Posts by Doctor Syntax 41823 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"got out of the mindset of relying on code running on a particular server quite some time ago."
I'm genuinely curious about this sort of thing.
Is your data purely ephemeral?
If not, how do you manage connections between the not-a-particular-server and the server holding the persistent data? Each time you invoke service you'll need to set up a connection between wherever it's running and the data server and that would include authentication - hopefully two way because the application server would need to know it's connected to the real data just as much as the data server would need to know the connection comes from a genuine application. This takes time and resources. In fact if I understood the account of the TSB debacle correctly it was this sort of issue that was the underlying problem.
Another aspect is that if you don't have control over where the application runs you can't be sure of the speed of the link to where the data sits.
I'd expect issues like this to be serious hit on performance when it gets into production.
"Until the social media giants exercise their rights and prevent third parties publishing colourless images of their trademarks."
In that case the site owners would have to weigh up their options and not having the media buttons seems increasingly likely for someone who has taken this precaution in the first place.
"I did look for any method of disabling them all, there wasn't one. I've landed on a few other sites that did have such an option. This one was just plain hostile."
Let me guess. What used to be Trinity Mirror Group? I think it's now called Reach.
"Back in the day, we had developers and we had users."
Yup. I was there. I had a strong preference for development tools which would let you lash up a working demo/prototype on the fly whilst talking to the user. It did depend on having good users. I had a colleague who'd put together a demo and then find the users rejected the whole proposed system because they didn't like something about it and couldn't get their heads round the idea that it was intended to refine what it was they wanted.
"Then, slowly, all the hangers-on moved in - the business analysts"
It depends on the business analysts. If you get a good one it's great to be ablel to bounce ideas off each other. I've had that a couple of times.
"But surely the fundamental problem with this negotiation has been the threat of violence if any physical monitoring of the Eire/NI border is deemed necessary to meet WTO rules?"
It's more basic than that. There was no way to do this without either breaking the Good Friday agreement or else damaging the Union that the Conservative and Unionist Party stands for.
"Then all we would need to deal with is the serious civil unrest that I suspect would arise from that."
I doubt the civil unrest would be greater than that when people find out what find out just what they've had dumped on them on the basis of small majority in an advisory vote.
" especially when you're a low paid PAYE employee who cant get out of paying any taxes"
A good many of them will find that they can get out of paying any taxes be ceasing to be employees. Those overseas investors who've located plants in the EU so as to have and EU base will be looking to move on.
I've seen a business get rid of staff one or two at a time and realised that if those got rid of had got together they had the collective knowledge to start quite a good business for themselves. WHen the writing's on the wall so publicly I'd have thought that would be a reasonable approach to take.
Today's employment costs can become tomorrow's competitors.
"We're actively looking at ways to preserve jobs where it makes business sense to do so"
Mutters under breath "that'll be my job taken care of". Smiles entirely unconvincingly at the rest.
Seriously, who'd work for someone as blatant as that. Does he not care what he's saying? Does he even realise what he's saying.
"As soon as it's at the same level as your average human, it becomes safer for 50%* of drivers to have it drive them."
So by "average" you mean median?
Your population from which you're taking your average includes a lot of young, inexperienced drivers. They pull the average down. With experience they'll get beyond average. What you're saying is that an autonomous car is good enough if it's at the same level as a driver with some experience but less good than a driver with a few years of safe driving behind them. No thanks.
"t takes months for babies to be able to do anything non-instinctive."
Don't think that nothing's happening during that time. For one thing it's correlating what it can see with what it can touch and coming to understand the concept of solid objects. At that point it's achieved something that AI doesn't do. It might be one reason why the AI crashes into things as reported in TFA; it doesn't know that the car in front is solid because it doesn't understand solid (or anything else for that matter).
"I would love to see your conversation with your dev team or agency for a significant modern ecommerce website where you stipulated no client side code can be used but the results must be easy to use, have a great user experience and the sort of modern functionality that consumer require."
Have you ever heard the saying that security should be built in from the start? Where was that in your list of requirements?
"If company security fails were seen in the same light as H&S fails then you can bet that the insurance companies would push for greater diligence."
You're right, of course, but I'm not sure this applies to the NHS. Back in my Civil Service days the policy was to "self-insure". That meant that when the lab burned down HMG paid for rebuilding. If the NHS works in this way then that pressure is absent. But I'd like to think the insurance companies would push other businesses a bit lot harder.
"most of the administrators are desperately trying to make sure money is spent well."
Most but maybe not all. There are occasional reports in the local press of the non-for-profit business (maybe owned by the local trust but I can't remember the details) or the people it employs to do the work, district nurses etc., having pay squeezed. There are also reports of large pay increases for the top management. Not for profit? Oh yes?
