Posts by Oddlegs

Norway's sovereign wealth fund aims to zap Musk's monster Tesla pay deal

Re: Norway better prepare itself.....

Really don't understand the down votes for stating a fact so I'll try phrasing it another way:

The most the government has ever earnt from oil and gas revenues was about £12B in 2008-09. In that same year we borrowed well over £150B so where exactly was the money for this magical sovereign wealth fund coming from? We've run a budget deficit in all but a handful of years since north sea oil was discovered. Any SWF would have been funded by borrowing more.

North sea oil revenues are just nowhere near as big as people think they are once you've spread them over 60-70M people

Re: Norway better prepare itself.....

When north sea oil was discovered the UK had 14x the population of Norway! Norway could spend a load of the windfall and still have plenty left to put aside for a rainy day. Our income per capita was never enough to build up a sovereign wealth fund.

Cory Doctorow has a plan to wipe away the enshittification of tech

Re: It's everywhere

Regarding water/sewage our beaches and waterways have never been cleaner. All of the fuss over the last couple of years was sparked by us increasing the monitoring of sewage releases whereas in the past we just silently let them happen. It's not really a surprise that when you count things you end up with a bigger number than if you don't count things.

Regarding cars they're safer, more reliable and massively more efficient than they were in the past all whilst not increasing in price in real terms.

Clothing? Well maybe that has gone down in quality but there's no denying that, in many cases, it's ridiculously cheap nowadays. 40 years ago a pair of Levis was about $25. Adjusted for inflation that'd be $90 in today's money but instead they go for half that. Spend $90 on some jeans today and you'll probably get some of similar quality to that vintage pair.

It's easy to talk down capitalism, the west and, particularly, 'Brexit Britain' but the reality is that in almost all ways things still continue to get better for the vast majority of society

You've just spent $400 on a baby monitor. Now you need a subscription

Re: Someone else's computer

"for one low price"

"Low price"?The baby monitor costs $400! Given that you can buy similar hardware for $100 it's not unreasonable at all to expect that extra $300 to allow the manufacturer to rent a few backend servers for many years to come.

The home Wi-Fi upgrade we never asked for is coming. The one we need is not

Of course you're right that wifi 7 isn't going to offer anything anyone actually needs over and above wifi 6 but I actually disagree that what the country needs is for ISPs to stop bundling their own router in with the package. There will always be some who want a dumb modem they can attach to their own mesh network but 9 out of 10 people just want a single box they can plug in and start using immediately. And that's before you consider the support headache of a customer phoning up their ISP to complain that "the internet isn't working" when there could be a whole myriad of boxes between their laptop and the modem.

By all means campaign for ISPs to offer better routers or routers which are updated more frequently but forcing the customer to go out and buy, configure and maintain their own router isn't solving the problem.

Twitter ad revenue has halved since Elon Musk took over

Something's definitely changed in the adverts over the last few months. There used to be very few but they were almost all from major multinational organisations. Now every third message is 'promoted' but the relevance to my interests is atrocious. Someone needs to get sacked if your revenue halves despite increasing the number of ads on your platform 10-fold.

UK smart meter rollout years late and less than two thirds complete

Any remotely modern tumble dryer is going to be plenty safe enough. They all come with delay timers built in for the express purpose of turning on when someone isn't around to monitor

Re: screw 'em

I will only consent to them being installed if it doesn't add to my bills

I hate to break it to you but you're already paying for the smart meter rollout. May at least get one installed and get some, albeit small, benefit. You're also fully entitled to only allow your supplier to take readings monthly.

"if you need clean, dry clothes for work/school tomorrow what are you supposed to do"

Sure everyone suspects/knows that their tumble dryer uses a lot of power but it's a bit more visceral when your smart meter turns red and tells you that you're currently burning through electricity at £1/hour. Hopefully that'll encourage people to dry their clothes overnight instead of at 5pm

"but I doubt if the discount at quiet times will cancel out the premium at busy times"

I have a smart off peak tariff from Octopus and the discount at quiet times more than cancels out the premium at busy times. My last bill shows an average unit rate of 17.72p/kWh which is considerably below the single rate on their default tariff of 30.72p/kWh.

