Posts by Matt Bryant 9690 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007
".....the forthcoming Intel chips will require an entire rebuild of their blades too....." Well, duh! If he's referring to "Purley"-based servers, they will need a new chipset, so everyones' blades will have to change. I suggest you ask for less FUD, more facts with your next sales briefing.
"I use it every day....I don't doubt that the config tools have said "not possible" on occasion..... if you sit down and work all this stuff out by hand you can do it." If you use the HP configuration tool to build orders "every day" then you'd also know the fun of trying to get a factory over-ride on a rejected build. Sure, it may not be a problem with the newer racks, but it definitely was with the older models.
Synergy sounds like HP are pushing their blades development in the right direction, and I'll be interested to see how it manages with other vendors' switches and storage. I might even try four chassis in the newer racks.
"The 42U 10K series racks (introduced before BladeSystem) and all the newer descendants have always been able to take up to 2000lbs of load....." You can go argue the toss with HP's own configurator tool. I think you're forgetting that four fully-configured C7000s means you have twenty-four C20 power sockets to feed, which means lots of hefty 32A PDUs to stick in your 10642 rack. Things got worse if you needed intelligent PDUs (which most companies I worked with did), which were even heavier again. HP's own configurator tool used to baulk at the idea. The first time I saw it do so was the first time an HP presales came out to sell us on C7000s and he tried putting together some four-chassis rack builds - it all went fine until we cloned in the fourth full chassis and the configurator said it was exceeding the rack limits, which was a surprise to the HP presales. The only time I ever used four fully-stocked C7000s in a rack was when we were using non-HP racks.
So, effectively just a polish of the blades concept with some clever software? I suppose it counts as "differentiation" and is where HP has won with blades before.
"....Synergy frames can scale out, with four per rack, if your floors can stand the weight...." One of the laughs we had when HP launched the original C-class (and for a long while after) was the brochure insistence that it was a super-dense solution because you could squeeze four chassis into one 42U rack. The problem with that was that if you fully-populated all four chassis you would exceed the weight limit for HP's standard 42U racks even if your floor could take it! Another laugh was most datacenter's simply didn't have enough power to each rack to run four C-class chassis, so we usually ended up running two per rack anyway.
"No, the customer is the one with the hole in his chest, the end user is the one who served him with it." The customer is the people who paid for the round, in this case HMG's MoD, and the end user is the soldier shooting the round. The fun bit is when the customer's idea of what to buy does not correspond with the soldiers' views on what kit they should be getting.
"....Nor in a Christian country...." Standard whataboutism boilerplate, trying to equate Christianity with Islam. You may want to check on "little Britain", it's not been majority Christian for years now.
"....religion is IMPOSED on you ..." Yes, and when you get an education you can then choose to reject that religion. In Christianity that's really not an issue, but with Islam it usually leads to death threats, both in majority and non-majority Islamic countries.
".....we've been 1984 for a while now." Yes, about 32 years ago, to be precise. Oh, you were trying to imply we are somehow in exactly the levels of monitoring and political control as depicted in 1984? It seems to me the posters making such hysterical and melodramatic claims never read the book.
"maybe this crack-shot marksman would have been better kneecapping this terrorist instead of killing him.... no, he's American, kill first, ask questions later.". Another know-nothing hater. If you had bothered to research the event before accepting a spoonfed opinion, Falconer fired each shot with a pause to allow Dahir to give up, and each time Dahir continued his attempt to attack Falconer, leading to the third and fatal shot. Falconer would have been legally justified in emptying a full clip into Dahir and killing him outright, but he tried to give Dahir the option of surrendering. However, I doubt those facts will enable you to overcome your prejudice.
"....before he was shot dead by an off-duty police officer....." No. Jason Falconer is a part-time cop, but a full-time gun-range owner and NRA-certified firearms instructor, and was (luckily) present as a private citizen who happened to being carrying his licensed firearm. You know, one of those armed citizens the Obambi administration and Shrillary keep insisting we don't want nor need. Strangely, the mainstream media aren't being very quick to point out that bit (/sarc off).
