Re: See... i knew i was stupid.
Ignorance is curable, alas stupidy is not.
Posts by Philip Lewis
991 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2009
Nanodot memory smashes RAM, sets new speed record
Nokia loses $1.7bn in Q1, sales chief falls overboard
Thursday 19th April 2012 21:43 GMT
Re: Desire to cut costs has killed Nokia
"they expected it to be."
By "they", I assume you are asserting the royal plural for the "Manchurian Candidate" at the helm of Nokia. I doubt anyone at Nokia other than Elop "expected" WP to be the success necessary to compensate for the disasterous situation Elop has foisted upon Nokia.
Actually, I doubt whether it matters at all. The MS strategy to destroy Nokia for later consumption at firesale prices through the agency of Elop is right on schedule!
Metallic Glass iPhone 5 to battle pottery Samsung Galaxy S3
Compulsory coding in schools: The new Nerd Tourism
Thursday 19th April 2012 15:46 GMT
Re: It might help give children a better model of what a computer is and does
Fucking-A, and the next time my boss comes to me with his broken EXCEL solution to a data problem that cannot be logically expressed within the context of SQL, I may resort to physical violence.
When you have a data problem, ask a data analyst who understand schemas and data, DO NOT REACH FOR EXCEL!
Thursday 19th April 2012 15:13 GMT
Re: @DJV
The "crash test" dummy is the THE MOST EFFECTIVE thought quality assurance device ever invented. The act of collecting thoughts, ideas and arguments into a logical and reasoned whole in isolation, is something very few people master (Tesla could for example), mere mortals are helped immensely by the mechanics of speech. Simply REQUIRING people to articulate the issues in a logical and reasoned way, eliminates 90% of the issues straight up, as it becomes clear to the speaker what he/she had been "missing", without any return communication from the crash test dummy. What most people realise is that they are only about 10% as smart as they thought they were, and they toddle off back to think some more.
I introduced the "dummy" concept on a project 25 years ago, and to this day I still sometimes ask my colleagues to "be my dummy" and hear my take on the issues. In 99% of all cases, the issue gets resolved, either by me realising my own logical or other error/oversight, or by the dummy uttering the something that makes it all "gel".
By the way, programming is the final act. Most of the work is in understanding the problem, understanding the schema, articulating precisely requirements etc. etc. Programming is just the end mechanisim for creating something that reflects what went before. The 80/20 rule applies here more than anywere else.
Zuckerberg blew $1bn on Instagram 'without telling Facebook board'
Thursday 19th April 2012 14:42 GMT
Odd
I have never used Instagram, though I seem to recall it has a product icon that looked remarkably like an old Polaroid camera (I haven't re-checked this factoid). In fact, this likeness was IIRC the reason I even bothered to look closer at what the app did. I subsequently moved on as Instagram provides no utility of any use to me. I DID, however, look at Instagram because of "the Polaroid" thingy.
a) I wonder how many others were attracted by the Polaroid camera icon?
b) Is there a business model somewhere in using (or is that abusing) the image of a massively well known product to gain "eyeballs" at zero cost?
c) If the answer to (a) is "a zillion" and the answer to (b) is "Yes", then I have a great list of "images" we can poach to launch a product.
Philip
Larry Page has painful day on stand in Oracle Java case
Thursday 19th April 2012 13:01 GMT
Optional
"... basically, for the web, MySQL is good enough."
Which pretty much sums it up. "the web" is the playground of the incompetent led by the deluded providing crap for the masses (or something like that). In any case, MySQL is so far from being even remotely competent as a database that only people with no clue could be dumb enough to say so.
"good enough" translates as "we don't care if you request ever succeeds, or fails, or even if it is delivered". For Facebook and the rest of the mega presences on the web, I am sure that MySQL (and NoSQL, Haddop and all the rest of the non-databases are/) is a completely adequate 1960s level file management system. I would not trust it for my business (and I don't) because I do not think I can sustain thousands of ACID tps with MySQL, not now and not ever. I might of course be wrong, but I doubt it.
Five charged after fanboi sells kidney for iPad and iPhone
Climate change linked to extreme weather surge
Tuesday 27th March 2012 15:56 GMT
Re: Whatever the reason , another heatwave in europe this summer...
hey numnuts,
I fucking live in Northern Europe - check out a map.
