Posts by Doctor Syntax

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

Re: There is always Monaco

Perhaps this could be kept up until there aren't any Brexiteers left in Britain.

Re: More queues?

"and the rule of law"

Does this still allow breaking international law under certain limited and specific circumstances?

Re: The other question

Here's a second upvote for distinguishing between list and set.

Re: The other question

"What about lorry drivers taking goods to destinations within Kent?"

Two lorries meet up back to back at either side of the border and transfer the goods from one to the other, then return to their respective counties.

Alternatively I'm sure there are a few back roads that can be used as was the arrangement between RoI & NI. Even better if you can find a farm that actually straddles the border.

Re: Risible

"What the fuck has Britain done to itself?"

Voted - by a few % majority - for Brexit.

As the consequences become obvious to all but those of the meanest intelligence (mostly to be found in and around the Cabinet) I wonder what the result would be if it were re-run early next year.

Re: Dont worry, the pain

It's the Underpants Gnomes style solution.

1. Brexit.

2. ????

3. Profit.

Re: Understatement

I've suspected this for some time. Good to see it confirmed. Somebody really should take them to one side and quietly explain the facts of life.

Re: ...won't be finished until April...

The year it becomes obvious what a balls-up the whole idea was and we start negotiating to get back in - which undoubtedly will be the end of the £.

Re: More queues?

Don't forget the facilities at the bottom of the M1 to get onto the M25 to get to the queue to get into Kent.

Next up: Watford Gap.

Not Particularly Mortifying: IEEE eggheads probe npm registry, say JavaScript libs not as insecure as feared

Re: Phew! We're safe then!

Add AppImage.

Re: Phew! We're safe then!

"static linking and fat packages"

Maybe it's worth while to start looking a bit more sympathetically at those. The trade-offs between the financial costs of on-disk storage and memory use vs security might have changed in the last few years.

Not even one in ten

I'm not sure whether this counts as damning with faint praise or praising with faint damns.

Error-bnb: Techies scramble to fix Airbnb website bug that let strangers read each others' account messages

Re: Ahh! The classic cookie clearing fix to the rescue...

Never trust the server either.

Alphabet promises to no longer bung tens of millions of dollars to alleged sex pest execs who quit mid-probe

The foreseeable consequence: someone leaves under investigation, is cleared, sues and takes them for a bundle.

Second foreseeable consequence: investigations pressured to come up with the "right" answer whatever the facts.

Third foreseeable consequence: someone leaves under investigation, investigation comes up with the "right" facts, leaver sues, proves that the "right" facts weren't right and takes them for the biggest bundle yet.

IT guy whose job was to stop ex-staff running amok on the network is jailed for running amok on the network

So actually fired for not addressing MBA failings in less emotive language?

Help! My printer won't print no matter how much I shout at it!

I suppose it might ruin the fun but it would be a good idea for IT departments to set up a rule that all call-outs to re-load or change printer paper, switch on printers, PCs, monitors etc. or plug in their power cords will be charged back to the department at an appropriate professional rate; the minimum will be 1 hour even if it's to the next desk.

Re: Must be a quiet On Call week

True, but it's still a winner as you can see from the number of comments.

Re: Witten this before

Easier still are scanners with built-in storage. No need to tote even a tablet around especially when you have to clamber up warehouse racking. We were using them on stock-takes about 25 years ago.

Re: No Paper

"you do not marry a fool"

That depends on the nature of "you". In some cases one has to conclude that only a fool would marry them.

Re: rather than slap the user around the head with an empty paper packet

"Sloe jelly"

No. The only jam SWMBO has ever made which was inedible. Far too bitter. Sloes make an excellent wine or make gin drinkable but jam - no. Too much tannin.

Re: HP

I can think of several good reasons why that might be the case. Starting with a porter' 'union that would bring the place to a halt if anyone dared so much as pick up a paper-clip themselves.

First-world problems: The pumpkin spice latte is here, but the Starbucks loyalty card app has wiped my balance

"the multinational bean-flingers"

Does this mean their stock control are multinational bean-counters.