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-minneapolis-officer-falconer-20160919-snap-story.html
"....there's already been one would-be assassin...." Hardly. If you're referring to Michael Sandford, one under-achiever with issues who turned up without even bringing his own gun does not make an "assassin".
"....- who had flown over from Europe to do so....." Sandford had been slacking his way round the US for over a year before he tried his inept attempt at shooting Trump in Vegas.
".....Level 3 Communications¿ call center phone number, 1-877-4LEVEL3, was also impacted during this timeframe....." Many years ago, I knew the managers for the NOC at an UK telecom, and they admitted to me that they had half their on-call phones on a competitor's network just in case theirs went down, and their competitor vice versa. I assume no-one at Level3 thought about that option.
"Someone please tell me that this dummy, Jabba the Pott, is not handing out startup advice....." Whilst Potty does have his faults (especially his rabid anti-Yankisms), it would seem stupid to ignore his experience and viewpoint, especially as your "critique" of his piece reads like that of a spotty teen from Reddit. Please elaborate on why you consider Potty's piece incorrect and you might be taken a bit more seriously.
".....Is it me or is El Reg crazy 'bout it?....." Storage is still a central problem for IT and is one of the few areas where growth is not just consistent but actually increases with each advance in IT. It's also a market were you can enter as a startup or small company with a new idea and be very disruptive. Therefore the focus on storage and startups is not just logical it is also of interest to many ITers.
".....it turned out OK for Gates and Ellison....." Those are the two examples that do spring to mind, but then they were opening new fields rather than entering and competing with established competitors. From my own experience, the startups that I have seen actually get out of startup mode and make some money all made one key decision - they put one actual businessperson in charge. Far too many startups, and small companies, especially those created by groups of friends, fail to install a single person with overall authority. And whilst they may all start out agreeing, it seems common for partners to start diverging in both expectations and actions, and then it dissolves into acrimony, finger-pointing and disaster. And the simple truth is, IMHO, hard-core devs make poor businesspeople.
Another key point I'd suggest is make sure the startup you join is going to be a business, not a hobby. I have seen startups where the staff think they are signed on for the next Microsoft, only to find out the CEO is simply looking for something to fill his days until his pension matures. I had a friend who realized this after he had poured three years of his life into a startup and nearly stuffed his marriage, only for the CEO/owner to then refuse to go the next logical step and seek capital investment because the CEO/owner was worried about "losing control and direction of his baby".
"......Surely you will have wanted to recall another action......" The German ships in that action did have gunnery radar. The sinking of Glorious was part of the Norweigean Campaign, where - again, just as before and after Jutland - the Royal Navy controlled the North Sea and reduced the German Kriegsmarine to hit-and-run actions. Whilst the loss of Glorious was unfortunate, the RN could lose her and many more and still prevent the Germans from controlling the North Sea. Indeed, the Norweigean Campaign was so costly to the Kriegsmarine that it meant the British could safely send naval units to reinforce the Med (including Warspite) and commit more forces to the Battle of the Atlantic. The Kriegsmarine's losses in the Norweigean Campaign meant Hitler did not have a fleet of warships to control the English Channel in 1940, which meant he had to relie on the Luftwaffe to win the Battle of Britain in order to invade Britain. In case you forgot, the Germans lost the Battle of Britain. Both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau spent the majority of the War hiding from the RN, the former being caught and sunk and the latter being stripped of her guns and eventually used as a blockship.
