Posts by Doctor Syntax 33045 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"As an ex-IT professional I worked on the principle that there are no stupid users, only poor computer systems that don't protect users from their own stupidity."
This is the theory that systems should be made idotproof. Nature abhors an idiotproof system and responds by producing a new, improved idiot.
"Obviously, court cases will continue to exist, but there's a chance that they will be less frequent when the population uses a rather reliable tool to do the gruntwork for them."
Maybe in the US with plea bargaining even the innocent will continue to plead guilty. Over here I doubt those who insist on pleading not guilty even when bang to rights will take any more notice of a WebLawyer than they currently do of their barrister.
"seems many politicians are starting to realise that leaving the EU will drop us right in the cacky"
I think most always did. There was the numpty fringe that didn't. The referendum was expected to silence them. I think there were a few closet believers on both sides who were counting on the referendum going remain. AFAICS we now have a closet leaver as PM who can't believe her luck and a closet remainer as Foreign Sec who can't believe his bad luck.
"And yet the UK politicians still approve the 4th largest budget in the world for military spending. I'm not sure how much more committed you would want them to be..."
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?
Bernard: To defend Britain.
Sir Humphrey: No, Bernard. It is to make people believe Britain is defended.
Bernard: The Russians?
Sir Humphrey: Not the Russians, the British! The Russians know it's not.
"That's an OS install, though, and consumers aren't used to doing that when setting up most IoT tat."
That's only because they're not required to. If they can't use the equipment without they'd become used to it PDQ. They do more complicated things than that every day.
"Until regulation requires it. Which makes the manufacturers bark with dismay, because to them regulation = evil socialist totalitarianism."
They're based in China!!!
In fact regulation as evils is no argument at all. Anything you buy to plug into mains is subject to regulation as is the wiring back from the plug to the point where electricity enters your house. The vehicle you drive to the shops to buy the article or the van that delivered it is subject to regulation. The materials the article's made from are regulated. Safety regulation is everywhere but security regulation would be totalitariansim? Bollox!
"Good luck getting that change approved though!"
Given the increasing levels of damaged being caused I think the pressure for "something must be done" is growing fast. We just need that something to be sufficiently effective. Vendors' stock confiscated. Whole containers of goods held up at the docks or sent back to China because customs discovered a shipment of non-compliant product inside. Complaisant ISPs* not getting routed onto the net. It could all be over in a very short time.
*And countries if necessary.
"This is difficult and you can't really leave security to the manufacturer either, especially the hundreds of small Chinese outfits that work on thin margins and don't give a toss."
But you can enforce it in the marketplace, UL in the US and CE in Europe, whatever applies elsewhere.
You need to understand that thin margins apply because they're trying to undercut each other because price is a factor in what gets sold. But if they can't get to sell the product without complying with the appropriate regulations then it doesn't matter how cheap they are. If it does cost more to build in some level of security then it's still a level playing field between them - they just compete on thin margins at a slightly higher price.
"And by people, I mean the lawmakers who should have sued Facebook into non-existance years ago."
Sigh
If you make laws that's all you do. You don't enforce them.
If the laws you make provide for civil damages then it's up to those injured to sue.
If the laws you make create criminal offences then it's a matter for the appropriate criminal enforcement agency to prosecute and the options for punishment are fines or imprisonment which are not the same as suing for damages.
In either case it's up to the court to find for the plaintiff/prosecution, whichever applies, and to decide on the damages/punishment.
There are good reasons why we have these different approaches for civil and criminal matters* and different roles for legislators, prosecutors and courts.
*And it's not a good thing that IP issues have been allowed to blur this distinction.
"Tax is paid for the purchase of services or supplies. Tax is paid for the sale of services of supplies."
I don't know what tax regime you're in but this sounds very odd. Surely there's a single tax on the transaction whether it's called a sales tax, a purchase tax (UK old style) or VAT?
As to the rest, maybe you should have a word with your accountant. Or a new accountant.
"like the only long term sustainable corporate tax rate is zero."
Not really. Look at it like this:
You're running the tax system for a country.
First of all, as another commentator has noted, zero corp tax allows anyone who can incorporate to pay no tax at all by doing so and thus avoiding income tax. So now you have to pick between high and low strategies.
Divide your potential tax base between local and multinationals. Local businesses have no option but to pay CT. Multinationals can choose and your strategy will determine what they do.
If you have a small country with a small* local tax base charging a high rate on not very much yields not very much from your local tax base. Charging a lower rate yields less but that's less than not very much so you're not losing a lot. But if your lower rate brings in a foreign corporation or two you're getting a low rate on humungously much which adds up to doing quite nicely in relation to your needs and your local businesses are also happy because they're not paying as much.
If you have a large country with a lot of of local businesses you still have the possibility of attracting multinationals by a lower tax rate but the gains of that risk being less than the loss of tax from the local businesses. You could also get involved in a race to the bottom which is of advantage to the multinationals and no-one else. You maximise your tax take by screwing as much as you can from the local tax base and let the multinationals go elsewhere.
