Posts by Puck 134 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jul 2009
"For a start, you should NOT be gliding into the vans in front of you (insufficient braking distance, ice or not, ask your insurers)."
Lee, these are UK drivers we're talking about. La Royaume de Jeremy Clarkson. Appeals to reason, safety, legality, morality, insurance liability, sense of shame, responsibility, caring for others' or one's own wellbeing, or any other sense of the boundaries of sanity and proper behaviour - are all useless.
I think you got the last laugh really - the Defy is the only smartphone worth buying because it's actually built to last a lifetime (OK eventual obsolescence aside), with the 1-metre-in-water-submergability and the gorilla glass, shock absorbing edges etc.
As far as I'm concerned the Atrix, along with any other smartphone, is unpurchasable on account of its/their lacking the Defy's qualities in that regard.
think capitalism requires a lot of protecting, often from itself, often from out-of-control markets (e.g. housing, other assets), in order that it function.
For example, the distortions which the housing markets (and lack of freedom to build a house - the reversal of which would require serious capital controls to stop a re-inflation of said markets), then observe tax credits: they subsidise employers paying low wages, in order to offset the mispricing of housing affecting low-paid employees' ability to retain enough of their earnings to eat.
We do require low-paid workers to work for low pay, but we subsidise the housing market with tax credits rather than reform it in a manner which might give said workers a materially better life.
ok this is me theorising, i might be wrong. and please don't give me the 'oh that'll cause a deflatinoary spiral' thing - one can attempt to peg nominal house prices over a 25-year period via a macro target at BOE (well that was the good iea of an ft columnist a few months ago.)
i've been so unhappy about the many times i've not been able to rent a bike (my walking ability not good, cycling better) due to system glitches, which occur more often than not, that i wrote to the auditor for london local government begging him to take action on the crap value they get from the scheme. can you believe it, serco process all the complaints for the scheme! and you have to send them via snail mail (i bet that's popular).
there's something uniquely frustrating about needing a bike and not being able to get one because the system's frozen (so often), so i'm really glad serco have got an almighty slap.
That's a really good point actually - about the cheapo DAB radios which have yet to materialise. Where are they? I mean, I've been looking for several years, and never see one priced under £20-£30 or so. There seems to be a price floor beneath which nobody chooses to sell anything. Why is that? Is there some major royalty payment for the tech, or is it just oligopolistic capitalism choosing to collude/price-set rather than price-compete?
i was doing financial admin (computers) during day, web browsing during eve, haven't worked a day in two years. my rheumatologist thinks it's more likely fibromyalgia (which they say is basically a chemical reaction to excessive 'socioeconomic anxiety', tipping the body into overamplifying pain signals badly), but when i was doing the repetitive work, that was a bit of a problem itself, i'm sure.
The charity RSI Action have observed there is NO research being done into RSI whatsoever, and they are campaigning for this to happen - they need all the support they can get. So do lend your voice if this is an issue which you are concerned about.
The T800 for obvious reasons.
"Demanding money with menace is a criminal offence".
Well actually that's a very interesting point. Whilst I don't personally think this comes under that particular criminal provision, some of ACS:Law's tactics *would* seem to come under the recent Protection from Harassment Act, which makes criminal a course of action intended to create fear or distress. British Gas were found guilty of this during a wonderful ruling not long ago. It's a developing area of law for sure.
The reason why you and the other few posters saying the same thing, are likely wrong, is you're sophisticates. The average punter is not, and they'll only notice the severe app-dearth some way into ownership (which is only supposed to be an 18-24 month experience - yet Nokias can outlive this by years, to their credit). Yet Nokia can even offset the app-dearth problem - by reducing the price of those apps to zero, as with Nokia Maps satnav (which is pretty good).
The problem only arises, where one compares the OS and app environment, with an iPhone. A large proportion of those problems can be ameliorated by careful targeting of core apps.
And the unanswerable problem is simply that which arises from the question "where is my singing-dancing-hip app store that I can spend lots of time on?" Which is a bit sick in a way.
Incidentally I still use an E61 as my main phone, 5 years old.
Unless I'm mistaken, if you buy something via Paypal, you've waived Sale Of Goods Act protections - your purchase is of Paypal "currency", not of the final item per se. You've also waived potential powerful protections from the Consumer Credit Act 1975, which state that the credit card provider is liable if the retailer for any reason doesn't honour its agreements (including those vv useful and powerful implicit agreements under SOGA which the layman may not be aware of).
