Posts by Glen 1 960 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009
" But the incredibly entitled, selfish, worst part of America keeps wanting inbred fools like Trump, because they think it serves their purposes whilst they get destroyed by the very powers that they think they control."
Brexit in a nutshell. As a UKian, one sympathises.
Up to a point, yes. Those are certainly noble intentions.
However, when a waft of the breeze of oversight makes it seem like its mostly lobbyists and party donors (whatever side) with their snout in the trough, one can't help be a little cynical. I mean, we *HAD* our version of DARPA. It was called DERA and was spun out as a private company, and is now known as Qinetic.
Look at what happened to academia in the wake of the referendum. As EU research funding started to dry up, I've seen friends leave the country chasing the jobs/funding. I'm talking phds, not canteen staff. I don't know what the current state is (the people who might tell me are no longer in the country), but the idea that this government gives a crap about research... I don't buy it.
How do you tax a transaction happening in another country? Outside your jurisdiction, and ultimately none of your business?
You cant. What you *can* do is put taxes on the end result as it comes into the country. Which is paid for by *UK* businesses/consumers.
but moving a call centre to "Elbonia"? Where is the transaction the *UK* can tax? Any attempt to do so will result in reciprocal Taxes set up damaging our own industries.
At what point is it moving (what you perceive to be) a UK job abroad, and not *importing* a foreign job from elsewhere. Look at Japanese car companies massively pulling out of the UK. Are *those* UK jobs? Or are they *Japanese* jobs that the companies no longer wish to outsource?
What is good for the goose and all that.
#1 is the key thing for me.
Never in my living memory have I known such a transparently corrupt shower of shit be in charge.
We have racist dog whistlers barking at the migrant boats crossing the channel like a little dog yapping at the postman. Meanwhile our "owners" are warming their feet on the open fire of taxpayer money.
Tens (hundreds?) of millions are siphoned off to the incumbent's friends and associates, PPE contracts going to party donors for equipment that had expired. To ferry companies without ships.
Lets not beat around the bush. This is unashamedly a cash grab. How much can they milk from us (oh, but not *their* friends) before the next election.
I hope I am proved wrong.
I know what it means. Do you?
However, in this case I was referring to you, personally.
*You* are the person who used the words "Nasty little nationalist" and "Racist" to describe a Scot critical of the "English Empire". Irony, it would seem, is not just a thing like Goldy and Bronzy.
Calling someone "insane" for questioning the wisdom of selling off our national infrastructure... as if wanting value for money is alien to you - or something that a private company can be absolutely trusted with Honest 'guv. Yeah, I'd say you were a foaming-mouthed cloud cuckoo-lander (apologies to the non-neurotypical). But given parts of your post history, that checks out. Like I said, I should have known it was you.
I think assumption is that they will be taken out either from the air, or with manpad type rocket launcher.
In this sort of clear cut tank-is-the-enemy war, we are already the point where if you can detect it, you can stand off several tens of miles and put a bomb/shell through it. With the bonus that you cant ECM a shell.. Tanks are quite tricky to hide while on the move, and are little better than a static gun emplacement when stopped.
The hard part is identifying proper targets. Is that group of people over there harmless or a threat?
However, a "Cyberwarrior" can cripple C&C systems with anything from spearfishing a higher up, guesstimate troop movements and number by keep an eye on the procurement websites, or at a push, hack a contractor and get complete technical data for one of their best fighters. Y'know, what Russia and China have been doing to us for years. No tanks required.
That's before we talk about the woeful state of civilian infrastructure security.
.. or use an old/cheap phone/tablet as the remote?
Once the controls are web based, you can control them from anywhere.
Including stood right next to it.
If you didn't want to go the web route (no pun intended), you can SSH into it, or use a VNC session.
Firewall/access control as necessary.
"probably doesn't extend further than everyone's own tribe"
Indeed, and with the internet, ones tribe is so much bigger, but so are the "others",
Case in point, this site (these forums) over the years has developed it's own culture. Healthy cynicism of hyperbole while quite happy to cheer on success. Holding knowledge and expertise in high regard ("boffinry"), while having disdain for the manglement culture of getting paid more than the actual experts for other people's work.
However, In recent years, it seems to have been infected by... whats the right word... Daily Mail types? No, that implies political affiliation. Dude Bros? People who make veiled homophobic/transphobic/racist comments under the umbrella of "snowflakes". You see it in some of the "name change" articles that have popped up recently. I *don't* mean the "Well that's jolly inconvenient" type posts, they go further than that. The folk who think trans or non white folk are the "other". "PC Brigade" or some other epithet.
I first noticed it around *here* during the Brexit debate. There is (was) a debate to be had, but it just came down to "IS NOT", and "IS SO - SOVRINTEEE!" Many of us would craft a well reasoned response going point by point with links to sources, but would just be dismissed as propaganda. Quite an effective response, as trolls go.
No, I'm not new to the internet. You see this kind of crap on Facebook and Twitter all the time. I am however, dismayed to find that attitude encroaching *here*.
I read some of those posts and was reminded of the guy on the soapbox:
As with other progressive taxes - The ones at the top don't see it as those less able paying less, they see it as *them* paying *more*...
Along with cries of "Why should *I* be penalised for being more successful?"
See also that Question Time segment where a bloke earning £80K (top 5% of earners in the UK) thought of himself as "not even top 50%" (median income in UK is about £25k)
Sidenote: sort of how Epic themselves only charge Unreal Engine royalties after the first $1 million of revenue.
The willy waving comes from being *smug* about being self-taught, and a certain level of arrogance from not having to *pay* someone else to teach them.
