Posts by Doctor Syntax

Spin the wheel and find today's leaky cloud DB... *clack clack... clack* A huge trove of medical malpractice complaints

Re: Today's lesson is:

Today's and everyday's.

Delicious irony: Hacked medical debt collector AMCA files for bankruptcy protection from debt collectors

Re: um

Presumably the judge has the ability not to grant protection. Has anyone out there sufficient knowledge of US law to say whether that would be the appropriate course of action in this case?

Parliament IT bods' fail sees server's naked OS exposed to world+dog

It seems to have disappeared from the cache now.

As a non-GDS site you could actually see a reasonable amount of stuff on-screen at one time without the GDS trademark white space, large fonts and flaccid prose.

UK industry calls for delay of IR35 off-payroll tax rules to private sector

Re: Obviously the offshorers and integrators will love this

Really cutting out the middleman is contracting direct, company to company, without any agent, in-house or not. My experience, probably not everyone's was that, at least where the clients were SMBs.

On a wider scale I wonder if there's scope for a freelancer owned agency. Not so much a group of freelancers doing their own pimping but a regular Ltd Co with the shares spread out between freelancers with the board drawn from the shareholders. The purpose wouldn't be to find work for just the shareholders, it would need a wider resource base, but to ensure that there was at least one agency drawing up proper IR35-resistant contracts and maybe educating clients.

Re: I am HMRC's target

"Two taxation systems.

That is the essential problem.

People are taxed one way, and companies a completely different way"

Not really a problem, just a reflection of different modes of operation.

If you operate a freelancing company you should run it as a company. It's not, or shouldn't be, a conduit for cash straight to the worker's pocket, nor should it be a vehicle for strange financial shenanigans involving loans with peculiar T&Cs or the like. I don't have too much sympathy with those who run into problems with doing the latter. A little sympathy if they were suckered into it by some smart salesman pushing a financial package to make a commission but they should remember if it looks too good to be true it probably is.

If you're an employee of a company that you don't own you'll expect your employee to take incoming cash, pay your salary, employer's NI, put aside cash to pay your holiday, sick pay, [mp]aternal leave and any employer's pension contributions. Also to continue paying your salary if things get a bit slack. A freelancer's company should so just that. In particular the client pays for instant availability - the regular greeting of an agent is "Are you available?". "Available" almost invariably means out of contract and possibly having been so for some considerable time. Providing that availability is an overhead for the the business.

Envious of freelancers? If you think you can hack it, including providing the availability, join in. If you can't, keep quiet, the freelancers are doing things differently to the way you choose to do them.

Re: IR35 Exemptions

"a special arrangement with HMRC whereby their contractors were exempt from IR35"

If it were me I'd want to go through the documentation with a fine tooth comb before believing it.

Re: Obviously the offshorers and integrators will love this

"get some more TCS/WIPRO/MASTEK/Capita/Generic Body shop people"

Then they'll need some more good freelancers to repair the damage and integrate the repaired product into the business.

Re: Bound to fail

he left to go contracting because his "developer" job consisted of nothing but interviewing people.

It depends on who he was interviewing. If you mean interviewing new recruits, maybe he was right. If it was interviewing users to find out what was needed then maybe he needs to widen his view of development.

A clear admission of how big a mistake it was combined with being a poor loser.

Re: I guess I misunderstood the situation

"Define economy. EU has exclusive (in)competence in a lot of political and economic areas, not all of which serve UK economic interests."

The EU isn't them, it's us, or at least has been for a few decades. As long as we've been in the EU we've been in the decision making process.

"Brexit just means having UK hands on those levers, and less money flowing to the EU to bankroll EUrocrat's lifestyles"

Brexit means taking our hands off those levers. The impact of that depends on the role the EU continues to play as a suppler and customer. There are a couple of alternative outcomes after the transition period (if any). One is that they don't in which case you'd better hope those unicorns come galloping over the horizon otherwise a good deal of the economy is goingto go the same way as Honda and Scunthorpe steel works. The other is that they continue to be a significant part of the economy in which case you might then start wondering just why it was that we took our hands off those levers.

Samsung reminds rabble to scan smart TVs for viruses – then tries to make them forget

"According to market research firm IHS Markit, smart TVs represented 70 per cent of all goggle-boxes shipped last year globally."

What a pity their market research didn't extend to something really useful: listing the 30%.