".....(1) it was a stark pricing of life.....' No, it wasn't. The original Ford paper was nothing to do with "corporate culture" or "greed", it was simply a cost-benefit paper produced by Ford in 1973 for the NHTSA when the NHTSA was suggesting new rear-crash testing regulations. The original paper was a comparison of the costs to Ford of changing the Pinto fuel system and the cost to society of crash injuries and victims relating to burns from the existing design, not the cost of Ford being sued. This was subsequently taken waaaaaaaaaaay out of context by "progressive" Mother Jones journo Mark Dowie in a 1977 article, in which he even lied about the figures (he changed the analysis from 180 deaths to 500-900) to suit his Big Bad American Corporation theme. Ford was completely in line with the 1967 regulations when it originally designed the Pinto and the Pinto was later shown to be no more at risk from rear collisions than any of its competitors.
I await an EU announcement on the forming of a new EU bureaucracy with a sole mission of informing the EU member states what country names they are allowed to use. All decisions by the new EU Working-party on Appellations for National Conformity will be final (my money's on Bohemorasileszchia).
So another piece of Junker male bovine manure gets exposed and - as usual - no-one in the European press seems keen to ask why Junker keeps making these stupid, populist statements whenever he needs to divert press attention from another EU fiasco. At least Cameron fell on his sword, it seems Junker, the politician actually most to blame for Brexit, simply doesn't have the morals to do the same.
"....The cloud companies, don't need the bells and whistles of a DL-380...." Good thing that HPE also make cookie tray servers, then! HPE will make a cookie tray to the customer's spec, in volume, and with the quality and management software that the white box churners can't.
"....Additionally, every single communication has two ends, and thus they snoopped (sic) on both ends - 8.6%.....' Gosh, you must be a great hairdresser with that amazing ability to split hairs!
".....That's 1 in 12 households...." No, that's the very unlikely and worst-possible-case scenario of one communication from one member of one-in-twelve households. Your hyperventilating is just proving my point about gullible readers being suckered by the misleading headline because they want to baaaaaaahlieve.
".....an IP address." OK, so let's crunch some numbers. I'll try and keep the numbers as simple as possible so the majority of unblinkered readers (and Alexander J Martin) can follow:
UK population = @55m (nice round number, actually just over 56m).
Let's take an average household as 2.5 people (actually about 2.1 in the UK), therefore 55m = 22m households.
Assuming (generously, and ignoring floating IPs from mobile devices not on home WiFi) 80% have some form of Internet and an IP address assigned by an ISP, therefore worst case scope
= 80% x 22m
= 17.6m IP addresses. Make it 17.5m for an easier number.
So, making another generous assumption of all those being one single communication from each individual IP address (very unlikely), the actual worst case scale of "privacy intrusion"
= 750000 x 100 / 17.5m
= @4.3% of possible UK Internet users.
So, debunking the hysterical headline "Brit spooks and chums slurped 750k+ bits of info on you last year", there was actually very, very little chance any reader of El Reg had their communications "slurped". Maybe El Reg should assign a little maths homework to their more hyperbolic headline writers?
".....Why has Africa been bouncing from disaster to disaster for most of the last 60 years - oh yeah, that's right, western (mainly British) government policy....." Really? Are all the countries in Africa still under Colonial rule? It seems many of them have been independent and run by locals for many decades, but you seem very keen to absolve people like Idi Amin, Charles Taylor or Robert Mugabe of any responsibility. I am assuming that is because you are (a) ill-educated and need to do more history reading, and (b) have the typical liberal/Leftie arrogance of assuming all "people of colour" are actually too stupid to manage their own countries, and what they really need to do is just do what you and your liberal/Leftie chums tell them, because - of course - only you and your chums can actually protect them from The Evil Bankers/Capitalists/Globalists/Jews/<Leftie-bogeymen-du-jour>, right?
"....Rwanda massacres - British colonial rule....." Yeah, you're just heaping on evidence for the ill-educated case I made above. Rwanda was never part of the British Empire, it was part of the German's and then Belgian's, but it became independent in 1962. The Belgians gave copious warnings of the 1994 massacre based on the many similar massacres since Rwandan independence, all planned and actioned by local Hutus and Tutsis. To fill in some of the holes, you could start by reading up on Hassan Ngeze's part in the build-up to the 1994 massacres (and, no, he wasn't British).