My original points are still valid and logically unassailable.
a) It hasn't been drier in Northern Europe (sample space a country in N. Europe)
b) A single point is invalid as a basis for prediction.
From Danish Meteorological Institute DMI:
I gennemsnit ud over landet faldt der 79 millimeter nedbør i januar 2012. Det er 22 millimeter eller 39 % over normalen for 1961-90
I gennemsnit ud over landet faldt der 31 millimeter nedbør i februar 2012. Det er 7 millimeter eller 18 % under normalen for 1961-90 (normal 38 mm).
So the 110mm of rain puts Denmark 15mm ABOVE average (average being calculated 1961-1990 - dan't ask I don't know why DMI uses this period for "normal") for 2012 so far.
p
Tuesday 27th March 2012 11:24 GMT
Re: Whatever the reason , another heatwave in europe this summer...
hej, you probably live in UK?
Here in Northern Europe, Denmark, the precipitation levels for 2011 were, "normal" according to DMIs yearly report.
I am just pointing this out to you, because your single data point proves exactly nothing, as does mine. Your prediction is equally unfounded by definition.
I have not seen aggegated Norther Europe numbers and I don't care enough to find them.
philip
Oz regulator to Apple: Don’t call it 4G if you can’t connect
Record-breaking laser pulse boosts fusion power hopes
Activist supplied illegally obtained docs to DeSmogBlog
Will Windows 8 sticker shock leave Microsoft unstuck?
iPad 3 chip leak squeaks dual-core tweaks
Tuesday 21st February 2012 18:16 GMT
Re: Cores
Symbian was so efficient it allowed Nokia to "underspec" their CPU and overspec their Camera for years with no noticeable performance lag compared to vastly overspecced (CPU) alternatives.
Haven't tried the Lumia, so I can't comment on it, but the implied message that Android is a slug is most likely accurate.
Paris: Coz she's never underspecced
MySpace no longer crying a river with 1 MILLION new punters
Thursday 16th February 2012 16:02 GMT
Re: @ Philip Lewis
They are set to english
google doesn't give a FF - check out the threads on Google to understand.
mySpace is probably just plain incompeteant and incapable of understanding
Most of the web is just too damned lazy to understand the issue and how to correctly resolve it.
In recent news, our customer website which is 100% in English and displays massive data pages, Google Chrome has got the idea that the web pages are in "Catalan" and requests if I want a translation. I blame Lionel Messi.
Tuesday 14th February 2012 17:00 GMT
FAIL
I just typed in www.myspace.com
Up came a very ugly page, where everything was written in a language I cannot read.
This is a vast improvement on when I tried MySpace several years ago, when the site had the alarming chracteristic of displaying multiple languages simultaneously.
Google are equally guilty of the sin of FAILURE to understand that the country where the IP registration is indicative of the language of the user. MySpace fails for the same reason.
Google have the "Google in English", unfortunately if it is written in Thai I will have some problems reading it. MySpace seems to have something, but since it is all written in a language I cannot read, it is pretty fucking useless.
Google is particularly fucked up, because even if I am logged in to Google and stay logged in, google.com ignores the language that I have told them I speak, and merrily displays things in Japanese when I am in Tokyo atc. Google not only get it wrong, they know with certaintly that they got it wrong.
FAIL FAIL FAIL.
Apple orders PC builder to 'choose sides' in laptop battle?
Tuesday 14th February 2012 11:12 GMT
Dictionary required
Perhaps you should buy a dictionary and learn to read. Improved grammer would help your cause as well.
I suspect you mean "monopsonism" rather than "monopolism". Both would be wrong (in the case to which you refer) by definition.
As I am quite sure you have never heard of a monopsonist, here is a random definition plucked from the web dictionary at www.dictionary.com
mo·nop·so·ny [muh-nop-suh-nee]
noun, plural -nies.
"the market condition that exists when there is one buyer."
Tuesday 14th February 2012 11:04 GMT
Obvious really
People who develop irrational blind hatred, especially that born of jealousy that is reinforced daily, need to vent constantly, rather like a steam boiler.
