Posts by alain williams 2650 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Next time you use the ferry ask them again, "You must provide individuals with information including: your purposes for processing their personal data, your retention periods for that personal data, and who it will be shared with. We call this ‘privacy information’." If they do not make a complaint to the ICO.
The trouble is that it is work for you and the ICO is not known for bothering.
Years ago Currys used to demand an email address at checkout - I always refused, the sales assistant usually entered their own address.
They no longer do this, the UK ICO stopped them, I cannot find a link to the story but these solicitors say "you are entirely within your rights not to hand this over". However: the ticket office will just refuse to sell you a ticket, the ICO might agree with you but this will be long after the match is over (we are talking about cricket, so that is truly a long time!)
Lock, stock & barrel - ie including staff, web presence, etc. Make it seamless so that no one really notices.
The cost would be lost in EU spending, the UK should chip in as well. Others should be invited, eg China. The symbolism of multiple sources of funding would be more important than the cash.
That is fine - plenty of time to get things in order that it does not depend on the USA.
One of the biggest problems with what Trump has been doing is that the time between announcement and implementation has been so short. Allowing a decent amount of time allows for a non-panic transition. What is a "decent" time will depend on what we are talking about.
This is not to say that some/most of what he has done has been ghastly.
Tax at 145%
But not for electronics
but they were not exempt
You know the refrain of the dance Hokey Cokey:
You put your left leg inYou put your left leg out
In out, in out, shake it all about
What is the primary thing that business leaders always say that they want? stability!
If the SEC starts an investigation then DOGE will shut them down "for reasons of efficiency".
Grabbing money is quite easy when you control all the levers of power.
The first ½ of this talk by Bernie Sanders provides a nice summary; I hope that the second ½ is not just wishful thinking.
Musk needs to recoup the $290 million that he spent getting Trump elected.
After he has done that he will seek a good return on his investment.
They all like boasting what %age of the country that they cover. Building towers where there is little population is not something that they like to do: reference a friend of mine who lives in the middle of no-where in Wales.
It might be cheaper for them to swallow the cost of satellite service and be able to claim 100% coverage than to build & maintain towers that will be little used.
Something that robust could not be MS Windows, but I thought that I would go looking.
The only write up that I could find is An ERC-32 based central computer and distinct input/output units for efficient software development. That did not enlighten me much, there is more of interest at ESA.
Happy reading.
In the EU (& UK) there is an anti-dumping law, "It protects against damage to UK industry caused by the dumping of goods in the UK at prices much lower than the normal value." The definition of "normal value" includes page 3, point (4) in second column:
(4) By constructing a normal value based on the costs of production plus a reasonable amount to cover selling, general and administrative costs and profit
It seems to me that HP is in breach of this.
Why are they not taken to court ?
But all of this will be ignored by the muppets in power.
If I really needed an illustration: Ferguson shipyard misses out on new CalMac ferry order
Many advantages:
• Keep money in the UK, not export it to the USA
• Build up skills and infrastructure in the UK
• Grow UK service companies, make them better able to compete overseas
• Better security - when data goes overseas who gets access to it ?
But all of this will be ignored by the muppets in power.
Of course, once SAP [of anyone else] have control of your data, they will take every opportunity to enrich themselves.
This is much the same what Microsoft is doing by sucking all of your documents into its O365 cloud - it will progressively make it more expensive, and harder, to do anything else.
although my attempts to train ChatGPT to answer everybody only in iambic pentameter are moving very slowly.
I would be even more impressed if you could persuade it to reply in Haiku.
Not quite as useless as you think as it would make a reply that is short enough to be taken in by everyone, especially those with a tiny attention span.
I am happy for them to do that by selling me a printer at a price that does that.
When I need a new printer I look ink vendors' web sites and work out the printing price per page and chose on that basis. I do not care who makes the ink/toner.
I would be very happy to buy printer manufacturer supplies as long as they are competitive.
Summary: I am happy for the manufacturer to make a profit but not a killing.
that each off-planet mission will, somehow, attempt to image Trump's ego from space. He will readily approve all of them.
However: given the size of his ego it will not be hard to find, I just hope that it will not crack some of the expensive optics.
Compare that to something like an HP stream from Argos at £249 (they do other cheaper stuff).
Most people do simple things and do not need hefty machines. I want a cheap laptop when away from home, where I have a more powerful desktop.
• It is cheaper to build
• Make more profit by forcing customers into expensive repairs
• Make another sale when the customer does not want to pay for an expensive repair
• Can make something smaller by not worrying about repairability
• CEO is a Trump supporter
Anything else ?
What do you think ?
I would much rather that BoE (or any organ of state) paid for services within our shores:
• generate employment here - which will be taxable
• use skills of people here which will:
•• encourage more Brits to become skilled up
•• enable us to better compete for such projects internationally
• keep sensitive data within the UK
Unfortunately: this requires joined up thinking - which is in short supply.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
