Posts by Doctor Syntax 42273 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"So, you can observe the speeds of stars that actually have escaped the galaxy, and those that haven't."
I'm not sure whether they'd spot the stars that have escaped but the maximum measured velocities of stars in the galaxy is likely to be just under escape velocity.
"In a lawyer's office, especially, I would not want to manage the logistics of issuing a laptop that goes home with them with all kinds of stuff on it."
In a lawyer's office the logistics of providing a full size PC at the various courts they might have to attend would be even harder to manage.
"Yah know, to listen to you guys, you'd think the only stuff worth knowing was computer stuff, and anyone who doesn't understand computer stuff must automatically be, like, yah know, an idiot, and computer guys are gods who know everything that's worth knowing."
I drive a car. I don't do it for a living and it's a long time since I was able to do stuff like take the head off and reseat the valves (MGBs were nice to work on). Nevertheless I need to know where all the controls are and what they do. I also need to know which side of the road to drive on, what the various road signs etc. mean.
Back in the day I used to be a laboratory scientist. I needed to know things like how to set up a microscope, how to balance the tubes in a centrifuge etc.
In short, I, like everyone else need to know enough (NB enough, not everything) about the tools I use to be able to use them. Why should it be different when the tool in question is a computer, especially when it's being used as part of one's job?
"How are they planning to send the information to their servers without sending your IP at the same time?"
IP address sent from other than a home location isn't likely to be PII. IP address sent from a home location isn't likely to be PII either as ISPs don't normally issue static addresses without charging extra. Not that that excuses a pre-ticked opt-in.
"Me at work: Bloody European Union legislation making me change all my perfectly secure processes."
If you had to change processes to cope with GDPR then you must have been collecting PII. If so then those whose PII you were collecting might have different views about your assessment of perfection and security.
However, if you think GDPR impinges on this you need to look again at what it collects (not that I'm excusing pre-ticked opt-in) and at what you understand by PII.
"Its really worrying when someone like that doesnt grasp GDPR, and theres no soft opt-in"
That was my initial thought. However, having read what's collected there's no PII in that so they seem to be OK on that score. However, as Canonical is a UK company you'd expect them to reflect European attitudes to pre-ticked boxes.
"Windows users like your mum and dad dont know anything else and/or generally wont/dont care."
My parents are long gone. I'm the senior around here, a Linux user and Unix user since well before Windows was even a thing. SWMBO (who, in fact is really the senior round here) is right now sitting working on her Debian laptop. Two of my older cousins have also been converted to Zorin. It's my children and grandchildren who're on Windows.
TL;DR Stop making ageist assumptions. And put the apostrophes in "don't" and "won't".
"Shouldn't they be looking at her actual contract, not just a hypothetical one?"
Of course. But that's why IR35 was brought in. It enables HMRC to invent a contract which puts the worker in the worst of positions: the engager doesn't provide employee benefits aso they have to be paid by the freelancer but HMRC can up the tax take by pretending that this isn't so.
"Additionally, at this wage level if she had been with the BBC in 2016-17, her name would have appeared in the Pay Disclosure Annex of the BBC's annual report - potentially increasing the number of highly paid women and thus directly impacting the BBC's gender pay gap."
This would be another advantage for the Beeb. If they'd both been directly employed and she was paid significantly less than, say, Harry Gration, the Beeb could have been on the hook under equal pay legislation. With freelancers each arrangement is independent. Now it's gone political, of course, that isn't such a big concern.
"She was a highly paid presenter, reportedly on over 100K a year. If she's not been paying NI on that wage then she's certainly not 'poor'."
As a freelancer she will have been paying both employer's and employee's NI from such portion of that sum as she takes as salary. Given that there's no guarantee of long-term re-engagement or, indeed, payments should she fall ill, she should have banked a good deal of that payment for future income should the engagement cease. She would also have to make her own provision for pension. These are issues that HMRC neglect to take into consideration. They only really understand PAYE as that's how they're paid. Their employment includes a degree of permanence not available to freelancers. It ought to be valued as a perk of the job and taxed accordingly.
