Posts by TRT

Jeff Bezos adds some more overheads to his $485m yacht by taking down historic bridge

Ask Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Re: Chocolate frogshake

Squeeze of lemming, sir?

Re: Bezos 2nd yacht

Sealaunch.

Re: In a just world...

They would probably suggest that as he enjoyed the last one so much he would probably like another one the same.

Re: Trickle down economics.

Trickles down from a great height.

Re: Can't they remove the masts, simply?

If you squash something with sufficient force, it WILL fit through the letterbox.

This fact brought to you by Amazon Delivery.

Nothing to scoff at: Crisps and nuts biz KP Snacks smacked in ransomware hack attack

Re: Neither confirm nor deny, if you can't

I'm surprised the headline didn't refer to either "NikNaks Shack in Hack Attack" or "This time it's the Real McCoy."

Oh no!

That's Tyrreble news!

Re: They should have...

They should have engaged an ethical hacking organisation to determine their Penn State.

Re: Cash Please!

Bitscoins?

Re: They are cooperating with the authorities

Did he also attack Mondelez savoury products division? That'd be Putin on the Ritz.

Re: "fuck clinics in the USA this week" said one criminal

A fun loving criminal?

Re: Inside job?

Pwn cocktail?

Re: STOP using Windooze for mission critical tasks!!!

More w(h)ining.

Update 'designed to improve user experience' takes down the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal

Re: Don't the UK contingent have some laws about "fit for purpose"?

They also use language like "the product should perform as expected."

So when it comes to Microsoft...

Re: Microsoft <insert missing word later>

Fail As A Service.

Dude 1: "public class Main {"

Dude 2: " public static void main( String[] args) {"

Dude 1: "int i = 0; do { System.out.println(i);"

Dude 2: " i++; } while (i < 5); "

Dude 1: " }}"

Stewardess: "I'm sorry! I just can't understand what you're saying!"

Little old lady: "Excuse me, Miss. I might be able to help. I speak Java."

Re: evangelist

The sarcasm is strong in this one!

But was it Johnny Henshaw-Jacobs who pulled the big plug in Microsoft's datacenter?

I wondered what it was...

I must have caught the last few minutes of it.

Google's DeepMind says its AI coding bot is 'competitive' with humans

Re: Recursive solution

However the trick is that you don't reproduce just a version of yourself, you reproduce millions of versions and the ones that aren't better get killed before reproducing themselves.

Re: More tools is a good thing (not)

Do computers have GIT feelings?

Amen to that...

God help us the day we have a tool that produces exactly what was asked for rather than what people thought they were asking for.

Re: So it can code the creation of a string

Took me quite a while to work out what the description of the problem actually meant. I'm still not clear on what the intended goal could possibly be useful for. But that's probably just me - I have been told that I tend to produce what people actually need rather than what they actually asked for.

Tesla to disable 'self-driving' feature that allowed vehicles to roll past stop signs at junctions

What I'd really like to see is a bit like an odometer but sort of in reverse... a clock that (roughly - I mean you've no idea how your juice was generated) counts down carbon emissions saved (versus ICE only) over the vehicle lifetime. It's reckoned that an EV / Hybrid has higher emissions during construction, but has lower emissions over a working lifetime.

With a feed of data about the generation mix in the country of use / recharge and the latest mpg average for an ICE-only matching class of vehicle, it would be a feature that should be possible.

Certainly interesting to those who change their vehicle every 1 or 2 years - you don't know what the 2nd hand market for EVs is going to look like. If you buy one because of the eco-credentials, do you not sell it until it's gone net-neutral?

I wonder if...

A Tesla in self-driving mode will "accidentally" fail to recognise that a bridge has been dismantled and thus drive off the edge and crash into the side of a passing super-yacht?

Re: California roll

In the UK, there is no defined priority at an unmarked junction excepting (now) pedestrians (including mobility scooters), cyclists and horse riders.

I'd debate the sense of horse rider and indeed the cyclist one, as it really depends on if, by allowing them priority as a driver, it would mean I'll then have to overtake them in a second or two. I'd rate overtaking from behind as more dangerous than waiting in someone's sight for a second or two.

I mean, if I was going straight ahead on a bike and arrived at a junction at the same time as a car to my left, turning left onto the road I intended to go onto, I'd slow down or even stop to let them get ahead, depending on if it was a busy road or not. They might just need a second or two longer to assess the state of the junction - being faster they'll not have had the opportunity to gather information that I would have on my slower bicycle, and if they take that second, decide it's clear except for me that they'll have to give priority to... well, I'd rather have them gone than meet them again.

Re: Not a "bug"

This is exactly what I mean about bad lane discipline on roundabouts!

Re: Not a "bug"

Unfortunately the link in the YouTube comments about this is behind a paywall. :(

It's still an example of getting it wrong, no matter who orchestrated it!

I don't know which way to vote on this! Everything in the driving test is applicable for a self-driving vehicle but you are correct... I could pass a driving test in a blizzard or during autumn when the roads are a foot deep in leaf fall. On top of which a human driver is supposed to get better with experience whereas a self driving vehicle will perform only as good as or worse as time goes on (sensor degradation).

