Have I worked on a system developed by Accenture? Yes.
Would I ever give them a penny of my money? No.
Posts by johnB
102 posts • joined 7 Dec 2007
Accenture dares to enter site of US Air Force mega ERP-project disaster
Rocket Lab deploys Photon, er, in-house built satellite on Flight 14
Careful now, UK court ruling says email signature blocks can sign binding contracts
Monday 30th September 2019 08:56 GMT
Power of Attorney
I sold a property as executor & the solicitor was content to sign on my behalf. However, she did know the family both professionally & personally, so maybe that made a difference.
In the case here, the email shown doesn't seem to carry any of the regular caveats, e.g. "E&OE", "this is an offer","final terms to be agreed",etc, etc, so possibly that influenced the judges thinking.
Whatever, I think this needs to be considered on appeal by a higher court so some clarity based on precedence can be established.
You know what the NHS really needs? Influencers, right guys? #blessed
Heathrow Airport drops £50m on CT scanners to help smooth passage through security checks
UK libraries dumped 11% of computers since 2010-11... everybody has one anyway, right?
Monday 18th March 2019 15:50 GMT
What support?
"While 98 per cent of Universal Credit claimants make their claim online there is support for people who need extra help. Staff are on hand to help people to claim and we can give support over the phone or through a home visit where needed." ®
Not up here in the NE of England it isn't. Every week we get new UC claimants without IT skills referred to us by the JobCentre. The dialog seems to be:
"Fill in this 28 screen UC application & we'll consider your claim";
"But I don't have a computer & have never used one";
"Go to the library, they'll sort you out. In the meantime until the claim is completed & approved there's a food bank you might want to visit".
UK Ministry of Justice: Surprise! We tested out biometric tech in prisons and 'visitors' with drugs up their bums ran away
Facebook names former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg head of global affairs
Google can't innovate anymore, exiting programmer laments
Thursday 25th January 2018 12:05 GMT
My problem with Google
Is that I just can't rely on them to support their offerings.
For example, I used to find both My Tracks & Picasa simple, easy to use & useful. Google's dropped both. Finding suitable replacements has been a bit of a pain (and so far unsuccessful as far as Picasa's concerned).
They have the appearance of being a company long past it's innovative / growth stage & one now simply concentrating on protecting their market & profits. The story about their massive lobbying endeavours supports this. As is the way with most big US corporations, profits (i.e. bonuses) first, the long-term to be looked after by the next wonderkid brought in to save the sinking ship - Kodak anyone?
White House plan to nuke social security numbers is backed by Equifax's ex-top boss
Wednesday 4th October 2017 16:00 GMT
NINO checksummed ?
Not to my knowledge.
Staff at NI HQ always denied to me when I worked there that there was any such checksum. Not surprising for a system devised in the 1940's, long before computers. The first two (alpha) characters can give some indication of age, but that's more or less it, as far as I'm aware.
(VAT numbers are, however).
Yahoo! says! hackers! stole! ONE! BEELLION! user! accounts!
Microsoft joins battery-saving browser bandwagon with Edge claims
A UK digital driving licence: What could possibly go wrong?
Friday 20th May 2016 13:20 GMT
Trust DVLA?
When my step mother died, I had the choice of re-taxing the car or "SORN-ing" it. Neither of which I could do as I wasn't the owner.
After long calls with DVLA I was told to just forge a signature.
And then of course there's the scam where they make you pay an extra month's tax when you trade in your car.
DVLA - wouldn't trust them to get the time of day right.
'Legacy' Wordpress blog site of The Independent serving malware
Brazil reverting to paper votes amid budget crisis
Wednesday 2nd December 2015 11:02 GMT
Yes,
Electronic may be easier to count, but for me doesn't meet the bill of being easily understandable, nor do I trust it.
Paper - a big pile of easily-examined votes for candidate "A" can be compared against the pile of votes for candidate "B", by any ordinary person.
Electronic needs intermediaries to examine the data & compile the results, with the non-expert being unlikely to be able to detect. And, given the pass of a few years, both the hardware & software are likely to be obsolete (think punched cards), effectively meaning analysis by later generations is difficult if not impossible.
Engaged to be worried – Verify borks married tax allowance applications
Adobe lifts sheet on Dropbox-style doc sharing cloud
Tuesday 17th March 2015 17:00 GMT
Why would anyone
After vowing never to let anything from Adobe onto any machine I was going to use ever again I switched from Adobe to Foxit some years ago. Life just got better.
Then my local public library forced me to use an Adobe product to read their on-line offerings. They haven't got any better.
No way I'd voluntarily sign up for anything from this outfit.
The voters hate Google. Heeeeyyyy... how about a 'Google Tax'?
Wednesday 11th March 2015 17:43 GMT
Who benefits?
