Re: "the mistakes made by the drone in simulation"
History in this case would be written by the survivors!
454 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Apr 2011
Actually there is plenty of reason to expect that job availability will decrease short term as you suggest.
Also the expectations of the level of skill & education for future replacement jobs will be higher.
The Luddites were mostly illiterate, 1970s factory jobs were similar, there are very few jobs that don't expect you to read & write nowadays.
Training and legislation will be most of the answer, time for governments to govern - oh dear we are screwed!
As you say wealth accrual is going to be significant, I wonder if I will be a Bezite or a Muskie slave?
Then they would become sole traders?.
If so you pay £6 a week NI and a claim third of your household bills against your tax.If your revenue falls the government sends you money!
Oh sorry the Tax man prevented that years ago when certain contractors left without paying tax.
We became limited companies because that was only route open not to avoid tax.
Excellent so all those MP's being hired as board members must pay full employment tax on 100% of their fee, along with sportsmen and celebrities?
Its not like David Bangham (if they like pigs) Or Gary the Crisp can just send a substitute? Maybe Hessy will send Mike Lynch or Camamoron will be sending Dominic Cummings?
The reality is few clients will accept a substitute when the rubber meets the road. I have done it but it is hard work.
Nokia phone my third or fourth true Android phone likes to reboot regularly.
Raspberry PI is a lovely toy but until it booted off disk was almost useless in production due to SD card woes.
XBMC / KODI on various platforms was just patch after patch.
Windows phone mostly worked.
Windows media player the same.
Business wise at a recent job no one knows how DB2 or AS400 works and just follow guides plenty of us could use SQL server to a high level etc. I probably could understand DB2 & AS400 if I wanted. I sussed AIX, HPUX & Oracle on my own but it would take too long to provide value.
In 30 years it has got a lot better.
Windows for crashgroups
windows ME (Multiple exceptions you couldn't count them)
Windows 95 (crashes per month)
windows 2000 (crashes per 2 years roughly 5 a day in my experience)
windows XP (10 crashes - roman numerals a week persistently)
Windows 7 (3 crashes and 4 reboots a week)
Windows 8 (reboots per fortnight it tends to slide to a near stop and refuses to move rather than crash)
Windows (10 reboots per 2 months)
Windows server properly fed falls over less than once a year nowadays.
The point about symbiosis is that the parasite needs to eat enough to survive without killing the host.
Microsoft spend billions on creating windows so that everyone loves it, then give it away almost free with a new PC which people use for 10 years expecting updates without subscriptions. Then people get upset because Microsoft try to monetise it, someone has to subsidise Windoze phone!
30 years ago I struggled to open one decent spreadsheet, 1 document and 4 browser tabs. I now have 10-20 times those numbers open all the time.
Visual studio is still like lifting a cart horse on your little finger, sometimes it breaks!
Having supported most leading UNIX variants with professional support contracts in place, systems falling over is not uncommon. It happened less because you only ran approved applications on such boxes and the pricing for everything is 4 to 8 figures 10 million+ was the most expensive box I worked on , it broke regularly.
Note I know you pay a portion indirectly to Microsoft for a windows license with a PC but compared to
a SCO licence at $1000 etc cost is almost nothing.
I think Microsoft possibly should be more clear about the offering
1. Windows business with subscription - No ADs ever!
2. Windows home with cheap subscription - No ADs!
3. Lapsed subscription / 'free with the PC' its like watching American TV more ads than programs.
Now are you prepared to pay an annual subscription to avoid ads?
Buy an Amazon Fire tablet (based on a free O/S) you get offered 2 versions
1. with ads
2. without ads + £10. Note the O/S is still firmly connected into the Amazon eco system so its easier to buy from them.
That seems pretty clear to me.
As above not only does investing in a UPS mean you expect to have a runtime normally specified based on cost i.e. 20 minutes costs X and 40 minutes X*3, big bosses aren't going to be keen on the extra risk.
But if you are charging/discharging then you are using the limited number of battery cycles and X/2 is probably the cost of replacing the batteries.
Both costs will need to be factored into any payment.
Having worked with the client machine team of a large corporate who had a 3 year replacement policy for laptops and 3-5 for desktops one of the big costs as they got older than 3 years was they started breaking down. One on site call costs > £150, more if remote. That doesn't include lost productivity. Phone based call ~ £50.
As I explained to my boss 20 years ago, you supply a salesman a company car at ~£200 a month but refuse to spend £200 a year giving them a decent laptop that doesn't break down and replace it every 3 years.
Any large organisation who can't buy a decent laptop from one of the big suppliers for less than £600 needs to sack their procurement team. Even desktop replacement laptops are less than £1000. Desktops cost peanuts.
Such decisions need to come from the top.
See its all made up like IR35.
1. I paid more tax overall because I turned over twice as much as my permie salary. I even spent it in the UK unlike my future employers.
2. Many of my peers started up companies using their contractor returns. Some even employ other people. I just sub contracted other people and paid them.