Re: Octagonal stop signs in the UK.

There's another use I've just remembered.

It's on level crossings and is usually accompanied by a plate stating the class of vehicle that is required to stop (clear of the crossing) and the driver must use the wayside phone to get permission to proceed from the railway signaller.

I *think* there are also similar ones on a couple of very narrow, very bendy roads in the Lake District or in Scotland, though they may be on private land. I've vaguely remembering something about quarrying. So it could also be in Wales.

Re: California roll

Circular signs give orders, triangular ones give warnings, rectangular ones give information.

Excepting an inverted triangle and an octagon.

Re: Not a "bug"

Enable Ronnie Pickering mode.

Re: Not a "bug"

Seriously? You haven't seen how many people take the shortest line across a roundabout with marked lanes instead of sticking to those lanes? Especially the sort that spiral towards the exits.

And you haven't seen a roundabout with lanes marked that just makes you think WTF do I do here?

Re: California roll

Really? I've seen LOADS on new estates. Mainly because of the aesthetics.

Re: California roll

There's one in my town. It's there because a cycle lane crosses the junction. It is barely ever obeyed, although when we had COVID marshals there to stop people using the road, it was very, very much obeyed! These guys had body cams, a button to leave a digital marker on the recording and an attitude.

Re: Rule following isn't always practical

Only a fool breaks the two second rule.

If driving in rain, say it again!

In snow, fog and ice, say the rhyme thrice.

SMIDSY!

Fast peripheral motion signals actually travel to the brain by a different set of wires. It goes straight into a motion-sensitive area where the micro-consciousness of motion is "held", bypassing all the fiddly primary visual cortical areas. It's quite an interesting feature.

Re: Not a "bug"

The UK's obsession with the roundabout has led to some terrible lane discipline. Mind you, we have some terrible roundabouts with terrible markings, and some people who put in signs and lines that simply haven't got a clue.

Machine learning the hard way: IBM Watson's fatal misdiagnosis

Re: Elementary my dear Watson...

He also smoked a short clay, a briar or most often a Churchwarden, not a Calabash. The Calabash was selected by Basil Rathbone I believe as it covered a smaller area of his face than the other types and allowed him a greater range of facial expression as well as being easier to photograph in atmospheric lower lighting conditions as it sits in the same focal plane as the face.

Re: Watson

Sherlock was also addicted to morphine don't forget.

Re: started in Jeopardy

Humans see patterns in all kinds of things where none exists. We gaze at clouds and see shapes; we look at the stars and make tales of gods, heroes and heroines; we hear that someone's aunt died a week after being vaccinated and conclude that vaccines are dangerous.

From machines, we expect explainable fallibility.

Workday gets £9.8m deal for second chunk of UK's Student Loans Company project

Alternatively, just raise graduate nurse pay by an additional 1.5%

(1) The exclusions, caveats, bursaries, government grants etc exist for certain cases already. You outlined a specific occupation that is known to be underpaid and asked why should they be taxed at a higher rate? I read into that of course that the occupation is noble and returning to the nation, so their education should be supported by the nation. Well the fact is that it already is! They still have to do the paperwork for getting a student loan and there's still the administrative burden of the SLC and all the bursaries and all the rebates and grants from the NHS. This is how it is today and any reduction of any part of that complexity is to be welcomed with open arms!

(2) The paperwork and administration is done by the employer for many if not all of those cases. For the self-employed who fill in a tax return, it would be simpler to handle it through the HMRC tax system than to have to provide a separate declaration and return to the SLC.

It's not a penalty for getting an education! For the individual, it's still a net gain. The situation today is that the penalty for getting an education is having a loan debt hanging over your head for 30 years, accruing interest and with a repayment threshold decoupled from all the rest of the thresholds for taxation! The posit, I'll admit, is how would you design a system of Higher Education funding... so how would you do it?

I've benefitted from Higher Education, and I'm a great supporter of "free" education. I'd happily see a return to no tuition fees and means-tested grants for maintenance, but that would mean higher general taxation anyway.

There's a predilection towards hypothecated taxation in this capitalist-leaning country, and Higher Education is one area where there would be (history tells us this) a push-back. It was once seen as the reserve of the elite - a means of preserving and perpetuating the old order. The son of the bank manager would be the one who could afford to get the education that would enable him to become a bank manager. The intelligent individual from a poor background would have to compete for a scholarship, and those were limited in number. Why should THEY, the capable poor, be punished for their class? I've no desire to return the country to that state. So access to higher education must remain uncoupled from means. The widened participation will therefore need to be paid for, though I suspect your counter-argument is that widened participation need not be so wide, and would thus be brought back to being a manageable size and intake limited and filtered by merit. Merit alone?

And making it a loan with interest, as it is now done in the UK, means it's not compliant with, for example, Sharia. So you then have to create and administer a whole parallel system of funding that essentially works out the same but all you're doing is changing a few column headings to hide the fact that you ARE charging interest.

