* Posts by Matt Bryant

9690 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007

Bradley Manning in court as lawyers wrestle over secret docs

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: my stupid opinion

Unfortunately, easyk, you are posting facts in a thread dominated by those too blinkered to understand them. Jeebus and Pierre will be on in a minute to accuse you of working for Fox News.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: Irrelevant you say?

Yeah, keep on frothing, Jeebus, it's very entertaining in a "ooh, look what a naive ickle kiddie he is" kind of way. Oh, and you missed out the standard "You watch Fox News" lameness in the regurgitation of your spoonfed ideals. You're not even good at being an empty-minded echo-chamber.

As I understand it, all the prosecution have to show is that Manning gave secret material to a foreign national. They don't even have to show that A$$nut had an intent to damage the US, though it would add to the list of charges if they did (and wouldn't be hard to prove either).

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: Irrelevant you say?

Pierre, if you had half a clue, you'd know that the prosecution don't have to show damage from the criminal action, just that Manning made the action. It's just the same as if Manning were on trial for deserting his post - the prosecution would not have to prove that Manning deserting his post was of benefit to an enemy, just that he had an order to be at his post and did choose to leave it. Manning had a clear order not to disclose the information he worked with, all teh prosecution have to prove is that he did so and that he gave it to a foreign national. Manning's lawyers are just wasting time and trying to get certain documents excluded by trying to drag more non-public documents into court. The aim seems to be to "win" in the court of public opinion because they know they stand SFA chance of winning in the trial. I'd say their only hope is the election cycle will cause the Obumbler to step in and lessen Manning's sentence in the hope of keeping some of his faithfuls' votes, which explains such legally-pointless actions from Manning's team.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Irrelevant you say?

Manning's lawyers know there is no way the prosecution would allow, for example, an analysis of how the leak threatened the lives of informers in the Pakistani/Afghan border regions, as releasing the details of those informers would lead to their immediate deaths at the hands of the Taleban. Such a result would not only hamper current operations but also reduce the likelyhood of informers being ready to come forward in future. Or is that the type of result you'd hope for, Jeebus?

The only Stalinist remnant here is the twaddle trotted out by the sheeple supporting Manning.

10m years ago there was less CO2 - but the Earth was warmer

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Hieronymus Howerd

"When did the Reg become one undereducated, science-oblivious redneck's personal ranty soapbox?" I was going to say about the time you posted, but then that would just be insulting to rednecks.

1930s photos show Greenland glaciers retreating faster than today

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Re: Oh dear.

".....I believe you may have discovered the real cause of global warming !...." Crap! A silly thought turns out to be a "major scientific discovery" / coincidence and the Gubbermints of the World are already milking it for cash (AKA the War on Drugs). I thought I was on to something of Real Benefit To Mankind (AKA good for my bank balance) then.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Oh dear.

It's always so darn annoying when your hockey stick pops up in the wrong decade!

Here's my solution to the AGW sheeple - tell them it's all caused by smoking grass. I'm sure all that does have a minor impact on warming, and it must release some tiny amount of nasties like sulphur trapped in the leaves, but watch them shut up when their second favourite past-time threatens their first.

Unix, mainframes drag down servers in Q1

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: "The server market is starting to run out of steam"

".....When a new system is released, a bunch of people buy it, then less the next year, then less the third year...." Strange, but that doesn't seem to happen with other IBM product lines like x-Series or p-Series. Oh, I forgot - mainframe is "different", it's "special - no doubt just as "special" as the mainframe fanbois.

"....Yes, people that have large HP-UX environments and need to add capacity until they figure out a migration plan are still buying them. Close to zero new installs are happening...." The Gartner figure is for server sales, not add-ons, and you have no way of saying which are new installs or replacing old hp-ux servers or even competitive wins against AIX kit. It would help if you read the article before shaking your IBM pompoms.

"....IBM is very interested in high end x86, their eX5 chip set gear....." Strange, first you say "....HP and Dell compete in a bunch of totally undifferentiated commodity server areas which IBM and Oracle are not interested in...", then you backtrack desperately with ".....IBM works primarily in the higher end of x86 servers....." when I point out how hard IBM are trying (and losing) in the x86 server racket. Well, if what you said was true, and IBM only sell top-end x86 gear whilst Dell and hp only sell towers and desktops, why is hp still caning IBM in the two-socket and four-socket rack arena and in the blades market, all key x86 enterprise, as it has been for years? Why are IBM so scared of producing a match for the hp Proliant DL980, beacuse it would take sales away from p-Series? Try again, only this time please keep one foot in reality.