3. As using an Umbrella or an accountant doesn't actually protect you when accounts they file are incorrect many just file minimum accounts when IR35 caught 5% of turnover is easy to calculate. So caught probably won't go Umbrella.
4.No PL etc insurance purchased by an employee.
etc
1.5 million - 2M UK contractors, a reasonable developer nowadays can get £500 a day = £125K. Senior Finance and business management contractors would expect £500-£1k a day = £250k. I have talked to senior management consultants that charge £10k a day, where do you think the money goes during insolvency?
Not entirely unlikely. Add the Agents cut 20% and other bits and bobs £300 billion seems almost reasonable. £200 billion is probably a better guess. Though many contractors have multiple clients and charge different rates for each.
90% of them not paying the "right amount of tax" i.e. 20% less than they should be= laughable.
That sounds like the Australian rules. The 80% from one customer (related companies count as one) triggers a determination and the worker pays extra tax.
Easy solution get multiple customers. Under Australian rules I would have definitely escape IR35 via this. I got to about 30% from other companies.
However there are 3 initial questions you can pass and not need the 80%.
Is payment only received after the work is completed?
Does the contractor’s business need to provide tools and equipment?
Is the contractor required to correct mistakes and defects at their own cost?
answer no and the 80% rule kicks in.
then there is another series of questions do you have a business premises, employees, unrelated clients or advertise.
Credit CUK for detail.
Key thing these are are objective tick boxes that the contractor can prove not some HMRC wonk making it up as they go along - e.g. if it walks likes a duck I don't know "rhymes with Duck"
"HMRC reckons that only one in 10 contractors in the private sector who should be paying tax under the current rules are doing so correctly. It estimates the reforms will recoup £1.2bn a year by 2023"
Hmm remind me again how much of the £6 billion COVID grants etc fraudulently claimed from HMRC that ended up in Organised crime hands should not have been paid out? Oh yes none of it!
Fraud of 8.7% by a conservative estimate is not as bad as those filthy contractors paying their hotel bills to work away before tax.
Hint for HMRC - the elbow is the bit that doesn't normally smell of poop!
Back when I was a contractor the fear was that HMRC would make up an imaginary figure then pursue you to bankruptcy unless you had legal representation, then they normally eventually lost the case. HMRC have a 35% win rate at court (last 20 years) and a thousand+ cases they didn't take to court. See CUK's figures.
Many people decided to become employees to avoid these risks, I for one pay less overall tax than I did then, earn less so contribute less to the local economy.
Many multinationals (the sort of clients I had) are incorporated abroad and due to transfer price manipulation and internal fees avoid paying corporation tax or buying products in the UK
"You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a pound of coffee, $30,000 on image rights, do you?"
If you are caught by IR35 paying for your own training (in the UK) as I did is after tax so much for retraining the workforce.
As we know from the years of Downsizing, Age related redundancy, Offshoring, onshoring, best shoring and using 7 year olds to make trainers most corporations don't give a damn about most of their workers. They are only interested in making the world's richest men richer.
If you have been watching the truck driver & hospitality staff shortage you will have realised that the only thing that puts up wages is scarcity of cheaper labour.
Unless more high grade jobs replace those removed its a race to the bottom with a Dollar a Day the corporate wage target.
Many of us in IT will reinvent ourselves as needed, but we will have our fair share of ex miners who will be unemployed for decades.
Oh they are being born but due to immigration because our lords and masters are solving the wrong problem. They think we need cheap biddable labour, we don't we need taxes to care for our population.
Automation is happening now. 10 + million people will be affected we need to get on top of that.
Now when I walk in to the nationally known Burger/Chicken/Pizza joints I have to order from an electronic kiosk or my phone. The staff numbers have reduced by 30%. With 3d printing / automatic grilling its going to reduce by 60%. Ending with just a security guard, cleaner and someone who loads Burgers etc in a hopper. Franchises will disappear and be replaced by automated restaurants remotely monitored and taxed (yep the big thing is the hole in taxation to pay for benefits & the NHS).
Any supermarket now has self service which has cut the number of higher paid till staff massively.
Robot stocking is a thing and will replace staff.
10 years ago I spent an interesting evening drinking with a couple of Germans commissioning an Asparagus picking machine near the site I was visiting. Most fruits & vegetables can be mechanically harvested now.
(X)ponics & vertical farming are reducing land use with the side benefit that fruit etc is much easier to pick.
Printing houses is a thing, Expect it to grow massively no more Brick layers.
Modular housing also a thing, fewer Carpenters, plumbers, electricians.
Bots are replacing customer service agents in their thousands.
Taxi & delivery companies are frantically working on driverless deliveries so your takeaway will arrive via drone etc.
The suggestion that servicing these systems is going to be enough to replace the jobs lost has a number of problems
1. POS systems are normally only fixed when they break so 8 self checkouts replacing 7 till operators (you need someone to change till rolls / authorise Alcohol) on each of 3 shifts would probably only supply 2-4 hours of work total for an Engineer a week for all 8 tills . How often do you see an Engineer fixing them rather a member of staff closing it until the engineer arrives.
