Posts by Barry Mahon

The suggestion that the job was an inside track and involved a tendering process is unlikely.

Much more likely, in the irish 'public service' i.e. computer stuff, is that the db is part of a routine arrangement to outsource "that sort of stuff" as the Gardai has almost no competence, no supervision, no wish to get involved and no staff capable of doing it.

The Gardai have an internal online recording thing which has had so many breaches it is like a spiders web.

At one time there was a requirement to have a Superintendant sign off on queries on drivers, etc. The way that was done was to "put a pile of stuff on the Super's desk as he was going home and he would scribbled the signature on them all"

Apparently, all has been recently 'upgraded' this story is probably a manifestation of that.

Not just Paris

Not just Paris, on a recent visit to Rome for the rugby plenty of footpath riders, plenty of drunk rugby 'supporters' and several accidents.

Dublin is gearing up, our Green minister has OK'd no insurance requirement, no helmet....

Barry

Has nobody suggested that the whole thing, including the flight, is an Amazon PR setup, or is that too obvious?

A definite up arrow for The Reg

The best part, because it doesn't contain any jokes, are the comments. To a retired tech such as meself they are mostly comprehensible.

My takeaway, this is a technically interesting development device. It does some of what it should say on the tin. However, however brave the developers are, they will never satisfy certain Reg nerds.

Message found in the capsule

"On an undecipherable date, due to an unknown calendar, this object bashed a bit of rock off Ryugu.

The fine for this is 1x10 to the power of a million, in the finder's numerical system.

Payment only accepted in Solar Pal to the following SRL sppl://ryugu.universe.1/bashedrock.dontdoitagain.?"

I hope they are not British or ever were.

The last Brit islands in that corner of the world, in the Indian Ocean, are now the largest US base outside the continental bit. Diego Garcia, 'provided' by the Brits after they had unloaded the natives to Mauritius. Even though the UN said that was, and still is, illegal, the Brits have told the UN to f off, presumably 'cos the US told them to.

Maybe after brexit they'll unload a few other places, NI, for example.

The Empire strikes back?

Never mind the details, what are the bookies saying?

Meanwhile the Irish gov has yet to spend the money on a national broadband network, after 10 years of supposed 'planning'

Maybe people in rural Ireland could ask Iceland to help?

Autonomy was a piece of software that was supposed to sort out information. Or, more precisely, analyse and organise data to become information.

It required, depending on the raw material and it's format, significant pre-work and sampling, before being "installed" i.e. run with a full or partial data set.

So, a sales invoice for the product was made of several parts. There was a down payment, not necessarily the "price" of the whole package, and a significant x time basis to do the analysis.

Afaik, the charge is that the money element of newly signed contracts was inflated to a significant extent, to take account of the potential effort required to get the product to run properly. The other aspect is that there was a significant % of future income included in the sale announcement, without a dependable basis of the calculation

Facebook now requiring EU based customers to accept new terms, aligning them, in principle, with upcoming EU data protection rules. Two things, only in principle and what is the situation with customers elsewhere?

Whilst I agree the Autonomy books were cooked, the reported shutdown of the cross examination illustrates how the US law protects it's own.

I always wonder what is the story with insurance if you and your car are an Uber "product"?

Any info??

OTOH, this decision, like so many of the ECJ's decisions, reinforces the EU'role as the arbiter of nearly everything. That might be ok, in the sense of creating a common market, but the proposals/decisions on directives are mostly created on the input of vested interests, not the man in the street.

Apropos of insurance, why is it a requirement to have, effectively, a local insurer? You cannot insure a car in Ireland with a French insurer, even if it is an international insurance company.

I tried to get him to come to Europe in the mid 80s, for a conference, but he said he could not "because I know nothing about data in Europe"

I don't know if he ever did come, or if he ever did learn anything about data here. Of course it was in the days of the monopoly, so not many people knew about data here, some still don't.

Bye, JP

Did I see a comment somewhere that the RAF base on the Falklands is on the heat maps, from runners there? Described as a "secret" base. On the Falklands? Sure every sheep there must know about it.

Gratuitous Insults not welcome

"a leaky gland seriously affected the carrier’s ability to operate"

Thanks for your insult to anyone who happens to suffer from a minor problem..... NOT just your oldies....

Yep, those were the days

Blasting in from the past all that.

Goes the way of the good things of the time, Byte and Jerry Pournelle and all that stuff.

Funny, seems I had more time to shuffle around Compuserve for hours, don't seem to have time to read all my mail now....

What is the "best" deal now? The comments on the options hurt my head. Link(s) please to intelligent comparison sites

I worked with buyers of Autonomy. There was a very significant amount of consultancy built in to the purchase, but this depended on what Autonomy assessed you needed to make the software work.

The actual amount of work was not determinable in advance but Autonomy publicised sales at revenues based on consultancy estimates, not on actual purchase price. It is this fiction that HP bought.

Hussein is accused of puffing up revenues.....

Yep, too many known unknowns, so, theories are the flavour of week. Good, we need thinkers not skeptics.

Have we been here before?

Am I missing something?

Didn't the ECJ throw out the previous e-whatever stuff, or part of it, because it contravened privacy rights? Is this any different?

Also, doesn't that nag about cookies cover some of the territory? Of course these proposals are bigger, but the principle remains.

Couple of things -

1. Don't bother quoting gross revenue of telcos, it means very little.

2. Like the airlines, telcos use a statistical algorithm to analyse quid pro quo revenues. The clearing methodology is designed to balance out ins and outs. Overall, apart from some anomalies identified from time to time, no money is exchanged between companies.

So....

It has been obvious for some time that telco revenues are tending towards a cost+ model. where the + has been reducing. The free loaders offering service based on renting space on someone elses network will be first to go. Already there is consolidation.

The important thing is that the EU or someone keeps n eye on monopoly creation. Under present arrangements Vodafone et al can create separate organisation to offer service in different countries, but there are moves to create "supra country" entities, which allows for fudged monopolies.

Fucking wonderful, W10 installs it almost without asking, cannot be avoided.

The Irish post code is another of their cockups. Not compatible with GPS.

Let's face it, the advances in technology have usurped the original concept, protection and recognition of the original author/artist/performer.

It is so easy to copy today that the idea is toast.

In order to protect and reward originators there needs to be a quick and easy way to pay, even a nominal sum, for the use. The original ITunes concept was that but was hobbled by the big music interests which led to widescale piracy, added to by torrent, etc.

The really unfortunate part of this story is that it is another example of how big business gets its way. I would have hoped that the Obama administration was above it, but obviously not