes--is turning off customers big-time.

I see absolutely no reason to upgrade just for fashion's sake (sorry Win-7ers, you should be worrying about your work rather than the addictive M$ eye candy.) Win 7 offers me absolutely nothing new that I can use. Essentially, it's a repackaged XP with limitations, moreover, it dials 'home' and screws with my privacy--not for my benefit but that of Microsoft.

Finally, Microsoft FAILED TO DELIVER with Win 7:

- the Win FS filing system (a database-filing system, promised with Vista, which is an absolute necessity with large terabyte drives).

- Any improvement to the antiquated file structure (files still do not automatically come with encapsulation, authentication and meta-data structures). After all this time why not?

- A Chinese wall (firewall like) separation between user data, program files, and Windows system files. For instance, anyone can copy anything into the Windows system directory and or alter most of the files therein. It's no wonder MS products are riddled with security holes when such fundamental flaws remain. XP was and is a security problem and Vista and Win 7 are just more of the same, they are all environments that allow viruses and malware roam at will. Now, two versions on from XP, and there's still no fundamental change to the security architecture of Win 7.

For us, it's seemingly the end of the road as far as MS operating systems goes. We will continue to use XP until 2014 when the support stops. In the meantime, we've four years to switch to Linux. It's a highly annoying decision to have to make but Microsoft has left us no other choice.

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Mozilla pegs worldwide Firefox share at 30%

Graham Wilson
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Linux

Oh dear, I must be misinformed. I thought it was all those anti-Microsoft Penguins.

Oh dear, I must be misinformed. I thought it was all those anti-Microsoft Penguins.

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The Pirate Party is the shape of things to come

Graham Wilson
Reply Icon
FAIL

@Atlas Shrugged -- Let's get back to basics eh?

@Atlas Shrugged

Let's get back to basics eh? Why is drug research so expensive anyway?

1. Drug R&D would be much less expensive if the pharmaceutical companies had the Hippocratic oath first in mind. Axiomatically, commercial drug companies have a conflict of interest--we suffer, they have windfall profits.

2. DO NOT forget why drug research is so expensive--because the drug companies have a long history of abusing trust! Remember Distillers Ltd and Thalidomide? Or is this almighty and tragic fuck-up before your time?

3. Ok, how about a more modern case? Vioxx (Rofecoxib)--surely you know about the issues here? I can recall reading an article in AAAS's 'Science' about side effects of Vioxx, I recall thinking to myself at the time that if the published figures were correct then the drug ought to be banned immediately. From the article's publication date in 'Science' to the actual banning of Vioxx was about three years. Suffice to say, had ethics been the predominant issue here, then either Vioxx would never have made it to market in the first place or the drug would have been immediately withdrawn.

4. I'm tempted to mention Swiss Inc., Basel and the Vitamin C scandal but I won't for obvious reasons. If you're interested then read the whistle-blower's book and see how his life was ruined

5. So far that's three large multinational pharmaceutical companies who've a problem with the 'E' word.

6. Now let's look at the case of the very old generic non-patented drug, ergotamine. Although still a very effective drug, recently, it was withdrawn from the market (at least in some countries)--not because of problems with the drug per se but because a newer patented drug, sumatriptan succinate, is considered 'better'. Sumatriptan is a more specific drug so it's 'theoretically' better but let's do the maths:

Ergotamine --> $1.00 per tablet, duration of action ~24 hours. [$1.00 / day]

Sumatriptan --> $15.00 per tablet, duration of action ~4 hours [$60.00 / day--being generous at only 16hrs/day].

The net effect of this con job is that those who cannot afford the sumatriptan succinate now actually go without medicine at all! Moreover, governments actually allow this type of fucked-up drugs marketing policy to exist! Even if permitted, it's essentially little better than 'criminal'.

7. Finally, let us take the case of the extremely effective drug, omeprazole. Depending on country, its patent expired about 1999-2000. Just before the patent ran out it was replaced with a 'better' drug called esomeprazole which is just a S-enantiomer (mirror image) of omeprazole. Even a high school chemistry student would be able to tell you that this 'Isomer trick' was just a way of ever-greening a worn out patent (as essentially the two drugs are the same and that researchers would have tried both initially)--yet again governments allowed this patent scam to continue--how many $10s of billions this has cost the consuming public is anyone guess.

Moreover, this is only the tip of the iceberg. As these carpetbaggers can't be trusted without considerable ongoing government monitoring, the testing is costing a fortune. We need to blow open the whole process and start again, it's costing consumers literally billions. Drug research ought to go back into the universities and government research organizations where vested interests are at least minimal and ethics better controlled.

Atlas Shrugged, if you derived your ethical understanding about how big pharma works from Ayn Rand's tome, then perhaps the book ought to be shredded.

