Posts by Andy Roid McUser
57 posts • joined Tuesday 16th August 2011 08:26 GMT
Thanks
Appreciated.
Tax avoidance via a technicality
The technicality allowing Google to pay little or no consequential tax in the UK is quite frankly nonsense. If HMRC want to start collecting from corporations they either have to move away from GPT, as profits are offset against expenses ( see Starbucks UK having to pay high licensing costs to Starbucks Bermuda ( or somewhere similar ) and thus operate with a loss in the UK despite £1.8 Billion in sales ) and simply change corporation tax to be based on turnover instead of profits.
It's far from that simple , I'm not a banker / Accountant but as far as I see , as long as corporation tax is based on Profit , there is nothing to stop any company having to pay 'fees' to an off-shore subsidiary and thus consistently run their UK arm at a loss despite massive sales ( Starbucks, Amazon , Google, Apple and possibly many small businesses also )
I don't know what the solution is but the politicians either need to be frank to the public that we're OK with the large employers paying no tax because they create private sector jobs, or devising a solution that if you want to operate in the UK and you're tax base is elsewhere then you face a turnover tax instead ( or something ).
Kill Switch Hack
So then along comes the Norks with a preemptive strike. Do they launch nukes, mobilize their army.. no , they hack the kill switch function of all modern phones, leaving only the folks in India with the Asha, Chinese Android clones and that dreadful Tesco mobile with big buttons my mother uses as viable communication devices.
The western world goes into temporary meltdown. Not because their phones have been 'killed' but people are no longer getting their commutes worth of liking video's of kittens playing the piano on Facebook and Stephen Fry irrelevancies on Twitter.
Much to the dismay to the Norks the positive side effect of killing mobile infrastructure is that for a couple of months, westerners start talking to each other and reading books once again - until the mad scramble for new un-kill-able smart phones is release in short order by MicroNokia and we all start sporting Windows Phone 8 devices as it'll take Apple a year to bring a new device out and Samsung don't give a crap.
Thus the moral of the story is , If they install a kill switch into our phones WinPho8 becomes market leader.
Let's fight this outrage before we all have to start reading books again and buying Finnish.
Would you want your storage array running windows ?
This is by no means a pop/cheap dig at MS. I live in a world populated by EMC, 3PAR for enterprise and the occasional QNAP device for office and home, but I'd like to ask a question of anyone actually running storage server 2012 ( or even 2008 ).
As the base operating system is Win 2012 ( or 2008 ) aren't you perpetually having to reboot nodes on Patch Tuesday and does this fill you with dread ?
I'm naturally aware that HP and EMC's offering also have patches, firmware updates etc but the frequency is far lower. Also are you deploying HIDS and other agents to these nodes ( i.e. obligatory windows security products ) and would you consider the the risk vector higher by running your storage server on windows..
I'm not trolling, just genuinely curious as I have no experience in the Windows Storage Server space at enterprise level. Does anyone ?
watson
According to my source in big blue.. This chap 'Watson' is running the show now. Keeps harping on about 'eradicating the humans' or something. Apparently he's quite the pub quiz know-it-all and was last seen tinkering with some automated flying 'kill-bots'.. Must be a call of duty fan too from what I gather.
These computer types are all rather clever.
terrible idea
Have these people not seen Predator ? Arnie is too old to save us now.
Noikandroid
Please please please Nokia , just make me a stock Android phone on your hardware.
That is all.
@ Butt Futter
Butt Futter - Are you agreeing with your own posts as AC - That's weird
Classic Coke
Time for a new SKU from Microsoft, they do love the confusing array of SKU's.
Windows 8.2 Classic Coke version , with no TIFKAM and just a start button ( and by that I mean the traditional Start Menu ).
It's what the people want. Give them the choice at boot time/ install. IT'll please desktop and enterprise users and make the critics vanish overnight.
Doesn't bother me as I've Android on my phone, OS X on my laptop and Ubuntu on the desktop , but to be quite honest I'm frustrated with the MS attitude of thinking they know better than the customer. Choice is great, mandatory enforcement and restriction just tarnishes the brand and Microsoft right now can't buy good publicity. ( Win 8, Win Pho, XBox One etc ).
Ballmer needs to start throwing more than chairs.
