Posts by The Onymous Coward

MI6 chief: We'll be as fluent in Python as we are in Russian

Re: Python

Who let the Hungarians out?

Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software

I was a big fan... for about half a day

I do some development as part of my current not-actually-a-dev role. Much of what I build is supporting tooling for far more complex pieces of software, for example, an automated testing framework for a HTML5 UI built using Puppeteer.

One enterprising young chap took my code and fed it into GPT to add a new feature. He proudly showed me his (/its?) work, and I have to admit, I was impressed. He added a few more features over the course of the day, then called me to his desk for help with an intermittent issue where the test run would bomb out with an exception (not always the same exception!)

Over the course of several iterations, the code had become largely unrecognisable. It took me all of two minutes to decide that I wasn't going to support whatever had been built by GPT.

If that is what it can do to a simple Puppeteer tool in a day, I dread to think what a proper software project would look like after a year in the wild.

Apple's ultra-thin iPhone flops as foldable iPad hits a crease

Wrong segment because margins

IMHO they've shrunk the wrong dimension and gone after the wrong customer segment because the company focus for the iPhone Air was one thing and one thing only: margins.

I have an iPhone 13 mini; people regularly comment that my phone is "nice and small", "didn't know they made them that small" etc. I myself am dissuaded from upgrading because newer iPhones are too big for me - too large in the pocket, too big to easily use one-handed. Yet, Apple discontinued that form factor because their insistence on pricing according to size meant it was low-margin.

They should bin off the Air and re-introduce the mini at the same price point as the regular iPhones. Bonus points if they can put a touch ID sensor on the side of the phone where your thumb naturally rests, so that it has touch ID and a full-body screen without a notch of island.

A lot of product makers snub Right to Repair laws

90s classic cars

We're already seeing owners replacing circuit boards in modern (ish) classic cars with an Arduino or similar.

Ferrari HVAC control systems being one example where a replacement board that has sat on a shelf for thirty years costs five figures and will probably demonstrate the same failure mode within a few short years.

Brit space sector struggles to compete with £90K graduate banking salaries

Re: self inflicted bullshit

UK tax burden is as high as it has ever been. Nobody actually _wants_ to pay more tax; voluntary additional contributions to HMRC are made by single-digit numbers of people annually. Government waste, corruption, short-termism, nepotism, plain old stupidity - those are the reasons for lack of *appropriate* investment in higher education. It should cost less to get a degree in an area with in-demand, uesful skills, like medicine or engineering, than it does to get some vanity qualification that enables one to fall into a career in recruitment or HR... where one can then implement the most pernicious policy of the modern age of employment, which is demanding a degree for a job that don't need one, or for which an apprenticeship would be more appropriate and less costly for the young adult.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Re: 1998

No doubt that same 20 year-old asked someone for help when they were getting to grips with Windows too.

I hadn't dabbled with Linux since I installed Caldera in the late 90s, but I installed Mint on an ancient £40 Lenovo laptop and everything Just Worked (c)

HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M

Re: Keying is not compliant

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat#para3-2-1

Re: Small business VAT

Provider of web-based MTD VAT bridging software for spreadsheet packages that can spit out an Excel file here... I don't charge a subscription fee, but I do charge per return, because:

- I hate being locked into subs too and prefer a PAYG model myself.

- HMRC frequently add new requirements and obligations to software providers, which all take time to implement, and often require several iterations because they are terrible at articulating requirements.

- HMRC's support model for MTD software providers is still, 5 years after its introduction, totally unfit for purpose and usually requires lots of email ping-pong to resolve even minor issues.

- I have to pay AWS to keep the lights on (I'm aware that it was my choice to offer a web-based service, but there are plenty of people who sensibly don't have Excel installed at all, much less third-party add-ins)

Keying is not compliant

To those of you explaining that you simply key your 9-box return into Excel and use a service to squirt the data down HMRC's REST API, do be aware that this approach is not MTD-compliant. The regs explicitly forbid keying in the figures sent to HMRC. The figures on your return are supposed to be derived from your transaction record-keeping data using a "digital link", e.g. by calculating them from data in another tab, or pulled electronically from a spreadsheet where the figures are calculated.

Whether they'll ever find out is open to debate.

Trump thinks we can make iPhones in the US just like China. Yeah, right

You missed out the vital intermediate step. "just put it on a blockchain".

HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional

Fool me once

I bought a "cheap" HP printer several years ago and signed up to Instant Ink, as it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I now have an Epson ink tank printer and wouldn't buy anything from HP.

How's that "customer investment" working out for them?

Vodafone: Be in the office 8 days a month or lose bonuses

Good value

For most employees, bonus will be maximum of 10% - after tax, I bet it doesn't actually cover the cost of going into the office for ~100 days per year, so I'd continue to WFH and tell the boss I don't care if I never get a bonus again.

Apple dares users to fix 'budget' iPhone 16e themselves

More minis please

They will have to prise my iPhone 13 mini from my cold, dead hands.

Nick Clegg steps down as Meta's top flack in favor of more Trump-friendly candidate

Positively buoyant

Clegg is proof that shit floats.