"....Unix and mainframe will not be the primary platforms in IT environments in the future, no doubt...." I think that's kind of an admission that what I said about IBM being stuck with no escape route from the dwindling server areas is right. It's knida hard to tell through all the weasel words and FUD.

".....mainframe for the past 30 years and it has stayed relatively stable in the high end." Except for that 40% decline in the quarter, right? Or how about Q4 of 2009, IBM's System z hardware revenues decreased by 27% year over year. You did notice that the title of the article was "Unix, mainframes drag down servers in Q1", or is that asking a bit much? What the heck, you won't believe me, so why not listen to some IBM marketing:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/info/websphere/partners4/articles/gartner/garmainframeeco.html

".....the democratization of IT, as delivered by both the PC platform and many midtier environments, has resulted in a proliferation of computing choices. These options have come predominately at the expense of the mainframe platform....."

Oops! That sounds like an admission of decline to me! Why else do you think IBM are paying people to port Linux to the mainframe if it isn't because their golden goose is choking.

/SP&L

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Re: "The server market is starting to run out of steam"

"The cloud runs on x86 and perhaps soon ARM......" OK, so which vendors are leading in x86 and also have ARM offerings going forward? The leader in x86 servers is hp, who have an ARM HPC server offering already on the market, and a cloud offering. Dell follow close behind, having just released an ARM server offering. Snoreacle have virtually zero presence in x86 and no ARM offering, are only just looking at cloud, and are too busy polishing the turd of CMT. CISCO have slightly larger x86 bizz than Snoreacle but no ARM offering either. IBM are lagging hp and Dell in x86 and have no ARM offering, probably being too busy worrying about the drop in their mainframe extrotion racket.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: "The server market is starting to run out of steam"

"Nonsense...." Oh, I think we hit a raw nerve there! :) So, according to Wunderburp, all IBM mainframe buyers only buy on the same day, every three years, when new mainframe models are released.... Yeah, right!

"....I notice you have given up arguing about HP Unix ...." But Wunderburp, wasn't it you assuring us that no-one would buy ANY Integirty servers after the first Oracle announcement, yet us customers are STILL buying them? Gee, could it be that you were just talking male bovine manure?

"....HP and Dell compete in a bunch of totally undifferentiated commodity server areas which IBM and Oracle are not interested in...." What a silly thing to say, considering IBM put so much effort into scraping into the third slot on x86 sales. It's even sillier if you follow the projections - in fifteen-odd years the UNIX market will have shrunk to nothing, probably not soon after the mainframe has gone the way of the dodo, and if IBM really do think (I use the term losely) like you then they'll be exiting the server bizz completely! Maybe they'll sell the mainframe lines to Lenovo, like they already have most of their x86 ones.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Re: "The server market is starting to run out of steam"

Well, let's look at the figures and do a little analysis.

As has been predicted for years, the UNIX market is declining, by 15.2% in the quarter. The "others" section, which it is noted is mainly IBM mainframe, is also shrinking. The area that is still healthy? Well, that's x86 servers. Looking at the longterm, if you want to be leading in the server market, you are going to want to be leading in x86. Which brings us neatly to the next point.

Despite TPM trying to put as much lipstick on the IBM pig as possible (this is my surprised face, honest), hp's x86 bizz did more revenue than the IBM x86 and p-Series/i-Series combined. Just check the figures:

"......HP pushed out 678,874 of its ProLiant x86 machines (up two-tenths of a point) and pulled in $2.97bn in revenues.....IBM was the third biggest x86 server shipper, with its relevant System x and BladeCenter machines generating $1.33bn in sales....IBM is growing its AIX business, which was up 4.3 per cent to $1.24bn...."

So, IBM made a total of $2.57bn for x86 and AIX, whereas hp made $2.97bn just from x86. Worse still for IBM, that mainly IBM mainframe "others" section, which is IBM's golden goose, was down a staggering 40%! TPM tries to pass this off as IBM customers delaying for new mainframes due "later this year", which doesn't quite match up with a 40% drop off. A 10% drop, or even a 20% drop in mainframe sales could be explained that way, but the reality is the downturn has forced mainframe customers to look for cheaper alternatives, and once they step away from the mainframe addiction, and more and more it is to x86, IBM knows it will have lost those customers for good.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: asdf

LOL, is that the best the Sunshiners can come up with? I can't find those old Sun slides for the projected sales of the SPARC V "Rock" servers, Sun's supposed competitor to Itanium2, but I suspect those projections were a shade more than the absolute zero sold.