"Presumably the BBC should have paid NI and pension stuff too"
I believe HMRC are responsible for enforcing compliance with workplace pension scheme legislation. Are they providing such a scheme for their IR35-caught freelancers? If not, why are they not prosecuting themselves.
"Depends on your purpose. LibreOffice isn't fit for purpose for delivering my coursework, because LibreOffice docs don't render the same on my examiner's copy of Word."
File>SaveAs.
On the save dialog do you see a drop-down box labelled Filetype? Click the down arrow. Select your examiner's version of Word.
Alternatively, you really need an examiner who values content over appearance.
"Y2K could have been a big problem except for the years of effort that went into rewriting and testing a whole bunch of code all over the world."
Perhaps one outcome of this would be a few man-years of effort in trimming bloat to mitigate the performance loss in mitigating meltdown.
"Before setting laws for the general public, the government should encrypt all government owned devices with security that has a back door only they can access."
No. They should be prepared to publish their own online credentials to their bank accounts, online shopping or other services because that's what, in effect, they're expecting of the rest of us. If they're not prepared to do that they can shut up. If they don't see the problem they can find out - and then shut up.
"Governments are quite capable of keeping secrets if they want to."
They have a problem with greed. If you look at the list of "government" bodies who crop up in every iteration of RIP/DRIP etc. can you realistically believe that that isn't a sieve?
Similarly, there's a fairly regular stream of news reports of disciplinary action or prosecution for wrongful access to the PNC, usually people checking on their ex or their child's latest boy/girl friend.
"If they know, and like Amber R, getting rather pissed at the pitying looks from technical people over the insistent demands for the impossible, why continue?"
It doesn't matter that they're repeatedly told it's not possible. They don't believe that. They've reached positions of power (or what they think to be power) and know that they can command whatever they want because they have power.
They should have paid more attention to Shakespeare at school: "'I can call spirits from the vasty deep', ''Why, so can I, or so can any man;/But will they come when you do call for them?'"
I'm in favour of 2). There's nothing remarkable about govt. IT projects that fail to deliver. The politicians continue to believe that they're going to succeed and it keeps them happy because they're Doing Something. The sooner they head of in that direction the better. They'll stop bleating, someone will get dosh that would inevitably be spent on something worthless and the rest of us would get a break from this endless whining. I might even consider coming out of retirement to work on it; I'm not a cryptographer but I could fail at it as successfully and expensively as someone who is.
"And make sure the contract deliverables are exactly those things : not an actual working application."
You're too pessimistic. I'm sure we can all think of big projects which consume money without producing anything that remotely resembles a working application. A work in progress is just fine.
"With sufficient funds, we could subcontract the job to GCHQ and let them get into systems using more conventional, but tried and tested methods, such as social engineering."
That wouldn't work because it's not what the numpties in government want. It's something they have already. What they want is something new and magical that doesn't take any effort to apply. GCHQ know as well as anyone that a load of bollocks that is.
The answer, as ever, lies with Sir Humphrey's explanations to Hacker that seeing money being spent means that everyone's happy because something's being seen to be done. So, just let out a contract to develop this magic with GCHQ, maybe in conjunction with some independent experts, being the arbiters of whether it works without any risks.
That way, with some utterly rudderless guidance from themselves, HMG can persuade themselves that they're setting out to achieve this goal and maybe keep quiet about it - and even quieter about the ultimate failure. For good measure perhaps IDS can be put in charge; he has just the right track record for it.
"The ICO and insolvency service need more powers to not only veto liquidiation of such companies but also to ensure company directors are prevented from phoenixing anything."
ITYF the insolvency service has those powers.
Also, it's about time that directors were tried directly. I'm pretty sure that while a Ltd company limits shareholders risk it doesn't shield against criminal behaviour.
"To be honest, 1024 x 768 – the iPad's original resolution at launch – would have sufficed for browsing, email, writing, and IM. "
A frequent complaint of commentards is that wide-screen laptops don't cut it. When you actually pin down the cause of the complaint it's nothing to do with the aspect ratio; it's that they're only 1080 vertical resolution. For actual work - and by that I think they mean writing as many other tasks and applications benefit from a wide screen - they want 1600 minimum. So I don't think your contention that 1024 x 768 would find much favour there.