If you can convince a company you know what you are doing, you don't *need* Industry certs/degree/ A-levels/GCSEs. The problem is that the hiring companies *themselves* often don't know what they are doing, so use certs as a proxy for measuring ability/performance.
So some companies rely on certs. They are trusting a cert company that the box ticking exercise is legit, so they can do *their own* box ticking exercise in HR/Legal.
--
Remember, the object of the game is to convince someone to pay *you* a lot of money.
Cert companies want you to pay *them* money, so they market the certs:
a) to *companies* to convince them that folk with these certs know what they are doing
b) to *you* stating that these companies will pay top dollar for people with those certs.
Your certificate buys you marketing budget with your prospective employers. If you don't need that, you don't need the cert.
Is it within Apple's terms of service to sideload apps bought elsewhere? Do they try to pull legal shenanigans against such people? If there an Apple equivalent of F-Droid or SlideMe/Aptoide?
Epic is big enough they could turn around and go this route. No 30% for you (either of them).
"Apple and Google are providing the screens..."
Do you expect Ford to get a 30% cut of Uber's revenue?
Can you imagine if Microsoft tried to charge Steam 30% for every game it sold on the windows platform? Its turtles all the way down, and they all want a percentage.
The app stores should get *something* for the services they offer, but saying, in effect, "We *own* your customers" is outright sinister..
So you're saying it would be easier to let the AI have control of the aircraft to provide extra "assistance" to to aim? Current off-bore targeting tends to be focused on missiles.
Hell, having RCS thrusters / Viffing / Canards to point and shoot while stalled would make some high-G manoeuvres unnecessary. (Think B5 Starfighter) Altitude permitting to recover, of course.
I dunno, autopilot is a thing. If they don't have macro hotkeys like "perform high-G blackout manoeuvre and don't crash/die until I come round" then are they even trying?
I would have thought "aim bots" would have been in use since the 90's and possibly before then. Remember, they had laser guided bombs in 1968 (Vietnam). Not to mention radar assisted guns in the 40s.
My point being that software like this would just be an extension of those systems, and thus usable on an F-35.
There is an old saying, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying"
"end of private car ownership"
Nah. People enjoy driving (sometimes). Being able to set it to auto for the boring bits is useful, but being at the mercy of taxis will not fly for commutes (imagine the cost alone). Besides, the eventually mandated auto-drive will be driving *safely* and *legally*. Judging by the current state of motoring, that would be unacceptable to many.
"Then home ownership, it's what the government want after all."
The gov *wants* private home ownership. As in, they want private companies/their mates to own *your* home. The government (or local council) owning houses (eg for homeless and unemployed or otherwise disadvantaged) is *socialism*.
<sarcasm>We can't have that. Can we?</sarcasm>
"you put reading material online."
Given how many lecturers make money by writing the text books, make them required reading, then periodically change things so graduates can't sell them to this years intake... I foresee a fair bit of pushback in the transition to online only.
Of course, this is easily defeated by buying one copy for the whole class, scanning it, then distributing the PDF - to which the counter is to have the book as a requirement for the written exams, with no devices allowed... but I digress.
(Sorry for the run-on sentences.)
As a wee nipper on my Holls, I was spending as much pocket money as i dared on the Time Crisis arcade machine. (light Gun pew pew - with recoil!)
I had gotten further in the game than ever before, but this arcade machine was near a window, and during sunset, the sun was at such an angle that it blinded the sensor along the left edge of the screen. That didn't matter during most of the game, except near the end, where any bad guys along that edge became unkillable.
The only thing you could do was use a grenade as an AoE weapon. So I used the one I had, then died in the next section having no more grenades. Put more money in, used my single (new) grenade again. Repeat until I ran out of money;.
*shakes childhood fist at the sun*
One-off fees only work if the software doesn't change much.
That purchase money only pays wages for a finite amount of time. The business is maintained by getting people to buy *again* to keep upgrading. (Think how Office and Photoshop used to be)
Otherwise, it would have to be a subscription service. (Like how Office/Adobe creative suite is *now*)
There is definitely a question of how much is it *actually* worth to you.
If you can manage tethering to a phone for a day or two, go for it.
If you are hosting client's stuff, or reselling the connection to a client site... An auto response email ain't gonna cut it.
"Unfortunately, the vast majority of consumers are becoming used to this treatment and just accept it."
Partly because the customers just go for the cheapest, or near cheapest. Customer service only matters to customers if they need to use it.
Compare Andrews & Arnold to TalkTalk.
Pros for x86_64:
Pros for Arm:
"loss of some serious professional software big names and products."
Given how big Apple is in certain industries, the software for those industries *will* follow. Besides, Apple has a track record of ensuring transitions such as these go smoothly. I wouldn't be surprised if in many cases all you needed to do was to change the compilation target.
"live like some sort of luddite"
Thus highlighting you as a person of interest.
High paying job, but no phone? That's interesting. Routinely encrypt email (PGP etc), but have no overt background in computing? That's interesting. Only communicate via courier to an internet cafe...
That's the thing about tradecraft, you need to look as "normal" as possible. Including leaked information. Bonus points for compromat consistent with any cover you're trying to cultivate.
Mind you, If the impression you are trying to cultivate is "Security professional", then *not* raising those flags is suspicious.
In before "python is a crap choice for this" by python haters.
I believe there are already websites that do similar eg Checkatrade.com. Perhaps not on a per-job basis though.
Putting the jobs to tender like this makes it attractive for folk *not* currently in the south east to bid on those jobs. Also for "make a loss on the initial bid, make the profit on the changes" gravy train.
If the only number you have for them is from the fraudsters email footer, or their business card, its trivial to set up a backstop to appear legit.
Its not like the important/personal numbers are public knowledge. If you can phone the public numbers to talk to someone important, so can the fraudsters.
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