Posts by Doctor Syntax

Mediatek wants to make Chromebooks more like Copilot+ PCs

Re: Chromebooks are student's labor saving devices

That's been the case for at least 6 decades. The mind-broadening part was secondary.

Re: My Question

In the reality distortion field of marketing that's will be it exactly; either that or FOMO.

30 minutes to pwn town: Are speedy responses more important than backups for recovery?

If a response of less than 30 minutes is essential then it needs to be completely automatic - an attack when there's nobody at work will have succeeded long before any manual response can take place. Backups are still important. We had backups before online pwnage became a thing. They were to protect against H/W failure and worse - worse was the reason for off-site storage.

Signalgate: Pentagon watchdog probes Defense Sec Hegseth

Re: Steven Stebbins

In the interests of good governance it shouldn't be. One of the US's problems is that appointments that ought to be on merit are made for greasy pole climbing ability, either as political gifts or election.

Zorin OS 17.3 takes the Brave step of changing its default browser from Firefox

That's usually the case. Historically it works against us in the UK.

If the EU are still considering an EU distro, at least for the desktop, Zorin really ought to be a contender.

Bill Gates unearths Microsoft's ancient code like a proud nerd dad

Perhaps the FORTRAN compiler for CP/M outclassed it - but all the way downhill since then.

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: Trump imposes much higher taxes on Americans.

"Watch out for other governments that will use this as an excuse for levying their own tariffs on US tech"

How about a tariff on streaming services? It would be a Mickey Mouse tax.

Re: Herman ze shill

He's been here a long time. Not learned much, though.

Re: Econ 101

Like I said, it's convoluted but essentially a sales tax which is probably the best way to explain it to herman.

But to address your example, if you're an unregistered trader then either the customer buys the tiles and pays VAT or you buy them, and, if you're not going to lose money on the job, include the VAT inclusive amount in your bill. Either way the only thing that doesn't get subject to VAT is your contribution. Not being VAT registered means keeping your income below the compulsory registration limit - fine if it's a side hustle - or risking an unpleasant discussion with HMRC at some point, payment of VAT which you can't offset against input VAT at their estimation, not yours, and a fine.

Re: Please explain

It seems to be a matter of creating shareholder value over the current quarter with no long term thinking. This is the hole into which businesses have dug themselves.

Re: US produce?

I've alsways thought from your posts that you were a gentleman of good taste. This confirms it.

Re: Replacement president

AKA the Spiro Agnew problem.

Re: childish analysis

"The assumption is that the other country must have cheated to be able to get a trade surplus with the US and they must be punished for it, as opposed to them being better/more efficient/smarter at it."

The entire project seems to be an attempt to subsidise dumbness.

Re: childish analysis

Are you sure "analysis" is the correct description?

... and car industry.

Re: Please explain

Assuming the A/C you responded to was the one who raised that objection previously I think there's an argument for them not having children. Fitness of the species andall that.

Re: Please explain

Herman asked what could be done to help the US economy. OP gave a useful answer. Ideallogically rejecting such is part of the problem.

As I biologist I have to point out that not having children would lead to the extinction of the human species. I leave it to you to work out whether that is a good thing.

You also need to realise, on a personal level, you will find that in your old age it's yours and other people's children whose direct services and contributions to the economy who will be supporting you. Unless you're planning not to grow old* it's to your advantage that people do continue to have children.

* Aas an oldie I can assure you it's better than the alternative which has befallen a number of former acquaintances.

Re: Please explain

"how would you improve the US trade deficit and boost local production?"

I can only give you partial answers.

The first is that you have to understand that the US is not the only country in the world nor the only economy, that the world is a lot bigger and that if you want to fit into the global economy you are going to have to fit it rather than have it fit you.

Secondly, forget localising the sort of production that takes place in low labour cost economies. You can only do that by becoming a very low cost economy yourselves with low earning, low property prices* and all the rest of it. The best you can hope is end point of the situation that low cost manufacturing gets shifted from one country to another as the countries that were low cost get richer and are no longer low cost. Perhaps eventually there will be no more low cost countries and in that case the US can compete. This, BTW, is not a US problem. It's happened to the UK and other EU countries.

Thirdly you need to get a whole lot better at marketing, the right sort of marketing. Too many businesses think marketing is hard selling of whatever it is you want to make and put the effort into that. This works for Microsoft as they're exploiting an almost complete monopoly. The other is studying what people want to buy, designing the best product to fit that market, making it at the best quality and then putting the effort into selling it which is basically what Apple did. Interestingly manufacture for Microsoft is largely having H/W vendors load applications onto PCs which is outsourced to those vendors and Apple have outsourced manufacture to lower cost countries because its cheaper.