Sad SACK: Linux PCs, servers, gadgets may be crashed by 'Ping of Death' network packets

Re: A few things

"modifications to /proc and its kids won't hang around when the system is rebooted."

Just add a line to an init script to make the mod.

"I would guess that ... the device that is going to crash... is the network route"

That's the worry. Are proprietary routers going to get firmware updates?

This isn't Boeing to end well: Plane maker to scrap some physical cert tests, use computer simulations instead

Slow learners.

Frontiersman Cray snags $50m storage contract for 'largest single filesystem'

Will HPE have fired the engineers before they've managed to deliver it?

Why are fervid Googlers making ad-blocker-breaking changes to Chrome? Because they created a monster – and are fighting to secure it

"There is no CVE issue here because extensions are opt-in, and what they can do is disclosed to the users choosing to install them,"

That depends the honesty of whoever writes the description and the freedom from bugs of what's being described.

Stiff penalty: Prenda Law copyright troll gets 14 years of hard time for blue view 'n sue scam

Re: Talking of which ...

"Ironically while all the focus was on SCO and Linux (and by extension/FUD, open source in general), it was MS who really came a cropper."

What happened to that one eventually? AFAICS it seems to amount to "let's pull data out of a transaction database into a reporting database and patent the idea".

US can try extraditing Julian Assange next year, rules UK court

Re: why the remeote video link ?

I think originally it was for security reasons. Now, more likely for economic reasons; it saves on having to provide prisoner escort.

I suppose the Swedes have decided he's more trouble than he's worth so there goes his chance of escape via an EAW and at worst a few years in a jail that's got to be more comfortable than anything in the US.

Oops; I think you may just have revealed your age "range".

And what picture do you see when you look at an Ant chair?

"He doesn't see himself as someone who should be in prison."

That's one to rank alongside "he would say that, wouldn't he".

"In the magistrates' courts you call the judges sir or madam. "

In the magistrates' courts you can probably get away with calling a judge "mate" or anything else. They'll just be there as a member of the public, a witness, possibly - because they're all lawyers and some only sit as judges part-time - they might be acting as counsel (they may even be the accused). The folks on the bench are magistrates.

Exodus: Tech top brass bail on £1bn UK courts reform amid concerns project is floundering

I don't suppose they're going to starve.

OTOH I have considerable sympathy with anyone who tries to write a court scheduling system.

Halleluja! The Second Coming of Windows Subsystem For Linux blesses Insider faithful

Re: Groundhog day?

"The idea of running some form of Linux in Windows seems to keep coming up"

And the explanation given, including, it seems, from those who see themselves as the target audience, is that they're employed in situations where they have to run Linux to do their job but have to run Windows-only PCs. It may not be a rational solution but the irrationality isn't on the part of the users but their manglements.

I suppose from MS point of view it enables customers to continue resisting Linux boxes and discovering that they actually work very well and they could actually wean themselves of the MS teat. I can't imagine why they'd put the effort into it otherwise unless unless all that wishful thinking about making Windows a Linux core with a Windows API and interface on top.

In regard to the last I read elsewhere that this build also includes steps towards separating the Shell, presumably that awful-looking flat thing, from the rest of the OS, just like we've been doing with every Unix-based GUI for years. Strange times.

"WSL 2 is aimed at encouraging developers to stick with the Windows 10 platform and..."

...not run the real thing in case they get to prefer it.

Those darn users don't know what they're doing (not like us, of course)

Re: brought a tear to my eye...

You could go half a mile in a big Healey on the contents of the float chambers?

Re: Documentation

You just documented it.

The attempts to dejargonify (oops, squiggly red line) computers has a lot to answer for and the car comparison is relevant.

Ask any car driver about the accelerator, brake, clutch (at least on a manual), engine, gearbox or whatever and they'll know what you mean. At some point all these items were new and their names technical and drivers had to be introduced to them. But they just became part of the vocabulary. It was accepted that even f you didn't know exactly how they worked you knew what they were for and what they did. Nobody was unsure as to whether the brake speeded the car up or slowed it down (being able to hit the correct pedal was a different matter).

Somewhere along the line we got to a stage where people who would never dream of challenging the names for the bits of their car was start complaining about jargon when it came to their computer. Obligingly, vendors took to hiding the workings, trying to make everything seamless so that users, who would have coped just as easily with names for the components of their computer as they would with their cars*, now see it as an undifferentiated "thing" which works by magic.