I was reasonable to ask to WFH in early days of COVID, says fired engineer

I'm torn on this one. It's easy with hindsight to say that of course covid was a serious risk to certain groups and so forcing those people to come into an office was unreasonable. We also now know that remote working can work extremely well in certain industries. Back in March 2020 though it still wasn't clear that covid was a risk to any but the most elderly and vulnerable. Remote working en masse was also completely untested. Given all that I think the company's decision to sack the guy in early 2020 has to be considered based on what we knew at the time. Could the employer have been more considerate of his wishes - almost certainly; was not doing so illegal - maybe not. If the employer allowed others in the same position to WFH then denying this guy was wrong but we don't know if the requests were identical and the employer had already allowed him to WFH for the previous two weeks.

All of the nonsense around religious-themed emails is just that. It's not an employer's place to send such messages but it clearly didn't bother the complainant that much until he came to be sacked.

India sets USB-C charging deadline for smartphones

Re: So much for "Brexit freedoms" eh ?

Right. But that would be the case whether they had USB-C or any other type of charging port.

There are many, many problems with brexit but in this case being outside of the EU gives us a slight (theoretical) advantage. When the EU makes a good decision (such as mandating USB-C charging) the UK will also benefit. Electronics manufacturers (even Apple) appreciate that USB-C is good enough so will almost certainly implement the rule worldwide. Where the EU makes a bad decision (imagine they'd mandated mini USB charging) electronics manufacturers would likely implement a hobbled EU only version and keep the UK and ROTW as it was. If/when something superior to USB-C comes along manufacturers can implement it in the US and UK whereas the EU is likely to drag their feet in changing their law. Standards are great only so long as the 'correct' one is chosen.

Re: So much for "Brexit freedoms" eh ?

"as it will need to go through a process to make sure it's suitable for UK sold kit"

I'm pretty sure USB-C stuff is already allowed in the UK so I'm not sure what additional process you think these USB-C phones will have to go through?

Tech supply chains brace for impact as China shifts from zero-COVID to rampant COVID

It's easy to say with hindsight that lockdowns were correct to be put in place until an effective vaccine came along. At the time no one was expecting multiple vaccines to be developed and tested within months. We thought we'd be lucky if one was developed in a few years and there was real concern that there would never be one: afterall no one had developed an effective vaccine for any other human coronaviruses.

So no, lockdowns were not introduced as a temporary measure until we could vaccinate the population.

Preventing overwhelming of the health system I suspect is another red herring. Where, anywhere in the world, let alone the developed world, was a health system overwhelmed as a result of covid despite varying levels of restrictions in different countries and US states? If 'overwhelming' means 'patients unable to receive treatment for non-covid issues' then lockdown itself did that, not covid. In the UK at least lockdown deliberately stopped, or at least disuaded, non-covid patients from seeking help which has no doubt contributed to the large numbers of excess deaths now being experienced which will probably dwarf anything covid has done. It would not surprise me at all if these predictions of doom within China simply do not come to pass. They'll have a wave and then just as it's starting to look scary it'll fizzle out all by itself.

Swiss bankers warn: Three quarters of retail Bitcoin investors are in the red

Re: Not there to get rich quick..

most wallets are in the plus in relation to the current price. Why should they care?

They're not 'in the plus' until they come to sell. Currently all they own is a few long random numbers which have literally zero value unless there's a greater fool round the corner willing to pay. If 3/4 of new 'investors' lose money then pretty soon there won't be any new investors. Given that new investors are the only thing giving bitcoin any value whatsoever it will drop very quickly when there aren't any.

The decline will be a bumpy ride with ups and downs but the realisation does seem to finally be dawning that bitcoin is nothing but another ponzi scheme.

FTFY

Losses are only realized upon sale

Surely you mean "gains are only realised upon sale"?

