Posts by Moosh 230 publicly visible posts • joined 2 May 2013
I did an online shopping order the other day to "stock up", so to speak. Nothing major, just so we can actually have some sort of food if me and the fiancee need to self isolate. Also running out of toilet paper sucks and people seem to have gone crazy buying it.
"Among the tactics Autonomy is alleged to have used were funnelling cash around its favoured resellers to bulk out reported revenues; and inventing reciprocal deals so Autonomy paid for goods and services only to have that money paid straight back in a kind of cash merry-go-round."
Was this ever actually backed up by HPE? I can't recall reading anything specifically about this part. The crux appears to have been the software and hardware being lumped together.
That's the crux of a lot of failed scams; over confidence and increasing scope. They trick themselves into thinking that because its been going smoothly, they can continue the scheme for grander scope; "wow, I've made a million already and people are none the wiser; I could easily keep this going for more money."
Knowing when to stop is a valuable skill in pretty much every part of life. He'd also probably adjusted his life according to his new income and was unwilling - or perhaps at that point genuinely unable - to stop the scheme.
I'm reminded of the guy who committed suicide by throwing himself off his penthouse balcony because he'd lost a billion of his company's money trading out of office hours and privately. He'd managed to make a few million at first, for a few weeks/months, but when he finally lost money he just desperately tried to recoup it because otherwise he'd have to face the consequences of his actions. He stayed up all night desperately trying to gain things back but just sunk himself deeper and deeper into the hole. Faced with the prospect of severe legal action and never being able to work again, he ended his life.
Do you think it wouldn't have been as suspicious if he'd bothered to slap some other names on there and used an alternate/person to transfer funds to? Or does that just complicate the fraud and introduce "unnecessary" risk?
These two recent incidents seem to have had the blokes being the sole employees of their fake companies and also them directly transferring funds to themselves.
Aren't there places you could funnel the money through? Offshore accounts, etc.? I know you can pay for fake employees; my Fianceé had an interview at a scam company that we discovered, despite being "huge in the US and looking to open 10 offices in the UK", had only 40 employees on linkedin, the majority being from India and Nigeria (with the CEO listed as being peruvian)
"When I questioned this he explained that HP thought that the distinction between hardware and software sales was not material and, according to Mr Duckworth, it was all 'product' from HP's perspective. This idea did not emanate from Autonomy and it was not hidden from HP."
That would be a pretty big nail in HP's coffin if it were true, surely? Their entire complaint is that Autonomy propped up their figures with hardware sales, but then pre/post buyout were aware hardware and software was being lumped together but didn't care?
What I don't understand is why on earth anyone would click "save" after opening up a file with a program that was clearly not meant to open it. I've opened many a file in notepad only to be greeted with symbols. I always had the sense to NOT SAVE THE FILE, though. If I've done absolutely nothing to it, why would I even want to save it? Just boggles the mind. Save over important files only when you actually need to.
They claim to have made improvements when they say the claims are wrong; but the claim is that while they have improved, they haven't improved anywhere near enough. Their "rebuttal" is a complete joke.
Again, the real issue has and always will be that uber makes money by having an incredibly small bureaucratic overhead; they are as involved as they absolutely must be, and nothing more. The level of engagement actually required of the company is to the extent that it will severely hurt their bottom line, and they will do everything in their power to remain only distantly involved outside of actual app maintenance.
A part of what he hits on the head is that while Facebook et al claim immunity from content posted by users (which you cannot proactively control but have to retroactively police), they are still gigantic publishers and publish LOTS of content directly; as an example, any and all ads displayed on facebook will have been vetted and approved by the company itself. On this point the comparisons and criticisms he makes are perfectly valid.
Surely its the level of control she gave the solicitor. If for some reason she gave the solicitor carte blanche , then that's her fault.
If however she didn't personally agree to sell at that price then I don't understand how it could be seen as a binding contract? Surely the actual owner of the land has to sign off on the deal first?
What about the rigmarole of trying to install them in rental properties where the tennants might not have permission to upgrade even if they wanted to?
My fiancée keeps getting EDF letters (as its in her name, water in mine) about switching to a smart meter but i'm not sure we're even able to without the arse-ache of discussing with the agency who would then have to discuss with the landlord. I'm sure we're not the only people in this situation (were we ever actually considering a smart meter) - there's plenty of renters out there, especially now. How do they cater for them?
"The publishing giants believe that rolling out the Audible Captions feature gives the Amazon-owned company a competitive advantage against other audiobook providers, who do not have the technical resources and prowess to utilize speech-to-text technology."
