Posts by Tony Humphreys 111 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007
Woudn't it just be easier for all to abolish IR35 and let contractors just be contractors. IR35 has caused all this mess in the first place. PAYE is not appropriate for many in IT as their contracts are not a full year. It was only brought in because of a spiteful government taking aim at workers whose contracts are not from the dinosaur ages like their union paymasters.
Just remove IR35, and all will be well (or better anyway).
The government support for startups is part of the problem. Last company I worked for would only employ people on government subsidies for the last few years. They have not yet kept staff past the subsidised period since these schemes came in 3 years ago. The flow of inexperienced staff means they cannot move on, and eventually pushed out slaried employees that were a 'cost' to the business.
If companies cannot move past the startup phase, perhaps its because they are being paid to stay there!
This really gets on my nerves. Just because their system matched c# or java they are intent on wasting 15 minutes of my time to find out 'where I am at', when all I want to know is location, key skills and salary.
C# and Java could just be listed as exposure, but because they are either incapable of reading, or too idle to they think they can waste my time.
My stock response when asked question is "its all detailed in my CV"
If there is to be different rules for tweets (micro publishing), then how will be know who has different rules to follow. This is dangerous as this situation shouts accreditation for the press (one set of rules for professional publishers), and another set of rules for amateur publishers. Who awards accreditation? The state?
I think we need a sense of proportion here and resist the temptation to separate the press from the rest of us - that is a much greater evil than the amateur mistakes by a few with very little reach. We need fewer laws and more discretion by the police, judges etc.
Ms Bercow, being the Speaker of the House of Commons wife, living in the House of Commons, and constantly in the press, should have known better though.
Windows 8. Not a PC, not yet a tablet.
Relegating the desktop to an 'app' is why I will not be going down the windows 8 route (apart from the preview in a VM). I just can't really see netbeans running on a tablet system such as 8.
Windows ME was just slow. Vista was buggy but they were still familiar. Windows 8 is just awkward for no user gain. Even Unity is better, and thats saying a lot.
My exchange is being upgraded - great, but what use is a billion gig connection with a 1gb cap. Its a bit like a drag race - full speed ahead, for a quarter mile anyway.
We need higher caps, or truly unlimited - and a clamp down on fair use policies that are just caps.
I would rather a 2mb unlimited to a 40mb capped at 1gb or even 10, 20, 50gb
or the captail who got a knobbled 777 inside the Heathrow boundries, and actually onto the airfield. He was rewarded for his skill in saving a couple of hundred onboard, and countless on the busy London streets by being turned down from jobs because of an accident on his record.
Thats the state of pilot training these days.
No one should pay for TV they have already paid for. All the BBC's output was paid for with the TV license.
Although what really bugs me is that stuff like Father Ted (I know, not BBC and supported by adverts) was only available paid for, where this is available for free on Hulu (supported by adverts) in the USA.
I would rather pay for HMA than SeeSaw as there is more on Hulu than on SeeSaw.
Rip of Britain again.
Logging onto our mobile accounts from Voip, to make and receive calls is a great idea for those of us stuck in big metal buildings all day. Mainly it means we could pick up mobile calls when the signal is poor over wifi on smartphones without having to divert calls.
I am surprised they have not thought of it sooner.
On BBC news this morning this was being discussed (along with all the 'wont someone think of the children'). An example was given to the adverse concequences 'If you type in Al Qaeda into wikipedia that would be blocked'.
As far as I am aware, Al Qaeda is not into porn - terrorism yes, but thats not porn - its a different problem altogether.
So is it to block other sites too, Al Qaeda today, Sinn Fein and BNP tomorrow, UKIP the weekend.
Not acceptable in a free country.
We are all being told to unplug chargers when not in use, so at what cost are these devices to run. I assume the power is drawn prior to metering - nope, didnt think so (just a wild guess).
What are they needed for anyway - we all know where our electric goes, and unless we are billed and charged daily, whats the point. For those of us on annual direct debits, just one read a year is all thats really needed (and I can do that - and enter the details into a website)
Perhaps the tin foil brigade was right, this is just another way to monitor us all!
It has always bemused me why operators always want to know the postcode when you call them about a problem. The idea of a mobile phone is you can use it away from a base, so you may not have any idea what the postcode is.
I called once whilst away because I had a problem with data - and three could not help without the postcode, even though I had no idea, and no reason to know it.
Perhaps mobiles should be limited to known postcodes, perhaps Rabit was not such a bad idea!
I have just completed the pop quiz (sorry Designing applications with VB MT264) to get that degree everyone else has, but does not hold me back one jot. I expected to use MS, as one would, but instead they decided to use some hand writted 'design code' that resembled the syntax of VB - and then claimed it would be useful with proper languages like Java and C (somehow the syntax similarities ended there).
So even when MS is part of the course, they choose something else.
Easy course though, even if it is just an introduction to .net - Google can fill in the conversion to C#.
I dont think the problem is supply and demad at all. If there was a demand issue then people would be living in overcrowded accomodation. This is not the case generally.
The problem is that Buy to Let has mopped up property, and distorted the market. Instead of ones housing costs going to provide accomodation (and eventually buy a house) it is now doing that, and supply a pension for someone else.
There is a demand for renting because people move around a lot more, and dont want to commit, so rent - fuelling buy to let. Then the government comes along and throws petrol onto the fire to pay for the feckless and workshy - bumping up the income for buy to let landlords enabling them to go and get another mortgage, inflate the market that little more - and the cycle continues.
The finance industry were just supplying a service. What should have happened is that they felt the concequences of their folly, and yes, some should have gone bust.
We are all living in a parallel universe, where the recession has been papered over (with free money). Sense will return eventially, and those that stoked the fire will, should, get very badly burnt. Including those that take up all these schemes in an attempt to maintain artiicially high house prices.
No, no, no. Always haggle down as far as you can, then say cheaper on the net. When they wont match say that you were thinking about the warranty, and cant get that online. The price will come down much more if you buy the warranty.
The best bit is that by law you can cancel the warranty within 60 (I think) days, and receive a full refund for it. So you get the tat for a lot less, and no warranty.
Its just a haggling toy - and if you play it too then you can beat them at their own game.
Perhaps people dont care about thedanger, and accept that risk when they go on the roads.
If you dont accept the risk, there is always the train!
People want to lead risky lives, its what adds excitement, and the more we ban / limit / educate (patronise) against risk, the more people want to break free from this crap.
I dont think we should do anything!
It may take a long time and a dvd full of api's for a ps3 game, but not for a simple hangman game for a mobile phone - in Java.
That would not be too much for a term of 10 hours.
Although it may be way beyond the teacher, as it cant be done in Word. Shame, the kids would love it and it would really energise their thirst for development with something they can really achieve.
Where did the unions think that the 3% pay rise each year for the next 3 for BT staff was coming from - especially in a recession as bad as this one?
Well - I've switched this morning (and saved £40 too boot) - so not me, and if you are not happy paying for someone else's payrise - do the same.
In addition, the tea-boy-armed-with-camera would need a 3 week course in digital photography or the unions would walk out, then he would need a press pass, full kit of dayglow gimpware and for insurance purposes the road closing, airspace temporarily halted and protective eyeware, becuase the sun is a killer.
Plus, a database would need to be created by anyone that may stray into the shot, to store their image releases, and a lawyer a week to draw ud such document.
This is the BBC, after all.
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