* Posts by Cliff

1822 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Apr 2007

On the hunt for a new ampere

Cliff

Re: So does this mean my two multimeters that can measure down to 0.00000001A are wrong?

Yes, in the same way that the distances on road signs are wrong.

Elon Musk and PayPal chum quit Zuckerberg's immigration gang

Cliff

If there was one sector I'd have thought could pay its way

It's oil.

Tactics like this don't change the system, just encourage it. IT types are generally intelligent and analytical, and believe in making systems efficient - soft bribery of power-hungry politicians really isn't the techie way, I suspect this will upset more as the headlines spread.

Rules, shmules: Fliers leaving devices switched on in droves

Cliff

I did it by accident

Turning the power off on my phone apparently prompts me before actually powering down, in the kerfuffle of boarding I thought I'd turned it off. Felt a bit of a Muppet when I got to arrivals and found the phone still asking me if I was sure I wanted to power down, but luckily didn't seem to kill 400 people, which is a plus.

New Ubuntu for phones due 'by end of May' – usable this time

Cliff

Oh.

I'm actually a bit underwhelmed by this news. I guess I'm just not feeling what another part-finished mobile operating system is bringing to the table to tempt me away from the similarly priced Android ecosystem.

Eadon will express my share of whelm though I expect, which is nice.

NEW ITV Player app IS HERE ... for Samsung fandroids only. Ha ha

Cliff

Not that bad

Well, seems OK on my Note2 TBH, and slick interface.

Not that I want to watch most of their output, but having easy, free access to Minder, The Professionals, etc is worth installing it for!

IT'S ALIVE: Groupon stock up, spreadsheets still soaked in red

Cliff

How do they manage to make a loss?

They keep 50% of every voucher value - all the losses are borne by the poor sap businesses they pretend will gain new, loyal customers. It's a parasitic model, it is tough to see how they manage to lose more money than they make.

Think enterprise software is complex? Check out the licences

Cliff

The true costing model

The prices are deliberately opaque so they can charge what they like.

The real model is to work out how much the customer can stand before they walk away to a competitor, and charge $5 under that. The rest is smoke, mirrors, and post-rationalisation

Wireless goliath bankrolls wireless-free super-hackfest in Blighty

Cliff

Booze Ban

Is actually likely to be for mostly mundane reasons - AEG wanting you to use their bars instead of BYO, event licensing complications, etc as opposed to just misery-bringing

Watchdog: Y'know what Bitcoin really needs? A REGULATOR!

Cliff

Re: Any good currency...

Exactly. Fiat currencies may not be backed by gold (which is in itself fiat - go figure as our Sherman friends might say), but are backed by faith in governments, which in turn are backed by armies. Turn up and start stealing that which underpins Sterling (the land and its governance), and loads of blokes in green or blue will politely remind you that it's a poor plan. Without them, the country is unstable, so faith in the currency low.

Do I have any faith in bc to physically defend its governance (such as it may be) if push came to shove? Not in any meaningful way, no. If a crypto flaw showed bc tokens were being duplicated through a cunning hack, it would be dropped in a heartbeat as no real sanctions could apply.

Google hit by building automation security FAIL

Cliff

Re: Hack what, exactly

You won't be so complacent when it's your toilets turned to 'reverse!

App gap flap: New York's e-cabbies FOILED AGAIN

Cliff

Re: De Ja Vu?

I spoke with a driver using Hailo, it added upto £200/week to his pocket he reckoned. Seems a decent deal all round.

Cliff

Re: Why would anyone use an app for that?

Having used Hailo in London, being able to hail a cab to a backstreet location, 5minutes free waiting time, having the drivers name and phone number, billed directly to my credit card with a receipt emailed to me moments later, I assure you the efficiency is there!

Zynga banks fluke profit - won't happen again, says CEO

Cliff

Re: I just don't get it

I was wondering this too - perhaps they should get a better hosting deal? Or maybe it is exec fees based on their glory days...

