Posts by CommanderGalaxian

Literally rings our bell: Scottish eggheads snap quantum entanglement for the first time

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

Ya see this is the problem with the Information Age - idiots without any formal qualifications now consider themselves "experts" on a subject because they read something online somewhere.

Apparently degrees, years of research experience at a top research university and researchers who are happy to submit their work for peer-review and replication & verification amongst suitably and similarly qualified experts at top research institutes globally counts for nothing.

But 5 minutes of bilge snorted from google counts for everything.

It's happening, tech contractors: UK.gov is pushing IR35 off-payroll rules to private sector in Finance Bill

Hi Troll,

They may be doing a similar job with a similar skill set - but they are not doing it under the same conditions. It's known as "compensatory differentials" - if I remember correctly.

The defintion of whether or not a company is classed as "small" - and thus exempt from the new IR35 regs - is easily findable (and not open to interpretation) at Companies House.

If it says "exemption small company" in the accounts filing history bit - then it's not medium or large - so, for the moment, outwith the new IR35 requirments.

As for your point about a larger one spinning off a small company, one would hope that's a possible solution.

One word:

Cunts.

Internet imbeciles, aka British ISP lobbyists, backtrack on dubbing Mozilla a villain for DNS-over-HTTPS support

Re: DoH is not all good

"...but they're planning on turning it on by default..."

That is literally exactly the opposite of what is reported in the article: "We have no current plans to enable DoH by default in the UK" .

Oh good. This'll go well. Amazon's Alexa will offer NHS advice

So uber#Brexit fanatics Big Brother Watch are complaining - spare me their crocodile tears.

LOL. Big Brother Watch aren't happy because Uncle Sam is about to riffle through their privates and make them pay for the privilege. Fucking idiots claimed #EUBad. Careful what you vote for.

UK's internet registry prepares a £100m windfall for its board members – and everyone else will pay for it

Trump Trade Deal

Just wait till the UK domain registry gets sold to Trump as part of the #Brexit trade deal with the US.

NSA foreign spying, biotech snooping, Hamas hackers bombed, airline cams, and much more from infosec land

I'm sure the microphones will still work fine though.

'Software delivered to Boeing' now blamed for 737 Max warning fiasco

Re: india?

I agree, the culture is different and can be very deferential.

I've seen Indian workers look apoplectic when we addressed their boss on first name terms....they always used Dr. xxxx and begged his allowance that they be allowed to interrupt him.

Engineers new about it and management ignored it.

Have had a manager say to me "when I see you coming up to my desk, I know that it's going to be a problem...problems, problems, problems...it's always problems with you...yet another problem...".

Unfortunately for Boeing, somewhere in the chain, they've had a useless cunt or two like that.

IT bod who does a bit of everything: You might want to specialise if that pay rise proves elusive

Full stack developers are gods.

Don't you just love that you are being out-competed by those who are 100% competent in everything from UART 16650 driver development to Agile node.js Content Management systems. Or just a really dumb buzzphrase like "Full Stack Development"?

There is a time for separating fools from their money and doing it with a clear conscience.

May Day! PM sacks UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson for Huawei 5G green-light 'leak'

Patsy

LOL. The culprit is clearly a more senior member - else why not prosecute Williamson for a clear breach of the Official Secrets Act?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktxHWDgaH60

Loose Women woman's IR35 win deals another high-profile blow to UK taxman's grip on rules

VAT is a Consumption Tax not a Turnover Tax

No. VAT is a consumption tax, paid by the end consumer of the goods or services - everybody in the chain before it gets to the final consumer is able to offset input vs output VAT.

Easter is approaching – and British pr0n watchers still don't know how long before age-gates come into force

Where in the FAQ is the guidance.

I can't find any instructions on the UK Gov's website on how this is planned to work with TOR and Bitcoin.

Brit Parliament online orifice overwhelmed by Brexit bashers

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

"...Methinks they might find it hard to get readmitted to the EU ... other nations (such as Spain)..."

I do wish Little Englanders would bother to fact check what Spain actually says.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17235220.spanish-foreign-minister-declares-an-independent-scotland-would-be-welcome-in-eu/

Re: All too late

My heart certainly doesn't. It's the death rattle of the British Empire, it's been a long time coming - and long overdue.

England now needs to go and learn how to be a small, independent country and stand on its own two feet - without draining resources from others around it - and blaming everybody else for problems entirely of its own making.