If you want real failure, consider how Sun went from a market cap of $200bn down to a bargain-basement sale price of $4bn in a little over four years

/SP&L

HP-Oracle Itanium smackdown starts

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Re: Errata

Doesn't change the fact you said hp-ux was the only available OS on Itanium. You also forgot all the Linux variants still available for Itanium other than RHEL (such as Debian 6.0.5 and SLES 11 SP2). As to how much money hp make off OpenVMS and Nonstop I really don't know, but it seems it's still enough for the IBM fanbois to FUD them.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Re: HP priorities?

"....Matt will be here soon to tell you about Project Odyssey...." Well, obviously I don't have to as you actually seem to already know about it.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: Come on, HP

"....What if Oracle just said that we are not certifying or testing HP x86 or storage for Oracle software...." Well, seeing as over fifty percent of Oracle software sold goes onto hp systems of one form or another, that would be like Larry chopping both his own legs off at the knees.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Errata

".....the initial "Merced" Itaniums from 2001 were co-developed with HP....." The Merced core was an all hp development, Intel's input at that point was about fabrication. Intel got into the core design development with McKinley, the first Itanium2 chip.

".....and HP-UX is the only operating system that is basically left on the processor...." Forgotten about OpenVMS and NonStop? How about Windows Server 2008 under Integrity Virtual Machines? Come on, TPM, are you getting the office junior to tech vet your work?

HP boffins create net-zero energy data center

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Joke

The Next Big Thing - Green & Healthy!!!

Obviously, the next step is to have the staff provide the missing power during overcast days and evenings. They will do this by riding exercise bikes turning dynamos whilst at their desks. With the move to online meetings, there is no reason for staff to leave their desks (well, nicer employers might allow them toilet breaks), guaranteeing power availability throughout the day. Vendors can then add the "feel-good" factor by claiming it's all part of a "healthy-living" scheme to reduce obesity, heart disease, etc, etc. So, green AND healthy - who could argue with that?

Of course, the Apple version will have an incompaitble powercoupling, stopping you power your non-Apple gear with your iBike.....

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Is "critical workload" for a data center ever really that flat?

".....A cynical person might take a look at that peak and think that *maybe* this is a way to sell more hardware capacity in the name of being green." Rule One - all companies need to make a profit to survive, so you need to look at every interaction with you, the customer, from the viewpoint of "they want to sell me something to make money". The whole green bandwagon is a simple example of this - companies only started pushing green gear when they thought it would increase revenue. I'm sure the hp Lab guys involved are all lovely, but if there wasn't a way to make money off the back of the work (imagine the pitch - "buy hp cloud, we're 50% cheaper than Dell's cloud because we're energy-neutral, and green!"), then their management would be having them work on other stuff.

Why don't the best techies work in the channel?

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: So what you are saying

".....I don't think it only works when applied to the super rich....." Well, a simple example is that the top 5% of earners in the States pay roughly 65% of the taxes. People argue over the exact figures for those percentages, but no-one denies that if we were all earning the minimum wage there would be a lot less tax money for the self-serving c*nts to spend.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Re: So what you are saying

"....The work can be interesting but life is short and there are far more interesting things to be doing...." Exactly! But you still need to work to live.

".....My point is the money grabbing c*nts seem to be the driving force behind the current and unsustainable greed....." The unsustainable point it political, nothing to do with greed. Politicians tinker with the financial system, like the Democrats rigging the mortgage market in the States so that more black voters - which vote predominantly Democrat - could get mortgages they couldn't afford, without those same Democrat politicians seeing the unsustainanbility of that tweak. Ironicly, Bush predicted the impact on the market and was ignored, which kinda makes those that bash Bush just look silly.