People keep posting here saying that the Irish tax rates are screwing the Irish tax payers. They're not. They're indirectly screwing the US tax payers.
*Small in relation to the potential multinational tax base.
"Settling on the choice of the P-8A Poseidon means that these aircraft cannot be refuelled in-flight by the RAF’s Voyager tanker planes to extend their range and endurance on-station"
Don't worry. It'll be cancelled and replaced by something else. Which will be cancelled and replaced by something else.
Cancelling aircraft has been a core competence of the UK governments for the last half century.
"Have you ever been to a *real* small SOHO outfit ? I would gamble some are still on dial-up."
Way back I had one as a client. The owner was a really good bloke. I felt sorry for him that his only son was just too think for him to even contemplate handing the business on when he retired. The server was on a dial-up modem for support. If I needed to dial in he unplugged the fax and plugged in the mode.
'The legislatures do "have an input", informally.'
Having an input as in being able to comment on stuff they haven't read because they're not allowed to. Or, in a few cases, allowed to read a copy they're not allowed to take away, copy or even make notes from.
'Who do you think does the negotiating in the first place?'
Not the MPs, Congress reps etc. You may be misunderstanding the word but those are the people who comprise the legislature.
'But putting the word "modify" in there - implies that you haven't thought things through. In the end, there has to be a straight yes-or-no vote.'
I think the A/C has thought things through.
If what's presented is unacceptable to those who have to ratify it then they say "no". The whole purpose of negotiation is to avoid that by modifying drafts until they are mutually acceptable and that isn't going to work unless the legislatures have an input, however informally. The legislatures are being presented with a fait accompli. The chances that at least one of them is going to find it unacceptable is pretty high.
"The reality is that trade deals are not about – or should not be about – whose wages go up or not, or whether jobs will increase or decrease – even though that is almost always the lens through which they are imperfectly viewed in domestic political circumstances.
Trade deals are about clearing away what can be decades of old rules and ad hoc agreements between a multitude of different countries in order to arrive at a much cleaner slate of rules, vastly simplifying commerce for all involved."
And why should a democratic country wish to simplify commerce? The only sensible reason I can think of is that it should benefit the the wages and job prospects of those who live there. That's why they're almost always viewed through that lens: that is, or should be, their purpose.
"I see the bulk of IoT devices piggybacking on local wireless networks (via something low power like zigbee / bluetooth), think Hue lights with Chromecast-style autodiscovery. "
And see where that leads: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/10/iot_worm_can_hack_philips_hue_lightbulbs_spread_across_cities/
"So suppose we had a big bucket containing all the world's data. Each unique chunk of data is stored in the bucket once and has a unique name. We could then add tags outside the bucket, referring to data chunks already in the bucket by their names."
So the data in the bucket remains the same but the tags keep growing in number... The more tags you need the bigger they need to be if they're to be unique so they also keep growing in size. At what point does the tag storage, retrieval and processing become the greater part of the problem?
"backwards compatbility with an exhausted protocol that only works due to address translation at line speed is quite a brake on connectivity"
Ummm. This word "exhausted" that you keep using. You're looking at it from the supply side. The correct term would be "fully used". If you have potentially a few billion devices using it can you afford not to support it? That's your problem and I don't think I've read any reply here that proposes a solution except to ignore it or denigrate it.
'Or even better - use one other device commonly known as the "Rubbish bin".'
The bin might not be big enough.
We've heard this time after time over OS versions. That "legacy" kit can be big industrial or lab stuff that just works and is paying everyone's wages. It might not be upgradeable for several reasons, one being that the original vendors no longer exist, there's no surviving source code etc. The reason it can't be scrapped and replaced - assuming a suitable replacement exists - is because it would cost an eye-watering amount to do that and would disrupt production for a long time.
Your use cases are not everyone's. Why is this so difficult to understand?
"Trump has proposed allowing US companies to repatriate the billions of dollars they have stashed overseas by paying just 10 per cent in tax. That would bring a lot of money into the country"
Alternatively it could pay for them to move corporate HQs outside the US to somewhere which would be a little more corporate friendly and still have a nice climate. Say somewhere around the Caribbean. They'd still face taxes selling into the US assuming he raises tariff barriers but they wouldn't, in Apple's case for instance, have interference such as demands for back doors that would cause them problems in the rest of the world.
"If they admit they were in the wrong, they're admitting to their taxpayers ... that they could have had €15 billion of extra"
That doesn't follow. In the absence of the deal they probably wouldn't have had Apple there so they wouldn't have had the tax and they wouldn't have had Apple's contribution to their economy.
What will actually happen, assuming they lose, is they get a big windfall now and then see Apple stop investing if there are more tax advantageous opportunities elsewhere so unless they use some of that windfall - carefully enough to avoid further accusations of state aid - they'll lose out in the long term.
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