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* Posts by Doctor Syntax

42273 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014

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Hipster horror! Slack has gone TITSUP: Total inability to support user procrastination

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Slack is down! OMG

"Slack is the main communication channel with our offsite team. And this is hampering our normal discussion. With them being 12hrs offset from our timezone IM is the best way to discuss."

12 hours isn't instant which is what the I in IM stands for. As someone said higher up the thread, have you tried email?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

In the meantime the eponymous Linux distro runs on regardless.

Galileo, here we go again. My my, the Brits are gonna miss EU

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: @ Doctor Syntax

"Really? Why?"

I think the rest of your post answers that question quite well.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Nose, face, bite ...

"There are many agreements which do not depend on membership of the EU, and this feels like a spiteful baby/bathtub response with no benefit to the EU"

That might be true of a lot of agreements. In this particular agreement it is, however, a condition of the Galileo project that the UK particularly wanted so spite doesn't come into it. Beware of what you wish for; you might get it.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"The Euro is the Euro which is of course over all those countries. That is why the Euro is undervalued and overvalued all at the same time depending where you are."

On that we can agree. We were wise to stay out. After all we seem to find it hard to set interest rates that work properly for the whole of the UK. For the whole of England, in fact. That's not a great reason to cut off a large part of out home market, however, and hope that some surge of export trade will magically replace it.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"The UK wants a good trading relationship with the EU."

I've seen nothing of that in the govt's Brexiteers. They seem to want a no customs union Brexit and I don't quite see how that gets categorised as a good trading relationship.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: we don't know.how.things will play out when.outside the EU, but.I'll take my chances on that.

No doubt all Leave voters will proudly state "Yes, I did my bit"

I doubt it. You'll more likely find that nobody actually voted leave and the referendum outcome is explained away as a strange statistical anomaly.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

" Johnny Foreigner builds stuff here for, yes, a large internal market but also to export to Europe."

Close but not close enough. For stuff built in the UK as a member of the EU, the EU is the internal market.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"So much like the Great British Patriotic Flying Brexit Pork Barrel will if it's catapulted into orbit then."

It would have to be even smaller, otherwise those nasty EU nations might be able to use it. No problem, a Brexit navigational system will go round in very small circles.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"I do find it saddening that so many people refuse to even consider that there could be a better future, and are happy to leave everything in the hands of someone else."

Isn't that exactly what you're doing where "someone else" is ToTW?

The really saddening thing that so many people refuse to consider that as long as we're a member of the EU the EU isn't actually "someone else", it's something of which we're a part.

We shouldn't really be looking at the EU as a trading partner but, for any large and many specialist small businesses, as the home market. The disruption of losing such a great proportion of their home market is such that many businesses are likely to go down the tubes or relocate before they can benefit from any great bonanza the RoTW could provide.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"Are you expecting us to be at war with the USA any time soon?"

With an increasingly isolationist USA it's not unreasonable to consider that we (or the EU) could be at war without them.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"I expect no one using this site has been affected by the EU."

This isn't a US site. The UK has been part of the EU for a long time, longer than many el Reg readers have been pushing air in and out. It's simply part of the way the UK relates to the world, the way it conducts trade, the way it earns money to pay wages and pensions. How on Earth can that not affect every one of the UK population?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"On the 52% and the warnings - how many of the warnings have actually come true?"

Please read the following very carefully and try very hard to understand it.

The warnings apply to what will happen when we leave the EU and EU trade arrangements no longer apply.

We have not yet left the EU.

Until we do the EU trade arrangements still apply.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"Trump is of this ilk, if more rational than some US politicians."

What a terrifying thought.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Lets just get on with it . . . .

"I really didn't think I needed the sarcasm indicator."

There seems to be a line of thought that Remainers actually want Brexit to fail. That needs to be made clear to them. Thank you for providing an opportunity.

"It's too hot and my brain is frying."

You're not alone.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: @ Doctor Syntax

"Probably because the EU sets the bar so low that any objective criteria would almost certainly lead us out of the EU."

Just the attitude I worry about. If the UK GDP had dropped by 50% of pre-referendum level you'd still point to this or that and proclaim a success.