OK, OK

SharePoint Syntex: Microsoft rolls out AI that automatically categorises documents

I take it that this will ensure retrieval has all the specificity of, say Bing searches. Or any of the other usual suspects - Google, Amazon, eBay (who suddenly seem to have got as crap as Amazon) etc.

Frames per second? Windows Terminal brings back text animation with the VT100 blink

Re: I'll take a pass

Sounds familiar.

Re: I'll take a pass

Did you get your own sorted out or did the loaner never quite get sent back?

All those ‘teleworking is the new normal’ predictions? Not so much, say bosses

Re: percentages are of businesses, not employees

From the experience of filling in time sheets allegedly attempting such analysis:

1. That doesn't fill me with any confidence in the results lying anywhere between wild guesses and entirely arbitrary invention.

2. The survey will not have attempted to analyse its own cost in terms of time spent.

BT cutting contractors' rates by a fifth and halving notice period because 'coronavirus'

Re: The benefits of being a contractor in 2020 are exactly what?

Go back and read the article again. Read it several times. Read it until you understand it.

Re: This years excuse

"No, there will be a termination clause in the contractors contract."

Of course there will be. There'll also be a term stating the rate. Changing the agreed rate unilaterally is where the breach is.

Re: This years excuse

"This is the nature of contract work"

It sounds more like breach of contract. In their position I'd be taking a careful look at contract terms, getting a legal opinion, reviewing how much in the lurch BT would be and then terminating ASAP, preferably with no notice at all. Then opening new negotiations.

NHS COVID-19 launch: Risk-scoring algorithm criticised, the downloads, plus public told to 'upgrade their phones'

Re: Small houses

"All track and trace systems can and should yield false positives, this is fine as long as you also pick up the true positives."

It's what we call a presumptive test and the role, the only role, of a presumptive test is to identify cases for a definitive test. The infrastructure for definitive tests should have been planned for and put in place.

Re: At this time, what's the point?

Try your chemist pharmacist. Round here they've been competing with the GPs. We had a call from the GP the other day chasing us up & had to tell them we'd already had it done by the pharmacy.

Re: At this time, what's the point?

"Quarantine in response to notification from the app is voluntary, so you will not be fined if you ignore it (although you will likely be an idiot)."

After a few successive quarantines with no sign of symptoms you might be inclined to place the idiocy indicator elsewhere.

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: Bad QR code, multiple codes per location, sabotage risk

It sounds familiar. Start to produce a world beating xxxxx from a position of total ignorance and end up with something that falls flat on its face. In a few months they'll probably come out with something along the lines suggested in the link.

Re: Is the QR code check part of the app in a legal requirement for venues?

Marketing are always the worst problem.

Good. We need to be thinking of how to apply selective pressure. Without an effective vaccination regime to eliminate the virus (and there are enough idiots to prevent it) having it reduced to something as benign as a cold is going to be the only long-term solution.

Re: Points missed

"Now that's missing the point!"

But not missing other people.

Re: UK

Hand-washing was part of the early instructions here along with lock-down but not masks. The package as a whole resulted in transmission rates falling abruptly

From a population point of view its a matter of numbers. If a given set of precautions is sufficient to bring R below 1 in a given situation then it will reduce the numbers of infections. If that happened in Vietnam for one particular set of precautions, fine*. Another set worked here in the UK.

From an individual point of view things are different. Family in my generation and our friends are at heightened risk due to age and possibly other health conditions. Mere hand-washing probably wouldn't have sufficed for us so we have had very limited contact with others and by-and-large are maintaining that.

I think what's happening now is much the same as the aftermath of Y2K. Then we had people saying it was a false alarm because nothing went wrong when we know that nothing went wrong because a genuine alarm was heeded. We now have people thinking that because they caught nothing up to now it was a fuss about nothing.

Yes there are idiots of all ages. The OP's comment, however, singled out young people and a group of older people of a certain attitude. The latter are at risk because of a combination of their age, which they can no more help than I can, and their attitude which they can do something about. If they choose to act foolishly my sympathy lies entirely with those to whom they pass on infections.