"You don't seem to make the difference between Special Forces and conventional forces unless Special Forces routinely use tanks so your spiel about armoured forces in the Gulf War is totally IRRELEVANT...." Which is why I pointed out the complete failure of the French "special forces" during their colonial wars and compared them to the successes of the British special forces. Please try reading the whole post before tryping (sic) a frothing response.
".....Fighting the OAS was the job of the police and security forces (who subcontracted the dirty work to underworld elements). So another irrelevant remark from you......' Really? Or does it just point out both the incompetence of the French commanders and politicians, and the unpreparedness of the French "special forces"? When the British and Northern Irish police and regular armed forces needed the SAS in Northern Ireland, the SAS was ready, willing and able, because the SAS was a smarter led, better trained and more prepared force.
".....On a side note I knew a French guy who did his National Service in Algeria serving in Military Intelligence ..... He told me MI owned the Algerians through a XX (Double Cross) type operation similar to what the British did during WW2....." So, they copied what the Brits had already done, but still lost? Not a very convincing argument for even parity!
"......If French SpecOps are so bad why did Saudi Arabia specifically ask for French, not American or British mind you, operators to handle a hostage situation in Mecca in 1979?...." Are you referring to the completely farcical French attempts to retake the Grand Mosque? Even the French GIGN tried to downplay their part in the drawn out and costly endeavor, insisting it was the Pakistanis commandos that actually screwed up! Of course, the reason the Saudis didn't ask the British for help might be because the SAS had spent many years defeating Saudi-backed rebels in Oman.
".....most powerful military in the history of the planet has managed to crush a handful of third world uprisings....." Please take a break from the Yank-hating and go read some history. For example, the Korean War was an UN action where the US was the largest contributor, and the opposition included the Chinese, the most populous country on the planet, with some of the most advanced weaponry (some, such as the MiG-15, actually being more advanced than the equivalent US weaponry) the Soviets could give them.
".....When N Korea decides it has had enough and retaliates by launching a bomb to destroy every satellite in space...." LOL, you really need to watch some actual factual programming and less Sci-Fi! Firstly, even pretending a Nork nuke-tipped missile could make it into space above the US without being shot down (the US is already installing anti-ballistic-missile batteries in South Korea and has ships in the pacific with the ability to intercept ICBMs), a high-atmospheric or orbital blast from a Nork nuke would not take out even a third of the current satellites in geo-stationary orbit over the US, but would bring a very severe response. The idea that the US is not prepared for a retaliatory strike of every nuke silo, bunker, and command site in North Korea is amusingly naïve. Secondly, you'll have to wait to see if the Norks can even make a nuke small enough to fit on one of their missiles, which currently seems beyond them. Thirdly, the most likely scenario IMHO is that, should Baby Kim get too uppity, the Chinese will mount a coup using their own people in North Korea, or simply invade and install a new puppet regime. Baby Kim is only of value to the Chinese as long as he keeps an expensive chunk of US forces tied down in South Korea and provides a buffer to China itself. The two last things China wants is a war on their doorstep (the disruption to regional trade and traffic would mean the Chinese economy would implode), or the South and the US invading and installing a regime that might be less willing to toe China's line.
"....all the American military victories since WW2..." At least the Yanks have some, unlike the French! Two Gulf Wars and the invasion of Afghanistan, both military victories even if the politicians screwed it up afterwards (and that means Obama's administration, not Bush's). Korea - US-led military victory in driving back the joint Chinese and Nork invasion. Add Panama and Grenada to the list. Even in Viet Nam (caused by the failed French colonial action) the US military won the battles, it was the US politicians that turned military victory into political defeat. Oh, and I see you put in "since WW2" so you didn't have to face the embarrassing admission that Nazi-occupied France itself was liberated by the Yanks and Brits. In fact, outside of US-led UN operations like the Gulf War, the French haven't had any military victories since the Great War (when the Yanks and Brits also saved their bacon).
