Posts by Doctor Syntax 42692 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"We had the queen visit the little town I stayed in a few years ago. She would only have driven up the road I live on not even got out the car. Even so we still got new lamp posts ahead of schedule, all the road markings repainted and the verges manicured."
We found that having the Tour de France come through had a similar effect on road surfacing a few years ago. It's all going to pot(holes) again now.
"The other definition came from a new group of vendors who hope to do business on the edge, but feel it’s hard to have a cogent conversation about edge computing because nobody uses the same definition."
This has been standard practice with any aspect of computing ever since vendors started to employ PR and marketing.
"The department intends to use this for research purposes, but has pointed to periodic reviews it will carry out to demonstrate that it won't be retained for longer than necessary."
Thank you for attending the annual review. Conclusion: still needed. That OK with everyone? Thanks. Please serve the tea and biscuits.
"Actually I think she is a closet remainer"
I always thought she was a closet leaver and her remain credentials pre-referendum were just enough to keep her job on the assumption that remain would win. She's been brainwashed by the Home Office into fear of the ECJ. Right now I think she's still a closet Home Sec.
"Besides, my email is flooded with vendor spam and other useless correspondence"
Use a different email address for the teams. And if you can, close the spammed address and think of the howls of pain from the marketing jerks when their valuable marketing messages spam bounces.
"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?
"said the attack cost it £100m"
When hacked companies say things like this you have to wonder how much of that was spend putting in place the defences they should have had all along. In other words, some of it's deferred spending and some of it is what that deferring has cost them in the long run.
"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.
"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.
Let's see how the ICO deals with this under GDPR - although there may be a complication that the hack was in progress before. But it gives us chance to see what sort of levels of fines they're going to impose.
And given that the hack was on a US 3rd party supplier it's good to see the Privacy Shield is really doing its stuff.
"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.
"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.
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.
"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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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?
"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?
"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.
"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.