But, to look at it in another way, those "money grabbing c*nts" usually don't hoard the cash, they spend it on goods and services, which mean others in the economy get the benefits (it's called trickle-down). No-one making money at the top (which is what so many on the Left scream for) means no trickle-down, so no money for lower down the chain. So you should actually be thankful for the "money grabbing c*nts", because if they all went hippy and wanted nothing but flax shirts and flowers in their hair then there would probably be a lot more starving people in the World.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Re: So what you are saying

"....I enjoy working in tech. I'm a programmer...." Congratulations, and I really do mean it when I say I hope you stay happy, 'cos it's my experience that happy coders are simply a lot more productive for a lot longer. I really do envy the few that get genuine pleasure from their jobs on a dialy basis, especially creative jobs like coding. I do get a buzz out of delivering a working solution, it's not quite as creative a process as coding (I started in code a looooooong time ago) but you can still point as something and say "I did that". I did have one contracting gig years ago that was about ripping IT infrastructure out of bankrupt companies and that really was no fun at all.

"....As for increasing your cost to a client...." In essence, my current role is the opposite of what Dominic is talking about - I'm there to get the best solution out of the vendor/reseller as possible for the SMALLEST amount of money, and I was hired to do it because I used to be on the other side trying to deliver the least amount of resource/product for the LARGEST amount of money. We pit vendors against each other (we always have two tested solutions from different vendors for each layer of the stack, both hardware and software, so we can make them compete on cost). It's not about being nasty, it's about getting the best deal. My employer doesn't care if I do it with a smile, as long as I deliver. The size of the opportunity we represent keeps the vendors coming back, and we take advantage of that. What I meant to say in the original post was that I can actually be a lot more devious (and even less polite) as a customer than I ever was as a contractor/consultant.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

But I actually ENJOY the game!

OK, so the vendors all stretch the truth, FUD each other, and the resellers are often not complteley honest about either their skills, the product or their ability to deliver. Thing is, if they all told the gospel truth, I wouldn't have a job! I'm employed to weed out the FUD, sift through the male-bovine-manure for the real info, anticipate where the insultants will "unexpectedly" fall short, and translate the sales-speak into something my bosses can make a decision based upon. TBH, if they all actually did work on the basis of "what's best for the customer" rather than "what's best for my bottomline" I wouldn't be needed.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Re: So what you are saying

Well, let's turn that around for a sec. Did you go in to work today because you just love the people you work with, what you do and where, or because they pay you to? I even like some of the people I work with but I wouldn't be doing that commute every morning unless they were crossing my palm with silver in regular and copious quantities. I've been on both sides of the fence (contractor and customer) and it's not that different a view on either side.

All commercial organisations are in business to make money. Forget all the bullsh*t-ridden corporate messaging, all those company motos and mission statements, the reality is if a company does not take care of the primary task of making money then they will go bust. You can even extend that to charities - they don't collect enough donations then they don't get to be charitable (which explains how we ended up with chugging). Whilst a boss may make you feel better about it with those mission statements and other malarky, they would quite happilly keep you miserable if they thought you had no place to go (which explains all those pay cuts and bens reductions in times of economic crisis - they know you can't risk going jobhunting).

Since they have a fixation with making profits (it's viewed as a very simple measure of success), many companies will promote and reward those money-grabbing c*nts you mentioned, especially if they can make those profits at a lower cost. So, yes, companies will deliberately enter into what could be consdiered deceptive practices in order to wring a few points more margin out of a customer. But, if a reseller or vendor wants to retain that custoemr for the longterm, they need to at least play nice and hide the deceptive practices.

But, it also plays the other way. I love it when I get a project manager from a vendor/reseller that hasn't got the sense to peg down the goalposts, as it means I can wring all types of extras out of his company and - if he gets reticent - threaten them with the corporate lawyers (we're a global, so we can bully most companies into coughing up). The ideal for me is a vendor/reseller that stupidly agrees that he only gets paid on completion as that means I can drag out acceptance for ever to put the squeeze on them, as they are running a big, negative P&L until completion, something they will not want their senior management seeing. I have gone into projects knowing that we are going to screw the reseller, the vendor and associated contractors becasue they have not done their due dilligence on the contract, not planned realisticly, failed to set the acceptance terms in concrete, and not thought to make sure they are getting their money either up front or in stages. All is fair in love, war, and IT procurement.

Assange loses appeal against extradition to Sweden

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Why the US won't extradite A$$nut the minute he hits Swedish soil.

First off, they probably don't have enough evidence to convict him yet. If they did, it would have leaked out by now. I suspect they will want to thrash Manning in court, then - when they get to the plea-bargaining stage - hope to get the info they need out of Manning. So I suspect A$$nut and his fellow Wikileakers are safe for a while yet, the Manning case is not going to be over in a flash.

