Posts by Doctor Syntax 42029 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"If we're going to have mandatory ID, we should also have a proper, written constitution"
We do. It's not just written in a single place. It starts with Magna Carta (which, admittedly, successive govts, especially recent ones, try to ignore) and including "and a Bill of Rights."
You want a Bill of Rights? OK, here you are:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction
"find it more impressive if someone gets bullocked without a single swear word being used."
The example given is definitely entering the realm of talking down to the culprit as if they were a small child. Nice one. Demeaning but without anything the snowflakes can actually put a finger on as being wrong.
" when the child comes to a conclusion you can ask them to explain why they think that is so."
It depends on the age of the child. Before they acquire language infants are learning how to interpret the various sensory inputs. One of the things they can do is reach out to touch what they see so they can correlate the tactile qualities of what's in the visual field. They can't explain how they learn that. In fact, can you, as an adult, explain how you recognise an everyday object such as a cup?
I'm not sure about a central opt-out register. It's an all eggs in one basket affair. At present one of the options we have in our defence is to set up variations on details such as email addresses, physical addresses, dates of birth and all the rest of the stuff to make it more difficult to combine data. A central register means that the user would have to give details of their account on that register to each site with which they connect. It becomes a single point of failure tracking.
"Here in God's Country where we have our own banknotes (a cunning ruse designed to spike the blood pressure of London cabbies"
When I lived in NI the local banknotes were useful for spiking the blood pressure of any Scottish businesses I had to deal with when in transit along the dreaded A75. In NI local, NoE, Scottish and (while the Punt was at parity) Irish notes were all accepted without comment.
Where do those using the term "scrum" and wearing rugby boots appear? Hopefully not too far below those wearing football kit. And amongst the latter do those not on a football field appear above or below those who are? I appreciate that in the normal circumstances the car is unlikely to find itself running down those who are on a football field; the manufacturers should make more efforts in this respect.
"In my opinion, If the autonomous car is out of control, then by definition, even if it can make a decision on who to kill, it can't actually control the vehicle to take aim."
My guess would be that an autonomous car gets out of control of it's AI by the latter overloaded with conflicting information and rules so that in order to ditch the lot it needs an emergency routine to follow. I suspect they're all loaded up with a secret "kill the lone pedestrian" function and that eventually it will be triggered where the overload arises in an entirely innocuous situation.
After all the emissions cheating stuff would you really believe it would be beyond the car manufacturers' inclinations?
"After much research, I found the source was the HUGE, clunky Leica power supply for the mercury lamp used for fluorescence imaging at the latter department."
Was this the stabilized one? Make sure all nearby electronics are switched off before firing it up. It's along time since I used one of those but remember it being a brute.
"offers an opportunity for poorer countries to receive their fair share."
The existing tax system offers that. For multinationals there's an international market place in low corporate taxes. If a low tax rate brings in more from large multinationals than it loses from local businesses then it's a net gain. It also benefits any local businesses who export goods or services, so win-win. At present the UK's not in a position to play in that market. Not yet.
"the UK has local taxation on top of national taxation... Council Tax"
Different entities being taxed. Personal taxes are income based, company taxes are on profits. CGT is on capital gains, VAT on value added. Council tax, including business taxes, are on occupation of property. If you want to get into double taxation you need to look at VAT on fuel taxes - but it's not local on national.
"The UK already has full powers to cut down on tax evasion, and it's good to see that it is starting to do so."
This is where we need to discriminate between evasion and avoidance. Evasion is illegal so obviously the UK has full powers at its disposal. Avoidance, which is the case here, is the use of legal means to reduce tax. That means that the only powers available to a govt. not happy with the tax take are to huff and puff but let the avoider carry on, change rules on existing taxes, introduce new taxes or, in the case of multinationals, reduce tax rates so as to make the country a more attractive place in which taxable income can be realised. The last is only really workable for a small economy such as Ireland or Luxembourg but not, at present, the UK. A new tax seems to be the most workable of the others.
"The ongoing global dialogue on the digital economy through the OECD framework should not be pre-empted"
Is any particular country slowing down the OECD process by any chance? If the US thinks the OECD route is the best then surely they'll respond by ensuring it's speeded up, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they?
"The software allows bytecode to run in response to specific events for the purpose of modifying and extending kernel behavior."
Just what everyone needs - send bytecodes to your somebody's kernel and get them executed with, presumably, kernel privileges.
As the UK does not have a scheme of 'identity', its administrative law does not rely upon one, making the idea of an 'online identity verification' irrelevant as well as conceptually dubious
Combine this with an earlier sentence in the same paragraph in the evidence:
Setting aside debates over the nature of identity and its “proof”, the ability to assert it incontrovertibly “online” is in doubt.
Thank goodness somebody gets it.
"I'm a tad cynical that letting the academics at the problem is going to make it any better.
From the point of view of an outsider looking in, the three things you need for 'digital transformation'..."
I take it you didn't actually go to look at the evidence to the committee. It wasn't so much that they were doing "transformation" wrong, more that they were doing the wrong thing:
Many public administrative functions such as assessing the needs of benefits claimants are not amenable to online self-service. Consequently, policy implementations not suited to this approach (such as Universal Credit and CAP-D – see my evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee) became highly contentious and problematic as GDS insisted on using the wrong tools for the job. Public sector bodies are not entrepreneurial businesses — almost the opposite as they must follow their founding legislation impartially and consistently. The data they collect and use is determined by their legislative base. Government departments are structured around the policy and legislation assigned to their Secretary of State by the Prime Minister. None of these entities are changeable (“transformable”) at the whim of their managers.
Your idea of being able to "stand on toes" and "have the authority to make changes to the legacy" is exactly what they were trying to do. But the "legacy" includes legislation that only Parliament has the authority to decide and policy which is the PM & Cabinet's responsibility That, according to the Prof. is where they went wrong/
"Don't let any civil servant use anything more technologically advanced than tracing paper and crayon."
As far as the Civil Servants in GDS were concerned I though that was about the level of technology they were suited to. It looked as if that's what they'd used & then turned it over to a few kids to convert into HTML etc. The real Civil Servants were, I suspect, a good deal frustrated with all this and probably capable of doing a much better job. Make no mistake - this thing was driven by politicians for whom tracing paper and crayon might well have proved too challenging.
The cashiers always give me dirty looks when the phone number associated with "my" rewards/loyalty account is the same one I just overheard the customer in front of me blurt out.
If you're going to do that sort of thing do it properly. Look up their customer services number before hand. That way their marketing can learn something useful about their customer service.
"For starters, RHEL is not free. It's pay-to-play."
Any payment is an advance payment for the services. If you don't want to download the free source and compile it yourself Centos, Scientific Linux & maybe others will do that FoC so it's not necessary to pay for it unless you want the services.