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

The calibre and moral fibre of the #Brexiteers is impressive. Like this one here who campaigns against abortion and women's reproductive rights - even demanding that abortion be made illegal for victims of rape and incest.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-abortion-pills-abortion-rape-conservative-party-conference-tory-leadership-leader-a7976386.html

One click and you're out: UK makes it an offence to view terrorist propaganda even once

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

Won't be long until what you have suggested is dangerous sedition, treason and prima facie evidence of your terrorist tendancies.

The lighter side of HMRC: We want your money, but we also want to make you laugh

Re: If we taxed the rich properly

Except a lot of the additional taxes such as the dividend tax hit ordinary freelance workers - rather than simply being a tax wheeze for the rich.

As most most freelance contractors do - they work through their own Ltd Co. - making their effective tax on dividend earnings 19% (the CT rate on their net profit) + 7.5% (the dividend rate) = 26.5% (vs 20% for employee earnings).

So basically the indolent wealthy prosper - while self-reliant workers are penalised.

Just updated Windows 7? Can't access network shares? It isn't just you

Pure Raging.

Running System Restore - to several days previous doesn't work. So you do have to wonder - WTF does System Restore actually do - and is it really worth bothering about - or should you just restore a Full Backup whenever there are Microshit update problems?

Phew, galactic accident helps boffins explain dark matter riddle

Lexx

Dark Matter is simple - it's Mantrid's Drones.

Got any ecsta-sea? Boffins get octopuses high on MDMA – for science, duh

Re: Humans in Ibiza

Much the same as it will have on a human. Alcohol and MDMA are a shite mix.

Russia: The hole in the ISS Soyuz lifeboat – was it the crew wot dunnit?

"effective mass of the person holding the drill"

Not entirely sure that any large mechanical tools on board the space station requring quantum theory to be invoked.

Scot.gov wins pals with pledge not to keep hold of innocents' mugshots and biometric data

Re: When it comes to themselves

You must really hate Scotland. Fuck off Yoon troll.

How's that encryption coming, buddy? DNS requests routinely spied on, boffins claim

Hosts

Maybe we should all just start using local hosts files again.

Rights groups challenge UK cops over refusal to hand over info on IMSI catchers

Re: Three?

Yeah but if your your phone isn't locked to Three (mine isn't) then it can fallback to 2G if there is no (or weaker) Three 3G signal.

Skype Classic headed for the chopping block on September 1

The Emoticons are Shite.

No seriously, the new emoticons look like they've been done by a retard.

‘Elders of the Internet’ apologise for social media, recommend Trump filters to fix it

IQ tests should be needed for Internet access.

The Internet needs to be sectioned off into walled gardens based on IQ.

IQ < 50 = idiot, padded cell playpen.

IQ < 70 = morons, but hopefully will fail the test : "stick your tongues on the terminals to see if there is a lethal voltage".

IQ < 100 = kinda like above average IQ people when drunk - so can be tolerated.

IQ > 100 = fingers crossed, can self-segregate.

'Fibre broadband' should mean glass wires poking into your router, reckons Brit survey

Re: Is it important?

>Even with satellite there are speed limitations.

You sure you've ever used a satellite link?

The thing that makes them tortuous to use is the latency. You might be able to torrent something down in a reasonable time - just don't expect to be using them for anything that requires any degree of real-time interaction.

Re: Should really be advertised as it is...

There is a fundamental unfairness though - people buy the same service, get charged the same price, but those living close to the cabinet get much faster speeds than those living further from it.

Re: Same in Canada

The whole "last few hundred yards" statement that BT Openreach & the ISPs trot out is also misleading. The nearest cabinet here is about 0.7 to 0.8 miles away. 1200 yards is not "the last few hundred".

Boffin botheration as IET lifts axe on 20-year-old email alias service

Once-upon-a-time I was a member of the IEE. I let my membership lapse because basically I wondered what the membership actually got me. No employer seemed to care if I was a member.

Sure, the IEE did do an academically decent magazine or two - but Computer Shopper had way more practical advice.

They never bothered to find out why I let my membership lapse. They did, however, send me a snooty letter telling me that under paragragh such-and-such I was henceforth terminated as a member.

None of that has made the slightest difference to my life.

CEST la vie, IR35 workers: HMRC sets out stall for ignoring Mutuality of Obligation

Re: Fine HMRC...

Complete bollocks logic. A gardner or painter & decorator most likely have no intention of employing others. The fact of employing others or desire to employ others is utterly irrelevant to determining self-employment status.