Secondly, the Obumbler is facing an election soon. He needs the kooks and nutjobs on his side, so he will not want to upset them right before an election by extraditing their "hero". It's not like the kooks and nutjobs will vote Republican to spite Obambi, but if they just don't vote that could be enough to win it for Romney in some swing States.

Thirdly, if they try and extradite A$$nut now, they would have to provide the evidence they have to the Swedes, and that would mean it would be leaked to the World five minutes after it reached Sweden. At the moment, any evidence against A$$nut being actively involved in Manning's data theft (which they need to charge A$$nut under the Espionage Act) is probably quite weak. They would much rather wait until after the Manning trial when they may have something more concrete to use against A$$nut and the herds of ACLU types that will no-doubt rush to his defence.

Fourthly, and I suspect this is the main reason, it simply suits the US to watch Manning's reputation get shafted in Sweden. After all, the prosecution are going to have a field-day with his reportedly "lamentable technique" and personal habits. What better way to diminish his appeal to the sheeple than by letting him be prosecuted for a socially-unacceptable crime. I'm sure the US would rather see A$$but standing in a Swedish dock as a rape suspect rather than an US one as a "hero".

So, can all the shrieking, tinfoil-wearing sheeple just give it a rest, please.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pint

All I want to know is...

Has A$$nut and his sheeple been stuck with the whole legal bill for all his time-wasting? I really hope so, even though I'm sure his rich and gormless chums can afford it, at least his idiocy won't have cost the British taxpayer. And, as a bonus, any money from his crowd means less money for them to plough into their moronic ventures. If he has been stuck with the full legal bill it will be an early and celebratory beer-o'clock today!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: Err...

"He offered to take the interview in the UK......"

If they had accepted the interview being done in the UK they would then be outside their juristiction and would be unable to arrest and charge him. Which is likley the reason A$$nut scarpered to the UK in the first place. Besides the simple fact that the Law gets to say where the interview should happen, not the suspect.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Occams_Cat

"The law is an ass......" But I bet you'd be singing its praises if it had let your Patron Saint Julian walk.

"....state sponsored stitch-ups in history...." Yeah, 'cos the CIA were there in the bedroom, whispering in his ear that all Swedish babes love to be woken up with some unprotected sex, right?

Dell ARMs up for hyperscale servers

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

So, how exactly is this even a threat to hp?

It seems there might be a market, seeing as Dell are now following hp into it, but surely the "threat" is to those without a product in the space, like IBM? Even funnier when you consider that IBM holds an ARM license. Oh, I see, it's a TPM article - EVERYthing is a threat to hp! The sun shines, it's a threat to hp. It rains, it's a threat to hp. Dell makes an ARM server range....

Agriboffins' site downed by DDoS after GM protest

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Stop

How to spot an Anon Op.

Lack of scientific thought - check!

Lack of imagination - check!

Lack of technical skill - check!

Bandwagon-humping - check!

Petty vandalism dressed up as "caring concern for The People" - check!

Yes, it's the Anonyputzs alright.

Iran threatens to chuck sueball at Google over missing gulf

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: @Matt Bryant -- @Booty -- "European Civil War"? - - Essentially, it was.

"....Oh, BTW, read this: http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2004/01/04.01.04.php...." I was going to, but it was a broken link, so instead I stopped at the prior level (http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2004/) to check the authors and noted that not a single one of them was a historian. This is my surprised face, honest! Frankly, if all your "vein" is going to be is academic whimsy then I suggest you leave the ivory towers and get out into the real World for a change.

"....Beats me why you're bothering to argue about something you know so very little about....." It is becoming very obvious that your "knowledge" is based not on experience or even reading of the subject matter, but on spoonfed and opinionated drivel passing itself as "education". Try again, only this time with some meat, please.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: @Matt Bryant -- @Booty -- "European Civil War"? - - Essentially, it was.

"You've obviously never stood amongst the graves of the dead at the Dardanelles, the Somme or Verdun...." I have a relative recorded at La Neuville in Corbie, France, who died in the 1916 fighting on the Somme. There's just a marker because his body was never identified. Please don't think your moral hobbyhorse somehow gives you a better view than anyone else, you'll only be shown up for the fool you are.

".....100 million dead in the 20th C. means fuck-all to you eh?...." It is more deeply worrying that all those dead fell due to the decisions of common politicians, yet there are still rabid "believers" like yourself that are determined to paint it all as some form of monarchistic game. So, was Stalin a royalist when he invaded Finland and Poland in 1939, and the Baltic States in 1940? How about Hitler, I don't seem to recall him being anything more than an illegitimate son of an Austrian civil servant, not a member of the royal House of Hohenzollern.

