* Posts by JeffinLondon

60 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jan 2012

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Google Chrome deletes Backspace

JeffinLondon
FAIL

Grrrrrrrrrr

Annoyed. I used the backspace key all the time. Soooo convenient.

Alt - Left Arrow? Hardly a like for like replacement.

Watch as SpaceX's latest Falcon rocket burns then crashes

JeffinLondon
Mushroom

Root cause

Lads

Insider info is suggesting the landing laser altimeter is at fault - and some are saying the device was either blinded by landing smoke or was heat damaged during the three engine suicide landing burn.

Musk will likely tweet when ready to go public - all are saying the fix will not be difficult.

Done making the big stuff better? The path to Apple's mid-life crisis

JeffinLondon

Crisis, wot crisis?

Of course they are in mid-life. And the market's P/E valuation of 11.6 says all you need to know. The 'insiders' know there are no more iPhones in them - so they plod along polishing their best hits and collecting bags of cash for doing so.

That's not so bad actually - but this collection of 50+ year old white guys are done - put a fork in them they are well and truly done. (Apple Watch was a flop btw)

Why SpaceX will sort out Sunday's snafu faster than NASA ever could

JeffinLondon

Ian Thompson

Well written piece Ian. Mose SpX articles these days are just gooey over this unexpected failure - just pouncing on Musk and his team. This was well researched and balanced. Thank you.

Co-op Bank's creaky IT should be flogged off, growls UK.gov

JeffinLondon
FAIL

F'd up

I interviewed there about 18 months ago for the CIO job - they were far more concerned that I would support their philosophy and ethos than I would get the job done - it was laughable. And sad.

Stephen Fry rewrites computer history again: This time it's serious

JeffinLondon
Unhappy

The cab driver speaks

Egads, when will this glorified cab driver exit the scene?

I wretch every time I hear that voice pontificating about things he know SFA about!!

ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Connecting Gmail to Google+ is SENSELESS, says Digg founder

JeffinLondon
WTF?

The GOOG

Me thinks folks protest-eth too much.

Any sort of a professional has their email account 'out there' already, is on many lists, etc.

So what if someone emails me from G+?? I don't have to respond.

I just don't get the problem with this.

Space Station bags extra 10yrs of life as SOLAR STORM scrubs resupply

JeffinLondon

ISS rocks!

So here we re, 15 years into a likely 30 year program. We've designed, built, lifted, assembled and operated the most complex machine ever built and we've done it on an international basis.

So sure, I would be awesome if we had manned crews on multiple planets, zooming in and out of Earth orbit on their way to Federation meetings and all. But the reality is there ain't the money, technology or will to do that, so we do what we can do which is the ISS.

Quick carping. The ISS is a beautiful machine.

SpaceX beats off Bezos' rocket for rights to historic NASA launch pad

JeffinLondon

VAB?

Does this mean they get to use the VAB an crawler / transporter as well?

Anyone know?

Android mobes outsell iPhones, but Apple gets MORE PROFIT THAN ALL

JeffinLondon

Re: Ahh...

Agreed. I'm still on a SG2 and can't bring myself to replace what is still a perfectly capable device.

JeffinLondon

Only a matter of time

It's only a matter of time before AAPL's share is around it's natural 5% level.... and then forced to bring down prices to even hang in there at 5%.

Some people are willing to pay a premium, but few like to feel they are being ripped off.

AAPL's days as mobile supremos are clearly numbered.

Two years after Steve Jobs' death, how's that new CEO working out?

JeffinLondon

Apple

Clearly with 150b in the bank and 9 million phones sold on opening weekend Cook's team is doing very well indeed. We all should be doing so poorly.

iOS isn't my cup of tea and the iPhone's screen size isn't either so I shall not be adding to Tim's pile of cash anytime soon, but you have to admire a company executing so, so well and building products that so many appear to deeply desire.

Windows 8.1: Microsoft's reluctant upgrade has a split-screen personality

JeffinLondon

Still a multi-headed hydra so no thanks.

Why not a Mobile, touch OS and a heads down desktop OS a la Apple is beyond me.

Two swings and two misses, Microsoft. You're down in the count and have only one swing left.

Microsoft's Nokia plan: WHACK APPLE AND GOOGLE

JeffinLondon

Re: No Android Lumia 1030 then..?

Correct.

MS bought about 50% of Nokia.

JeffinLondon

MS / Nokia

ahhh... the sweet sound of two garbage trucks colliding!

Guess this means we can hold one funeral rather than two.

Are driverless cars the death knell of the motor biz?

JeffinLondon
Thumb Up

Taxi

Tis simple really. Driverless cars morph into driverless taxis and one pays by the trip.

Should be far more flexible and cheaper than owning one's own car.

A short, sharp tool kit to get you to the top in financial IT

JeffinLondon

Re: Never let a BA near a computer system

You let a BA have access to a test system??

JeffinLondon
Thumb Up

Excellent

As one who's was chucked out on his ear for violating at least one of these rules, I just wish I'd had this piece in my hot little hands a decade ago!!

Seriously good piece..