Imagine a land in which Big Tech can't send you down online rabbit holes or use algorithms to overcharge you

Re: Some good ideas but at what cost

Aww, still viewing the world and its inhabitants through the lens of left vs right. How quaint.

Billionaire food app CEO wants you to pay for the privilege of working with him

"The further education system is captured by corporate interests, let's take advantage!"

More than half of UK workers would consider jumping ship if a hybrid work option were withdrawn by their company

Re: Losing

And that is why successive UK governments have cut taxes to hitherto unknown lows - oh wait.

Re: Losing

Perhaps you're being micro-managed because you are pretending to work. And a post-work swifty is basically a British institution. You clearly don't like to socialise, but has it not occurred to you that some people do, and may go to the pub to have a laugh with eachother, not because they want a pay rise?

Love being at home, hate working from home

Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but:

- I love my commute. It's a 10 mile cycle ride through north London, so hardly a pootle through the Cotswolds, but it wakes me up and means I do at least an hour of exercise every day without even thinking about it. And, apart from the cost of tyres, chains and cake, free!

- I love working in the office. My actual job is slightly better than tolerable, but the people are a friendly, interesting and funny bunch.

- I hate working from home. I don't have a home office, but I do have two very young kids. It breaks my heart to tell them I can't play with them, because my laptop is more important than they are for ~7 hours of the day. Being at home is great. Adding work into the equation sucks.

So, for me, having an office to go to is the deal-breaker. Obviously, I like the flexibility of being able to work from home when I really _need_ to, and I really couldn't care less what my reports do, as long as they are productive. But WFH is rubbish for many people and, in my experience, largely enjoyed on a full-time basis by misanthropes and lazy feckers. Flame me.

Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

Re: This entire thread is a dumpster fire

It's a good analogy, but they have managed, in the past, to make pizza that a billion people enjoyed.

Then they started to ask people who will eat literally anything what they want on their pizza, and they said they'd prefer it without any cheese, oh and if it could be shaped like an amphibious landing craft, that would be really cool. And they listened.

There's a reason...

...that users had to have Windows XP prised from their cold, dead hands.

Does anyone actually use Windows outside the office and gaming anymore? I have to use it at work and get things done *despite* Windows, not because of it.

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Re: Blue Origin "Design"

Ribbed for passengers' pleasure?

BT promises firmware update for Mini Whole Home Wi-Fi discs to prevent obsessive Big Tech DNS lookups

I've got six of these discs and only noticed what they were up to when I had cause to log into Pi Hole. I'd been wondering why Google kept asking if I was a robot.

BT's response is pathetic. This is fourth generation bork. Access points shouldn't care about internet connectivity. Doing a DNS lookup is a stupid way to test internet connectivity. Doing a DNS lookup for a domain you don't own is a stupid way to use a DNS server to test internet connectivity. Doing a DNS lookup once per second for every client on the network is a stupid way... etc etc.

The discs still point at Pi Hole for DNS, but ufw drops their requests. They don't complain.

IT NO MAKE ANY SENSE

Tiananmen Square Tank Man vanishes from Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, other search engines – even in America

In China, your "right to be forgotten" is exercised on your behalf by the CCP.

'Imagine' if Virgin Galactic actually did sub-orbital tourism: Firm unveils new chrome job on SpaceShip III

Given the laughable customer service I've experienced from Virgin Media, who had to pay me compensation after I took them to independent arbitration when they lost the cancellation letter of which they'd previously acknowledged receipt, and Virgin Experience Days, who seem to go out of their way to make it difficult to actually spend one of their vouchers, I don't think I'd throw any money in VG's direction even if I had a spare hundred grand knocking around.

The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop

If you have a Mac, spend £34 on a copy of Affinity Photo. It's worth it.

Brit MPs vote down bid to delay IR35 reforms, press ahead with new tax rules for private-sector contractors

I'd advocate a simple rule that a company director may not take a dividend larger than their salary.

Tax take would increase, there's no ambiguity and no need to change working relationships.

But, one man band contractors would still be able to undercut the big boys providing Apprentice contestants for two grand a day. Hence the IR35 sh*tshow.

UK government puts IR35 tax reforms on hold for a year in wake of coronavirus crisis

It's a bit late now. If anything, deferring just before the deadline will actually give companies more work to do - everyone has either left or prepared to switch to an umbrella. Now it all has to be rolled back.

Sir John Redwood backs IR35 campaign, notes review would have to start 'immediately' before new off-payroll working rules kick in

IR35 originally came about because Arthur Anderson (remember them?) lobbied the government to implement something that would stop one man band consultancies undercutting them while providing a better service.

KISS

Of course HMRC could achieve all of the stated aims of IR35 review without the uncertainty and opacity by implementing one simple rule. Company directors may only take 25% (or whatever) of sales as a dividend in any one year.

Take Sajid Javid's comments on IR35 UK contractor rules with a bucket of salt, warns tax guru

I don't understand why they think IR35 is a good way of making contractors pay more tax. It's complicated, vague and full of loopholes. They should have just created a rule along the lines of "companies with 5 or fewer shareholders may only pay out 25% of profit as dividend" or somesuch. Same effect, no getting around it, no nonsense about "personal service companies" and "deemed payments".