* I wonder what the age distribution is in Vietnam. In a predominantly young population the level of illness, if not of actual infections, might be lower n any case.

Re: Scotland

"getting all those lorries off the roads as well will be heaven"

They'll be on the roads alright. Parked. And if they're carrying food there'll be a choice of exhaust fumes to keep the refrigeration going or the smell of decomposition.

Re: Never mind

Remember that humans are a novel environment for this virus. It hasn't had the evolutionary time to adapt that older respiratory viruses have. What's more, the availability of medical treatment will have greatly reduced the deaths of individual hosts so the selection pressure is much reduced. The likelihood is that it will evolve.

Re: UK

I should point out to the downvoters that I'm very definitely an older person (as is my wife who has the additional risk factor of type 2 diabetes). I also have an aversion to being told what to do which goes back at least to compulsory Latin in school.

OTOH I recognise serious warnings and advice for what they are. I also spent half my working life as a biologist well able to look at things from the point of view of the species rather than the individual.

So when, the other day, I heard some nuppit probably the best part of a decade younger and possibly with drink taken, effing and blinding to the door attendant at Morrisons about restrictions I had no problem placing him as part of the problem, not the solution.

The downside of this, of course, is that a Darwin award for such individuals is that it's too late to have a real effect on the gene pool.

Re: Is the QR code check part of the app in a legal requirement for venues?

They still have to collect details of anyone who doesn't have the means to scan the QR code.

Re: Is the QR code check part of the app in a legal requirement for venues?

"Any data gathered via the QR coding cannot be pinpointed to an individual (supposedly)"

The way it works is that the device retains the QR code and the system periodically broadcasts a list of QR codes for tainted (in absence of a better word) premises. The app then matches this list against the codes it's gathered and warns the user so the data gathered from the QR codes never leaves the device. Allegedly. And by now I think HMG is well aware that it would never weather the consequences if it proved to be otherwise.

In fact I think they're missing a trick here. The app registers the user's home postcode and the system broadcasts lists of postcodes which are considered to be hotspots so it can warn the user if and when their own postcode is put on the list. There's no mention of the QR codes including the premises postcodes; if they did it could alert the user tot he fact thet they're now in a hotspot even if the particular premises aren't tainted.

Re: United? Kingdom

"Have you tried programming C# in welsh?"

I thought it was.

"I believe that humanity has never previously developed immunity to a coronavirus previously"

That's not a testable hypothesis. If it has the virus will now be extinct and we'd be none the wiser.

We do, however, have several coronaviruses that cause mild diseases*. What's the nature of this interaction? Did they start off as equally lethal and evolve to respond to some sort of control from the host so as not to kill off the latter?

* And the current coronavirus, like others, is not lethal in its original host.

Re: (thanks to Cummings)

Point taken. Nevertheless I think the Cummings incident and failure to deal with it was a turning point. Call it authority, respect, credibility or whatever; up to that point public opinion was supportive. Now Covidiots have a certain degree of licence. It will take a massive increase in death toll to get that support back.

Former BT CEO to lead task force that will advise UK.gov on diversifying the nation's telecoms supply chain

"Department for Digital, Media, Culture, and Sport"

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.actually but I prefer to omit the second comma - leaving the door agar for other interpretations.

Re: 30 years too late

Short-termism of the stock market is likely to have been just as potent.

Remember Entatech? UK liquidators are still trying to seize founder Jason Tsai's assets

"There were non-fraudulent parts of this business,"

The curate's egg argument.

Braking point: Tesla has had quite enough of Trump's 'unlawful' tariffs on Chinese-made parts, sues Uncle Sam

Re: The Falling Out of Faithful Friends...

But was the advice taken?

TikTok seeks injunction to halt Trump ban, claims it would break America's own First and Fifth Amendments

Just sell them all the rights to TikTok in the US. Then just launch a new product called, say TickTock. Who remembers "The Empty Store" (Phil Silvers)?