* Posts by Frenchie Lad

154 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Feb 2014

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Building your own PC for AI is 10x cheaper than renting out GPUs on cloud, apparently

Frenchie Lad

No Brainer

This is a no brainer - I wonder why you even bothered to write this in a rag for professionals. More appropriate for the back pages of the Beano.

iFixit engineers have an L of a time pulling apart Apple's iPhone XS

Frenchie Lad

Re: Actually getting slightly worse, they used to be 7/10

So much for my intended Samsung purchase, I've cancelled my order as now I'll be able to drop a Xs with the knowledge that it will be cheaper to fix when I inevitably drop it or should I wait for the ZS?

Trump shouldn't criticise the news media, says Amazon's Jeff Bezos

Frenchie Lad

Something New?

Why do we have rants published & not some really useful information about the new range of Amazon Echos which were announced a couple of days ago. Could it be that ElReg is as poular with Amazon as it's with Apple? After all both companies names start with an A.

Euro bureaucrats tie up .eu in red tape to stop Brexit Brits snatching back their web domains

Frenchie Lad

Re: Why do I get a sinking feeling

Looking for European Wars?

Balkans not so long ago, Moldova with its breakaway territory, likewise Ukraine [officially Europe streches to the Urals]. simmering Catalonia, Corsica. All of which have Russian encouragement or active participation.

Peace is a fragile thing and not necessarily to the advantage of the the great & powerful.

Frenchie Lad

Re: The real lessons of Brexit

You are quite correct.

In a geopolitical context, the USA sees this split and is alarmed at this flexing of German strength especially with Germany making friendly overtures towards Russia (Ukraine & Nord Stream II as a couple of examples).

Conspiracy theorists would contend that Dieselgate, Hungsry's & Poland's ideological traumas with the EU, and Brexit are all part of an attempt to prevent the resurgence of Germany which has always considered Middel Europe as its fief (colony). Now it's German hegemony of Western Europe that needs to be completed: luckily for Merkel, Macron's doing it nicely. It makes you wonder whether some elections are "aided & abetted" to ensure an appropriate result.

One thing is clear, the .eu domain is a precurseur to far greater fireworks in the near future.

UK.gov finally adds Galileo and Copernicus to the Brexit divorce bill

Frenchie Lad

Re: The KISS

"the current deal we have with the EU is the best anyone has,"

I don't believe that is correct, the best deal is with Deutchland, they pay but they effectively run the show. It's cheaper than using military might whch they've already tried unsuccessfully. This is why the Yanks are against Merkel especially as she's cuddling up to Putin.

Frenchie Lad

Re: TL;DR

Spoken like a true Marxist: democracy is fine if the results are in line with my thoughts othwwise I need to fo force matters as the great unwashed masses can't be trusted.

Frenchie Lad

Re: TL;DR

Pointing out the obvious flaws in referendums & democracy doesn't justify a second referendum, it merely compounds the weaknesses of such an approach.

IMHO JFDI

Frenchie Lad

Re: TL;DR

The UK should be voting afresh until the UK attains the "right" result that would be the preferred EU choice, The EU has already used this approach with Eire when it was told to jump a second time but somehow the UK doesn't want to jump in the right direction and all the EU treaties barely paid lip service to the unthinkable idea that anyone would leave.

Currently it looks as if Brexit is the first of several exits (Hungary?) to avoid a Geman controlled super-state. Mercifully the Germans don't have a viable army at the moment so the Sudentland is safe for the moment. The EU are however making progress having found a modern Chamberlain aka Macron. He clearly understands German needs less so France's.

Frenchie Lad

Re: TL;DR

That's exactly what will happen in the case of Northern Ireland. The UK will tell the EU that UK integrity is a higher good than an EU regulation and if the EU wants a border then it should make Eire a "special" case just as the EU wants Northern Ireland to be a special case.

That such a solution will leave a big hole in the EU's walls is not a UK issue and there are plenty of holes already in the EUs barriers already including the VAT carousels.

Tesla's chief accounting officer drives off after just a month on the job

Frenchie Lad

Re: Musk the weed smoker

You should read a bit of Corbyn to understand the jazz part however Jeremy was speaking in the context of anti-semitisms when he used a phrase similar to "English irony".