Re: Just a question

That's the whole problem - HMRC claim their defintion of employment/self-employment for the purpose of collecting tax is perfectly ok to be different from (and irrelevant to) the defintion of employment/self-employment for the purpose of people being entitled to (employee) benefits.

Sysadmin cracked military PC’s security by reading the manual

Re: Only cracking I have done is

A quick google will find How-To videos of picking bike D-Locks with a biro pen.

Things that make you go hmmm: Do crypto key servers violate GDPR?

Removing data on request...

""Currently you cannot remove data from the key servers on request..."

This is, of course, fundmental to #GDPR. And about 99.999...% of businesses are currently in non-compliance.

Basically there should be a user driven process that allows them to select "delete all data" and a confirmation is then sent that all personally identifying data has been deleted.

It's not difficult, so what's their problem?

Seems a bit odd though to start with PGP as the whipping boy.

What's all the C Plus Fuss? Bjarne Stroustrup warns of dangerous future plans for his C++

Re: Code style

Either style is equally legible. The problems come when people start mixing styles (usually because some arsehole thinks their style is better than everybody else's) - that's what gives the readability headaches.

Heaven help the newbies.

From about 1989 through the 2004 - I spent most of my time programming in either C or C++ and loving them both. Then for the last decade and a bit I've been programming SCADA sytems (which tend to have their own Pascal or C like languages).

On coming back to C++ in 2018 - all I can say is: WTF happened!?

The glorious uncertainty: Backup world is having a GDPR moment

Re: At some point....

@Dodgy Geezer "cost/benefit ratio"

Pretty simple - for each offence face being fined up to 4% of your global turnover. That's the sort of numbers that concentrate the mind of even the most glutinous data hoarding spammers. The carrot approach didn't work, now time for the big stick.

US websites block netizens in Europe: Why are they ghosting EU? It's not you, it's GDPR

Re: Overreach

"I feel obliged to point out yet again, that if a US company has no presence in the EU (i.e. an office) then it can feel free to ignore the GDPR and stick it's middle finger up at the ICO.

The GDPR is a law that only applies to entities within EU borders."

Utter bollocks. #GDPR applies to anybody providing services to individuals or businesses in the EU - whether or not they themselves are.

Re: Wankers

Indeed - I noticed before that if I google my company name that many sites are selling my data - but much of it is massively out-of-date (by many years): wrong address, wrong company officer details, defunct phone number(s), etc.

Welcome to your sci-fi dystopia: Sonic firewalls to crumble inaudible ad-tracking phone cookies

We might not be able to hear the ultrasonic beacons, but...

Think of the cats and dogs. As these things and their countermeasures become more common, it's going to get pretty miserable for our pets.

Facebook Android app caught seeking 'superuser' clearance

So Facebook's response is to shoot the messenger basically

"...caused a small number of people running the Facebook app and certain permission management apps on rooted Android phones to see a request for additional access permissions..."

How unfortunate that some people spotted those super user requests, if only every Android user had been a sheep...

Brit IT contractor wins appeal against HMRC to pay £26k in back taxes

Re: So confusing.

"So, if he had lost, would he have been able to claim back sick days..."

No. And that is what is so unfair.

Re: So confusing.

A bad contract will almost certainly doom you. A good contract won't provide you with a get-out-of-jail-free card if the reality of your working situation differs significantly from what is in the contract.

The three main tests are (for self-employment):

Direction & Control [you don't want to be under much]

Mutuality of Obligation [you don't want to have any]

The right to send a Substitute [you want to have one]

HMRC are typically ignoring the 2nd and 3rd tests; while not knowing the details of this case - the courts would appear not to be.

A good starting point for more info on IR35 and how HMRC are trying to apply it is here:

http://www.contractorweekly.com/tax-a-ir35-news/identify-yourself/

S/MIME artists: EFAIL email app flaws menace PGP-encrypted chats

Not a PGP problem.

AFAICT this bug lurks in email clients that handle PGP - not actually PGP itself. Can't possibly think what organisations and governments would benefit from shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater?

Careful with the 'virtual hugs' says new FreeBSD Code of Conduct

Re: People should stop with the thought crimes.

@ShelLuser

TL;DR

Re: We've stopped evolving as a species.

No, it's just that your understanding of what Dawkins was writing about has been lost on you.

Re: Oh my fucking gawd/ess ...

@sabroni "Because if I ask you to stop messaging me and you keep doing it that's not harassment? "

And then when you do stop, the office bunny boiler sticks in a complaint that you won't talk to her anymore.