* Posts by Mike Shepherd

643 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Aug 2008

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Can DevOps be applied to the whole company?

Mike Shepherd
Unhappy

Uh-oh

"...real world practitioners...like...UK’s own Government Digital Service"

Hey British coders: DevOps – you're doing it wrong

Mike Shepherd
Meh

"The usual indicators of what marks success are outdated"

When [insert shiny new technology] doesn't come up with the goods, claim that they're measuring it all wrong.

Customers buying the stuff would be a fair test. The point was made some time ago (Matthew 7:16).

Two storage startups walk into a bar. One gulps investor funds, one sips gently

Mike Shepherd
Meh

"...in a few years from now"

I think I've heard those words before (and often repeated). In the 1970s, we were invited to believe that disc storage would soon be replaced by semiconductor magnetic devices ("bubble memory"). As ever, the existing technologies saw that further investment was now worthwhile, pressed gently on the throttle and zoomed off into the distance. Only now (40 years on) does it seem likely that "flash" memory will match the prediction.

Router configurations suck (power out of mobile devices, that is)

Mike Shepherd

They knew

They knew what they were getting into when they bought their IPv6 tickets. I say "Let 'em crash!"

This Android Trojan steals banking creds and wipes your phone

Mike Shepherd
Joke

"...cannot be installed on...smartphones running Android with the Russian language option"

I have the Russian keyboard installed, so am I protected? Or is there something else I should add?

Ofcom must tackle 'monopolistic' provider BT, says shadow digital minister Chi Onwurah

Mike Shepherd
Meh

Re: All hail!

Ah yes, the good old days! I still have the ripcord for starting the engine on my GPO fax machine.

Mike Shepherd
Meh

"We need to get Buzby out of retirement"

Now, where did I put my shotgun...

Privacy advocates left out of NHS care.data 'oversight' board

Mike Shepherd

Re: A note on "anonymous" data

Since you spell "licence to practise" as " license to practice", I think you're talking from a foreign country, where the NHS does not operate.

Mike Shepherd

Re: A note on "anonymous" data

"Patients4Data has a strong academic representation - people in this sector are careful, since their professional certification is at risk if they mess up".

To what "professional certification" do you refer? If you mean "reputation", it seems not to be enhanced by joining an organisation whose name appears intended to mislead.

Reminder: iPhones commit suicide if you repair them on the cheap

Mike Shepherd
Meh

Car analogy

Unfortunately, the computer industry is about 50 years behind the automobile industry, in legislation and in quality.

Mall owner lays blame at Apple's door for dragging down sales

Mike Shepherd

It's a pity, really...

...that Sandeep Mathrani appears unable to communicate exactly what he's trying to say.

UK concerned over EU law plans on trade of data for digital content

Mike Shepherd
Unhappy

Call me Dave

Just an extension of Thatcher's "If you want to vote, we can sell your data" (knocked down in 2001 in the Robertson case as contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights) and replaced by the present confusing choice of appearing on the "edited register", thereby encouraging all but the most careful readers to make the choice they don't want to make.

Home Office lost its workers' completed security vetting forms

Mike Shepherd

a member of staff "mis-keyed one digit in a fax number"

Yes, in 2014, we still had (and have) no check digit in a telephone number.

"the documents were returned by the private business"

This mitigation is too comical to ridicule.

Baikonur hosts satellite laser comms node launch

Mike Shepherd

"the most sophisticated < xxx> ever designed"

Cue sound "There May be Trouble Ahead...".

BT dismisses MPs' calls to snap off Openreach as 'wrong-headed'

Mike Shepherd

Re: Investment.....

@Matron What concerns the people you call "idiots" is that BT as at present can inflate OpenReach prices, thereby raising costs for ISPs, while extra cost to its own ISPs (BT Openworld etc.) is offset (and more) by the extra profits at OpenReach, with no effective competition to that division of BT, because they were handed both the trunk and local services at privatisation.

Mike Shepherd

"Wrong-headed"

Probably an unwise choice of words when dealing with the people who make laws.

Apple CEO visits EU regulator to discuss tax bill

Mike Shepherd

Re: Apple products support more than 1.4 million jobs across Europe

Even if you can bulk it to 100,000 or 500,000 jobs, how does it justify not paying tax?

Mike Shepherd

Re: Apple products support more than 1.4 million jobs across Europe

Perhaps Cook is a graduate of the Camila Batmanghelidjh school of statistics.

West Virginia mulls mother of all muni networks – effectively a state-wide, state-run ISP

Mike Shepherd

Mah gaaad

This is Kammunism!

Twitter boss ‘personally’ grateful as five Twitter execs walk

Mike Shepherd

"...another memo worthy of Oscar Wilde"

I've never seen a tweet. It's clear that our social spheres have been very different.

Friends Reunited to shut down. What do you mean, 'is it still going?'

Mike Shepherd

Pankhurst and his wife Julie made an estimated £30m from the original sale of the biz

Have they considered adoption? I'm not actually an orphan, but I'm sure that detail can be rectified.

GCHQ summer schools to pay teenage hackers £250 a week

Mike Shepherd

Oh joy

Learn how to be a civil servant *and* get paid for it.

Happy 30th birthday, IETF: The engineers who made the 'net happen

Mike Shepherd

Re: RFCS and a politics

The words "take a couple of aspirins and lie down a while" come to mind.

Hey Cortana, how about you hide my app from the user?

Mike Shepherd

The less time the user spends...

"The less time the user spends in the app, the more productive they're going to be."

He should be careful what he wishes for. The user might say the same of Windows.