Bitcoin has literally zero underlying value. At least with shares you own a piece of that company, with fine wines you own something that hopefully tastes nice and with art you own something that's pleasing to look at. Until and unless you can palm bitcoin off to an even greater fool then everyone's sitting on a loss.

UK facing electricity supply woes after nuclear power stations shut, MPs told

Re: Lack of energy policy for 30 years, nuclear costs

Russia's behaviour in Ukraine has highlighted that we should be very wary of becoming reliant on any potentially unfriendly regime especially when it's something as critical as energy infrastructure. Hopefully China see which way the wind's blowing, cut Russia loose and realise that the west are the far more valuable trading and political partner but it could still go the other way.

We may not always agree with our American, European and other 'western' partners but being closer to them in terms of political and legal structure means doing business with them is generally pretty reliable.

Braking news: Cops slammed for spamming Waze to slow drivers down

Re: I have no problem with this.

In all seriousness if you can't drive down a hill without going over the speed limit then you probably shouldn't be driving (or at least shouldn't complain about getting caught). An alternative is to aim for 25mph rather than 30 so that any slight increase doesn't send you over the limit. It is a 'limit' after all and not a 'target'

Re: I have no problem with this.

"a little bit too fast" ?

You've got to be going at 10%+2 above the limit before the police will take action so we're not talking about people who have taken their eye off the spedo for a couple of seconds and crept up to 31mph. If you don't feel that you can safely stay below 35 then you probably shouldn't be driving at all.

I don't disagree that some limits could be increased but if you feel that's the case then write to your MP, local authority and police force suggesting it. If we're going to have laws though you can't really complain about them being enforced at all times and not just when the police are looking your way.

Study: How Amazon uses Echo smart speaker conversations to target ads

If you went into a department store for a new TV and commented to the person at the till about the rain I wouldn't be at all surprised for them to point out that they had a great range of umbrellas on floor 2

Netflix to crack down on account sharing, offer ad-laden cheaper options

"advertising on low-end plans"

And with that here ends the golden age of streaming services as they go the same way as satellite and cable:

1) Offer an ad-free experience for a fee to tempt users from regular ad-funded TV

2) Introduce limited ads on low end plans

3) Ramp up ads on low end plans

4) Introduce limited ads on all plans

5) Standardise plans by having the same ads on all of them

Before you know it customers are paying a fee for exactly the same ad-filled experience they used to get for free from broadcast TV.

Rate of autonomous vehicle safety improvement slowing – research

I drive around 1000 miles per month. From a technical point of view one disengagement per 8000 miles is fantastic but if I can effectively ignore my car for 8 months while it drives itself then it's very unlikely I'm going to be paying attention the one time in 8000 miles it needs me to do something.

This is the inherent problem with autonomous cars. Them becoming better means the driver pays them less attention which means when they do need attention they're less likely to get it. Autonomous cars are probably already good enough to fall into this awkward middle ground. Moving past it is going to take an awful lot of work. Any disengagements are probably too many and autonomous cars should concentrate on manoeuvering themselves automatically into a safe position if they're unsure of something rather than expecting a distracted driver to help them out.

Billionaires see wealth double during pandemic as tech bros lead the charge

Re: "governments could tackle these inequalities"

Sure a billionaire can always take their cash and disappear to a sympathetic country but I'd be willing to bet that practically all of their income comes from a very small number of countries. If you consider the EU as one then you probably only need 5 or 10 governments to work together and all of a sudden 99.9% of these billionaires' income is under threat unless they start to play ball. Start imposing restrictions and tariffs on Tesla and SpaceX in the US, Canada, UK and EU if Elon disappears to a Caribbean island rather than paying his share of any new wealth tax and he'll change his mind very quickly (and still be left with more money than he could ever spend)

Shocking: UK electricity tariffs are among world's most expensive

The current expense has next to nothing to do with privitisation which should be evident from the huge number of private suppliers who are going out of business. Clearly they're not creaming off huge profits. Even in the good times Bulb et al didn't actually make money. They've effectively been subsidising their customers' bills with their investors' money.