Alibaba and the thwarted thieves: Cops, bazaar to tackle China's piracy

Cliff

Where will I get my 'Mikey Mouse' knock-offs now?

Or my 'Winner of the Pool' knock-off beach balls?

Ofcom to UK: Really - you're using the same password for everything?

Cliff

Low hanging fruit

As long as most people still use abc123 or password1, you don't need staggeringly complex pass phrases. If you are in a field with a hungry carnivore you don't need to run fastest, just faster than somebody else. With enough low hanging fruit, you don't need to worry so much about the top branches. You get the metaphors.

Cliff

Re: No mention if 2-step verification?

You fall back on the 10, printed, once-time emergency codes you put with your stash of other physical treasures. It's a good system, it works.

Apple beats revenue estimates but margins are falling

Cliff

Fashions change

Apple have a high fashion quotient, it carried them for a while, but they do seem to have lost their way when they can't retain customers like they used to. I suspect an analysis of Samsung customers moving to Apple vs the opposite would show some innovation was long overdue.

I believe they are a very decent mid-market device company charging high premium prices shored up by great marketing.

A buy back is a great idea, it will defend the share price and get rid of a bunch of cash. It will also dissuade shareholders from forcing a dividend distribution. Smart move.

New poll says Assange could win Australian Senate seat

Cliff

Re: So. As an Aussie senator

Yeah, that'll work for sure. Perfect plan, what could possibly go wrong?

German watchdog whacks Google with PIDDLING FINE over Street View slurp

Cliff

Re: Moral of the story...

Is locking down wifi really the issue? It's not like the car was wardialing AP's to try to use your piddly domestic bandwidth because Google can't afford their own.

Angry Birds fire back: Vulture cousins menace UK city's mobiles

Cliff

Re: But surely

I'd imagine the spot right at the top to have far lower radiation than the sides - antenna design is spooky

Hardware hacker unifies 15 retro consoles in format frenzy

Cliff

On the one hand, brilliant...

On the other hand, awesome!

Not something that I would ever want to do and certainly there are other ways to spend my time, but that's my problem, hats off for a good old fashioned hack!

Google Apps goes TITSUP for millions - users REJOICE on Twitter

Cliff

Re: this is why I use a *proper* email program...

How does the email get to your email client?

Just askin'

Office 365 - what's in it for you? Speak your brains

Cliff

Is this a marketing pitch?

Or, to put it another way -

Is there any part of this that isn't just a marketing pitch?

In fairness, I could be interested in Office365, but having bought various bits of MSO for real money for my business, then it would seem moving to 365 would mean effectively throwing away my existing perpetually licensed products, even though the last bit is only a few months old?

As for macros, AC above me, SOME of the licensing options don't include installables, others do. If you need them, go for that license instead?

Ofcom: Parents, here's how to keep grubby tots from buying Smurfberries

Cliff

£1€1/min

How's that possible with an 020 number?

Under the microscope: The bug that caught PayPal with its pants down

Cliff

$3000

What an insulting amount! What would it have cost for a security consultancy to have found that? Three grand US wouldn't pay for the first days consulting where the coffee and biscuits would be hit hard in the meeting room.

I know the result isn't a labour for money, but a bit of proportionality would seem appropriate.

Flexible flywheel offers cheap energy storage

Cliff

In which axis?

Something in my gut says flexible won't scale easily - the dynamic system may well stabilise itself in the plane of rotation, I can't help but think uneven perimeter mass distribution could go critical then catastrophic pretty quickly. Maybe it is having heard my washing machine spin cycle with a pair of jeans, but I suppose I'm thinking being flexible means it's more likely to be off-axis slightly, and bad things happen.

Happy to be proved wrong, of course, but I fear scaling will just amplify the problem exponentially!

CIOs: Are you your CEO's business partner or their gimp?

Cliff

Played for laughs but some nuggets in there

A bit like the BOFH, dig down and you hit some veins of universal truth!