How about we can agree it's a success if UK GDP rises by 5% and a failure if it falls by 5% in 5 years, relative to pre-referendum level and adjusted for any overall change in world GDP? Or maybe a 5% increase or decrease in balance of trade? Or some measure of living standards or employment? Personally I'd be delighted if, by some such measure, Brexit were to be proclaimed a success. Delighted but astonished.

Remember the Yes Prime Minister episode where any proposal was to be accompanied by failure standards? Somehow that never caught on in real life government or political circles. What a pity.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Lets just get on with it . . . .

"With confidence like that I'm surprised the Remainers aren't dancing in the streets."

Why? It's no cause for jubilation.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Has anyone come up with any objective criteria which could be agreed by both sides by which we could say, within a reasonable number of years, whether Brexit has succeeded or failed economically?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"Is the EU being awkward ?. Yes it is - just see it for what the EU is."

Oddly enough, if you ask the EU they'd almost certainly say the same about the UK. What's more, they'd be able to point out that Brexit was the UK's idea.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"The Commonwealth already has one (IRNSS)."

It relies on geosynchronous satellites and has limited geographical coverage.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

EU's nose cutting exercise? Have you got a mirror handy?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Fgs

"The UK is the 8th largest manufacturing economy in the world"

Currently. But to what extent does that depend on being a member of the EU? Once we aren't in the EU then that component, whether you measure it in jobs or contribution to GDP will be lost. Not necessarily immediately but eventually.

I assume the Brexit theory is that all that will be replaced and more from the RoTW. Even if it is (a dubious proposition) how long does the theory calculate that will take as opposed to how long it takes the losses to occur?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

the government remained optimistic

Due diligence. We've heard of it. Actually we haven't? What is it?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"On the latter figure, Bebb smiled wryly and suggested the committee not believe everything they read in the papers."

I think they knew that already. It always works out more expensive. In fact, there's a sort of Hofstadter's law at work on MoD cost estimates.

A year after devastating NotPetya outbreak, what have we learnt? Er, not a lot, says BlackBerry bod

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Patching is the most important thing, and it's really hard.

"Patching is hard... really monstrously hard."

And harder still if the patch interferes with the operation of the overall system or with regulatory requirements. In the latter case the system which actually needs to be examined and modified if required includes the regulatory process.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"outdated systems"

Where do you draw the system boundaries? A stand-alone PC running a particular version of a particular OS might be out-dated. An expensive piece of kit, of which a similar PC is a component, still performing the function for which it was bought and within its budgeted lifetime is a different matter.

Creep travels half the world to harass online teen gamer… and gets shot by her mom – cops

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Psycho creeps will always be with us.

"People defending their families in their own homes should not be subject to arrest."

Until sufficient facts have been established by investigation the reason for the shooting is unknown. So are you saying that someone who has shot a person for reasons not yet established should be allowed to go free and possibly take themselves off from the scene on the basis that subsequent investigation might establish a self defence motive?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Now he can get a tattoo, "Shot by the Mom!"

"The Battle of Agincourt, which was notable for the mass use of the longbow as a decisive weapon, wasn't until 1415, (15th century)"

Petite tranchet arrowheads go back to the Mesolithic which was a few thousand years beyond the C15th.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Failed Darwin attempt. Better luck next time.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Great outcome, but what about over here?

"not having doors that can survive a brick being tossed at them"

Article says it was tossed through an adjacent glass panel. A door that can always be unlocked from inside and has a glass panel within reach of the lock should always be regarded as unlocked.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Psycho creeps will always be with us.

"in the UK the mom would probably have been arrested."

I don't know why you got the down votes as this is what happens.

I've known it happen when an elderly couple in a remote cottage in S Down or S Armagh were being attacked. It took a little while for the police to get someone senior enough to countermand it (a gold course was mentioned). The SOCO who attended the PM told me there no brains in the carnial cavity but he wasn't sure there'd been any originally.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Now he can get a tattoo, "Shot by the Mom!"

"To be fair, firearms didn't exist when the fairy tale of LRRH originated"

I'm not sure when it did originate (although they existed when the Brothers Grimm wrote it up) but before firearms there were bows and arrows to which firearms were the successor.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Isn't he supposed to be ...

"given that apparently he was acting alone."

