Posts by J.G.Harston

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

Re: So out of touch...

The same people who decided on Subscriber Trunk Dialling.....

Re: A single format for all.

Or even just specify the CSV field formats to let you upload the required data that I can add a line to my EXISTING spreadsheets to export?

Re: Requirements?

I did that with the 2021 census. I objected to the US company HMG had employed, but I am a strong supporter of censuses (family history nerd) so filled in the form on paper with my best non-machine-readable cursive forcing them to eat into their fixed-price profits employing humans to read my writing. :)

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Who the *HELL* do HMRC think will be doing their accounts on a ****** smartphone!??!!!??

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Turning a once-per-year job where you have nine months to get around to doing it into four quarterly jobs that each must be done within three weeks.... plus the annual job.

I often don't get the banking or other accounts up to the end of the previous month until two or three weeks into the next month, I can *NEVER* do accounts up to the end of the previous month. It's 11th April today. The latest my current financial records run to is 22nd March. I *CANNOT* start last year's accounts until June. (I usually do them in July.)

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I already "do tax" digitally. I have an annual spreadsheet, with boxes on one page with the numbers I need to type into the HMRC website. Nothing more is needed.

Having to do quarterly returns won't "save me time", it will add to my workload, and rush me. Instead of nine months to get around to doing my annual return, I have three weeks to get a quarterly return in.

The only "digital tax software" I need is Excel. I made an effort to try and track down how I can just upload the needed details, but everything funnels me into "sign up to our free stuff, give us your bank account details and...." Sorry? Bank account details? **** OFF! Luckily I'll have paid my mortgage off in a couple of years and will be able to afford to stop doing paid work, so this will just result in me being forced out of the employment market - in the middle of screams from employers screaming that they can't find any staff.

The developer who came in from the cold and melted a mainframe

Re: Always rather it too cold than too hot

"How about they bring a desk fan to work instead?"

And circulate the hot air across everybody? The basterds!

Re: Always rather it too cold than too hot

How would circulating warm air do anything for people finding warm air uncomfortable?

Re: Always rather it too cold than too hot

If it's biology, it's sex not gender.

Engineer sabotaged hardware then complained when it didn't work

Re: Trust me, I'm an engineer

The Parliamentary Authorities still keep a box of pre-decimal pennies to adjust the Great Clock in the Elizabeth Tower (the one with a bell called Big Ben), as each one changes the length of the pendulum just enough to change by 0.4s per day.

"I believe the CPU was a 486 DX2 66 MHz,"

That would be a 66 MHz 486 DX2. Adjectives go before nouns in English.

Firefox 149 adds a free VPN and finally plays nice with Linux dialogs

Re: Is it time to ditch FireFox?

Google Street View has sometimes crashed FireFox so hard that it was bent paperclip/reset button time.

"Firefox now contains a free built-in VPN"

So.... soon to be labelled "illegal to use in the UK".

UK police force presses pause on live facial recognition after study finds racial bias

Maybe black people's ID is more likely to be in the reference database the system uses than non-black people.

Time to end the 'uncontrolled experiment' of social media on kids, scientists say

Re: Why stop at kids?

Well, in the UK the drinking age is five.

Re: On kids?

Labour want 16-year-olds to have adult rights, so their boots will be on the ground.

Wait a bit, 16-year-olds are still children and can't buy booze'n'fags. Which is it?

and the uncontrolled experiment of kids using telephones, and the uncontrolled experiment of kids reading magazines, and the uncontrolled experiment of kids reading novels, and the uncontrolled experiment of kids writing letters, and the uncontrolled experiment of kids breathing through vibrating membranes and modulating them to encode information......

Basically, how *DARE* humans communicate with other humans.

While you're here, could you go out of your way to do an impossible job?

"in the same region"

As in the same DVD region?