Google: 'We'll track EVERY task on EVERY data center server'

Cliff

Re: Gee Thanks Google

Imagine if you downloaded every video on youtube that there has ever been, at every resolution, then you would play that for free to however many people wanted it, at the best quality they could handle. And you did that globally, in every language, 24/7. Big ask of your datacentre. Google already do this of course, and it isn't even their core business. This is the kind of scale where you would want this.

Want to know if that hottie has HIV? Put their blood in the DVD player

Cliff

Does it have to be blood?

Or would a modified game of public school favourite 'soggy biscuit' also be viable? Just thinking how you get a blood sample as casually as some other more freely given ones

Researcher hacks aircraft controls with Android smartphone

Cliff

If the Daily Mail cover this story...

...this guy will be strung from a lamppost. The messenger is always easier to kill than the message to digest.

Bitcoin gets a $100 haircut on rollercoaster trading run

Cliff

Re: Where's the value?

Currencies tied to nothing are known as 'fiat', and that is most currencies since the dropping of the gold standard. However, even though they are all based on faith alone, some also have the interests of a nation underpinning them which dampens volatility. Remove any motive to dampen volatility, and this is going to happen.

Interestingly, gold investing itself has something of a fiat nature, as the material properties are not as valuable as the trading price. If you want an exchange format you can really believe in, I suggest sheep.

French spies do a Barbara Streisand over secret nuke radio base

Cliff

It's preprogrammed...

... 'we surrender' for in case of emergencies?

Bitcoin exchange: Greedy traders to blame for DDoS attack

Cliff

sell sell sell

If you can dump your 10000 bitcoins at $280 without crashing the market go for it!

Gosh, I wish they were shortable!

Cliff

Quite, quite mad

Am I the only one who thinks serious investments in a currency whose value is based on woo and hype alone is fucking insane? I blinked and the 'value' of a bitcoin went from $90 to $140 which suggests by the time I get off the loo it could be $90 again, or $10, or $fuckall.

Virgin on London Underground Wi-Fi: O2's company, Three's a crowd

Cliff

Oldest tube network

All the mental frothing about how backwards the UK is and so forth - we were pretty flippin' advanced when we put an underground railway into our capital city a mere 150 years ago. Funnily enough, back then they just weren't thinking ahead to the 21st century when people might want to fit loads of little radio transmitters for their portable telephones to surf the internet. In short, the infrastructure wasn't designed with that in mind.

Now in Hong Kong, for instance, the metro opened in 1979, a mere 116 years later than London. Radio waves 'existed', as did computers and frankly diesel engines and even electricity - it was easier to see ahead that extra cabling space might be needed. Because of this, when the hugely clever tunnelling machines (not labourers with shovels and horses, please note) bore the network, it wasn't too big an ask to add an extra few inches.

News Corp prez threatens to pull Fox TV off the air

Cliff

TV exec doesn't get own way, throws toys out of the pram

Who fucking cares, really?

Cheap stroppy/pseudobullying tactics are childish tantrums, can't say I'm personally bothered in the least. Something WILL fill any void left, might even be something less mental.

Oracle reveals strategy for internet of things

Cliff

I love the Reg

Whilst the rest of the tech press will reproduce the message of the seminar verbatim, the Reg doesn't hold back on calling bollocks, bollocks. You can almost hear the eyes rolling in the presentation hall...

Hold on! Degrees for all doesn't mean great jobs for all, say profs

Cliff

What makes lousy?

I'm an engineer by training, at one point I could have had a stab at designing you a factory line, but now work in entertainment. It took time, but am now paid about the same as I used to get as an engineer, I use a few of the skills I was taught, I certainly use the same engineering mindset I always had naturally. I am happy in my work, far happier than any job tied directly to my degree made me, yet on this scale I would have a lousy job. Wouldn't swap for toffee!

Why say this? Well, the assumptions that go into studies like this change the outcome. Confirmation bias and all that. In other words, what a waste of time and effort!