A couple of examples of this. European countries have imposed high standards for food products including beef and poultry. This is not protectionism. It's out of concern for consumers and public health. Everyone who sells in these markets meets those standards because they have to. Why does the US have a problem here? It doesn't produce to those standards. It wants the world to fit to it instead of fitting the world. Good marketing here would recognise the problem and adapt production to meet those standards. Why doesn't it do that? I said I can only give you partial answers. You tell me why it doesn't. All I can tell you is that it's not European protectionism that's excluding the US, it's US excluding itself for whatever reason. From this side of the pond it looks like stubbornness but I recognise that there may be a structural problem with US agriculture that only the US can solve.

Another example is the car market. The US claims that Europeans won't buy their cars. It's not that you don't have a manufacturing industry, because you do. But a little market research would show that the traditional big US car would be unwieldy outside the main roads and some of the bigger city streets. They would be a pain to drive in smaller urban side streets or in the sort of narrow lanes where I live. So why don't the US manufacturers design and produce suitable vehicles for export to these markets? You tell me. Is it conservatism of the industry? Management? Unions? Is it simply that the manufacturers see their own market as big enough? Possibly because Ford, GM and Chrysler all set up or bought operations in the UK and continental Europe to design and build vehicles here. But then they seem to have problems with competition from imports. Why does their marketing not work out what the market wants that the imports are supplying, design and build it? I don't know but maybe you do. But what seems clear is that the only solution for the US manufacturers is a degree of introspection to answer that question and then apply the answers. Another partial answer.

Thirdly, getting back to fitting in with the rest of the world, you need to consider supply chains in a globalised world. Partly it's a need to accept what I said earlier about low-cost manufacturing. You need to accept that if a component can be manufactured and shipped more cheaply to go into a US-built product then it's just an arbitrarily raised cost to put a tariff against it**. Likewise of the car manufacturing industry has to import steel from Canada then tariffs on that steel become another cost which affects its competitiveness and will make it even more difficult to export.

TL:DR The world does not owe US producers a living. They have to work out for themselves what their customers will buy and then make it. Having their govt shooting them in the foot won't help.

* Who's going to want to see most of the value of their property written off to get there?

** Note that if a component has a 25% tariff and the overall product is sold with a 20% sales tax then that component's contribution to the value on which the sales tax is levied will include that tariff so that comes to an additional 5% of the import value. One of the things about VAT is that although VAT is levied at different points in the chain the way input VAT is st against output VAT the amount levied at the end of the chain is simply that due from the total costs of materials, overheads, labour costs and mark-ups of all the businesses involved in making the product.

Admittedly you have a problem whereby the functions of head of government and head of state are mixed up and separated from the legislature. But if VAT was such a good idea for promoting industry why isn't it been recommended that the legislature do that instead?

The fact is that it wouldn't be discriminatory which is what POTUS wants to achieve. It's a sales tax. A convoluted sales tax to be sure, but a sales tax**. AIUI the US already has sales taxes. The fact that you think swapping one for the other would be equivalent to imposing tariffs it shows that you really do need to gen up on it.

* For some of us the only Prez was Lester Young.

** Like many business owners I had to play a part in the VAT chain so I have some experience of how it works.

I've got an idea. The US adopts VAT so that it would be, in your view, a level playing field and no need for tariffs. Wouldn't that be an equitable solution in your view?

Re: Suez Canal

Herman's view of history is probably WWI = 1917 - 1918, WWII = 1941 to 1945.

Re: Econ 101

"when I buy tiles to do work on a customer's kitchen I do not pay the VAT, the cutomer pays the VAT"

It's more complicated than that but as the simple notion of a sales tax not being the same as a tariff is probably too complicated for him.

Re: Econ 101

As a matter of interest, how far do Tesla share have to fall so that he's no longer the richest man in the world. Or has he achieved that already.

Re: Econ 101

You are possibly unaware that the 1840s were also an economically bad time for England leading to emigration and suicides. They were known as the Hungry Forties.

Re: Econ 101

"Import duties encourage local production."

Import duties may protect if it exists and if they don't affect their global supply chains.

VAT is complicated but essentially a sales tax independent of whether what's taxed is an import or locally produced. Doesn't the US also have sales taxes?

Re: How 'bout that!

"Countries with sensible politicians will negotiate things down."

Actually, countries with sensible politicians might well just sit tight for a little while and see what effect the backlash against inflation has.

Re: The economic "plan" behind the madness

"European cities are not built for American cars"

So UNFAIR!! Europeans CHEATING the US AGAIN!!!

Tariffs will stay until Europe rebuilds its cities for American cars.

Re: I feel liberated already...

"They are calculating a tariff based on their balance of trade with the other country."