In English, then: buy, say, a washing machine for £400 on paypal, it breaks after the one year warranty, oh dear. Buy it on a debit card, it breaks after a year, you've got a SOGA claim against the retailer on grounds of insufficient durability given the price. Buy it on a credit card, breaks after a year, you've got the SOGA claim, but if the retailer is bust or won't play ball, your credit card provider is liable to you - and will tend to cough up quick.
Credit card also an excellent protection against fraud, provided consumer acted with reasonable levels of care - I would doubt vv much that Paypal would ever come even vaguely close to the fraud protections provided by the UK's Consumer Credit Act.
This is in response to criticism from outgoing CBI head amongst many others, that the Tories had insufficient ideas for growth to fill a white paper earlier in the year.
If they had no ideas for growth, why did they go into government? What does Slasher Osborne think he is doing in the role exactly? What was in his mind when he mulled over what chancellorship meant? We need an economist in no 11 - NO NOT YOU JOHN REDWOOD.
agreed - impractical. This IS a real-world test.
I first thought "OK who would do a long journey, the beeb is being naughty".
The truth is if you own an electric car that's your budget shot for a normal car - unless you're rich.
@ the person who wrote "[for long journeys]...you'd take the train/coach", I must challenge: if you have to travel 500 miles, in midwinter, what are the odds of your destination being reasonably and affordably reachable by public transport - and with luggage/tools/gifts? What if it's not in a major city centre? I laugh at the thought of public transport to visit family wintertime in suburban Merseyside, from where I am in Hertfordshire.
Fact is, I'll go broke, freeze my t*ts off, get flu from my fellow passengers, get robbed, and/or dvt and nerve irritation from staying sitting down, a bad back from lugging my kit and my several meals, it's just not on.
... whenever I see the name 'LG', I think of their name change from 'Lucky Goldstar', to 'Life's Good'. 'Lucky Goldstar' sounds brilliant to me - although I realise tainted by association with budget Goldstar goods. But also, life is not always good. 'Life's variable' fits better.
Anyone lucky enough to produce art which makes money, should enjoy royalties up to death at the minimum, to offset the crapness of growing old. After that I'm not so sure. But there are no losers per se in this kind of arrangement - providing people pay for the art, of course, and don't steal it. Being required to pay for something one wants - WANTS, that is, not needs, isn't oppressive.
This insisting others not be paid for their creations is absurd. We're not exactly talking about medicine patents here!
Not being able to walk long distances, I rely on the bikes when I'm in London. I havespent many hours on the phone with Serco in tears because they just cannot make the bikes work reliably for me, at any point. Out of the 20 or 30 staff with whom I have spoken,only one ever had the curiosity or mindset of responsibility, to think of escalating/forwarding to tech support, the bizarre and inexplicable problems I was encountering.
I hope Peter Hendy, commissioner for TFL, realises,his contract is likely in the wrong hands.
I'm sorry, but your conception of consumer law is about 200 years out of date.
In a nutshell:
1) Certainly if you are a home user,forget about your warranty. Your printer must last as long as a "reasonable person" would reasonably think it should, considering all factors including the price. This is the main, the most important part of your contract, and overrides the warranty and any unfair exclusion clauses it contains.
2) therefore, nobody can tell you not to use third-party ink. That counts as an unfair exclusion clause because it excludes those reasonable obligations to you implied by the sale of goods act and protected by the unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations.
3) I HAVE HEARDa business can be a consumer, and enjoy similar protections, both under the aboveconsumer law and the unfair contract terms act, which I gather basically says the same thing as the former.
I'm pretty sure this exact case relating to the ink has been written up in case law! Please a lawyer confirm this for me.
The warranty, such as is offered, is a "gratuitous promise" on the part of the retailer (because it's them with whom you have a contract, not the manufacturer) over and above their frankly quite enormous obligations to you under the sale of goods act. The sale of goods act 1893. Yes, that's when it was first written.
The unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations (1985?) essentially states that clauses in form contracts which unfairly deprive the purchaser of utility paid for, can be struck out.
when I had to claim housing benefit recently, I went to the one-stop shop, and they literally processed the application on the spot, with payment within 48 hours.