Re: Dom Joly - prophet.
How we laughed at Dom Joly's Trigger Happy TV, whilst he walked around shouting into a three foot Nokia. We were all blissfully mistaking a comedy show for what was in fact a peek into the future from our modern day Nostradamus.
Dom Joly is not who we think he is.....
Assange
The best way to hurt Assange is to ignore him.
Apple Invents
"the fruity giant's iOS 7 is basically a series of odds-and-ends first seen on competitors' devices - and glossed with some Cupertino sparkle to make it shine."
We all see Apple for what they are, but they do have great pixie dust. I wonder what they could do with a turd ?
Genuinely interested to see this new interface, maybe they will invent the 'Back Button' ;-)
Interesting business model
little or no bleed from ch12 and 13, they have 100% coverage of the US ( and the rest of the world for that matter ). Proposal is that the private channel 14 is used to uplink Femtocells, cellular base stations and wifi access points. It's an expensive way to deliver Internet bandwidth but could get it to almost anywhere on earth and provide solid communications backbones.
Global coverage map is something special though even if the latency will suck.
Re: It got me started
Up-vote for sheer nerd enthusiasm - something sadly lacking in today's comp-science graduates.
Hazards of scan reading.
"The architect of RSX-11M and VMS was Dave Cutler, who planned a portable, object-oriented successor, PRISM"
It's a testament to the longevity of VMS that the NSA managed to integrate PRISM into Google/Microsoft/Facebook. Why isn't Dave Cutler answering privacy questions.
whatever happens in the future
Being old enough to remember the launch of the Aquarius the adverts ran in PCW "Whatever happens in the future will fit into this slot".
it didn't.
hotel reservation
Let's hope Edward didn't book his hotel reservation online.. or by phone.. or use his credit card... without a disguise and a fake passport.
no matter how brave/foolish he was.. He'll be strung up for this no matter where he hides. The Americans take a dim view on a lot of stuff.. breaking ranks is high up on that list.
Not available in Ireland
Well , not available in Ireland on a GS4 from O2. Seems to have downloaded onto my Xoom v1 ok.
Blessed are the cheese-makers
Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products
hazards of scan reading
Quick scanning the article the words that stood out were..
100GB
Light
Amsterdam
Then mind started to wander.
Re: Conversion - Football Manager
Football manager 12 runs under Wine and PlayOnLinux , so you don't need to suffer the Windows tax to play this.
Football Manager 13 is also running on the Steam engine, which works rather nicely on Linux.
Along with the other commentators , CentOS is rock solid and probably what you're looking for.
Personally I succumbed to installing Mint 14 on my desktop for no reason whatsoever and rather like it.
Next Prime Minister
I laughed out loud when I read that line... Thanks' El Reg. You made me chuckle hard first thing on a Monday morning , something that's normally not possible until at least Thursday.
Next Prime Minister... .. You guys !!!!!
No need for the twitter feed
Today the weather in Blighty will be cold and shitty, followed by bouts of rain and economic gloom ( repeat )
Today the weather in Syria will be sunny and 20 Deg C, with bouts of bloodshed, oppression and international apathy. ( Same tomorrow )
And in Paris.... well we've all seen the video. Hot and nasty.
if high temps had no impact...
Then where are the pharoaoh's, Romans or medieval folks now then ???
This science lark is easy. Case closed and I won't be entertaining 'fact' based arguments..
charging
two questions.
1. do they also have to 'pack' a charger ?
2. assumption. no sockets in rooms. so how do they charge it once inside the prison
we were audited this year
With two months wasted going back and forth with the agency Microsoft used to perform the audit and despite my claims backed with with hard evidence that our business had shrunk since the last time ms had visited us with no change to the architecture besides retirement of some systems, they still persisted like we were criminals. Thus to eventually make them go away I simply asked what they wanted from me and I settled for fifty quid worth of terminal server licenses for a system that no longer existed. It was cheaper to settle than to continue spending time on the audit. Scumbags. Treating sys admins like this ensures that the brand Microsoft will remain forever in the uncool bracket and drive adoption of alternative suppliers. The one thing I hate in life is people wasting my time combined with extortion.