Microsoft's Windows 8.1 secrets REVEALED ... sort of

JeffinLondon
FAIL

FrankenSystem

W8.1 will make the monster a little less scary... but it's still a monster.

Ballmer and Gates should be shot for creating this mess of a two headed OS.

Mobile tech destroys the case for the HS2 £multi-beellion train set

JeffinLondon

Combination of Crossrail (East West) and Thameslink (North South) is designed to do what you suggest.

JeffinLondon
Go

Capacity

I agree the times savings are trivial, and as you say we all work on the train regardless how long is the journey.

So the only case for HS2 that makes sense is increasing capacity along the west coast line route. Most trains I'm on are packed to the gills with folks so it sure seems like the route is saturated. I know senior engineers who manager the WCML upgrade and they say the Victorian route is maxed out and, "there isn't much more we can do."

So it's about adding capacity and nothing else really.

Coke? Windows 8 is Microsoft's 'Vista moment'. Again

JeffinLondon
Mushroom

Well now they've made a right mess of their flagship product. Nice job lads!

The solution is simple. Fork the product. Make a Win 7+ for traditional markets and a separate Win Metro for the world of touch. Let each evolve separately as Apple has done with iOS and OS X.

The current Frankensystem is and epic fail.

Mosaic turns 20: Let's fire up the old girl, show her the web today

JeffinLondon
Happy

I remember my first browser as the IBM WebExplorer running on OS/2 3 Warp (1994?) and connecting to the net via the IBM Network.

Lord it was an awful experience, but the package came with (I kid you not) a huge, paper map of the globe annotated with web sites around the world. An early sight was an english language newspaper hosted in Moscow. I was awed that sitting in a house in upstate New York I could access a server in Russia with a few taps on my keyboard.

Crude, but I was hooked.

More and more likely that double CO2 means <2°C: New study

JeffinLondon
Thumb Down

So this doubling will conclude about the year 2100, the next doubling will take 200+ years.

Human population growth is already slowing, will peak in 30-40 years, and will begin a long, slow decline. By the year 2200 there could as few as one billion humans meaning of course few cars, power plants and all the rest.

AGW is a non problem. So relax already.

JeffinLondon
FAIL

Doomsters can go home now

The planet is now well instrumented and so the theories can finally be tested with actual observations. What a concept! Hansen and his acolytes have had a free run since the late-1980s. Not any more they don't!

So we can all relax and get back to normal life, shut down the global warming religion and focus on humanity's real issues. e.g., disease, water, wars, jobs

Antares aborted after launchpad mishap

JeffinLondon

NK-33

The NK-33 has a fascinating history. Built for the unsuccessful Soviet N-1 moon rocket (0-4 test launches) in '67(?) they sat rotting in a warehouse for decades before being rediscovered.

I say good luck to Orbital. A little competition for SpaceX has to be a good thing.

Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was hotter than now, without CO2

JeffinLondon

Now all you warmists clam down just a bit. No one is saying the climate hasn't changed. Of course it has. The questions are of course what are the causes (natural v man made) and where does it go from here (i.e., are the feedbacks positive or negative or what?)?

While you all fulminate, this is a fascinating take from a completely different angle:

http://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI

Safety authorities to hold hearings into Boeing 787's battery woes

JeffinLondon

Re: Don't cry for Boeing.

Hey there.... perhaps anger management classes, or maybe just a liedown.

SpaceX Dragon eventually snared by ISS

JeffinLondon

Re: 3 hours docking

Tell em to recall the resupply ship crash aboard the Russian station a decade or so ago.

Best to take one's time and get it right.

JeffinLondon

SpaceX

It's not where you start but where you finish.

The SpaceX lads are proving to have a solid design and ability to react to small glitches. Far from man rated yet, so do need to tidy up these small issues. One step at a time guys, and please do learn from the experience.

Rocket 'Grasshopper' leaps higher than tall building in single bound

JeffinLondon

Re: I must admit

There were huge parachutes involved.

JeffinLondon

Fuel

Where o'where will they put the huge amount of fuel required to land used boosters in this fashion and by carrying all that extra fuel that will significantly degrade the performance of the system.

Tis a cool trick, 'tho!

IBM insider: How I caught my wife while bug-hunting on OS/2

JeffinLondon

Another OS/2 luvver!

I loved me some OS/2. While MS was faffing about with Win/DOS in the 2x / 3x days, I was rolling out tens of thousands of OS/2 workstations and servers across a global network running a home grown app written in C on top of some slick portable libraries we stole from Dr Dobbs. It was bullet proof let me tell you.

Ran OS/2 at home as well, the WPS was brilliant and anyone reading this that was there at the time knows of which I speak.

But then came Win 95, and MS finally built a half way decent OS, and the blue suits at IBM decided then and there they couldn't compete with the Rolling Stones so the writing was on the wall, and death slowly arrived to my beloved OS/2.

JeffinLondon

Re: Really?

Heck, my Win laptop just up and dies, reboots all on it's own. Am sure it's some driver / HW issue, but perhaps Windows could tell me in english what the problem was before it barfs!