Just to show the silliness of your frothing, the Prime Minister that took British Empire to war in 1914 was Henry Asquith, a Liberal, the US Prez that led America into the fray in 1917 was Woodrow Wilson (a very anti-royal Democrat that planned the League of Nations as a means of destabilising the traditional European royal empires), and the French PM of the day (Gaston Doumergue) was a Radical Socialist! Not a monarch amongst those elected decision-makers.

Please do continue exposing the limitations of your knowledge and your boundless prejudices, they are both highly amusing.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: But it was Persia historically. - - Yeah but who eventually screwed up Persia?

I really hope Graham doesn't work as a history teacher as he's obviously not cut out for the role, not unless he wants to work in North Korea, Zimbabwe or some other revisionist paradise.

"....Insensitivities, cultural and otherwise were not considered when the allies carved-up the Ottoman Empire." You really need to go do some reading about the history of the Mid East and the Med area in general. In particular, you may wish to focus on how the Ottoman Empire subjugated the locals, including the Arabs that fought on the side of the Brits in WW1 (hint - go read up on Lawrence of Arabia), the Armenians (the Hamidian massacres), and relations with the Christian states in the Balkans and Southern Europe (most of the eventual ethnic problems in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to the Ottoman invasions).

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: @Booty -- "European Civil War"? - - Essentially, it was.

"....If you are not happy with the fact that royalty in most European countries were closely related to each other and that this was a large family feud (a la civil war)...." Which is completely irrellevant, given that the Great War and WW2 were both started by elected governments, not the royalty. You might have spotted that if you had been able to see round those massive chips on your shoulder.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: And next...

The really funny bit is that all the Iranian frothing is exactly what the Arabs (read Saudis) wanted to provoke, and they're probably all laughing into the hookah pipes right now.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Re: Reallly!

TeeCee, I do read Private Eye quite often, but it doesn't change the fact you still need a defamatory statement (or what you consider a false statement or lie) in broadcast or print (for libel) before you can go to a court in the UK and sue under the defamation laws.

"....English law allows actions for libel to be brought in the High Court for any published statements alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual or individuals in a manner that causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of them...." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#United_Kingdom

You cannot sue for libel for something someone did NOT publish, simple as, as there is no statement made. For example, you could suspect that I think you are a complete numpty, but unless I actually post a comment saying "TeeCee is a complete numpty", there is nothing you can do, you cannot sue for the libel of being not called a complete numpty (of course, not that I would want anyone to think you were a complete numpty). Seeing as Google have not put an alternative name on the Gulf in question, simply left it blank, it's kinda hard for the Iranians to claim the Gulf has been misnamed. I'm also not sure how the Iranians can claim the Gulf itself is upset seeing as it is just salty h2o without the ability to feel slighted....

On the practical side, we cannot stop the Arab countries changing the name of the body of water in their control, so if they want to call their half something different (such as the Arabian Gulf) then that's up to them, and the Iranians and the rest of the World can carry on referring to the half under Iranian control as the Persian Gulf, just as we have no say in the Indians saying we have to refer to Bombay as Mumbai. In fact, there is nothing to stop the individual countries all insisting we refer to parts of the old Persian Gulf as the Gulf of Iraq, the Bahraini Gulf, the Sea of Qatar, etc, etc. TBH, there are more serious issues in the World.

HP started then spiked HP-UX on x86 project

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Re: Back at you Oracle

"....thinking Sun blows does not necessarily mean that they pulled Itanium support as a result...." Ah, but you forgot that Larry has always claimed this was about helping their customers and not about shafting hp, whereas hp has always said it was exactly the latter. It looks very hard for Larry to keep on pretending this wasn't an attempt to use their database near-monopoly to try and pinch server business from hp.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: All a bit sad, innit?

"....The question is: Which ISVs will support "HP Linux"?..." Now you're just being silly. If it has the common Linux kernel then anything compiled to run on the same kernel will be supported with the "hp-Lux". It's not like hp would have to re-invent the wheel, just add a few bits of their own. Do you seriously think that Oracle have to get a completely different binary for every app for their CentOS clone? Given hp's market clout, it would be trivial to herd up some devs to support an hp version of Linux. You really are displaying exactly why it is pointless trying to talk Linux with anyone from IBM.