Irrelevant and in no way against the law
"It unfairly slashes publishers’ profits"
Also irrelevant and not against the law
"it illegally reproduces and distributes books"
The only actual argument they have, which is a hard sell unless audible actually allow you to download the transcripts.
Skills aren't all thats needed. You also need to be of a certain moral calibre. Imagine hiring this 1337 teen hacker for your cyber security only for him to rinse your company for all its fucking worth.
Some teens do get into trouble for innocuous curiosity that goes too far; however this clearly wasn't the case. He wasn't just testing the limits; he was actively targeting them and profiting off of them.
It would be like hiring a raging alcoholic as your wines and spirits buyer and expecting everything to go okay.
This post honestly reads like some sort of government damage-control effort.
Repetition of its fictitious nature despite the fact that everyone should be well aware by now of what goes on behind the scenes and how ridiculous it is.
People are fleeing because the CEO just outed a load of shit about the government. Not because what he said is outside the realms of possibility. Its not a "wow he's insane" thing but a "wow that company's going to be fucked and he'll be found dead; suicide by 2 gunshots to the back of the head while in his garage at home"
Honestly one of the reasons I recommend people shop around John Lewis for electronics in the UK, because they throw in their own warranties and guarantees that are pretty generous. If you can get it for a good price in John Lewis, do it. Just looking at the Surface 6 on JL now and they have a baseline of 2 years guaranteed.
I think one of the issues is that a large purchase is good press - sort of an "oh, that company MUST be doing well, look how much they just paid for that other company - very big acquisition what what" - HPE were probably happy to pay that much not only because of some misplaced belief in Autonomy's actual value, but for press coverage.
Obviously in this instance it was hampered by the fact that it was such a poor purchase decision that it backfired and called their sanity into question.
Never understood the hate for these ads - even the beach body ready one isn't at all bad. You should see the women they have on these pretty little thing posters plastered all over the tube - honestly the most accurate way to describe them would be the scientific term "thots". Absolute plastic bombshells with impossible proportions in incredibly skimpy clothing - yet apparently these adverts are fine because they have an instagram filter and are advertised towards women. There's lingerie ads around too. Why limit it to public advertising? Is it sexist for Ann Summers to display attractive, nubile women on their shop windows, wearing their latest lingerie? Is it considered too scandalous for incredibly slim mannequins in independent sex shops to be thrust in the store window wearing crotch-less thongs and cup-less bras?
I know this would fall on deaf ears though, considering we've already banned a wide array of fetish pornography as relatively innocuous as facesitting from being produced in the UK, and are about to enforce content controls you have to actively opt out of.
Sort of ironic as our international stereotype appears to be either a cockney, a landed gentleman, or an absolutely perverse degenerate .
I wasn't even aware of this phone's existence until this article, and I can say for sure that I would like one - though the price is a bit eye watering. Currently I have the S9 Note; I do a lot of web browsing on my phone and having a larger screen is incredibly appealing to me (though again i'm not certain its worth that price point, given that I don't exactly have throwing around money at the moment). Some people might suggest a tablet instead - but i'm not a fan. In my mind they're just a technological stop-gap; a way of having a large phone screen but without the utility or practicality (spatially speaking) of an actual phone.
As you say though, I'm still skeptical of the screen durability and would like stress test numbers (i.e. how many thousands of folds the phone can supposedly stand up to). What if they improve it significantly but the phones still end up dying within a year? I think even those who perpetually chase the latest and "greatest" phone upgrade would be miffed by that.
Oh come off it, the atmosphere being thin doesn't mean its literally only centimetres off the ground, in fact it extends further out than earth's because the gravity is lower. You can't just make disingenuous claims such as "mars has no atmosphere" or "the atmosphere only extends several centimetres off the ground".
The much higher activity was rated at around 200 impacts a year.
I think you're severely overestimating the danger when you compare the frequency of impacts to area of effect and then take into account the size of Mars
The major protection from asteroids would be a moon.
Also, Mars does have an atmosphere.
Also, the likelihood of your exact spot being hit by an asteroid is remarkably small.
If you're talking large asteroids that are actually dangerous to existence, atmospheres do literally nothing to stop those.
But in reality its just caused problems. Now you need to deal with twice the headache when wanting something done. When I had issues with my fibre installation, BT and Openreach were constantly mis-communicating and having to chase each other up via phone calls and email. I was more in the know than either of them because I had people from both BT and Openreach talking to me when they weren't to each other! I was actually acting as a third party mediator between them; ferrying information to and fro. Instead of being separate entities, they're now just a company with poor cross departmental communication.