In my previous job, before I lost the ability to type without voice-activated software,I was a payments administrator, making payments on the half of social services, at my local council. although some co-workers did turn a blind eye to problems actual and potential, I made both friends and enemies by never allowing a potential or actual problem to leave my notice without my ensuring it was to be dealt with.
using my judgement to prioritise payments to clients and charities in the most need,was deeply, deeply satisfying, and although it was repetitive stupid work, and although I got it in the neck in the end for sticking my neck out where I saw serious problems with our systems, I will always love having been able to take responsibility for ensuring things went right.
This impression of a 90 IQ traffic officer won't work. You're aware of the ECHR and HRA and their provisions. You're also responsible for their enforcement. I don't accept that you as a top ranking police officer, can make a dodgy barrister responsible.
Of course, because this is a Conservative government, run by fucking perverts (I grew up in the 90s, I know what I'm talking about...) you will keep your job.
I was in this situation, and it didn't work-Inland Revenue turned me down for tax relief for my course expenses. However, I was doing a more glamorous course than my job needed (CIMA-chartered management accountancy, far more interesting and inspiring than the accounting technician qualification which my bosses had actually offered me expenses paid for by a conditional loan).
It's a tricky one, this-in order to claim from the Inland Revenue (and you should check this before starting the course), the training is supposed to be necessary for you to actually undertake your present job. Which is weird, because it seems to imply being in a traineeship, rather than being somebody who is simply trying to improve their present lot. And traineeships are as rare as hen's teeth.
...if you know of the source of this alleged free video streaming of the live world cup performances, other than over iPhone, please could you post the link, as all I can find is dodgy paysites offering same.
Oh, and I don't believe this free live TV streaming will clog up any intranets because I don't believe it exists. Please prove me wrong!!
Many thanks
Hello, so, you're saying that competition can be induced between labels who have exclusive artist signings? Doesn't your theory rather erroneously presuppose that one artist is an adequate substitute for another, that, say, people might buy Menswear because their album is cheap, rather than Belle and Sebastian because it's good?
No it doesn't run counter to the ECHR, if you read the ECHR it specifically states that nothing in it should undermine civil penalty regimes in member states.
As for your point about presumptions of innocence being undermined by SORN, the legislation containing the SORN regime I assume was part of an act of parliament, and is therefore in essence the supreme form of law - it is sadly deemed to be the sacred democratic will of the people, or so.
But yes on an emotional level and on the level of fairness I agree with everything you're saying. PCN regimes are bad law and enforced badly. This one particularly - a 'bad because forbidden' offence, for those who declare a bit late, amongst others.
What I find interesting is that the law usually specifies that the authority concerned 'may' levy the fine concerned. Which in my book is the key word. The fact that it has discretion on whether to compassionately quash PCNs is used as an excuse to withhold that discretion and rake in megabucks - rather than conferring a responsibility to decide in a just manner.
And no way to pay in instalments! How fucked up is that? Even fines for criminal offences permit instalments.
No it doesn't run counter to the ECHR, if you read the ECHR it specifically states that nothing in it should undermine civil penalty regimes in member states.
As for your point about presumptions of innocence being undermined by SORN, the legislation containing the SORN regime I assume was part of an act of parliament, and is therefore in essence the supreme form of law - it is sadly deemed to be the sacred democratic will of the people, or so.
I think you're also RIGHT in a way about what you say with regard to the presumption of innocence in the administration of this law and that's part of what makes this an interesting article.
But, on an emotional level and on the level of fairness I agree with everything you're saying. PCN regimes are bad law and enforced badly. This one particularly - a 'bad because forbidden' offence, for those who declare a bit late, amongst others.
What I find interesting is that the law usually specifies that the authority concerned 'may' levy the fine concerned. Which in my book is the key word. The fact that it has discretion on whether to compassionately quash PCNs is used as an excuse to withhold that discretion and rake in megabucks - rather than conferring a responsibility to decide in a just manner.
And no way to pay in instalments! How fucked up is that? Even fines for criminal offences permit instalments.
“Who is talking about throwing 250,000 people out of work? I made no such comment. If you believe that to be the case, where do you get your numbers from?”
In this article George Osborne talks of £6bn cuts. The Engineering Employers' Federation estimate £27k as being ‘a job’. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ni-increase-to-hit-employment-in-half-of-firms-643812.html , although obviously consultants are paid a lot more.
"What is the difference between a dole benefit and a government paid job?"
(Sighs).
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