2. Whilst loading burgers in the auto-grill is not highly skilled most Technicians need a modicum of intelligence and training even to swap modules out that are repaired in workshops, of course wages are driven down because a third party does the maintenance. Not sure I would let some of the staff I meet in supermarkets near sharp objects!
3. Sorry programming this stuff is quite difficult, as you can see when using the self service tills in some shops who have a GUI that is just plain annoying. Having programmed massive ACD systems and Bots it is quite challenging predicting all paths users may take and making the experience bearable.
4. As stuff gets more common and we learn more the suppliers try and reduce staff interaction completely or place the staff remotely in a lower cost country. That is their 'edge' saving staff costs.
5. Any job that tries to replace the jobs lost must be suitable for those replaced, that means they will need aptitude and training this may not be suitable for the pimply teenager that is in the supermarket. Some may be passing through but many find shelf stacking suits them for their life and or periods when they need to regroup.
6. If you replace the jobs then we need to ensure the new jobs won't disappear in the next wave and pay enough that workers are a benefit to taxation to pay enough for those unable to work.
We need to train and prepare for this so the pain is limited.
20 years ago I worked for a big American corporate.
They scanned all network drives and eventually personal drives for Audio & Video files , if any were found you got a personal meeting with HR because RAA threatened them with massive fines if Audited. It wasn't actually too bad a decision overall the number of pirated songs, films and porn decreased rapidly.
The thing they hadn't thought about was the technical team generated their own content, our technical manager who recorded videos showing how to operate or fix our products was invited to HR on a daily basis.
This sort of thing needs to happen because copyright abuse is rife.
One hopes there is no GDPR / Confidential data in it otherwise it will be spread faster than Chlamydia!
Doing migrations I love data from spreadsheets, the user will change the layout a couple of days before go live, multiple copies will be sent and of course there are technical issues with data and conversion.
10-15 years ago I was replacing such things with SharePoint and similar. Coding took a few days the main problem was documenting the rules that the users made up as they went along.
Excel, sadly doesn't with most users.
Some geek has made billions legally , married an intelligent and beautiful woman then raised kids with a sense of humour ('Sadly it did NOT implant my genius father into my brain.'). Then they together donated massive amounts of money and skill (otherwise like with our foreign aid the princes would just buy nicer cars while their people starve) to solving the worlds problems. That needs respect.
Solving Polio, Malaria, Sanitation , birth control, education, environmental issues what's not to like?
Good luck Mr & soon to be ex Mrs Gates hope it goes well!
All I can see is jealousy.
I started with DOS3 and windows 3.0 competing with Novell, SCO, AIX , OS2 , CPM etc. back in the early 90s Strangely windows won, Microsoft did bundle windows with many OEM PCs then, their competitors could have done it but preferred to charge a weeks wages per install instead .
Why did windows win? Because not only was it easier to use it also was much cheaper with NT3.51 you could have a server and workstation in one for the same cost as just a Novell license.
Think of it this way if Microsoft hadn't won and we had gone with UNIX every part of the O/S would be an extra and starting prices would be £1000 per desktop.
I remember Wordperfect and lotus 123 being market leaders Microsoft out developed them, Lotus Notes was crushed by a far easier but less technically advanced (at the time) Exchange.
Thanks for the link interesting.
Yes it seems the government has colluded with employers to undercut the minimum wage and it should stop.
It does seem to be a very Big corporation view that ripping off your employees is acceptable. You would have thought Amazon and others would realise employees are your best asset they will build your bottom line if you let them. I thought Bezos understood this.
If you have developed a trading name and wish to purchase a domain that matches another trader with a similar name it then you would expect them to defer to the first registrant.
So if PELI lipstick had registered peli.co.uk then PELI cases would have to approach Peli lipstick and offer them money to part with it.
However if a registrant who has no stake in the mark and the domain has no value on its own without the marketing and they hold it to ransom you would expect Nominet to rule in Peli's favour or cap the amount it could be sold for. A £1000 limit would stop the law suits.
Generic names such as BOSS should obviously be a free for all.
Unfortunately government departments only administer the laws they are given. Bad laws = Bad administration.
As has been seen in Universal credit it was intended to be a way back to many when we had near full employment, it turned out it turned out to be a bully's charter.
Combine this with a reluctance to pursue sensible taxpayer targets HMRC are bound to fail.
Sack the idiots at the top until they start sacking the idiots in the middle.
"HMRC reckons that only one in 10 contractors in the private sector who should be paying tax under the current rules are doing so correctly. It estimates the reforms will recoup £1.2bn a year by 2023."
Strange the courts & tribunals do not always agree with HMRC. Look forward to them disclosing how much the public sector IR35 has gathered.
These are basic audit checks surely you do these before going live?
Having access to whole areas of systems is not impossible, its having non logged usage of systems for Admins in my experience.
As mentioned a DBA in smallish shop probably needs access to the whole database server but probably needs to use elevated accounts that are logged when they go off the standard work.