Just to point out the obvious, this Register piece is a redacted version of an article that apparently appeared in a Chinese Language newspaper (Commercial Times). It is therefore by definition, not entirely reliable, and almost certainly incomplete. Yet the APPL haters are out in force making statements which have no basis in the article here, or for all I know, in the original piece. Many of the statements assume knowledge of contract content, Taiwanese law etc. The posters have no possible access to this information. Good grief, someone is proposing that APPL will fall foul of US legislation, calling APPLs actions "monopolism" etc. - these are demonstrations of such an astounding level of ignorance that it is hard to believe they are written by sentient beings. The frequency of this style of comment is rather sad.
The mindless, ill-informed vitriol directed at APPL poured out here at The Reg again and again dilutes the worth of the forum, where once intelligent commentary was the norm.
philip
iPad spanks Galaxy Tab in its own backyard
US and EU regulators will give Googorola the nod soon
Sunday 12th February 2012 21:41 GMT
As has been posted ..
several times here at the reg and other places. MMI has been rescinding licences for FRAND licencees for component sales specific to apple, and then demanding 2.x% of the total handset price as extortion. Get it?
A baseband chip supplier pays MMI FRAND licence fees and sells a zillion chips to Apple. Everyone is happy, everyone gets paid, the system functions. MMI notifies baseband chip supplier on the day the new iPhone is released that their licence is terminated as of 60 days, with respect to all and any sales to APPL.
This is an irrefutable fact. Deal with it. Apple has every right to be pissed off, and I hope the courts come down very hard on Motorola.
MMI are playing their last card in a desperate move to unstick Apple, who have shown themselves as being much better at making devices consumers want than MMI.
MMI and its management should rot in a special hell for this despicable behaviour, and to the extent that Google are in on the scheme (and I suspect they are), then Google execs along with them.
Nokia axes 4,000, shifts smartphone manufacturing East
Blushing HTC too coy to admit sales figures
Germany stalls over ACTA treaty ratification
Saturday 11th February 2012 22:56 GMT
No.
That's not what ACTA is for.
We already have laws prohibiting what you describe, and far reaching powers to punish offenders.
What happens if you knowingly sell fake insulin to a diabetic and that person dies?
Worst case, you get fried.
We don't need ACTA, just like we don't need most of the "anti-terrorist" style laws. We have enough laws to prosecute the bad guys. These new laws have only one purpose, to remove freedoms.
Revealed: Apple's plea for fairness in mobile patent war
Wednesday 8th February 2012 18:56 GMT 
Read a bit more. Apple is apparently the victim here.
Apple bought chips that were patent encumbered, and the chip vendor coughed up to Moto as required. Subsequently, ...
Negotiations for Licensing between Apple and Motorola
Apple’s original iPhone went on sale in June 2007. Apple’s original iPhone contained an Infineon baseband chipset, which incorporated technology covered by patents that Motorola has declared as essential. Apple purchased the Infineon baseband chipset through a manufacturing agreement with Chi Mei Corporation, which manufactured the Infineon baseband chipset under a licensing agreement with Motorola. On August 4, 2007, Motorola gave Chi Mei a 60-day suspension notice on its licensing agreement.
D. Motorola’s Termination of the Qualcomm License
On December 16, 2009, Apple and Qualcomm entered into a contract whereby Apple would purchase chipsets from Qualcomm that were compliant with the CDMA2000 standard. The chipsets incorporated technology that Qualcomm licensed from Motorola. On January 11, 2011, on the day Apple announced the Verizon iPhone 4, Motorola notified Qualcomm of its intent to terminate any and all license covenant rights with respect to Qualcomm’s business with Apple, effective February 10, 2011.
http://articles.law360.s3.amazonaws.com/0249000/249997//mnt/rails_cache/https-ecf-wiwd-uscourts-gov-cgi-bin-show_doc-pl-caseid-29810-de_seq_num-329-dm_id-3602496-doc_num-93.pdf
Shrunken Intel process boosts SSD performance
Tuesday 7th February 2012 18:25 GMT
FWIW
The fact that you have started quoting irrelevant hardware specs at me suggests you may not have done this sort of thing much - but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and post a single, simple simple test result.