One point which tends to get overlooked in these discussions is just what is the overall effect of a Corporation Tax (at least as it works in the UK).
If megacorp makes a profit of (say) £/$/€1M, then it pays tax on those profits (not it's turnover, as some politicians would seek to imply. We use VAT to tax turnover.) at whatever rate it's home country charges.
If Corporation Tax didn't exist, then the same profits would still be taxed, only as dividend income in the hands of shareholders
So the net effect of a Corporation Tax is to bring more tax into the coffers of the "home" country, at the expense of shareholders - both domestic & foreign - who have less profits distributed to them. Nothing to do with "fairness", just a pre-emptive tax grab by the local government.
Orion: To Mars, the Moon and beyond... but first, a test flight through Van Allen belt
Tuesday 2nd December 2014 17:06 GMT
Why a heat shield?
As one who watched Neil Armstrong make his "one small step...", what I've never figured out or had explained to me is just why we need the heat shield at all. Surely the craft could just spend longer gliding to earth?
Any commentards able to indicate just why or where I can find the answer appreciated.
USB coding anarchy: Consider all sticks licked
Tuesday 18th November 2014 10:20 GMT
Hidden partitions
I used a thumb drive for years and then when I plugged it into a Linux box I found a hidden partition with executables (and couldn't access the Windows partition).
So even after formatting a new drive, I reckon it's not possible to be secure knowing a drive is "clean". And this was from a known brand name, supplying UK gov't.
All a bit scary.
UK.gov set to burn £500m on one-dole-to-rule-em-all IT, claims PAC chair
Wednesday 29th October 2014 14:47 GMT
Mission creep - big government
The middle / senior realms of the civil service are not where I'd look to find people with the skills to oversee such a project (I speak as one who was given a performance bonus for being the only member of the team able to apply a filter to an Excel spreadsheet).
In my experience of a (different) large civil service project, the aims & objectives were under constant review / adjustment, and consultants were able to utilise this lack of precision to pad the project out, giving every input from senior management an answer in the form of "yes, we can do that". Without, of course spelling out the costs & delays inherent. Needless to say, the deadline dates were wildly overshot.
Systems guru John Seddon of the Vanguard Method predicted this likely outcome when the project got underway in 2010, and, sadly but apparently inevitably, he seems to have been proven correct. (In brief, Seddon suggested the system be decentralised to local government and added to the Housing Benefit scheme they run, as they already held all the relevant data. It would have been up & running within a year, but not under the direct control of Whitehall).
Just don't blame Bono! Apple iTunes music sales PLUMMET
Are there sounds on Mars? NASA launches audio athenaeum
Facebook pays INFINITELY MORE UK corp tax than in 2012
Wednesday 22nd October 2014 15:07 GMT
Don't lump them all in the same basket
One point that tends to get overlooked is that AFAIK Starbucks and other outfits are predominately franchise operations.
So mostly they are local businesses who can't escape paying the panoply of PAYE, NIC, VAT, Business rates, and Corporation Tax. They also pay royalties to the multinational for the use of the name and to receive marketing support, and it's those royalties we're talking about when we excoriate the megacorp for not paying taxes here. The local guy is just a businessman trying to earn a crust, so don't boycott him / her (and no, I've no connection to any franchise operators).
Smart meters in UK homes will only save folks a lousy £26 a year
World's only flyable WWII Lancaster bombers meet in Lincs
HP, Microsoft prove it again: Big Business doesn't create jobs
Banning handheld phone use by drivers had NO effect on accident rate - study
Tell us we're all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists
Friday 31st January 2014 11:31 GMT
Just wait
Scientists whose living depends on the government dole agree with the line the politicos want, which of course keeps them in a job.
According to the sage Arthur C Clarke, when asked what causes changes in science, "Old men die". We'll just have to wait & hope they don't do anything too daft before a more rational set take over.
Me, I want them on the "B" Ark.
MPs: Ancient UK Border Force systems let gangsters into country
Tuesday 10th December 2013 13:43 GMT 
Overstaffed
I've just had the "pleasure" this morning of experiencing the Border Force in (in)action.
Four checkouts, only two staffed, for 600 ferry passengers. But they did have a chappie pointing out to us which of the two checkouts to use. Obviously I'm missing something when I go to the supermarket & have to choose a checkout all by myself. A complete waste of taxpayers money.
The guy isn't even there as a security backup - the five plods at the back of the hall doing nothing but chat amongst themselves were more than enough for that.
First the Yanks, now us: In-flight mobe use WON'T kill us all, say Eurocrats
Thursday 14th November 2013 12:27 GMT
On more than expected
Usually the instruction to turn off the device is after bags have been stowed, seat belts fastened, the safety drill being demonstrated, & the plane toddling it's way to take off. Virtually no-one at that stage will disrupt everything to unstow hand baggage to turn off their phone if it's in the hand baggage.