Samsung's sleek 'n' sporty X5 SSD pledges blazing transfer speeds

Frenchie Lad

Realistic Expectations

Do they sell these specialised items by the dozen, the hundreds, the thousands or by the millions? This is pure marketing bragging of the type mine's bigger than yours.

Cryptojacking isn't a path to riches - payout is a lousy $5.80 a day

Frenchie Lad

Dammed by Association

Nothing like unbiased journalism! An example of a site that has had crypto mining is shown complete with picture. The site is Polifact. Guess who's in the picture? One DT & missus. No doubt pure coincidence of course. Anyone would think he's made billions this way.

UK getting ready to go it alone on Galileo

Frenchie Lad

Re: @ Chinashaw

The Irish Border is an EU issue not a UK one. The UK will just continue with no border and let the EU work out how to handle the issue without upsetting the Irish by imposing customs between Eire and the rest of the EU. Should be entertaining to watch.

Frenchie Lad

"Do you think there might possibly be a good reason for Germany having a shit army for all those years? And where's the threat supposed to come from since the Soviet army bankupted the USSR?"

The reason for US army bases in Germany is to remind the Boch of its place militarily however that shouldn't stop Germany from have a working army & airforce. Other countries have similar readiness issues.

You forget Russia's recent actions all around its territory including annexation of Crimea and earlier parts of Georgia and even Moldavia. In other countries including many European ones it's purpose is one of generating chaos; think of the Balkans. Putin's using the old tactic of foreign agression abroad to bolster his position @ home. A clear readiness to respond to any aggression is paramount for one's safety and having decent armed forces is one of them.

Frenchie Lad

Re: UK has the resources

Showing your age there with NDB! I made lots of journeys flying via NDB signals; quite fun too even though the routes tended to be somewhat circular and that's before you took the wind into account. Still long for those days of intrepid journeys when you really had to be a real pro to successfully navigate through the clouds.

All the fun has gone out of navigating with GPS whichever format you use. Personally I'm for dead-reckoning:)

Frenchie Lad

Re: UK has the resources

The cause was too much socialism which brought the UK to its knees and the EU is going the same way so it's best to leave them to sink on their own. Of course we could throw them a liferaft later on.

Frenchie Lad

Re: UK has the resourcesy

Give me SECAM anytime.

Frenchie Lad

Re: UK has the resources

Wot about foreign conflicts?

Frenchie Lad

Re: All a bit unnecessary?

Goodnes Gracious, I think you meant Bangalore!

Southport: Come for a round of golf, stay for the flesh-eating STIs

Frenchie Lad

Chicago

You are really hard-up to find materal on the Donavan to be fishing around for titbits from Chicago. In sum lousy journalism which is really breathtaking considering the journalistic potential of STI.

On the latest GCE or is GSCE results scoring system a 1 and that's being generous.

From toothbrushes to coffee makers to computers: Europe fines Asus, Pioneer, Philips for rigging prices of kit

Frenchie Lad

They're still at it!

In France Phillips & Co (and they all do it), have the simple solution to give the same model a slightly different model number to every different distributor and which of course by coincidence have the same price. You look up say a LG washing machine on the manufacturer's web page then you find that stores like Darty, aka Currys etc, do not have the exact model number but at that price there happens to be a similar model from the same manufacturer.

Wonder if the EU will ever decide to investigate such practices?

Cybercrooks slurp nearly $1m from Russian bank after pwning router at regional branch

Frenchie Lad

ATM's

Can anyone explain how its possible to take a $1 million (or equivalent in Roubles for that matter) out of a ATM in a day? Surely this would require many a barren of mules and manyt ATMs.

This could only have occurred abroad as luckily we have NatWest in the UK - the ATMs would just stop working or should I say TSB?

British Airways' latest Total Inability To Support Upwardness of Planes* caused by Amadeus system outage

Frenchie Lad

Since when have you been weighed on check-in? Worst case scenario they flog you a second ticket which sorts out the load balancing issue.

Frenchie Lad

Re: weight calculation

Pilots can switch fuel tanks to even things up.

Frenchie Lad

Good idea, there are sensors available that can measure the weight of lorries as they are moving (sensors in the macadam). We use them to catch overweight lorries. Shouldn't be too challenging to do someting simaltar for a plane (ie measure the load on each of the undercarriage legs) and that can give a fairly good CoG. Only issue will be the stiffiness of avaition authorities.