FWIW this is all new kit, and each test is identical. Except for the trivialities of the OS (WinServer 2008R2-64) managing itself, the single variable is the data storage device.
HP G7 Blade twin x5570, 48GB RAM
P410i RAID controller (in a slot, not the built-in controller)
12 slot Storage Blade (I forget the item number)
Everything is at latest revision level.
The tests were run twice each with 6*10K 73GB SAS disks and 6*SSD devices (see previous post for item number) configured and formatted identically. Re-running of the tests produced no material differences in performance.
Test: Restore an SQLServer db with data and log files on the same array. 1 full backup save set plus 1 incremental save set.
SSD-RAID-10 = 32 minutes
SAS-RAID-10 = 7 Minutes
SSD-RAID-50 = 45 minutes
SAS-RAID-50 = 31 minutes
This is not a test to see what the fastest configuration is (I can make it go faster). I have lots of results and lots of configurations. This result is merely to demonstrate that people who think that SSDs are a silver bullet, and who busily quote electrical specifications have missed the point entirely.
FWIW, the single and low thread/queue count read speeds are at the expected levels, but recovering a multi-TB database might be some way outside our operational parameters.
philip
I will now wander off to your link and see what you you have had to say on matters related.
Tuesday 7th February 2012 10:48 GMT
Using which benchmarking tool?
Has anyone developed a piece of software for this yet?
Has anyone tried to restore an SQLServer database to an SSD array?
Testing half a dozen ATA INTEL SSDSA2M160 SSDs (latest firmware), my initial testing suggests at least double the restore time versus the same number of 10K spinning SAS disks, no matter what the RAID format being used. Some combinations/formats were 5 times worse (retesting those for verification).
It is all well and good getting great read times, but it's not a great deal of use when things go titsup on a TB or two of database that has a 6 day incremental to apply to the last full backup and I am down for a day while it gets rebuilt.
philip
Facebook IPO: Boom or bubble?
Friday 3rd February 2012 16:17 GMT
zakly
Yes, that is precisely my thought. And what about my iPhone APP? How is that measured?
Metrics for which a precise definition is not supplied are worthless. If FB's value is based on these metrics, then I must conclude the company is worthless.
I have always assumed FB (and Google) were secretly logging my every action unless I logged out. I have some FF add-on protections, and I use trackmenot as well to obfuscate my true nature.
Philip
Five ways Microsoft can rescue Windows Phone
Thursday 2nd February 2012 11:42 GMT
Here in Denmark
Here in Copenhagen, Denmark, a country that really has a high cellphone penetration and a very high percentage of smartphones, the situation is this.
You cannot ride public transport anywhere without seeing an add fro WP. It is in your face everywhere.
I ride the commuter trains/metro daily. The most common phone appears to be the iPhone 4, but for every one of those there are probably 5 other assorted brands. I have been keeping a weather eye out for the new WP from Nokia - unsurprsingly given the "in your face" advertising.
So far I have seen a couple of "brightly coloured phones", but they were in fact N9s - which is pretty amazing since the N9 was marketed here only briefly and cost a staggering amount (compared to prices in other markets. e.g. it was double the price in Copenhagen compared to the same phone in Bangkok - this is abnormal). I see a lot more N8s than you might imagine even exist by reading US centric tech journals.
Actually, I have only seen one WP and it wasn't a Nokia (no clue what it was).
So there you go ... casual empiricism at its finest
philip
Paris: ... because she is empirically casual
Google finally admits it wants to OWN YOU
Microsoft blames poor Windows sales on PC slump
UK student faces extradition to US after piracy case ruling
EPIC asks FTC to probe Google's search biz tweak
Jonathan Ive is knighted in New Year Honours list
Monday 2nd January 2012 16:19 GMT
F**k I am tired of this sort of crap comment
The heading says it all!
No one was conned. APPL have very high customer satisfaction levels.
There is more to consumer products than the technical specifications.
Nerds and geeks take careful note. Apple is in the consumer products business.
Guys, get over it and stop cluttering this space with you're puerile, supercilious and ignorant drivel.
Philip
Biting the hand that feeds IT