".....it appears that many Britons would like nothing more than to see Europe fail.....' It is already failing! Every time the French and Italians are allowed to flout the same financial rules used to punish countries like Greece it is another nail in the EU's coffin. That is why the lEUsers are so upset about Brexit as it is making it harder for them to paper over the cracks. As to the British wanting "Europe" (the EU is not Europe, it is a subset of Europe, thanks) to fail, so do the majority of Greeks, plus large numbers of Germans, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese, etc., etc. Nationalist parties all over the EU are winning more voters because so many EUers think the EU is already failing.
"....I'd love to see you deliver your little rant to the French SpecOps operators on the ground in Mali, Libya, Iraq...." Mali? Yeah, you remember that Blackadder Goes Forth episode where they're talking about the "great colonial campaigns" fighting pygmies with sharpened fruit? France's special forces have a copious record of failure in their post-War II colonial adventures, losing not only abroad in places like Algiers and Viet Nam, but also in France itself in fighting the OAS. Meanwhile the British SAS was building up a reputation as a tier 1 special forces unit in successful counter-insurgency operations in places like Oman, Malaya, Indonesia and closer to home in Northern Ireland. Thanks, but there is nothing the French can teach the British about special forces.
"....Libya....." After the RN and RAF cleared out the core of the Libyan forces and the SAS did the tough work you mean?
"....Iraq...." The Gulf War is actually a perfect example of the lack of value put on the French forces. When planning the great armoured sweep into Kuwait, the French armoured forces were placed far out on the flank in empty desert as the Yanks were seriously worried the AMX-30s wouldn't be able to cope with Iraqi T-72s (which the British Challenger and American Abrams tanks had no problems dealing with). Indeed, the ten tanks claimed by the French were actually all hit first by A-10s sent to help the French out! Post-war the French couldn't get home fast enough, and the Yanks requested special forces help from the British SAS and SBS, not the French.
"......For an insight to right-pondian views....." No, that would be an insight into the "thoughts" of a small subset of right-pondians, thanks. The Independent in no way represents the views of the whole population. Indeed, going by their subscription figures, they could only represent a tiny minority.
"....how's that refugee situation working out...." Refugee "situation"? Officially nothing to see, just hugs and kisses all round, no attempts of lawfare entrapments, and definitely no discord between members of The Great Love-In known as the EU. Move along now, move along!
"......If Hillary wins, you'll never get those "refugees" out of your country. At least if we get Trump in office you guys can tell your leaders "hey, America's not doing this, why the hell are we?"" Waaaaaaay ahead of you, chap. Haven't you heard, we're already building our own wall, though it is not yooooooge nor likely to be very beautiful.
"".....with far less evidence of wrongdoing."...." Puh-leeeease! That (IMHO) waste of oxygen Lauri Love has so much evidence against him he wasn't even bothering to try denying what he did, he was just trying to get his trial and inevitable conviction in the UK because he thought the UK courts will go much, much easier on him. As it stands, he can still appeal the case he just lost, plus appeal to the Home Office, and then appeal to the courts in Europe. Lauri Love isn't going anywhere for a while yet, but it is looking more and more likely he is just delaying his trip to the States.
"UK armed forces are just an extension of the US Armies....." Not so. Indeed, they are structured very differently, though they have learned to operate well on joint operations by recognising each others' strengths.
"......from military intelligence......" <Sigh> No, completely different structure and operation. Try again!
".....to nuclear missiles sold and controlled by the US....." WTF? Please go read up on Trident - the UK missiles have UK-built warheads and are completely under the UK's control.