I agree that there are structural issues on the generation side and privitisation there will have contributed but let's not pretend that utopia lies in nationalising all public services. Nationalisation tends to lead to under investment and unions who like to throw their weight around. The happy medium for energy is probably a highly regulated, privately run industry which I think is what we've tried to create in this country. We've just done it very badly.

Another brick in the (kitchen) wall: Users report frozen 1st generation Google Home Hubs

Re: Why is Google not liable for damages?

This would force companies to test upgrades rather than have the end users do so

More likely companies would decide to simply not bother with upgrades for older hardware. This is already the case with most mobile phone manufacturers.

G7 countries outgun UK in worldwide broadband speed test

A Virgin Media O2 spokesperson said: "Our average download speed is 195Mbps – nearly four times faster than the UK average – meaning if Virgin Media O2 was a country it would be the third fastest on the planet."

I'm sure the rest of the UK's broadband suppliers would be equally fast if they could heavily cherry pick which areas they supplied and didn't go near anyone even remotely rural.

Scientists reckon eliminating COVID-19 will be easier than polio, harder than smallpox – just buckle in for a wait

Re: Fairly worthless comparison

We're getting there. In April Oxford University announced a malaria vaccine with 77% efficacy. If the results hold it'll save far more lives than the covid-19 vaccine ever will

In the '80s, satellite comms showed promise – soon it'll be a viable means to punt internet services at anyone anywhere

Re: Can't wait...

I appreciate, and agree with, the sentiment but let's be honest. The vast, vast majority of people wouldn't have a clue what to do with an RJ45 connector coming into the house or, worst still, would plug their laptop directly into the internet and live in ignorant bliss with a woefully insecure setup. So many people want a single box they can just plug straight in to their phone line, tap in the wifi password printed on the back and start browsing that it's not worth it for ISPs to cater to those of us who don't. They don't want the support calls from someone who ordered a slightly cheaper package because it didn't include a phone line and now doesn't know how to hook up their whole house to a single RJ45 socket.

Focus on the camera, mobile devs: 48MP shooters about to become the sweet spot

Re: Why the obsession with MP?

The move to digital, in every medium, has been driven by convenience, not quality. CDs overtook tapes because of the convenience of being able to skip instantly, likewise with DVD over VHS. MP3s are lower quality than CDs but have pretty much replaced them because they're more convenient. Blu ray is far better quality than DVD but never really made a huge impact because, other than quality, it offered zero benefits.

Quality only has to be good enough which, when you're listening to music on the cheap headphones which came with your phone or looking at photos on a small screen, is actually a very low bar. After that it's price and convenience which drives innovation.

Florida Man sues Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for account ban

That's kind of my point. Yes he breached their TOCs and hence they were completely within their rights to ban him but that right to ban should not be exercised along political lines. 'Normal' users from all sides of the political spectrum don't lose their accounts for spouting similar nonsense. Facebook, twitter and google have to apply their rules consistently. Personally I'd let Trump spout his nonsense. The other side can then attack it for being the deranged ramblings it clearly is. Banning Trump only encourages his followers to believe they're being targeted by a mass conspiracy.

I don't like the guy but I've got to say that the banning of Trump from these platforms didn't sit well with me. If facebook et al have the ability and desire to ban people then they also have to take responsibility when then choose not to take action against others. They can't claim that their network is so large that they can't possibly currate it all and aren't responsible for allowing people to make disrepectful/hateful/illegal posts. It's a very slippery slope if you applaud them for blocking someone you don't like but don't question them for not applying the same punishment to people from the 'other' side when they post similar material.

These organisations have now grown beyond being mere private organisations and probably are closer to governmental organisations in many ways. The prospect of them together silencing one side of the political debate is very, very scary no matter how much you may disagree with that side.

Jeff Bezos supports US tax rise after not paying it for two years – and paying tiny amount in 2019

Re: There's a simple solution that would never be adopted

Wouldn't that just end up with exactly the situation we have now? For example Starbucks UK bring in £1Bn but pay Starbucks Cayman Islands £1Bn in licensing costs and, hey presto, make zero profit and pay no UK tax...

