Posts by Doctor Syntax 42400 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"A new DSG can change gear in 8ms, so it can go up then back down again in the blink of an eye without you even noticing."
A handy trick to fix mistakes but it still falls some way short of anticipating needs.
"You can also choose the style of gear changing you want"
I can do that with a manual without telling a machine.
"It's the oblivious '35 is the right speed in any circumstance' that I (and others, seemingly) find vexing."
IME it's been a safe rule of thumb for at least half a century that the driver doing 35 in a 30 area will also be the driver that does 35 in a 40 area and vice versa. There's something magic about that number.
"Auto gearboxes, I am sure there must be good ones out there"
I'm not sure. An auto gearbox can only respond to what's happened, it can't anticipate. My car has an indicator to signal what gear it thinks I should be using. It regularly tells me I should change up again just before I encounter an uphill hairpin bend. Presumably if it were an automatic it would actually do that and then change down again.
"is there going to be a speed control button on these things, so the elderly can set it to FUCKING DAWDLE at 35 on country roads"
As an elderly country dweller my problem is with townies of all ages who come here, park in dangerously daft places irrespective of the proximity of car parks, when walking can't work out how to maintain maximum visibility in winding lanes and when driving can't work out an appropriate speed (that works for both alternatives*). Worse still, those who come cycling and worst of all, organize cycling events.
Walking parties who lack anyone who can read their map are another nuisance. I watched one party turn back a few yards short of the corner beyond which was the clearly marked (on OS and in reality) start of a public footpath and then head of up what was clearly signed as a private road instead.
*There are a great many roads here where your 35 would be vastly excessive as well as those which seem to attract drivers who are unable to maintain speeds uphill.
"I would be curious what happens every time a BT exchange in the 21CN goes up in flames"
I think the problem isn't in the BT exchanges. It's the emergency services closing call centres and relying on more distant ones where local knowledge isn't available.
Worse than that; the actual service provision gets closed. A few days ago there was a fire locally. I happened to be next door. The local fire station is only a couple of hundred metres or so away so after a couple of minutes and no sound of a fire engine being heard I walked over there to see why they weren't turning out and found it deserted until someone, presumably a retained local fire-fighter rolled up in a van and told me it's unoccupied most of the time.
We eventually had 5 or 6 appliances at the scene from up to about 20 miles away. But it's not the number that counts it's the speed of first response. A woman had been trapped in a flat above the fire Fortunately she'd been rescued unharmed before the first one arrived; a retired fire-fighter happened to be around.
"Pretty sure it is was noted as being the prime time for a reason and that was why it was targeted with better programming."
Targeted, certainly. Better? Matter of opinion. Thanks to MythTV we seldom tune in to watch anything at broadcast time these days.
"Pity theres no such thing as targeted advertising due to the strict privacy and freedom laws we have."
No, there's plenty of badly targeted ads. Even in-line from whatever site you're looking at: "You might be interesed in"
...whatever you've just bought and don't need another of
...something that you just decided not buy because it was overpriced crap
...something that matched one key word of your search string but failed on all four others
The reason there's no well targeted advertising is that marketing is over-populated with over-eager gabblers with no self-control and no thinking skills.
"surely a cheap arse light sensor on the top will be far cheaper over the long run."
it depends what they're sensing. If, say, they're sensing a pedestrian or vehicle walking along the street the lights can be turned off completely when there's nobody about but turned on when there's someone in range. If they're able to communicate the next one along can also be turned on so as to light up the area the traveller is moving towards. That not only saves power but also cuts light overall pollution although the neighbours might be annoyed by them switching on and off.
Big retailers are already giving data they shouldn't basically to anyone "big" that offers something shiny.
Because they think it's a risk worth taking. It'll stop being worth taking. As ever, some will only learn the hard way.
Those vendor-specific email addresses I use could be quite handy.
"It boils down to whether the company finds it cheaper to comply with the legislated anonymisation requirements or just sue the researcher. I know where my money would bet."
So do I, on the basis that pissing off an expert who can give evidence against you that could result in an eye-watering fine really isn't a good idea. If your legal department is any good they'll tell you that.
"A lot of companies will find ways to ship the data out, to the illegal stuff in places like the US were it isn't illegal and ship the results or the decisions taken back to the UK/EU."
And after a few big finds get handed out they'll put more effort into finding ways to ensure that they don't. Not unless the US adopts similar legislation.
"Or are you expected just to encrypt ALL your logs even if doing so is a pointless and time-consuming task?"
Retail the logs long enough to provide the service and then delete them. Unless HMG rope you into providing them with free surveillance service you don't need to retain them.
It's clear from comments here that the notion is deeply ingrained that everyone with a server has an expectation of mining every last nanobit* out of any data that passes it by. The whole basis of GDPR is that not only are you not actually entitled to do that any more, you're not allowed to. It's going to take some time to sink in.
*Probably the best approximation to what it's really worth is all those "we think you'll like these" offerings are anything to go by.
"Typical, of course, of this Government to actually ignore the existing body of law and simply make stuff up as they go along."
Parliament is sovereign. If they pass a Bill to designate IP addresses as being entitled to the same protection as PII they can do so.
I'd expect that attempting to use an IP address on its own to identify a user in court would still be fraught with the same problems as a present.
"a legitimate right exists to retain the source used to connection from, and share and process it as necessary."
What legislation do you rely on for this statement?
You need to retain that address for as long as the connection remains current. Afterwards you might want to retain it, share it and process it but you have no right to do so.
Nevertheless HMG might impose a duty on you to do so by their surveillance legislation. The document remains notably silent on this matter.
"So, Amazon can refuse to deliver a parcel to you if you refuse to share your address, because without knowing your address there's no way for them to deliver to your house"
Actually they could deliver a parcel to an Amazon locker without knowing your home address so they couldn't actually refuse to do business on that account.
"Are they cancelling out their own snoopers charter?"
Well, the document says Our vision is to make the UK the safest place to live and do business online. With the increasing volumes of personal data there is an increasing need to protect it. so they'll have to, won't they? Won't they?
"Programmers designing DCs is about as sensible as airline pilots designing planes."
I think you missed the A/Cs point: if the language used determines the efficiency of the program in terms of CPU cycles to deliver a particular function then ultimately it has an effect on the power and hence cooling requirements of the data centre that runs it.
Now this might come as a surprise but people in offices - all offices, not just in government - regularly talk to each other. They even talk to each other about business. Hardly any of this is written down except when it involves formally taking decisions. The rest of it just dissipates into thin air. So why should there be any expectation that such talk, extended to cover people who are geographically separated, be any different?
Yes, I know there are those who want to be able to comb through records looking for whatever form of wrong-doing they suspect. They're unlikely to find it because if there's any expectation of a particular communication channel being recorded anyone seeking to set out on some nefarious has the option of just plain face-to-face conversation. And the official decision taking will be formally recorded just as it always has been.
"The government needs to lay down a public utility standard - that says fibre to every premises that has an electricity supply within 5 years."
Good idea but your post seems to have been truncated. I don't see your plan for achieving it, where you're going to recruit the army of workers to do this, where you're going to source the materials in that time frame, where you're going to raise the money and how much the customers are going to be willing to pay you for the interest you're going to pay on the money you raise.