Skype now translates in real-time into seven languages

Mike Shepherd
Meh

That's the lease of your probe wanes. Miss herd statements mean machine transition the generates soon into the in reprehensible.

Boffins baffled by record-smashing supernova that shouldn't exist

Mike Shepherd

"a superluminous supernovae" (sic)

I mourn the passing of the classical education.

Engineer's bosses gave him printout of his Yahoo IMs. Euro court says it's OK

Mike Shepherd
Meh

Does it matter?

With an enormous and widening gap between supply and demand of engineers, when even big companies must use anyone who can hack a couple of lines of code, he can just move to another job with a less restrictive employer.

Turkish carder scores record 332-year jail term

Mike Shepherd

Re: Why is it only very primitive countries

Yes, but the United States....oh...maybe you're right.

Mike Shepherd

Nice theory

Nice theory, contradicted by thousands of years of reality.

Microsoft working hard to unify its code base, all the way down to the IoT

Mike Shepherd
Meh

Re: Bluetooth Support

Those of us who have to make Bluetooth run under Linux would not recognise your picture.

http://blog.projectnibble.org/2010/08/08/how-ubuntus-broken-bluetooth-support-came-to-be/

Mike Shepherd
Meh

"Let's take a butcher shop with half-a-dozen...compressors..."

The trouble is the gap between these imaginary problems and reality. Devices often don't fail gradually in some mensurable way that suits the IoT sales scenario. Even if the compressor flashes a red light (which doesn't need IoT) to warn of a forthcoming failure, the butcher will do what we all do: he'll wait, hoping it will work until he has time to fix it, a time which will likely never come. It won't be fixed until it breaks altogether, whether that's this Christmas or next.

Beware the terrorist drones! For they are coming! Pass new laws!

Mike Shepherd
Meh

Re: When it comes to drones...

Nor attribute calls for research funds to real need when they can be adequately explained by a yearning for the next grant to pay the mortgage.

Lumosity forks out $2m after claiming its 'brain training' games worked

Mike Shepherd

Re: Game world, real world

No, it's an indication that claims must be justified. Criticism of the defendant's failure to justify its claims does not imply that the reverse is true (or false).

Chat messages in Skype for Windows are bang out of order – so here's how to 'fix' it for now

Mike Shepherd
Meh

This update is currently undergoing verification and quality tests...

...when we figure out what those things are.

Windows 10: What's coming in 2016?

Mike Shepherd

Re: One or two suggestions

I have only an SSD (no spinning drive) and normal reboot time is excellent. We're talking about the compulsory updates and the time/work to restore normal operation after one.

Mike Shepherd
Meh

One or two suggestions

Perhaps, in the next update, "Windows needs to restart" could be accompanied by a warning "and won't be usable for the following 20 minutes".

Perhaps the next update, having destroyed numerous shortcut keys, could restore them, so that I don't have to do so again.

Perhaps, instead of re-assigning various file extensions to Microsoft's favourite programs, the next update could leave them as I've set them.

Perhaps the next update could refrain from deleting a program simply on the basis of a claim that it is not compatible with the new OS

MPs question value of canning Raytheon from e-borders

Mike Shepherd

Don't worry, Mr Lamb...

..it's only public money!

Electrician cuts wrong wire and downs 25,000 square foot data centre

Mike Shepherd

I wonder if...

I wonder if "bean counter" publications have similar one-sided stories about their heroes, glorifying their man while deriding others in the organisation as incompetent.

This is how you count all the trees on Earth

Mike Shepherd

Seven???

"The Earth has three trillion trees...seven times more than was thought, until very recently...".

With this enormous error factor, can climate prediction ever be more than extrapolating graphs?

Microsoft leaks Xboxlive SSL server cert

Mike Shepherd

I do miss...

I do miss those tea adverts which featured a chimp's party, where one guest would decant cold tea, from a pot, over the head of another. But now all we need is a recording of Microsoft's security division as they manage the storage and distribution of certificates.

Battery-free IoT sensor feeds off radio waves

Mike Shepherd

Just. Use. Wires.

Or a battery. A remote thermometer I threw together runs for over three years on two AAA cells. I'm sure that, with more serious effort, the same or better should be possible from a CR2032, with far more than 5m range.

EC fires antitrust charges at Qualcomm over its pricing tactics

Mike Shepherd

Re: Krait was OK be it overhyped

What?

Open source Gov.UK is 'example of UK soft power'

Mike Shepherd

"I’m sure we all struggle"

As taxpayers wipe away a tear of sympathy, they might suggest that struggling in a private business is one thing, but wasting thousands of millions of their money should perhaps be discouraged by a few public beatings.

Ofcom spins out Wi-Fi checker app just in time for Christmas

Mike Shepherd

Ofcom said its Wi-Fi checker app – developed by SamKnows...

It seems strange that a public body should promote a specific product (free or not). I wonder if they do that for everyone (and where they publish the criteria for approval).

Amazon's new drones powered by Jeremy Clarkson's sarcasm

Mike Shepherd

Education opportunity missed

Wouldn't it be easier/cheaper/better to tell the brat that life isn't perfect?

Microsoft whips out PowerApps – now your Pointy Haired Boss can write software, too!

Mike Shepherd

COBOL 2015

Been here.

Wikipedia's on drugs again, complains Russia

Mike Shepherd

Re: How do you say "The irony is killing me" in Russian?

I think it sounds better in English. О великий, могучий, правдивый и свободный английсский язык!

Yahoo! spills! user! account! beans! in! 60%! of! gov! data! requests!

Mike Shepherd

Joke

The exclamation marks joke was funny for about 1.8s the first time. Several years on, it suggests someone you'd avoid at parties.

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