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Graham Wilson
Flame

Eventually, changes in copyright law seem inevitable--but Berne will have to change first!

The copyright issue was aired in El Reg a few weeks ago when Joel Tenenbaum was screwed into the ground by the RIAA for copying songs. I had my sixpence worth here: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/01/05/tenenbaum_files_for_retrial/#c_659154 - 'Soon, murder and terrorism will be lesser crimes than sharing music'. I'll repeat a shortened version.

I believe in copyright as authors and artists deserve dues for effort, but current copyright laws worldwide are a 'fraudulent' monopolistic scam ENFORCED* through an international treaty--the 'Berne Copyright Convention' of 1886.

In the late 19th Century, a few cleaver and articulate elites led by Frenchman and author Victor Hugo conned governments into establishing an international treaty to enforce this pernicious legalised swindle. There are many different types of copyright but in its Berne Convention form, it is by far the most exploitative of the general population.

Essentially, Berne says that when an artist or author creates a work that the state MUST issue him/her with an absolute and totally exclusive right to that work for the rest of his life plus at least another 50 years after he's dead--even if he does not want the rights.

An artist is inspired by the culture of his society; he absorbs an education, concepts and ideas from it and its long cultural lineage, thus new works he produces are not totally new but only derivative of that culture. No matter how great the artist, he cannot produce works of greatness or popular interest in a cultural vacuum yet the Berne Convention gives him TOTAL and exclusive rights to his derivative work.

The Berne Convention forces signatory governments to exclude all rights to works except those of the artist himself. Moreover, we've been conned to believe that existing copyright is actually fair law. As with Goebbels' axiom--tell a small lie and you'll be caught lying, tell a big one and you'll be believed---Berne has created an air of respectability about present-day copyright law. So entrenched the belief, that even those who own rights believe the entrenched propaganda that copyright law is fair when it is anything but so.

1. It is the absoluteness of this exclusion together with the outrageously long life of the copyright that is at the heart of the problem--copyright needs to be greatly reduced in duration.

2. Much fairer systems should be introduced, for example, during a period of strong copyright--say the first ten years or so--consumers of copyrighted material would be able to make multiple non-commercial copies for their own use. Thereafter, general non-commercial copying would be allowed except for the author who would still retain commercial rights for an additional period up until the work fully entered the public domain.

3. The Berne Convention should be altered to allow full access to orphaned works, say after 10 years. Orphaned works are ones that no longer have owners or where the owing corporations have gone bust, but nevertheless where copyright still exists for 50 or 70 plus years--depending on jurisdiction.

It is estimated that of all the works published in the 20th Century, about 80% are now orphaned works--that is they no longer have an author or publisher who can publish them, NOR can they be published by anyone else! Obviously, authors and publishing houses do not want orphaned works to be the public domain as they compete with newly published works. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the population who would have a much more widespread access to knowledge, then the concept of keeping orphaned works out of the public domain is just sheer madness.

I hope the pirate parties will act both cleverly and responsibly. If they do then the completely detestable edifice of the Berne Convention may crumble in only a few short years.

Let us hope so.

_______

* Moreover, the Treaty severely restricts governments to legislate; in its current form a government would be in violation of the treaty if it reduced copyright to say only 10 years.

0 0

My mother-in-law wants this! (For her birthday, you understand)

Graham Wilson
Grenade

Thanks, I'll have one. I only need a telephone, not a wanking status symbol to annoy people with.

Thank you very much, I'll have one. I only need a telephone, not a wanking status symbol to annoy people with.

I've had mobile/cell phones of all types since their inception. And before the cell phone I had a Motorola brick in the car (if you don't know what that is then you're only a cell phone neophyte). I've used all the different gadgets and attention-seeking crap that comes with the latest phones 3G etc .etc. and most of it is ineffective, expensive junk to show off with.

1. On my 3G, I have had both SMS and Internet access turned off at the telco, they're just a waste of time money. For starters, the keys and screen are too small and fiddly to use it successfully. Moreover, SMS is the greatest rip-off of all time (as I've pointed out previously on these pages, NASA can get the same ASCII text across the solar system for less cost per byte than you can get the same SMS message the lounge room).

1.1 SMS, originally designed for telco maintenance purposes, is so limited that it's nigh on useless for anything serious. Of course, the lower your IQ the more you'll use it.

1.2 SMS is addictive and dangerous--between people walking into glass doors and crashing whilst driving, SMS is a damn danger. I'm not worried about the idiots who use SMS whilst driving but I am worried about them running into me. SMS used by someone else is a danger to me. OK!