Re: Ah, tax laws

If what you say is correct then Apple will be paying 10x the corporation tax that Tesco do (adjusted for size)??

A brief search suggests that in 2019 Apple paid £3.8M tax on £1.2Bn of sales from its UK stores (approx 0.3%). Tesco meanwhile paid £176M corporate income tax in 2018 on £51Bn of sales (the same 0.3%).

Taxing turnover is far from perfect but it at least ensures that everyone pays something. The above numbers suggest that 0.3% would be just about revenue neutral for both Apple and Tesco but at least it would eliminate all of Apple's tax shenanigans. It also doesn't have to be the end point. There's no reason why you couldn't put a higher banding on electronics sales compared to food.

Ofcom says no price controls on full-fibre broadband until 2031, giving BT's Openreach the kick to 'build like fury'

Re: Meanwhile in the real world...

I'd love it but current prices at least are an order of magnitude greater than a fixed line connection

Re: Meanwhile in the real world...

Just about all broadband improvements in the last 20 years have concentrated on urban environments. That's not surprising given that the return on investment will be far greater there but it won't be long before people living in urban environments have a choice between Virgin, FTTC, 5G and now FTTP. Meanwhile people in more rural environments are lucky to get a 1Mbps ADSL line.

I know that there are still several built up areas where the options are poor so this isn't a universal truth but rather than giving yet more options to people who are already able to get >50Mbps why not try to get everyone up to that standard first. If we don't we'll end up with a two tier system where half of the country get 1Gbps whilst the rest are lucky to get 1% of it.

Negative Trustpilot review of law firm Summerfield Browne cost aggrieved Briton £28k

Re: One Star Review

The review problem's more fundamental than that. Providers of a service expect a 5 star review simply for doing what their job. If you buy something off ebay then it being in exactly the condition described and arriving on time is frankly the bare acceptable minimum and should really warrant an average 3/5. Instead it's expected that you give 5/5. It's the same with Uber. If the driver gets you where you want to go safely and in the predicted time they'll expect a perfect score. With most feedback systems expecting a perfect score for 'average' service it's impossible to identify truly exceptional service and leads to the issue you describe where negative reviewers feel the need to over compensate.

New review:

Solicitor sued me for £25k after I wrote a review expressing my dissatisfaction with their service.

100% factual and non-libellous and it'll likely have an even greater detrimental effect on their bookings.

Northern Ireland announces £165m full-fibre rollout funded by 2017 DUP agreement with Theresa May's UK government

Re: Hmm

That's democracy for you (and I say that as a remain voter). Sometimes you get the party and ideas you like, sometimes you don't. The alternative where an 'elite' group decide what policies are best and the rest of us just go along with it doesn't really bear thinking about.

Both sides 'lied'. It's called politics. Vote leave exaggerated the benefits and ease of leaving. Vote remain exaggerated the disaster that would befall us if we even dared to vote leave, let alone actually go through with it. I'm still waiting for the emergency budget and interest rate rises we were told would happen within days of a leave result.

UK and Japan agree to free trade deal that excludes data localisation requirements

Well yes but we are where we are. Brexit's happened, we're not in the EU anymore. I'd welcome a campaign to rejoin but in the meantime we can either cry about it and do nothing or try to get as many 'reasonable' trade deals in place as quickly as possible. Given that we voted for them originally I'm going to assume that the trade deals the EU currently has are 'reasonable' for us so simply duplicating them is the obvious approach.

So the template for UK trade deals is "roll over an EU one with a few tweaks"?

You say that as though it's a bad thing?

Nobody was complaing about the Japan trade deal before Brexit became a thing. Since we don't have the luxury of time at the moment it would strike me that the obvious tactic should be to request duplicates of any EU deals. Any renegotiation can always happen later.