How spreadsheets (nearly) conquered and killed the financial industry

JeffinLondon

Change control

Change control can be effective and speedy iff it uses a risk based model. Low risk changes should whiz through, while high risk ones need to go through change control in the usual torturous manner. Every minor tweak to a stand alone system need not go through the torture chamber of central IT.

Aside from that, spreadsheets and other desktop tools are what I call 'end user computing'. The local manager and her boss sign off on the risks and, hey, more power to them if they want to take down the company running a 100million deal through untested code.

My approach was every two years do an audit of the active end user tools, sit down with the management, and decide which ones were stable enough to 'productionize' using a more traditional spec, code, test cycle. It was like mowing the grass. let it grow, then once in a while knock it back. The quants, etc actually like this, because they ended up with less to support.

Taking a holistic view to the problem generally yields good results.

Google rolls out new, cheaper Chromebooks 'for everyone'

JeffinLondon

Funny, byt I almost never run ápps'on my Windows laptop anymore.

Everything I need and use is in the cloud... I need a new machine at hime.

Maybe, just maybe I'll pick one of these up!

SpaceX confirms Falcon rocket suffered engine flame-out

JeffinLondon

Brilliant design allowed the vehicle to get to orbit.

But engines are not supposed to blow up! Time to roll up the sleeves boys... you've got some work to do.

Arctic ice shrinks to ‘smallest in satellite era’ - NASA

JeffinLondon

Re: It is all irrelevant.

Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14.

Alarmists say this equates to a 30% increase in acidity.

Normal people say this is a tiny change, and obviously, the ocean is not becoming 'carbonic acid'!

JeffinLondon

Antarctic is the opposite

And yes while sea ice has melted this summer at the top of the planet, the bottom of the planet is experiencing ice pack growth.

Let's keep things in perspective, shall we?

CO2 warms Earth FASTER than previously thought

JeffinLondon

Re: What the paper in question really says...

Great summary Mondo. Of course this means that CO2 increases AFTER the planet begins a warming cycle. That doth not play well with the CAGW camp, now does it?

New lightest-ever material: Ideal power for electric car

JeffinLondon

Re: Maybe...but...

One data point. The new Ford Focus EV (price $30,000, range 76 miles) sports a 650lb / 200kilo battery pack.

One would need a fancy piece of industrial kit to extract such a thing and replace it with another. Not to mention that the design of every EV would need to be near identical to each other for this scheme to work.

Very impractical.

JeffinLondon

Re: Maybe...but...

I agree electric cars do not have to match petrol cars in range, but over time they do have to match them in cost / TCO to become mass market products.

At the moment the EV cars on the market are way too short of range and too long on cost to be useful to anyone but those well off enough to drive around in a fashion statement.

Global warming: It's GOOD for the environment

JeffinLondon

Plants like CO2? Really?

What a revelation! Plants thrive when they have more food! Wow, really?

What's next, than animals do better with Oxygen than not.

Wow.... what will climatologists think of next?

Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

JeffinLondon

HSBC UK has modern core systems. Totally rewritten about 10 years ago by a very solid UK / US design team they really did a very good job. (first hand knowledge)

JeffinLondon

Short sighted management

The facts are RBS's computer systems are ancient in computing terms. Many dating back to the 1960's and using obsolete technologies.

RBS has also been directed to cut costs sharply, and in banking that means staff cuts and particularly expensive, older IT staff. So many / most of RBS's experienced staff have left recently leaving inexperienced on-shore youngsters and off-shore outsourcing companies to fill the breach.

So combining the two causes, ancient software and very few experienced staff left to look after it was a ticking time bomb that finally went off this past week.

A pity so many customers were impacted by the result of decades of poor management by the RBS Group.

IBM bans Dropbox, Siri and rival cloud tech at work

JeffinLondon

Exactly correct. Everyone 'wants BYOD' until there's a breech or a cost issue.

Management is generally weak and just gives in to the noise.

Can Windows 8 bag Microsoft 20 more years at the top?

JeffinLondon

Aye matie.... me thinks 1982 MS DOS V1.0 shipping on the IBM PC was a pretty bloody important step. It as the IBM platform was 'open' spec, it was quickly cloned and MS's clever marketing / arm twisting ensured all the clones shipped with DOS. DOS was the clear standard until Win 3 showed up in 1990.

Me thinks they should rename Win 8 to Metro V1.0, then rev it annually until Metro V3 is shipped no one will touch it with a barge pole.

If MS waits three years to ship Win 9 / Metro V2, MS will be toast. The tablet / mobile market is leading the way now (just look at Apple's earnings!) and annual cycles are de rigeuer. so the Steve's had best pick up their pace.

Microsoft to bake Windows 8 in three flavours

JeffinLondon

Ah... that would be via the MS App Store.

JeffinLondon

Re: About Time

“plus features for IT organization that enable PC management and deployment, advanced security, virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more.” This version will be provided only to those corporate customers with Software Assurance agreements.

From Paul T.

JeffinLondon

'er 4 versions really

Paul T says there's a fourth, Enterprise version as well.

http://bit.ly/HDb7EE

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