Maybe not so crazy. Tariffs cause imports to drop so the balance of trade with that country falls and he can claim it's working. The fact that he's raised inflation or put USians out of work because their employers depended on imported parts or raw materials will be blamed on those evil countries.

Re: Trump is easy to model

"After WW2 the US was exporting a lot of stuff to the countries it had bombed into oblivion."

Then the US manufacturers - and those in the UK too - decided to export manufacturing jobs as well.

Re: I feel liberated already...

"Lenovo acquired the PC and ThinkPad business"

Wasn't that a case of IBM couldn't be bothered with products in which they couldn't control the market?

Qualcomm set to move in on UK-listed chip IP biz Alphawave

Re: So….

"I would hope that the UK gov will stop this"

They should at least add a 25% tariff.

Oracle's masterclass in breach comms: Deny, deflect, repeat

Re: See also:

Googling Streisand effect might be an education as well. Do they learn nothing in PR school?

Windows 11 adds auto-recovery, kills offline setup loophole

Re: Where lies 'added value' in Microsoft products?

It's a a vicious circle. It's not available under Linux so people don't run Linux so there's no market pressure on them to do so. However, would it run under Wine?

Re: Where lies 'added value' in Microsoft products?

You're not the one who's paying them. Your IT department does that. I could investigate whether your old application will run under Wine, but no, it's been persuaded that it would be too difficult for IT professionals to do things like that.

Speech now streaming from brains in real-time

"So what we’re decoding is after a thought has happened, after we’ve decided what to say, after we’ve decided what words to use and how to move our vocal-tract muscles."

What about those who set the mouth in motion before engaging the brain.

Specsavers takes off the Oracle glasses, sees better ERP options

"nobody in 2030 should be rolling out on-prem ERPs,"

Providing they have a paper record of the day's appointments to hand in case Back-hoe Billy happens along.

To avoid disaster-recovery disasters, learn from Reg readers' experiences

"You cannot restore backups on-site if you can’t access your office."

If you can't access your office not being able to restore them may well be the least of your problems. Recovering your organisation from a fire can be interesting.

Microsoft is redesigning the Windows BSoD to get you back to work ‘as fast as possible’

Re: It's quite clever, really

"without needing to engage in an expensive marketing campaign"

Or an even more expensive quality improvement campaign.

Re: Interns

And sacked the testing team. Of course you can recruit others. They're called customers.

"Microsoft comes into my WORK OFFICE (i.e. computer) on a regular basis, literally throws the stuff off my "desktop" onto the floor, stamps on most things until they are broken and unrecognisable, puts a new fancy box on my desk that I can't remove, and tells me that my productivity will be improved."

Don't invite it in.

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

Re: Not going there.

"I'll have what he's smoking."

Not smoking anything. People pay Gartner good money to say things like that - maybe you want what they're smoking.

There are a couple of things in his favour. Firstly, by "predicting" what will happen in the future it's possible to get away with it for a long time by saying "it will happen, it just hasn't happened yet" and by the time it becomes clear what was paid will have to be written off the next predictions plus n will be being sold.

Genetic data repo OpenSNP to self-destruct before authoritarians weaponize it

Re: Kudos where deserved

The way things are now he'd best shred the drives before anyone tunrs up at his door.

Tech trainer taught a course on software he'd never used and didn't own

Re: "Fake it till you make it"

And deservedly so.

Re: A sub-optimal Monday morning

But did you manage to work wet chemistry into a George 3 course?

Re: PHP Developer...

Had something like the SQL thing with a client's Informix query. We weren't allowed to run UPDATE STATISTICS by the application developer (I recognised it as lack of confidence on the query optimiser on their part combined with skills learned in writing queries for the original pre-SQL, pre-optimiser version). I let the query explainer do its stuff, so what was happening without the benefit of the statistics and rearranged it with temporary tables. The report that they'd never run successfully, not even overnight, ran in about 10 minutes.

Re: boring lecturers

We had a 1 lecure a week maths course. Biologists didn't take kindly to maths. We started turning up a little later each week so the lecturer did so too. Then one week we all turned up on time, he wasn't there so we all left and never came back.

Reputedly one of the chemistry lecturers in QUB had a number of laws of lecturing. A colleague who'd been one of his students used to quote one "The mind cannot absorm more than the bottom can support."

Re: been on many courses where the trainer has no answers

Yes, indeed, handle with caution except -

We used it to extract pollen from soil layers. The outer part of polen is almost indestructible so after washing in NaOH soln to remove humins (sic) the samples were boiled in HF in platinum crucibles over a small bunsen burner before being centrifuged in polypropylene tubes. Fortunately I didn't have many of those to do but SWMBO had lots.

Re: Works for Latin too

Anthony Price, The Old Vengeful.

I had a murder scene very like that in his War Game at exactly the time the book was set. What's the theory about reality duplicating fiction?