I had a similar story. A project doing IT refresh across a local council's IT estate. "Top Level" had mandated all USB ports be disabled at the system level. When we got to the vehicle testing centre, with all their test equipment connected via USB, on track to completely destroy their entire operating processes, they weren't pleased.

Microsoft points at Samsung after Galaxy app bug locks users out of C:\

Re: I only take objection of Windows when...

Sometimes the file or directory is opened by some other process, but Windows is not helpful in just saying "Access denied". Even my Beeb says "File open", my MDFS goes further saying "File open by JIM on station 64".

And then you get things such as Zoom that demand to be able to install things on the user's system so the user has a transparent "consumer device" experience. "Oh, we can't demand the user downloads some software and installs it before using it, they should be able to just click a link in somebody's email and magic happens."

And because it can't it vomits loads of crap in the user space, and fights back when I try to actually do a proper admin install for any user on the computer to use.

Yeah, when I took my PC to a repair shop some years ago to replace the PSU, the chap there complained about having to log on and complained that my personal log-on couldn't do Admin tasks and you had to log in as Admin to do Admin tasks.

I told him that that was the entire point. He wanted to "fix" my PC and remove the users and boot straight into an unauthenticated admin user.

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

Re: The obvious question(s)

The USSR tried that, starting with typewriters, going on to photocopies, and even cameras. Didn't work.

Amazing that California sees the USSR to aspire to.

Re: Separation of concerns

So if Dad boots up the computer, and later logs off and wee Jimmy logs on, wee Jimmy has Dad's pre-boot authetication details.

Is the latest release of DRDOS going to be labelled "illegal to use in California"?

These morons don't understand - no, are *INCAPABLE* of understanding - the difference between an operating system, a data access application application, and data content.

Age verification isn't sage verification when it's inside operating systems

Re: At the risk of another 40 downvotes

"the app stores installed on your OS use that age"

But that is the age of the person running the app store, not the age of the people downloading stuff from the app store.

"Hey, it's ok, Mr Patel is 55, so he's allowed to sell us cigarettes."

'Are you freaking crazy?' Bot harasses woman, gets led away by cops

"the woman shouted in Cantonese"

Cantonese is ideal for angry shouting. Aieeya! Sei Pok Gai!

DR-DOS rises again – rebuilt from scratch, not open source

Re: Why?

What's the point of expending effort on an old car/bike/boat/radio/sideboard when you could just buy a new one?

Linux PC vendor System76 tries to talk Colorado down over OS age checks

Re: Speaking up can make a difference. Speak up for FOSS.

You need to get them to realise "wait a second, an operating system isn't the thing wot you use to access the interweb".

They see a kiddie using MySpace and think "operating system" when the reality is "web browser".

Bug that wiped customer data saved the day – and a contract

There are things like this where I find the best method of getting things working is to walk away for half an hour and do nothing, have a cuppa. But, when you're doing field service work the insistance is to be on the job continuously every second bashing away, with no sanction to stop for a bit.

US state laws push age checks into the operating system

Re: Perspective from America ...

A friend of mine did something covering German cultural and social history at university, and had to read Mein Kampf in the original. He said it was the most mind-numbingly tediously badly-written crap he'd ever read.

Category error

That's not the job of an operating system. The job of an operating system is to stay as much out of the way as possible and simply allow applications to do what they do. An operating system that interfers with what you're trying to do is not an operating system.

Also, my OS ROMs are a few bytes away from being full, there's no space for any more code.

Burger King turns to AI to flame broil employees who aren't friendly enough

Re: Warning - Overly Pedantic Comment

That explains why I was turned down for a burger-flipping job as Burger King.

UK council faces data breach claim after mishandling trans complaints

Re: Soooo

But councillors are not employees, there is nothing mandatory that can be imposed on them.

Re: Isn't there some kind of solution to automate this?

You'd still need some human to go in and mark the bits that need controlling.

This is a result of the confused messy mutilation of the language that is thrown around.