I'm convinced that advertising is a scam. Does it work sometimes? Sure, for good campaigns (Old Spice's "The man your man could smell like" campaign was wildly successful), however for the vast majority of companies I have a feeling its not worth the spend; nowhere near enough bang for your buck. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Facebook come under fire for vastly over-stating the value of advertising on it?
Thats silly because Britain DID have a bloody revolution. One of the first monarchical overthrows in the western world, in fact. The English Civil War was INCREDIBLY bloody and deadly and part of the reason why the thought of a standing army was repugnant for so long and why and public use and carry of weapons is socially anathema. Over 200 000 people died in less than a decade. A higher percentage of the population died in the civil wars than in World War 2.
That's why we "didn't have one" - because we did in fact have one, earlier than others, and decided that that shit wasn't for us.
When I worked at Tesco Head Office (before the billion pound overstated forecast) the stock ordering/delivery process for every single store in the country was run through an excel macro, and there were no real controls for sending them out etc.
I was given complete control of the excel document when the usual bloke was off on holiday and i honestly could have just done fucking anything, and considering I was a fresh-out-of-university (where I studied History, no less) temp worker i'm honestly surprised I didn't completely destroy the company while running it.
On the subject of open/libre office; we recently had a production incident at the pension company I work at, where one of the execs of the company - as a member of the pension scheme - had downloaded their contribution history (a newly added function) as a CSV file, and was wondering why it was so messed up when he opened it. Turns out he was using open office and it just didn't open CSVs properly, regardless of what we did, and the issue was still present in the latest available version of open office. It would open as a jumbled mess instead of as a readable table.
"Dissenting from Lord Carnwath were Lords Sumption and Wilson, who said section 67(8) was clear and that Parliament had obviously intended to ensure the IPT could not be judicially reviewed or otherwise appealed against."
It doesn't matter if that's what was intended if its against the law and outside due process - that's literally the argument of PI and what the majority agreed with. Its a literal non-argument.
How on earth could you possibly consider a diving computer giving you real time (supposedly) accurate measures of depth, pressure, oxygen left, etc., is in any way comparable in function to an overpriced show watch with nautical hangovers for ship navigation that no one uses?
Advertisers are con artists and businesses are idiots for overvaluing ads. Doesn't Facebook grossly overestimate the value of having ads on its platform? No one pays attention to them. Subliminal messaging is a gigantic crock. Obviously you need to get your name out there, but paying millions and millions for intense ad campaigns even after having established yourself is moronic.
Coca Cola is big because everyone drinks it, not because they shit out advertisements.
Poor nutrition awareness has always been a thing - memes aside. People still think fat is bad for you. People don't understand the issue is the amount consumed, not the fact that its fat. People still think fat consumed turns to fat in the body. People still don't understand losing weight is literally calories in vs calories out, because they vastly underestimate caloric consumption and overestimate caloric usage.
Not only this, but labelling on food products is outright WRONG. They will honestly list a fucking egg and bacon sandwich as having 30g of protein in it, which is fucking impossible with how little bacon is actually in it.
Very noble, a good cause I do agree with. The issue is that the end goal is rather unrealistic. Why? A lot of the problems are also cultural.
For example; digging your own "shitpit" (i forget the formal name) or filling in an existing one (generally just handling your own excrement) is seen as beneath people in India, and to be known to do so could brand you as an untouchable, the lowest caste in indian society. There's an increase in India of people wanting to build overly huge pits that are going to last for multiple decades of use just so they never have to get involved with excrement maintenance. Not only this, but in India open defecation is seen as the norm. Attempts to introduce toilets to indian villages have lead to varied responses, included the toilet becoming a shrine or being used to make curries.
Likewise, there are areas of Africa where the floors are absolutely littered with literal human excrement and other waste; there are beaches absolutely filled to the brim with human faeces and polluting the ocean. Again, there is the issue of open defecation being the norm, but there's also clearly a cultural component here as well; there's no centralised giant pile of rubbish, its largely dropped as its used.
In china as well, open defecation is a reality for millions and millions.
The (seemingly insurmountable) challenge isn't just more efficient methods of waste disposal, but in changing long held cultural beliefs around the handling of excrement and how people are supposed to defecate.
This reads like it was written by someone who hasn't actually worked before but likes to LARP as an experienced devops guy.
Firstly, you've created an entire fantasy reality in your head based off of a single, simple explanation of the situation, and completely ignored that he also claimed it happened after a period of absence caused by surgery.
Secondly, I feel that if you had actually worked somewhere before, you'd understand the difference between fantasy "wow my boss was so horrible and controlled everything despite actually just being some no-name middle management that the execs hate" and real life "its actually very easy to criticise your manager provided you're professional about it."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