They can always add the Walmart. Or claim he has a split personality.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: "Flew halfway around the world" = "Auckland to Sydney"?

"if it's a trollbait I salute you twice as vigorously!"

Two fingers instead of one?

FireEye hacked off at claim it hacked Chinese military's hackers

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Turning on the camera to view the screen would be a neat trick if you could persuade the user to work with a mirror behind him.

Now NHS Digital is going after data on private healthcare too

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"The body has just launched a campaign promoting this to coincide with a new patient data opt-out scheme and new EU data protection laws"

An opt-out scheme or EU data protection laws? Surely it must be one or the other, it can't be both.

Who wants to cram some BOFH skills into their brains? How about from, er, Google?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Why doesn't ElReg sponsor...

Idea of the week!

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Does it cover cattle prods, dodgy window catches, tapping phones and cameras and, of course, the correct use of skips, carpet and quicklime?

And all the extra info re beer and pizza in last week's BOFH?

UK Foreign Office offers Assange a doctor if he leaves Ecuador embassy

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"Assange is Australian"

Or Ecuadoran these days.

Perhaps the US intends to grant him unsolicited and retrospective citizenship so they could charge him.

Veritas to put biz tech support on the slow boat to India – insiders

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"The Veritas office referred to is in Heathrow, Florida not Heathrow, England."

Just as well. If it was Heathrow, England it would be at risk of being flattened at some time in the next few years or a few years after that. After Boris, of course. He's still going to get flattened first by lying down in front of the bulldozers. He's still going to do that, isn't he? Isn't he?

The suits helped biz PC makers feed their kids in bumper Q2

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

I'd have thought businesses would have kept the old fleet running until new post-Meltdown/Spectre processors become available.

'Black hat' extortionist thrown back in the clink after Yelp-slamming biz

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: 8 years?

The initial imprisonment was for extortion against a particular victim.

The second was for "retaliation against a witness, victim, or informant", in other words against the justice system itself. Property does not enter into this at all. No wonder it's the more serious offence.

Not mentioned in the article but does he get to serve the remainder of the 37 months consecutive with the new sentence?

Great news, cask beer fans: UK shortage of CO2 menaces fizzy crap taking up tap space

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: dress rehearsal

"What, they're going to refuse to sell CO2 to us after Brexit?"

Blocks of dry ice are going to look a bit depleted after they've been sitting waiting for customs clearance for a few days.

Uber's London licence appeal off to flying start: No, you cannot do driver eye tests via video link

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Just make them

Want to pretend to be self-employed - run full accounts, payroll and pay your tax as a company.

FTFY

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"Uber modified its systems to require employees seeking to apply such tags to obtain pre-approval by a manager and legal clearance. Violation of the policy would lead to disciplinary sanction."

Translation: Not no.

So you're doing an IoT project. Cute. Let's start with the basics: Security

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Nice guys finish last

"The problem is that if you take the time to solve the security issues and make sure that you don't access too much data, your project is one generation late to the market."

That's why regulation is needed to level the playing field. That way, if you don't solve the security issues you don't get to the market.

Software changed the world, then died on the first of the month

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Data format parsing

"Best not to make assumptions about formats."

Or about anything else unless it can be avoided. Assume that every address includes a street number? No they don't. Assume "City" is a meaningful field name (including in historic addresses)? No it isn't. etc. etc.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Data format parsing

"Usually when they won't accept spaces, it's because they've fixed the textbox at 16 characters wide... to prevent people putting in numbers of the wrong length."

The length check should, of course, take place on the canonicalized version.

GDPR forgive us, it's been one month since you were enforced…

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Dicks sporting goods misbehaving?

"Don't be a ..."

Nominative determinism?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Entitled whinging

"If a non-EU company decides it is easier to lock you out rather than comply with pointless regs"

If they decide EU business isn't worth their while then it's reasonable that they regard the regs as pointless although those of us in Europe don't agree. For a company that does local business in a non-European company that wouldn't damage their business. If, in future, they were to want to expand their business they'll need to reconsider.

However, for those in media who regard themselves as important opinion leaders it's a very high risk strategy. They can't really afford to drop out of such an influential region. Are they finally getting round to fixing it or are they still sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it all goes away?

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