"I still don't get why we didn't build nuke powered air craft carriers?...." There is one good reason and the rest are political. The political ones start with the carrier's being ordered under Labour, who are awash with old CND members. Then there is cost - it is cheaper to have conventional engines, both to build and service. And there is the political goodwill Labour got from other countries that have illogical desires to halt all nuke vessels. Of course there is also the one good reason, the benefit to taxpayers in that the UK has a history of selling on carriers to nations like India and Argentina, or the much cheaper cost of scrapping conventional ships if we don't sell them on. It would be verging on impossible to sell on a nuke carrier, and very expensive to scrap them. Note, none of those benefits actually have any military value.
"......Given the complexity of the F35, the availability of the aircraft itself is going to be even poorer than anything preceding it....." That presumes that serviceability rates won't improve with experience. The F-4 Phantom II was much more complex than the preceding generation of USN jets, yet was recording better serviceability rates than the jets it replaced within five years of starting operations.
".....And, as the crash record of the Harrier showed, S/VTOL aircraft tend to have dreadful accident rates....." That is simply untrue. RN Sea Harriers had a much lower carrier accident rate than all prior RN jets (and for the USN jets too, the F/A-18 having a much higher accident rate) as it was simply easier to stop and then land rather than land and then stop. It seems that hardly a week goes by without an F/A-18 crashing!
".....whether through pilot error..... or other hazards like FOD and bird strikes that seem to be more significant for S/VTOL types." Again, simply not true. Any aircraft flying at low level is at risk of bird strikes, and they have downed a lot more conventional jets than S/VTOL types. Pilot error is no more likely in any type of aircraft, it is dependent on the pilots (duh! - it's why it's called a pilot error).
The original FUD about Harriers crashing was started by US manufacturers pissed at the USMC for ordering Harriers. It didn't help that the USMC started by putting helicopter - not fast jet - pilots into Harriers on the basis that helicopter pilots had more experience of vertical landings! But even then the USMC's Harrier accident rate was lower than that of many USAF jets such as the F-16.
".....Switzerland probably has more fixed wing aircraft than we do." Seriously, why do you post such moronic statements when a minute spent perusing Wikipedia would save you looking so uninformed? The Swiss Air Force has a front-line force of 31 F/A-18 Hornets and 53 F-5 Tiger II interceptors, whilst the RAF has 137 Typhoons alone, to which will be added the 158 F-35Bs on order.
"....given that countries like Argentina and Iraq successfully used near supersonic sea skimming technology against British and American ships three decades ago....." And exactly how many carriers from either the USN or RN did the Argies or Iraqis manage to sink? Oh, a big fat zero. The Argentines' few successes during the Falklands Wars were against the radar picketships acting as a defensive screen to the rest of the fleet, and did not stop the RN carriers. And the Iraqis didn't manage to sink any Allied ships during the Gulf Wars.
"....a missile that homes in on fake tan...." I hear the USAF was working on a countermeasures pod that spewed out photos of Christina Aguilera, only the Marines kept stealing the photos out of the pods.
"....In reality, if the UK/USA went to war....." That event is so unlikely it would have to be preceded by a long period of continually deteriorating relations, more than long enough for personnel from each side to be withdrawn before hostilities began. In the case of the Falklands War, following an established NATO protocol, US personnel on Royal Navy ships were asked to "excuse themselves from duty" and sent ashore before the ships left for the South Atlantic - Argentina was an US ally at the time.
In the event of a future and similar British conflict it would be proper for the US forces on the ships to again be put ashore, though the US government might make an agreement to "lend" the UK their F-35Bs for the duration and have them flown and serviced by UK personnel. Remember, during the Falklands War, then Prez Reagen sent the UK the latest Sidewinder missiles from USAF stocks, making our Sea Harriers much more effective in shooting down the Argentines. Reagan was a big fan of Prime Minster Thatcher, but it is highly unlikely his predecessor, Prez Carter, would have been as generous, and very unlikely Obambi would be (thankfully he'll be gone soon). So a lot depends on the resident POTUS at the time.
/Yeeaaarrgghhh, of course.
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