2. Ergonomically, Internet-access cell phones are a real mess, Internet access from them, whether email or the Web, is essentially useless as the screen is so small. Even netbook PCs have a problem with the vertical resolution being insufficient (normally netbooks are 600px high and you usually need a minimum of 768 for most Web pages). If you are using Web access on a cell phone for any serious work then you're kidding yourself. More than likely, the only 'serious' Internet work your cell phone will ever get is when you enter mine's-bigger-than-yours competitions with mates in the pub or restaurant (whilst annoying other patrons). If you do need to access the Internet whilst on the fly, then I'd suggest you contact a time management consultant.

2.1 Accessing email and Web pages via cell phones whilst driving is just as dangerous as SMS texting whilst driving (again, I've a vested interest in that you don't run into me). Only last week I saw a bloke very nearly killed as he obliviously walked across a 6-lane road whilst SMS texting. Vehicles went everywhere to avoid him (unfortunately this type of incident is now commonplace.)

2.2 It is impossible to turn off the Internet and SMS access in many 3G mobile/cell phones. And even if you have Internet access disarmed at the telco the damn things still insist in trying to contact the now 'non-existent' Web. Of course, this annoying automatic Web connecting is set up to charge you every time the phone goes though a Web-seeking exercise.

2.3 Haven't time here to discuss all the other techie issues about cell phone ergonomics--or the lack thereof, nor of the serious problem of Internet and cell phone addiction. Now recognized as a large social problem. And I'll just briefly mention the annoyance that cell phone users cause to others in public places by using them at inappropriate times.

2.4 Do you have cell phone addiction? Try this test: if you left home without your cell phone and you were about a mile away before you realise it, would you turn back or not? If so, you've a social problem. Sorry.

2.5 These time-wasting, distracting, addictive buggery boxes are designed to not only waste time but primarily to fleece out of you as much money as is humanly possible. Yet, having such a wanky toy for many users (suckers) makes them think they're being hip. How mistaken they are, as with all fashion, time will come when the cell phone will be about as popular as the once-fashionable cigarette.

2.6. If you really must play with the Internet in public then buy a 3G connected netbook, at least it's practical and usable (and they're unlikely to come with a name that's associated with silkworm food).

2.7 If you disagree with my comments--and I'm sure many will--then ask yourself what you did before you had an Internet-connected cell phone--right, how did you ever cope without one [but you did somehow]. Second, if you find yourself flaunting your cell phone and/or Internet addiction in public or at inappropriate times then I'd suggest that you carefully examine your lifestyle. You may eventually realize how stupid and dumb you really look glued to a little plastic box in public. You might even realize how it's stuffing up your life too.

In the meantime, I'll be very satisfied with a single-function, voice-only, portable telephone which I can use in an emergency.

8 0

EMI puts Abbey Road under the silver hammer?

Graham Wilson
Grenade

Of course, Abbey Road's failure will have the RIAA blame the pirates.

Of course, Abbey Road's failure will have the RIAA blame the pirates.

Be warned the RIAA, BSA et al will not only blame the pirates for this, they'll try to rewrite history and put the pirates at the centre of Abbey Road's collapse. Moreover, they will use it as another excuse to further lobby politicians for tighter copyright and anti-piracy laws. Mark my words!

Well good riddance. As far as I'm concerned, it's one down and many more to go!

I'm a classical music fan and I've well over a 1500 legit CDs bought some time between when CDs first came out and say 2000. I've not bought anything since as classical music is essentially set in history and so there's bugger-all that's new.

What really irks me off is that this is round two. My CD collection replaces an earlier vinyl collection of similar number which now gathers dust.

1. In both cases (CD and vinyl) I had to pay outrageous prices on these recording that I can now get for 20% of the original price (often secondary labels offloaded from the mail copyright owner--EMI for instance--can be bought for even less).

2. Where I've duplicates on both vinyl and CDs (and that's quite a few) I've had to pay both Mechanical Performance Rights (just about the greatest scam of all time) and copyrights TWICE just because I changed from one media format to another.

3. The people who are supposed to benefit from copyright--the artists who performed the works and/or the music's composer--usually only got about 7% of the recording's retail sale price. Somehow or other these slimy middlemen managed to rip off 93% of the retail price for themselves.

4. They've exploited BOTH ends of the market. I the consumer have been ripped off and so has the performing artist.

5. This kind of exploitation has been going on for about 114 years since the Berne copyright convention of 1886 when they got this sham convention going without us, the copyright-paying public, being involved at all. They won carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, and they certainly did but it was at our expense.

6. Between the time I started purchasing recordings and today a much more savvy music consumer has evolved. These consumers are savvy of the internet and of the fact the record companies have been double-dipping on media duplication since the inception of recording, not to mention double dipping both ends of the market. These new consumers won't stand for that crap anymore. Consumers have finally awaken and as a result we're seeing the EMIs of this world beginning to go the way of the dodo and dinosaurs.

As far as I'm concerned it can't happen quickly enough. I've been ripped off too many times over very many years by these sharks to be the slightest concerned (as you'd know from M$, monopolies always do that).