Sure is wild that Apple, Google app store monopolies are way worse than what Windows got up to, sniffs Microsoft prez

Woosh

I think that was rather the point. If computers are expected to be 'open' then why not mobiles. I really can't think of a good reason other than 'because it's always been that way'

Re: Unclear article point

Internet routers don't collect a (rather large) cut of all sales that go through them

Repair store faces hefty legal bill after losing David and Goliath fight with Apple over replacement iPhone screens

Think your down voters rather missed the point of your comment.

I'm all for completeness but isn't giving every single monetary amount in 4 different currencies a bit excessive? Surely only one of USD, GBP or EUR would have been sufficient.

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: And what about the people ...

What about them? Those that do have a smartphone and run apps can run this one. Those that don't, won't. Just because this app won't reach 100% of the population doesn't mean we shouldn't bother with it at all (privacy issues aside)

Hanlon's razor

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

It's far more likely that the decision being taken to go with a centralised approach was simply down to the chosen developers being familiar with that model (it is how almost all software is designed) as opposed to an unfamiliar decentralised model.

It's time to track people's smartphones to ensure they self-isolate during this global pandemic, says WHO boffin

Re: Naomi Klein

10% of the population are not going to die. Even the very worst case has mortality at around 1/2%. And yes while young people are not entirely immune they're also vastly more likely to come through an infection than older people.

If we'd have done nothing it was estimated that 500k would die. That's half a million of the already oldest and weakest in society. The government's own scientific advisors couldn't (or didn't want to) answer how many of those would die anyway in a typical year. Any deaths are clearly terrible but not even the most civilised societies say that all deaths must be avoided no matter what the cost. The cost of the current restrictions in the west, both financially and in terms of civil liberties, are unprecedented. I don't know whether they've gone too far or not, I suspect we'll know in a couple of weeks when we see what the trends are doing, but if lockdowns continue for more than a month I suspect, and hope, we'll see a lot more rational discussion as to exactly what level of lockdowns we want to put ourselves through as a society.

5G signals won't make men infertile, sighs UK ad watchdog as it bans bonkers scary poster

Re: effects on lab test animals and not on humans,

Not really missing the point. By that same logic you should leave your heating on 24/7 because the power station's going to be fired up whether your tele's on or not or leave the car running all night because Saudi Arabia isn't going to pull any more oil out of the ground just because you're using your car a bit more. The point is that if a few more people do the same maybe the local bus company could decide to only run 29 busses a day rather than 30 and he directly isn't responsible for any of those gnats getting squashed.

Still utterly bonkers though.

Bulb smart meters in England wake up from comas miraculously speaking fluent Welsh

I have to agree that the Welsh language is pointless. There will always be enthusiasts who will want to learn it and that's absolutely their right but how much money is spent on having all road signs be multilingual and all government documents be available in Welsh? You can even demand your electricity bill in Welsh if your supplier's over a certain size. It would make sense if there were some Welsh speakers who couldn't also understand English but otherwise it's simply a vanity exercise by the Welsh assembly partly funded from central UK coffers

WikiLeaks boss Assange acted as a foreign spy, Uncle Sam exclaims in fresh rap sheet

Re: I was fine with the first indictment

To quote from the BBC:

George Osborne says he will have to slash public spending and increase taxes in an emergency Budget to tackle a £30bn "black hole" if the UK votes to leave the European Union

The Guardian states that the emergency budget would occur "within weeks of an out vote"

We were told those things would happen simply after voting to leave. Here we are three years down the line and the economy seems to be continuing in an ok fashion, better than most of the eurozone in fact. Could it have been even better following a remain vote? Well we'll never know.

Both sides stretched the truth during the campaign but the same could be said about literally all political campaigns ever. Read up on how the leave campaign broke electoral law. It was nothing to do with telling lies.

Re: I was fine with the first indictment

It was an advisory referendum

I'd have a lot of respect for any remain leaning politician who came out and simply said "the referendum was only advisory, we think it's a really bad idea so we're not going to enact the result".

There's a reason they haven't though. It would be political suicide. You can't state "This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide" in an official campaign leaflet and then later just say "nahh, we were only kidding before when we said it was your choice". Far better for your career to try to convince the people that you're following their will by not leaving.