* I will make an exception for my late aunt who must have been well into middle age when she got her car, an ancient Morris 8. She knew that when it appeared to have run out of petrol she needed to open the bonnet and hit a nameless black cylinder with something solid. Readers of a suitable vintage will instantly recognise an SU fuel pump but she didn't need to know that.

When customers see red, sometimes the obvious solution will only fan the flames

Re: Good ol' "have you checked the cable?"

At a guess: Wanting someone else to humiliate her.

Re: Up yours mate!

My version is "incomprehensible in all languages".

Re: Ive been the dumb user...

@ColinPa

You seem to be a natural born software tester although it doesn't help if developers are natural born ignorers of feedback.

Re: Once again the bad memories resurface

Very likely she realised it was something she'd done. VVVISP's are too important to do their own email.

Re: Dolt

"Hopefully they'd get the point and not ask stupid questions again in the future."

Triumph of optimism over experience.

Re: Dolt

I've seen a board where loud voices seemed to be the requirement (to enable eviction of toys from perambulator).

Re: Dolt

"Also expects that said dictionary has every word like antidisestablishmentarianism"

I just checked the UK English dictionary on Seamonkey. It includes antidisestablishmentarianism. Maybe it's a Dr Johnson thing - they expected someone to be looking for it.

The "which of these meaningless symbols is for the wifi key" problem. Seen that.

Probably foul in the case of the shouting match.

Re: I prefer PEBMAC

Faulty knob on monitor

settlement.js not found: JavaScript package biz NPM scraps talks, fights union-busting claims

"how to keep JavaScript safe"

Those of us running NoScript see a certain irony there.

We asked readers what DXC should be known for... and of course you came up with the goods

Whatever they do it' can't be what all those they sacked were doing because they're not there to do it any more. Maybe that's why they're puzzled.

Are you making smalltalk?

Behold the might of dynamic crimefighting duo Captain Met Police and the Microsoft Kid

"Historically Microsoft have been willing to go to court against the US government in order to not hand over information."

Indeed they did and good for them. So the US invented the CLOUD Act to get round all that. You'd think that Microsoft would have been opposed to it wouldn't you? No, they welcomed it.

A quick check: a Chinese company, say Huawei, storing US gov. data - is that OK?

"They're also subject to random checks by the Crown Commercial Service to make sure they're storing UK government data correctly."

And if a foreign government has the right to order the supplier to hand over data you'd think that that wouldn't pass as correct? Clearly not.

Germany and South Korea go nuts for 5G while Blighty subsists on test bed crumbs

"It splashed the most (€2.2bn) but complained of the high price it was forced to pay."

HPE/Autonomy 2.0. "We bid that much because we wanted it but we were overcharged"

Big hint, when you bid for something it's you who sets the price so don't complain about it.

UK Home Sec kick-starts US request to extradite ex-WikiLeaker Assange

Re: The Love-McKinnin precedents ?

"or Assange stays here regardless"

He's not one of ours so he can be sent to wherever he's a citizen of. Oz or Ecuador?

Re: Sweden

The UK has always been more likely to hand him over to the US. This, together with the fact that there wasn't any extradition request in process when he painted himself into the corner of the embassy leads me to think it was just the Swedish charges he was avoiding.

It seems the Swedes have backed out if you read TFA. He should have stayed there in the first place if he really wanted to avoid the US. Maybe he just wanted to avoid doing time in Sweden.

Large Redmond Collider: CERN reveals plan to shift from Microsoft to open-source code after tenfold license fee hike

And not necessarily portable to other versions of Office.

"Unless that user is stupidly out of date."

Or just middling stupid & won't try 'cos it's not .docx (really stupid won't notice & just blindly click it anyway along with anything else they receive).

Re: Its the updates

Quite often the problem isn't that the bleeding edge version is needed, it's just the one specified in the bleedin' config file and something antique would do perfectly well.

Underground network targets Salisbury: Not the Russian death crew, this time it's Openreach laying fibre-optic cables

Re: Who Micro-Trenches These Days?

I don't know the technology but our gas supply must have been installed with something of that nature possibly in that sort of timeframe - there's certainly no sunken remnant of a trench like that for the drain, water & phone. Possibly also the electricity supply and that must have been installed in 1968.

Get this: Mad King Leo wanted HP to slurp two other firms alongside ill-fated Autonomy buyout

"simply one person's opinion"

The one person who happens to be the CFO, the person whose opinion should count.