"....IBM has 1,000 developers actively contributing to the Linux community...." I doubt it. Please do link to the IBM page lsiting the numebr of IBM internals working on Linux projects. They may have a large number of devs feverishly writing code for Linux on mainframe, to try and keep the monopoly limping along, but I see SFA IBM effort anywhere else in Linux. Oh, did you mean on that tiny i-Series effort? What, that "1,000 developers" wrote a line of code each? LMAO.

".....HP has never done anything remotely similar...." Apart from the Tru64 Advanced File System you mean? Which is a much bigger contribution than a sad clone of a tool most Linux users would simply not require.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Re: Wow, HP realy are slinging there own mud about

"....what I was trying to say and failed was IBM don't like to be seen as a monoply...." But IBM were the first company to make an overt move in talking a merger/buyout with Sun back in 2008, long before hp and Orcale got involved publicly. And IBM were looking to take the whole carcass, it seems they just weren't interested in paying that much for it. Which would have given them control of Java (snif-sniff - monopoly!), lots more patents to bash threats to their mainframe business (ubermonopoly), and MySQL (which they probably would have raped into some low-cost, proprietary DB2 alternative, with the aim of killing Oracle's DB bizz and gaingin another monopoly).

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Re: All a bit sad, innit?

".....HP involvement on Linux on Itanium is kind of non existent today....." Unfortunately for Red Hat (and for Micro$haft), us customers had a preference for hp-ux on Integrity, especially on the enterprise servers like the Superdome. I'm told it was something like 90% of the Integrity servers went out of the factory with hp-ux rather than another OS, and that's pretty insane considering you could buy the servers OS-free and download and roll your own Linux if you wanted. From a commercial viewpoint, I think it was a case of "we're paying extra to get the best hardware, we might as well pay extra to get the best OS with the best support that goes with that hardware." I guess the same went for the developers, they just saw better dev support from hp and Intel rather than RH.

As I've posted many times before, it wasn't a case of we COULDN'T do it on RHEL, it was a case of it being EASIER to go with hp-ux seeing as we had the option of buying tested stacks (like Amdocs with Oracle and Websphere on Serviceguard on 11i), with proven 24x7 support. We COULD do the same on RHEL (we kludged it toegther and tested it), and hp were happy to support the effort (I had two guys in hp Germany and a guy in hp Labs in the States to call on to get it working, plus a number of insultants from the local hp reseller), but we just felt more comfortable with hp-ux.

As for Windows, the only area I saw that shone in on Itanium was large M$ SQL server implementations, and once hp started building large x64 servers like the DL785, RHEL and M$ saw the dominance of hp-ux in the Itanium market and decided to concentrate on the x64. For me, it was always a shame M$ never developed a fork of Exchange for Itanium, capable of really large mailbox numbers and ready to go head-to-head with Notes/Domino on p-Series, but I guess they saw that IBM were happilly trashing that threat to Exchange all by themselves.

"....But they would have to build it up from the ground...." If hp ever wanted to get antagonistic with RH, they could just do an Oracle, clone the latest CentOS release, and add a few lines of comments, and - bingo! - hp-Lux. They could go a bit further and add some code to make it work better with other hp tools like Serviceguard (used to be supported with Linux and IMO was better than the standard RHEL or SuSE clustering). Thing is, hp are already the leading Linux server vendor, their tools like SIM and IC already integrate fine with RHEL (and VMware, and Windows), so they don't NEED to do an Oracle and clone a Linux.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Back at you Oracle

So that's Keith Block, Oracle's Executive Vice President, North America Sales and Consulting, admitting that the Oracle move has no technical merit, that the intention was just to "fuck hp". Love to see how Larry spins that one!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Matt B...

Aw, one of the ickle Sunshiners has gotten over the shock of the Sunset enough to come and post! No surprise to see PeeBrain still maintaining the Sunshiner tradition of adding nothing to the conversation.

Guess I'll have to remind him of the failed Sun port to Itanium (it happened), the failed efforts of Sun to convince the market to buy Slowaris x86 instead of RHEL or SLES, and the way Sun came begging Carly to support Slowaris x86 on ProLiant (beacuse Sun's comedic efforts at making x86 servers of their own were just too funny for words!!).