I reckon most flights take off with many devices in full working mode.
Microsoft exposes green users' privates in web quiz snafu
Microsoft needs to keep visible under waves of Blue
Saturday 9th February 2013 11:41 GMT
Blue ?
When I hear "blue" in an IT context the association I have is with "Big Blue", i.e. IBM. MS isn't "blue", it's "Azure", surely ?
It'll be interesting to see how MS holds on to it's revenue stream. My view is that they'll hold onto the business customers for Windows / Office in a single word: Excel. Every business outfit I know has lots of stuff on Excel that's been around donkeys. No one really knows how it does what it does & no one in their right mind would risk their job by suggesting an alternative. It's easier, cheaper & less livelihood threatening simply to pay MS's rental fees. The overwhelming majority of users neither know nor care what OS / software they're using, they just want it to work the way it did last week & no changes, thank you very much. That's a heavy inertial load in favour of MS in business for the foreseeable future.
Outside of business, there doesn't seem to be much reason to pay MS's increasingly hiked-up charges. XP still works just fine, & MS are asking £190 for W8, way more than Apple ask for OSX. Old versions of Office also work just fine & the latest versions (home & student) have had their price hacked up from £80 for 3 licences to £109 for a single licence. Unless you need or are required to use Office then Google's "Drive", at a purchase cost of zero, and a maintenance cost also of zero, seem very attractive. And, being cloud-based, it's got automatic backup built in, which means you don't need to wrestle with Windows Backup. Or as is often suggested Libre / Open Office might be worth looking at (can't say I was too enamoured of it myself when last I tried it, but that was some time ago).
I reckon that for the first time for years MS have a real fight on their hands. It'll be interesting to see how, or if, they can effectively respond.
YouTube's hilarious cat videos could soon cost you $5 a month
Google files patent for eyewear that SHOOTS LASERS
LOHAN slips BRA over BOOBIES in ballocket backronym buffoonery
The hoarder's dilemma, or 'Why can't I throw anything away?'
UK.gov tries to close site giving home addresses of badger cull figures
Friday 12th October 2012 09:55 GMT
Why cull ?
We've had cattle for hundreds of years in Britain & Badgers are native fauna. They seemed to have got along together now just fine for a long time. So why do we now need to start shooting them ? What's changed in the last few years to make this so necessary ?
Personally I'd be looking to see what changes in farming practices have coincided with this apparent rise in the TB "threat".
Don't delete that email! Why you must keep biz docs for 6 YEARS
Register SPB hacks mull chopping off feet
If you see 'URGENT tax rebate download' in an inbox, kill it with fire
Wednesday 26th September 2012 15:11 GMT
Re: Talking of Tax Rebates
Yes - if paying under PAYE the rounding system usually means you pay a few pounds less than is actually due -
e.g. allowances £6545 gets rounded in the employer PAYE calculation to £6550, so £5 @ your tax rate too little is paid.
It was explained to me, long ago, that this was to prevent small overpayments arising which would create mountains of clerical staff to calculate & repay.
Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?
Wednesday 29th August 2012 10:36 GMT 
A Choice of Catastrophe
A s Isaac Asimov pointed out: "The universe isn't hostile, it's merely indifferent".
The climate is beyond the ability of most (if not all) of us to comprehend, so to fix on a single factor, be that CO2, sunspots, or <your chosen factor goes here> isn't likely to be useful. By continuing to argue over causes (which is valid research) we're missing the wider issue that come what may, the climate will change. Surely the rational approach should be to decide what we need to do to mitigate the potential adverse effects of climate change. (E.g. stop subsidising the insurance policies of homeowners building on coastlines subject to hurricane risk to discourage such development). If, along the way we can reduce substantially CO2 emissions then, on the precautionary principle, that seems a very good idea. But unless the IPCC is way wrong, we're going to have global temperature rises across the whole of this century, at least, irrespective of sunspots, Earth's orbit, passing asteroid clouds or whatever.
More of Kim Dotcom's booty released by court
Climate change behind extreme weather, says NASA
Agriboffins' site downed by DDoS after GM protest
Feds propose 50-state ban on mobile use while driving
Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today's
Friday 2nd December 2011 15:01 GMT
CO2 levels
My main problem with the CO2 figures being bandied about is the method of presentation. We're continually given CO2 as 300 or 400 ppm, as if that were a 33% rise. But ppm is a scientific shorthand, used mainly by scientists. In straight numbers, it's a rise from 0.003% of the atmosphere to 0.004%.
It just doesn't seem to ring true that the climate system is so sensitive to such tiny changes in CO2 levels.