A graduate tax for life means less administration and enables a lower rate. The SLC method is essentially like the Australian method, but with more bureaucracy I expect. Oh, and they charge interest linked to RPI, which is criminal IMHO.

Well the Nursing 2000 scheme was another ill thought out thing.

So if there is the same tax rate for graduates as non-graduates, as at present, how do you fund Higher Education?

You seem to indicate that it should be FREE education, which is more or less what I said above. There would be no need to target taxation that flows to Higher Education, but as a result of historical jiggling of the bank balance by the governments of the past, passing the expense of Higher Education on to the SLC and therefore on to the individual who received the education gave the opportunity to announce increased spending in some areas and a general tax reduction. This is populist politics.

So a return to funding Higher Education from general taxation would mean an extra, what, 1.25% on the basic rate for everyone? Currently in the UK the proportion of people employed who have a degree-level qualification is around 40%, so we're half-way to doing it anyway! Then there's the question of it being fair or unfair that there's a portion of income tax from people who will never directly benefit from Higher Education going to fund universities (which are hated by a fair percentage of the UK population for many reasons, just like the BBC is hated).

Historically the cut to direct university funding created a competitive market, and lifting the cap on student numbers meant there was an incentive to provide "Mickey Mouse" courses. Universities became businesses; they were able to take out loans against future income and thus expand their investments and property portfolios. Look at UCL for example - more than half of the property between Kings Cross and Euston, southward down to Russell Square is now owned or leased by universities. Prior to 2000 it was around a fifth of the size it is now. That expansion was only possible as a result of the new funding arrangements - I don't personally think that's a good thing; it smacks of a bubble to me.

To answer your specific questions:

The amount that a person pays in tax under PAYE is taken by their employer on behalf of the Inland Revenue. Specific occupations could, therefore, have a dispensation or a rebate. As it stands, graduate nurses get an NHS bursary, a £1000 NHS grant, a reduced rate of maintenance loan from Student Finance England, around a third of their tuition fees paid as a grant... you could ask why a graduate nurse has to repay a student loan. A graduate nurse employed by the NHS and therefore using their degree would be a case where it makes no sense to pay out of the tax pot the same money that you are trying to get paid back in. The current bursary scheme would be adjusted so that the net effect on take home pay would be just the same as it is today.

A firefighter with a degree in nursing would pay the graduate rate because their personal tax code would indicate this is the case, same as it indicates they are using married persons tax allowance. The fact that they are choosing NOT to make use of their degree and are NOT employed by the NHS means that they wouldn't be paid the NHS bursaries - their take home would be a little lower than their non-graduate colleague - just the same as it is at present with repaying a student loan, only a little bit less as it would be spread over a longer period. You could argue that firefighter training is a vocational qualification that is the equivalent of a degree... it is paid for by the employer. Do we have private firefighting in the UK? Not really - some specialist roles such as aviation and fossil fuel exploration / exploitation, industry with specific risks etc. We have private medicine though, so is it fair that a nurse can get a higher education degree in nursing paid for by the tax payer, yet choose employment that uses that education but is not working for the state directly?

It's also hard to know how to sort out those who would benefit from higher education from the who wouldn't. I do think that at 18 / 19 you're still not mature enough to make a decision with the enormity of financial repercussions that going to university does. Thankfully there is guidance.

One thing where graduate tax in the UK fails is in accounting for international movements.

Graduate pay is on average higher than non-graduate. Therefore the amount paid, because it's a percentage of pay, will be higher. If you take the higher receipt over say a 50 year working lifetime of a graduate then it more than repays the cost of tuition and even a living bursary. However as much as there is a resistance to a higher rate for higher education there is a resistance to the perception that the beneficiaries of higher education receive those benefits at the expense of all taxpayers - a perception of unfairness. This was the dilemma that created the appalling Student Loans company. It was seen as the least worse method of funding expanded access to Higher Education. Now as we see an appetite amongst some for course fees that are proportionate to the actual cost of course delivery the whole edifice will crumble. The general public understanding of taxation is, I feel, quite poor, as can be seen by what is probably the most common misconception, that is that Vehicle Excise Duty aka Road Tax pays for the upkeep of the roads; the reality is that it goes into one big pot along with most other revenue and roads are paid for out of that big pot.

The rates I stated in my previous post don't take account of the graduate pay gap - what rate would seem palatable? What would be the effect of imposing a tax on employers for every graduate they employ? It's a subtle distinction of very little numerical significance but the psychological difference could be devastating.

If I had been asked to design a means of recouping university tuition costs from the direct beneficiary I would have started by working out what the return on investment for graduate and postgraduate education actually was to the economy. Even if you needed to recover the costs without accounting for the economic gain that graduates bring through their work let alone through their higher average earnings, a graduate contribution indicated by say a G prefix to the tax code, you'd need 1.5% on the basic rate, 4% of the higher rate and 10% on the extra rate. Paid over a working life those rates eliminate the existing SLC loan book in 15 years whilst providing for new intake over those years.

Graduate tax. It's cheaper, smarter, fairer.