Frenchie Lad

No it just sags and you either get pulled up or a tyre bursts. Much simpler than any arithmetic!

Frenchie Lad

There nothing in these calculations that a straightforward IOS app (Android if you prefer) can't handle. Jiust make sure you have the passenger numbers to start with. Its known as plan b.

Frenchie Lad

Re: Why???

You must be joking! We only have a DR plan and I'm sure we have two complete days to recover. Customers , yeah we're B2B so we do not have to listen these wimps unable to storm the bar and drown their misssed meetings / shortened holidays. They should take their punishment like a man, We're sure they deserve to suffer for something they did.

Oh, by the way we're still within our SLA's, BA wanted a low price and that equals a feeble SLA.

Bottom line is you get what you pays for BA!

Trump wants to work with Russia on infosec. Security experts: lol no

Frenchie Lad

Re: Well, with all of NATO being either personal foes or parts of the "greatest Foe"

Wrong, He simply doesn't like being taken for a ride with 270% import duties on US milk to Canada inter alia.

Personally I'm not surpriesed that the payer is finally calling the tune.

Frenchie Lad

Re: Tee hee. Trump is to Putin as --

Putin has a big problem, namely that of a declining population. He has a a master plan to reverse this trend. One of the ways round it is via acquisitions such as Crimea. This population issue is much grater than that of the West. Merkel tried to solve her manpower issue with open borders, Putin prefers having larger borders. If in doubt look around the borders of Russia with the exception of perhaps China, there's meddling going on.

I suspect Trump's meeting had on the one hand North Korea in mind as the principal prize or on the other perhaps it was an attempt to thwart a new Ribentrof/Molotov agreement, this time an economic one. Heaven knows what was promised in return; a new Yalta.

Frenchie Lad

They already do that!

Nissan 'fesses up to fudging emissions data

Frenchie Lad

Re: Will they be Fined?

Perhaps I should have said Total Cost OF SCREW-UP. Quite a big dent in the US far less so in Europe.

Frenchie Lad

Will they be Fined?

Only the Yanks will fine a car manufacturer. The other countries are quite happy with a telling off. Look at how impotenet are the French and most certainly not to a company with French links. The German fines of VAG were symbolic in comparison to the US approach.

Unfortunately its a case of too big to fail as regards the car inducstry.

IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'

Frenchie Lad

Putin's Diktat Word fo Word

Putin issued the same sort encouragement to his citizens for the World Cup. Luckily for IBMers the penalties for not adhering to this advice is merely the sack back in he Motherland its a labour camp.

Mind you, as a male, I wouldn't mind running the risk of sacking with a selfie with Ginni in the ladies "powder" room. I'm sure I'd be able to sue for a monstrous amount for unfair dismissal.

Not OK Google: Massive outage turns smart home kit utterly dumb

Frenchie Lad

Re: Fundamentally Flawed Architecture

Currently claims that I'm snoring but who knows.

Frenchie Lad

Fundamentally Flawed Architecture

They're all at it, humble IoT devices need the internet to function! This is only done to gleen even more marketing data for flogging you more stuff. Just waiting for the day my local chemist will contact me because my sleep monitor tells him (for a price of course) that my sleep pattern indicates I need something more effective than a cup of Ovaltine.

Of course with such a huge single point of failure the rewards for a bit of holding to ransom a few million punters is really tempting. Anyone know how to open a bitcoin account?

The strife of Brian: Why doomed Intel boss's ex86 may not be the real reason for his hasty exit

Frenchie Lad

Re: Bring in someone more Linux friendly?

I've been hearing that this year will be the year of Linux et al every year since the 1990s and it still ain't happening. Can't believe that you can really put the blame on Wintel though - maybe the real reason is that the Linux platforms (and there are a lot of them) are really niche products.

As the article points out Chipzilla has issues and they're not going to be resolved by going BSD,

Great news, cask beer fans: UK shortage of CO2 menaces fizzy crap taking up tap space

Frenchie Lad

Is this Correct?

"plants often plan their maintenance shutdowns over the late spring and early summer months when fertilizer demand is lowest."

All the plants that I've ever handled plan their maximum usage of fertilizer during spring and summer so surely this is incorrect or have I misunderstood?