"I had the same issue with the Surface touch cover I bought for my wife and exchanged the cover for a replacement at my Microsoft store"
Microsoft have stores ?? when did this happen and where are these fantastical magical bazaars to be found..
hope it's true
Have been looking for an excuse to upgrade my still excellent GED Motorola xoom as my only complaint is that its a little heavy first generation device. Having purchased a super light nexus 7 16gb for the wife, I would jump at a nexus 10. Not quite willing to queue overnight for one like an iFan, but maybe get one the day after. I may be British but I don't stand in lines when it can be delivered to my house by a man in a van..
This may well be faked exif data but it would be logical for the chocolate factory to launch a 10" version.
No doubt, samsung will launch a 7.86" and a 9.71" version in short succession. ( joke )
when i see the word atom
Intel really need to drop the atom moniker. No matter how well the new chip performs under windows 8, as soon as I see the word atom I always think underpowered irrespective of how good it may actually be. however, I'll probably pick one of these up just to play around with and then regret not getting a second generation device..
isupply forgot one important item
How much does the magical iPixie dust cost, it's at least a couple of hundred ( insert currency here )
Re: Windows Phone? No thanks
"I refer you to the "Smoked by Windows" campaign where WP has won 98% of all the challenges against both Android and iPhone"
A marketing campaign run by Microsoft, where the results were naturally in favour of Microsoft, except where they lost and refused to acknowledge it.
I refer Jim to the article in Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/03/28/is-the-microsoft-windows-phone-challenge-a-scam/
On a separate note, I used a windows phone 7.5 for three months and quite liked it, but prefer the Android eco system, but that is just my preference. Each to their own.
Fab Less
Fab Less...Isn't that Welsh for 'Awesome'
</coat>
Nope, judgemental people like you cause social problems. On line gambling is just another part of the entertainment industry. No surprise your an AC. no balls.
Re: The odds are...
I down voted you only because I work in on-line gambling and if you discourage others from gambling, I'll have to move into the banking sector... Oh wait.
Bitar will regret getting on that plane. The Puritanical nutjobs are going to lynch him by his underpants
Re: What is Chrome for?
Android does work with a mouse. If you plug a USB host cable into an Android tablet you can connect a standard USB Keyboard and/or mouse to it. Pointer pops up and off you go.
Re: site down
Typical, now its back.
site down
Has someone been playing with that python Hulk script again ??
sd slot ?
I just want it to include an SD slot for extra storage. Forget the cloud when these are being used in our car by the kids.
Posted in Hands on with the Motorola Razr Maxx
Re: Looks cheap
I'm with you on that . Looks FUgly.
Decent spec battery though and that counts for a lot. I carry a 5000mAh battery pack around with me for my Galaxy S2 for when I'm travelling on business. Would rather not have to.
Make it pretty with a OneX Spec and the battery from this Razor and I'll be at the first in the queue as to be frank the S2 isn't all that..
Re: We knew this 40+ years ago, in grade school/scouts.
You guys describe scones as biscuits ??? That's just messed up. We left you with a perfectly good language and you just had to go tinkering.
Re: We're all doomed I tells ya
"There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. This comment tells you all you need to know about the political ideology of Environmentalism."
Nonsense, this is what's wrong with taking a fragment of a paragraph and spinning it around to bolster your own agenda.
I'm simply advocating a mild mannered / gentle execution program for those that refuse to look at both sides of the argument. Ignorant shouty loud people need to go, its got nothing to do Environmentalism. However, the environment is directly benefited by the reduced carbon footprint of the now executed shouty loud person. Win-Win.
We're all doomed I tells ya
The continuing disparage between what we expect to happen and what actually occurs only goes to explain that although we ( think that we ) understand that global warming is happening, we don't really understand what the hell is going on. Yes CO2 emissions are up and there is a direct correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature rises and yes we should reduce our impact on the world. However, time and time again we as a species fail to understand the complexities of Nature , its natural cycles and the knock on effect on one eco-system to the other.
I'm all pro reuse / recycle and for a concerted effort by all to reduce our impact on the planet for future generations, but seriously, Hippies, Scientists / Boffins , Governments and most importantly the Computer Techies of the world ( As we are naturally the most fantastic social group ) should stop debating and dedicated significant resources to understanding the problem , whilst reducing CO2 emissions ( just in case we were right in the first place ).