Amazon cuts S3 storage prices AGAIN

Cliff

The long game

Bezos knows how to play the long game, how many years did Amazon make a loss through deep discounting to now be *the* place to get books and so much more? Discounts dropped, profits rose, he knows how to sit it out and starve competition.

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

Cliff

Re: Just a thought

In fairness, they're swimming in cash, trillions of the stuff, which they could be spending on actual innovation and R&D. This is pocket money to them thanks to people who believe the marketing guff about how a perfectly decent mid-market company is bleeding-edge

Google Translate for Android adds offline translation option

Cliff

next step is augmented reality

I know some third party apps already do augmented reality translation and can do so because of their local translation tools instead of having to use a network connection. Now Google can work locally the augmented reality on live camera images is just a short step further

Torygraph and Currant Bun stand by to repel freeloaders

Cliff

Decent newspaper app

Have to say, the FT one is one of the better ones I've seen. I think it's 10 free articles/month or some other try-but-don't-graze number, but it gives a good taste of the app and the newspaper. And it's actually a decent newspaper as well, which helps!

GCHQ attempts to downplay amazing plaintext password blunder

Cliff

What does the Reg do?

Are our passwords here stored in clear text?

Bill Gates offers big bucks for better condoms

Cliff

Jokes aside, credit to the man.

The foundation he set up with his wife isn't constrained by appeasing donors sensitivities, so can back some grander plans. Malaria research is one of their big areas as it isn't 'sexy' so doesn't attract big pharmaceutical company investment as there is no 'return'.

Similarly, I can't see swathes of Catholics for instance wanting to donate to a condom competition, but the foundation has clearly thought the problem through, bit of cost benefit analysis, and thought this worth a punt as the benefit is globally staggering.

Full credit where due.

Apple share-price-off-a-cliff: Told you that would happen

Cliff

The price crashed

We all knew it would, we all knew the $700 price was bonkers.

When I dared say this at the time, I got 17 downvotes for it. I guess that's 17 people who wish they'd thought longer and harder before losing three-sevenths of their savings ;-)

New-age tech marketing secrets REVEALED

Cliff

Allow pre-sales staff to speak as technicians to technicians

If your first real contact with a vendor is their sales droid, you know they don't know the product intimately but will recite marketing blurb and empty promises

If your first real contact is with an experienced technician or engineer, they can answer questions not using the marketing blurb but from experience. They can tell you what did and didn't work. Engineers are less likely to lie, or mislead by omission, they have professional credibility at stake, and many engineers value that over commission if it came to the crunch. They can sniff out bullshit and expect other engineers to also sniff it out.

Have an engineer pre-sell to other engineers, then the twat in the Audi gets to come in for an easy 'close' if the buyer feels they trust the engineer and any tech tests they may have run

4K video may wow vidiots, but content creators see pitfalls

Cliff

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

Exactly what I said. Directors strive to achieve narrow depths of field to look 'filmy'. They take the fastest glass they can get then nd it to fuck to get that narrow dof

Cliff

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

Since 2k sounds cooler.

It's as much about the aspect ratio, 2k wide images are close to 1.85 than 1.69, another hangover from film days.

Never underestimate the amount of fetishism in cameras, film, lenses, etc., where someone will find something new to grasp onto as the only thing stopping their ponderous introspective navel-gaze selling like Titanic. Really. It is dirt common to see directors demanding the latest super mega fast lenses, then stop them all the way down with rakes of best quality neutral density filters just to reduce the hyperfocal range back to that of a crappy old film camera to do rack focus moves.

Software glitch WIPES OUT listings of 10,000 eBay sellers

Cliff

Delete *...

Delete * from tblImportantDetails; where bAccountActive = 1

DAMMIT, keyboard cat typed a semi-colon whilst I wasn't looking. Hope nobody notices!

LOHAN slips into tight rubber outfit

Cliff

Re: Clothes pegs!!!

This is in the PARIS spirit! LOHAN is in danger of getting too far away from the shed-fettling that made it so fun!