Dixons Carphone profits drop 24% amid hack 'n' high street struggles

Frenchie Lad

Re: RE: tax dodgers Amazon

You're forgetting Amazon's army of drones that will be dropping by soon.

Frenchie Lad

Shoes & Handbags

There's always porn to get you ready for the after shopping experience and the High Street can't offer that.

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

Frenchie Lad

Re: Yeah - but if I am a "common criminal" I'll definitely find another non-indiegogo to pawn

I'll settle for a Karelian Bear Dog. They also make good pets.

No fandango for you: EU boots UK off Galileo satellite project

Frenchie Lad

Re: Amazing

The EU is not at all coherent- examples abound probably the worst is that over immigration: Germany invites and southern Europe assumes (wanted to use another word but we need to be PC).

The Germans lost the war and are now winning economically - the UK is well to avoid the coming fate of France and Greece has already been taken over and on the cheap! The rest will will follow. The new members in the Balkans are just cannon fodder for Angela.

Frenchie Lad

Re: Well

Not at all. This is the great misconception in Blighty,; It's the EU that needs a deal.

I personally would stare the EU out on Brexit. To take a simple example, France can't afford to take back its citizens as they already have a dire unemployment situation particularly with the millennials. Would you believe that at he "pole emploi" (French of where you sign up for the dole) actively encourages the unemployed to go to the UK.

As for NI, I'm totally in favour of no border and telling the EU to propose a solution. Instead these UK negotiators are doing the job of solving EU issues. For the UK a no-border is obligatory for all the good reasons, if the EU doesn't like it then they should dream up some sort of solution.

The EU specialises in dreaming up solutions. Did you know that according to the EU (suggested by the French, could it have been anybody else) snails are classed as fish! Hows that for thinking out of the box!

Chinese tech giant ZTE is back in business – plus or minus $1.4bn and its entire board

Frenchie Lad

Re: Don't forget

Unconventional he might be, certainly unpredictable but it seems that the Donald method has better results than his predecessors' and even the famously negative press coverage that he gets can't escape the fact that he's getting more results than those dither's Obama & Clinton. At the moment he seems even capable of ignoring his own backers which the Bushes failed to do.

British egg producers saddened by Google salad emoji update

Frenchie Lad

Towards Fully Inclusive

There should more salad emojis, I want my egg back & as compensation a Cesar Salad emoji as well.

Oddly enough, when a Tesla accelerates at a barrier, someone dies: Autopilot report lands

Frenchie Lad

Unfunnily Enough

Cheap jokes when someone is killed are really inappropriate even when dishing out merited criticisms of Tesla's "trial & error in a live context" approach to progress.

Cheap-ish. Not Intel. Nice graphics. Pick, er, 3: AMD touts Ryzen Pro processors for business

Frenchie Lad

BenchMarks

For a laptop roll out I organised a beauty contest between HP/Dell/Lenovo. Most of the laptops did not impress on the company's main badly written application used as the main benchmark. The reason all these nice shiny laptops under-performed was that this application (from a blue chip auditor) did more writes than reads and the suppliers had used SSDs optimised for reads which in normal circumstances would have been fine. Would you believe that the suppliers replaced the SSDs to handle the situation. In view of the few thousand laptops potentially to be ordered they had no other choice.

Size does count.

UK's first transatlantic F-35 delivery flight delayed by weather

Frenchie Lad

A Picasso is Better Value

Small planes are ferried, that is flown across the Atlantic on a regular basis. There are two fundamental routes allowing these small planes to handle this type of challenge: via Greenland (Great Circle route) or via the Azores. You don't even have/need inflight refuelling as the average small plane doesn't have access to flying tankers. In case you ask these small planes are often, mostly singles even the small twins aren't ETOP.

Clearly we're buying museum pieces but at these prices I'd prefer a Picasso; its more likely to go up in value and I don't need an Erdogan for maintenance.

Russia to Apple: Kill Telegram crypto-chat – or the App Store gets it

Frenchie Lad

Re: I do not imagine Apple will take long.

Big?

Geographical size is irrelevant. Most important is the number of potential fanbois. Taking the fact the population of Russia is in decline (alcohol?) and the limited number of oligarchs (by definition limited) and above all a lack of a middle class with a sufficient disposable income, the loss of a "huge" Russian market will not dent Apple's turnover or profit: a mere blip on the horizon.

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