Climate Denialists ( Santorum etc ) should be put up against the wall and shot. Not because they are wrong, they 'could' be right but because they're f%^king stupid and you don't solve problems by wishing them away and shouting loudly.
</rant>
License Fee
<Rant>
The thing I never really understood is that private users, i.e. the great general public ( not business ) all have to buy a licence per household. They've widened the scope of what a TV is to encompass Monitors and personal computers so there's basically no way you could ever claim that you don't own a TV. Tried it as a student a few decades ago and failed.
So if this is a tax that everyone has to pay for public service broadcasting and we are in an age of austerity, surely the leanest way to collect the tax is to lump it into PAYE, so that everyone who is earning pays for the service. Kill off the individual billing systems and the countless staff required to enforce it and hey presto, cheaper to run, elderly people are automatically excluded and no one ends up in court for non payment. I'd like to know the cost to the state of prosecuting 150,000 people. PAYE may not be the most effective or popular system , but I seldom understand why a flat rate charge that everyone has to pay, must be paid separately and not deducted at source, the only people who loose are the poor and the only ones who benefit from such a system are the legal profession.
As a side note, it upsets me that a state funded broadcaster like the BBC is contributing to the decline of modern society by putting out crap like Eastenders. Populist drivel is why ITV exists, the BBC should be there to educate and inform, so Radio 4 is just about spot on.
</Rant>
Posted in So, what IS the worst film ever made?
worst movie ever made... simple
Worst movie ever --- Mission to Mars.
Nothing else needs saying.
Posted in Solar storm arrives, nobody notices
Re: We had a Cisco ACE module reboot due to a SDRAM parity error
SUN Microsystems ( remember them ) gave me the same baloney about my Enterprise 3500 cluster back in 2001/2 spontaneously rebooting due to 'Stray Neutrinos' as it couldn't possibly have been a hardware fault. I've kept that explanation in my back pocket for the last decade waiting for a suitable time to re-use it. Still waiting.
where is the money coming from ?
The US at some point is going to have to pay back all that cash it borrowed. $15 Trillion ( Nov 2011 ) and growing, Austerity may not have hit Uncle Sam yet, but it will and a NASA/US funded moon orbited station is never going to happen. Europe cannot afford it as we ( Collectively ) owe around $10 Trillion ( Feb 2012 ) and growing.. China isn't going to want to spend the cash just yet as its dependent on Europe and the US buying their stuff. But @Sureo is correct, the only country that could eventually financially consider this is China.
We should all maybe start learning Mandarin if we want to go into space.....
I love this ..."Samsung has simultaneously embarked on an advertising campaign designed to tarnish Apple and mock its consumers for considering Apple's products distinctive and, for that reason, valuable," the fruity firm said"
Errmmm, Apple appear to have forgotten the "I'm a PC" ads, where they ridiculed Windows users as being fat, bloated , slow, uncool and stupid. Samsung are just employing the same tactic.
At a time when Apple are making incalculably large amounts of profit its a little rich that they attempt to crush any opposition. How un-cool can you get.
love my xoom
Didn't mind paying the full price to get my grubby hands on one at the time. But at £225 this is insane money for dual core 10.1" tegra 2 hardware with an SD slot, HDMI out and dual band abgn wifi. Not as slim, by any means as the samsung 10.1, but it bothers me not. Use mine all day every day and has fully replaced my laptop which is now gathering dust. It's also very easy to remove the euro firmware and put on the US google experience device firmware... meaning I'm now rocking android 4.0.3 and fully up to date. Only gripe is the proprietary 12v power connector and no USB charging.. but with the battery life being so good its not really an issue. If you can find one get it, with SD card expansion you're looking at 64gb.. stock android tablet. Good value.
geo-politics aside
No matter how it was done... its still a pretty cool hack. Dude has some serious bragging rights... well that is until he his killed in an unfortunate Iranian equivalent of McDonald's accident.
Posted in Brits turned off by Smart TVs
question they should have asked
Is how many smart tv users use the features regularly. I would estimate a very small%. Just bought a new Samsung super thin tv, tried the smart tv bit once and never used it again. Now that's not to say the companies shouldn't keep on trying to better integrate the web with tv. Whilst it remains a dedicated section on the remote and not overlaid on the image you just forget you bought the smart bit.