Trans- means go beyond, across, past, no longer, different, leave behind. Trans-alpine is when you have gone past the alps, left the alps behind, are no longer in the alps. Trans-human is when you have gone beyond human, left being human behind, are no longer human. Trans-man is clearly when you have gone beyond being a man, have left 'man'-ness behind, are no longer a man.

Re: Training

You can't force councillors to have training, and there's no way to sanction them if they refuse, or demonstrate accidental or malicious incompetence. They are only answerable to their voters who are often their biggest fan club.

Re: Training

I've twice had to report a data breach, and both times it was a councillor being a dick. You can't fire councillors, you can't suspend them, they are forced on you for as long as voters keep sending them back, and if they want to cause trouble there's nothing you can do to stop them.

UK tech hit by double trouble: Fewer foreign techies amid skills squeeze

Re: the last Bastian of sense?

When you recruit for PLC programmers do you insist on 20 years previous paid employment as a PLC programmer? 'cos that's what the job adverts say.

A first in CS? Plenty of minimum wage office admin jobs going. That's "IT" isn't it? You're using computers. You'll need to demonstrate 15 years previous paid employment in office admin though.

The number of international workers applying for a visa to work in the UK's tech sector dropped...

At the same time, domestic talent is expensive

Hey! You're not allowed to say UK businesses want foreigners because they're cheaper. Report for re-education.

IBM stock dives after Anthropic points out AI can rewrite COBOL fast

Re: Ummm...

Agree. I last did COBOL programming at university (mumble) decades ago, but rereading my assignments and getting a compiler have found I can quite easily pick it back up again, but all the vacancies demand that you've been doing the job for the last 30 years right up to teatime yesterday.

Government: "Had a career break? Retrain and do something else!"

Employers: "**** off".

Basterds! Just as I dig out my university COBOL assignments, get myself a Windows COBOL compiler, and refresh my COBOL skills to jump into the gravy boat, they find a way to get rid of the jobs.

Microsoft execs worry AI will eat entry level coding jobs

Re: I'm not even that old (mid 40s)

In that similar time I've seen passionate talented enthusists who have been steered into those "do coding, get a good career" courses come out of the other end into "IT labouring" office IT jobs, resetting passwords and changing printers - it's a computer, that's IT, this is IT!!!!, stop complaining - blinking bewlidered, 50 grand in debt, wondering why their skills have been ignored, then going off to stack supermarket shelves or wash dishes, doing their talented coding in their own time. Complete. Utter. Waste.

Re: Worse, it's completely crippling the ones who keep their jobs

This is the same "engineer" mindset of some of the electrical installation students I encountered.

"So, join all the red wires together?"

No, the incoming live connects to the outgoing live, the returning switched live connects to...."

"So, (desparate voice) join all the red wires together......?"

If you don't understand what you're actually doing, your tools are useless.

Re: Assuming the sentiment is genuine

Que?

Subs!

The article jumps straight into "EiC" without saying what it is. European Innovation Council? Electrical Installation Certificate?

Even with 30+ years' experience it's impossible to get into a junior level job.

Hotel's rotary switchboard so retro it predates the concept of crashing

Re: Hotels are retro telephony treasure troves

I was once replacing the network switches in a comms room in a bank that was also the phone comms room. At some point the telephone equipment had been updated - but the old switchgear had been just left in place and a chainsaw had been put through the incoming cables. The old switchgear was the size of a double wardrobe, the replacement was the size of an ethernet switch/hub and was just plonked on the top of the cabinet.

Linus Torvalds: Someone ‘more competent who isn't afraid of numbers past the teens’ will take over Linux one day

Re: Vultures

It is voluntary (do they have conscription in Finland?), you mean it's not unpaid.

Work experience kids messed with manager's PC to send him to Ctrl-Alt-Del hell

No, you need to ensure they never do it. Insuring it is pointless, just resigning to repeating and replacing stuff repeatedly.