Now that I can see the beginning of their demise, I'm thoroughly indulging in a good dose of schadenfreude.

Whoopee.

5 0

Rootkit blamed for Blue Screen patch update snafu

Graham Wilson
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Flame

Obviously a Microsoft share owner. ...And WinPE/RE are dogs to use!

Obviously a Microsoft share owner talking!

...Anyway, WinPE/RE are dogs to use. That's why there are free third-party alternatives--BartPE et al, but even these are not very satisfactory as they're very slow and cumbersome.

That's why all my machines dual-boot to DOS and use FAT32 partitions (for the O/S only of course--data still lives in NTFS). I'm damned if I know how anyone does any serious maintenance work on Windows on a NTFS partition. One day I hope someone will enlighten me.

I simply can't understand how people use WinPE etc. They've obviously nine lives not to mention simple machine configurations. I've only one life unfortunately, wasting it spending time cranking up WinPE is something I can well do without.

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Graham Wilson
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Thumb Up

Spot on.

Spot on.

Trouble is that we'll need a few more of these f%$#-ups before customers start demanding them.

0 0
Graham Wilson
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Flame

Right, damn vague isn't it? Where's the LEMON LAWS for software?

Right, damn vague isn't it? Where's the LEMON LAWS for software?

These bastards (and I'm not just talking about M$ here--it's many software vendors) hide behind compiled code and you haven't a clue what's happening with patches and fixes. Often functionality suffers or speed decreases and you're none the wiser until you come upon an unexpected gotcha--and then often you're not sure if its the original program and you've just noticed the problem of whether it's the patch.

When my car goes kaput service people tell me what went wrong and supply me with the dead part. But all we get from most software vendors is an EULA which goes on for hours about the company not being responsible for anything.

Copyright, patents etc. aren't just enough to satisfy this mob. How come the software lobby has the service angle and that they're not responsible for anything also sewn up with the regulators?

We really do need decent software lemon laws. Only then will these vendors take notice.

1 0
Graham Wilson
Reply Icon
Grenade

Come off it, WinPE/RE is a true dog. I'm sure you're writing this just to buy an argument.

Come off it, WinPE/RE is a true dog. I'm sure you're writing this just to buy an argument.

As I said in my posts elsewhere, this solution, at best, is barely better than nothing.

Essentially, Microsoft has never provided a decent and proper solution, fixing a really stuffed Windows O/S is little more than pot luck. When everything goes belly-up M$'s solution effectively is to format and reinstall.

Why is it pot luck you many well ask? Well, the reason is VERY simple, opening up the O/S to this sort of scrutiny makes it easier for peopled to bypass DRM, copyright licensing etc. etc. all of which requires the enormous obfuscating capability which Windows has in abundance.

Not only M$ hides stuff in Windows--registry and elsewhere--but most commercial programs also do so. Unfortunately this obfuscation ALSO makes it much easier for root kits viruses etc. to hide within the O/S.

I won't bore you with lessons on how Microsoft could easily have solved this problem with the use of authentication, encryption, Chinese 'fire' walls between the O/S, program and user files together with the use of file encapsulation and better file system etc.

Suffice to say, what Microsoft has done INTRINSICALLY makes it easy for ROOT KITS to HIDE in the O/S.

Why did M$ do it this way instead of doing it correctly? Einstein go home--even a person with a room temperature IQ knows this was done purely for commercial reasons--that of maximizing profit.

Protection of user's data files and the susceptibility of Windows to root kits, viruses etc. fell a long way short of that key commercial objective. Whilst necessary, these hundreds and hundreds of security patches which have needed to be installed in Windows are little more than window dressing in the big schema of things. Had appropriate engineering been used in the initial design of Windows, then most of them wouldn't have been necessary.

Right, Microsoft has made us users own the problem!

5 0

ID minister promises virtual immortality for all Britons

Graham Wilson
Flame

Control freaks and Megalomaniacs Inc. UK, you should have lost the Battle of Britain!

They're control freaks and megalomaniacs.

What on earth has happened to the UK?

I'm beginning to think the UK should have lost the Battle of Britain, as Fascism would be over by now. If invasion had happened in '42 it'd be like pulling teeth--agonising but short.

However, watching fascism overtake the UK now is like experiencing a form of creeping paralysis: debilitating, inexorable and agonizingly slow.

For fuck's sake Britain, you didn't win Trafalgar, Waterloo, WW-I and WW-II just to be screwed into the ground by the trolls and control-freak Cretins of Westminster!

Reclaim your Democracy whilst you still know what the word means!

____

P.S.: Britons, you've moral duty to do so; if not for yourselves then for the soldiers who fought in those wars to protect your freedom. If they were around today they'd be disgusted with Blighty--and with the inaction of its citizens in the face of advancing tyranny.

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