Fact is, even should hp fold hp-ux or Intel can Itanium, both will still carry on as IT industry juggernauts as both (especially hp) are diversified, whereas Sun shrivelled and died because they had a stupid fixation with SPARC. ROFLMAO!

/SP&L

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re: All a bit sad, innit?

And, news just in from Wunderburo's alternate reality - he knows nothing about Linux!

"....HP can't develop their own Linux fork...." Anyone can make a fork if they want to. And hp Labs have more than enough knowledge seeing as they drove the Linux on Itanium effort.

".....HP doesn't have much of a history in the Linux community ...." So, apart from being the first vendor to offer Linux as an option to all their servers and their desktops, years before IBM, and apart from developing the version fo the kernel for Itanium, and apart from being the number one Linux on x86 b=vendor for so many years I've lost count, I suppose hp do have no presence in the Linux community. Oh, hold on a sec - that's masses more than IBM!

Wunderburp talking out of his recturm again? This is my surprised face, honest.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "Contract"

"The "contract" that HP claims to have which would entitle them to Oracle support on Itanium is the Mark Hurd press release...." And there you have it, right fromt eh mouth of a lwayer working on the hp legal team. Oh, no it's not, it's just that tired old Elmer again. In short, Wunderburp hasn't a clue as to which "contract" hp are referring to, but it's more likley to be the joint development agreement that preceded Hurd's arrival at hp.

Hackers threaten fresh wave of anti-capitalist web rioting

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Cover for something less "moralistic"?

I suspect the sheeple are being used to generate static to cover up black hat attacks. It's not a bad plan - tell the sheeple that it's all about "sticking it to the man", then let them carry the can whilst you hack for creditcard info, etc.

Massive DDoS attack blasts 123-reg offline

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: «From 11:30 to 22:50 our network

"....since China is currently everybody's favourite bête noire and China bashing everybody's favourite pastime...." Aw, henri, didn't you recently assure us that Iran was everybody's bete noire and Iran bashing was everyone's fave past-time? Or is it just that taking any stance in ooposition to the status quo is just your fave past-time?

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Re: Motive?

I heard a story, can't find it on the Net so not sure of the validity, but it was about a German company that opened an office in Shanghai a few years back and got a main telephone number with lots of sixes and threes in it. Apparently, six and three are "lucky" numbers, and about a week after they opened the office they started getting calls saying the number had been assigned to them "by accident", would they sell it? Seeing as the company had done a lot of PR, website and pamphlet work with the number already on it they said no thanks, and the next week they got DDoS'd. That continued on and off until they gave the number back to China Telecom.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Alert

Motive?

"A "massive" distributed-denial-of-service attack emanating from China has taken down 123-reg, the UK net biz that hosts 1.4 million websites...."

OK, so why on Earth would anyone want to smack 123? I'm guessing either we have the good ol' Web extortion ("Pay uz wan-meelleeon dollahs or we keerash ur zite!" << in best Russian goonish), just routed out through China. Or maybe someone had some site on 123 offering support to Chinese dissidents. Have 123 recently refused to take down such a site at the request of the Chinese gubbermint or one of their pet businesses, perchance?

Anonymous hacktivists dump 1.7GB load slurped from DoJ site

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Re: Soft target again.

".....I very much doubt they will ever hack anything of worth from government agencies that specialists in global espionage and the like." The real reason is because those type of systems will be properly hardened, and not vulnerable to the type of SQL injection scripts and other downloadables that seem to be the very hard limit of the Anonyputzs' skillz. And I find it very unlikely that a real hat with an ounce of self-preservation is going to want to be swapping secrets with a self-publicising wannabe like Kokesh. Skiddies ahoy!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Devil

Re: c-hri-s

".....Adam Kokesh...." So the Anons are a Ron Paul front? I wonder how many of the LOIC sheep were told that before they signed up!

HP pumps cash into EVA range capacity boost

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: FICON is tiny as compared to distributed, but...

Wunderburp, you're looking at the whole thing the wrong way round as usual.

".....XP can't have more than a handful of IBM mainframe shops that, for some unknown reason.... The XP shops are usually HP server users...." The reason is simple - there are a LOT more non-mainframe shops than mainframe shops, and ALL those mainframe shops also run critical apps on other servers (UNIX, x64). And seeing as the majority of those non-mainframe customers are going to be using hp servers, it means hp has a bigger chance of being in on the storage discussions. It makes sense to use a storage device that can work with both mainframe and the other servers, and XP (in my experience) simply does that better.