What's that? Uber isn't actually worth $82bn? Reverse-gear IPO shows the gig (economy) is up

Re: Efficient Market

I cycle around London at an average of 20mph. Drivers would kill to do even half that as an average. But they do nothing to safely allow me past - they just clog the roads up and pollute the air.

Re: Efficient Market

One man's "offensive" is another man's "assertive". I'm not sure what you mean by "offensive". Taking the lane? Flicking Vs?

You ascribe a single riding style to all cyclists. That's untrue and nonsensical. If you ride dangerously, you die. In London, even if you ride safely, you can still die. There are morons using all modes of transport, however the data shows that cyclists are about 8 times more likely to also have a driver's point of view than vice versa. Your point about cars being more deadly than bikes means what? That riders should just allow themselves to be bullied off the road?

"I ride a bike too" is the new "Some of my best friends are black." It tends to be used by people who pootle around the park with the kids on a weekend, then get in their cars and punishment-pass those of us using a bike as transport, on the roads.

Re: Efficient Market

Cyclists aren't a separate species, Jake. In the UK, 85% of people who sometimes ride bikes also sometimes drive cars. Only 1 in 10 drivers also cycle, however.

Do you now see why your post is ludicrous?

Idiot admits destroying scores of college PCs using USB Killer gizmo, filming himself doing it

Re: Silly "victims"!

Almost there - it's "leetnin".

Who had 'one week in' for a Making Tax Digital c0ckup? Well done, you win... absolutely nothing

Re: Anyone got a script?

Amazing. That's the exact opposite of what they said when I asked them. Actually, thinking about it, not amazing at all.

Be interesting to see if they will actually support the numerous OAuth redirect URLs that will need to be configured.

Re: Anyone got a script?

Don't ask me - ask HMRC. They mandate that anyone who connects to their API is an ICO-registered DC.

Oh dear, it seems the downtime facilitated deployment of code that returns HTTP 500 for VAT return submissions.

https://github.com/hmrc/vat-api/issues/569

Re: Anyone got a script?

Here goes: www.xlvat.com

Re: Anyone got a script?

The problem you'll find is that, unless you want to share your production credentials (I assume you don't, as you'll be on the hook for anything that uses them), everyone who wants to use your script will also have to demo it to HMRC, get it approved and get their own credentials - oh and they'll need to register as a data controller with the ICO and pay the £30 annual fee.

The MTD service is being taken down for an hour tonight with less than 24 hours' notice. My heart says it's so they can fix their data, but my head tells me they're rolling out another breaking change like they did last week.

Re: Anyone got a script?

Not quite; you have to save your LibreOffice spreadsheet in Excel format - you don't even have to have Excel installed, as the web app reads the file.

But I digress - yes, it was a pointless thing to automate, especially given that the stated aim is to reduce fraud, which MTD VAT does nothing to mitigate.

Re: Anyone got a script?

It's just a REST API so you could just send a few HTTP requests in from Postman or whatever - if HMRC would give you production credentials following your demonstration to them of your approach, which they won't.

If you don't want to install anything and want to keep using your existing spreadsheet, web-based Excel bridging software is available from people like me for not much money (i.e. a tenner a year). I don't think I'm allowed to advertise on here though, so shan't leave a link.

"As we did during the pilot phase, HMRC is continuing to ignore developers, thereby ensuring that our service is unreliable and that teething problems are, after a period of being waved-away, resolved slowly, if at all."

FTFHMRC

Facebook acknowledges asking you to invite your dead pals to parties is 'painful', plans to fix it

If it's so upsetting, just stop using Facebook. The way it gets written about, you'd think participation was mandatory.

Sick of being the bad guy, UK taxman needs YOU(?) to help it be more 'customer-centric'

Re: MORE STAFF, FEWER ONLINE SCREWUPS, FIX THE ROBOT ANSWERING MACHINE

You mean the one that's borked for many users as they've made a hash of the MTD migration but won't admit it publicly?

6 days to go, no sweat, just more than a million UK firms still to sign up to Making Tax Digital

Developer of a cheap Web based VAT filer for Excel fans here.

The MTD go live has been a total clusterf*ck. HMRC's API returning false data, returning payloads that don't meet their own spec, blaming everything on us software vendors but refusing to deal directly with us to rectify their issues because GDPR.

The support model is a mess. Their technical team can't access the data they need to troubleshoot, but the data team don't have the technical knowledge to investigate issues properly. On top of all that, there's a 30+ minute wait on the user helpdesk line, and those users who are lucky enough to get through just get told it's the software vendors' fault.

Amateurs is too kind a word.

HMRC accused of not understanding its own IR35 tax reforms ahead of private sector rollout

I've come to the conclusion that HMRC are a bunch of amateurs. I've dealt with them for my personal taxation, I've dealt with them for my business taxation and, now that my company markets a product that uses their Maxing Tax Digital API, I've dealt with them as a developer (if you want a laugh, take a look at https://github.com/hmrc/vat-api). So it comes as no great surprise that they do not understand their own tax code.