Posts by Doctor Syntax

'Pavement power' - The bad idea that never seems to die

"Sorry, seeing such bullshit and no correction in sight I just stop reading."

Unfortunately it didn't stop you commenting.

Quantum traffic jam of atoms could unlock origin of dark energy, physicists claim

"a tiny ring-like structure about 10 to 20 micrometers in diameter"

On the atomic scale 10 to 20 microns is far from tiny. You're dealing with things this sort of size: http://www.psmicrographs.co.uk/_assets/uploads/hazel-pollen--corylus-avellana--80015210-l.jpg which are about 25 microns across and showing much finer structures on the surface. They're easily observable with the light microscope with the fine structure being just about at the limit of resolution.

Fake election news meltdown vortex sucks in Google

It's not helped by "genuine" news sites, e.g. Beeb, partially relying on additional reports from the public any random person who submits a report instead of sending a journalist and camera team to some incident.

Swedish prosecutor finally treks to London to question Julian Assange

Re: "I don't know what the standard term for rape in sweden is "

The biggest punishment the US can give him is to ignore him.

Re: And?

" Or shut the Swedish issue down so they can kick him out to the Brits who'll then get him on jumping bail"

There may be a few others besides TPTB wanting to jump on him about bail.

Married man arrives at A&E with wedding ring stuck on todger

"it turned out to be appendicitis in case you were wondering"

AIUI it's an accepted diagnostic technique for appendicitis.

Re: Doctor stories

"Bart's have an eyebrow raising selection of objects that have been inserted or otherwise ingested but the most worrisome one is a live anti aircraft munition."

If they still have it and it's still live that really is worrisome.

UK.gov has 18,000 IT contractors on its books due to dearth of skills

Maybe there's an upside to this. It could actually spell the end of IR35. Not that that would be enough to make me unretire.

Re: Gordon Brown started it

The thinking at the time was that it was something the IR had been trying to get through for years. They finally found a Chancellor and/or Paymaster General* daft enough to fall for it. The sad thing is their successors are still falling for it.

*Don't deny Red Dawn her share of blame.

NHS IT bod sends test email to 850k users – and then responses are sent 'reply all'

Re: Not quite the same, or the same scale, but...

"during one of the <very senior person's> Royal Progresses round his empire."

I've been through a number of those event. The disruption they caused. All work stopped. Clear the benches so we could stand the information boards on them. Thank goodness we lost them in the fire - the boards that is; we lost the benches as well but those were replaced.

Re: OMFG, usage of the 'singular "they"' - ew

Bollocks. It's a perfectly acceptable and long established usage. It was nuppits who tried to rewrite English grammatical rules based on those of a different language who introduced the idea that it isn't. If thou thinkest it wrong then please explain why the plural version of second person pronoun and verb is now almost invariably used for the singular.

Re: Hmmm

"and they are still coming in but not as quickly now..."

That's probably just the system bogging down and the servers melt and go offline.

Re: Disable Reply to All

It's the sort of situation that requires ritual humiliation.

Back in the days of character terminals we had MOTD set to remind users to log out. Inevitably there were those who didn't so the message got amended with "This includes you, xxxxxx", edited each time we caught an un-logged out user's name. It was effective in a remarkably short space of time although we were eventually asked to remove the last offender's name.

Maybe this is a case for an article in a newsletter explaining how it went wrong initially and then was made many times worse by the following people sending a reply to all....

And no, they can't complain about data protection. They outed themselves themselves.

Re: It's really not rocket science

"As an ex-IT professional I worked on the principle that there are no stupid users, only poor computer systems that don't protect users from their own stupidity."

This is the theory that systems should be made idotproof. Nature abhors an idiotproof system and responds by producing a new, improved idiot.

The sharks of AI will attack expensive and scarce workers faster than they eat drivers

"Obviously, court cases will continue to exist, but there's a chance that they will be less frequent when the population uses a rather reliable tool to do the gruntwork for them."

Maybe in the US with plea bargaining even the innocent will continue to plead guilty. Over here I doubt those who insist on pleading not guilty even when bang to rights will take any more notice of a WebLawyer than they currently do of their barrister.

Britain must send its F-35s to Italy for heavy overhauls, decrees US

Re: So where are we

"seems many politicians are starting to realise that leaving the EU will drop us right in the cacky"

I think most always did. There was the numpty fringe that didn't. The referendum was expected to silence them. I think there were a few closet believers on both sides who were counting on the referendum going remain. AFAICS we now have a closet leaver as PM who can't believe her luck and a closet remainer as Foreign Sec who can't believe his bad luck.

Re: Erm

That was the avionics.

But it raises an interesting question. The avionics are serviced in Wales, the engines in Turkey. Who gets to plug the engine into the wiring harness?

Re: Look on the bright side

"keeps development & maintenance in the hands of allies."

"Allies" seems to have become a somewhat fluid concept these days.

Re: What a clusterfrack

"And yet the UK politicians still approve the 4th largest budget in the world for military spending. I'm not sure how much more committed you would want them to be..."

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?

Bernard: To defend Britain.

Sir Humphrey: No, Bernard. It is to make people believe Britain is defended.

Bernard: The Russians?

Sir Humphrey: Not the Russians, the British! The Russians know it's not.

Russian banks floored by withering DDoS attacks

Re: Mandatory password

"That's an OS install, though, and consumers aren't used to doing that when setting up most IoT tat."

That's only because they're not required to. If they can't use the equipment without they'd become used to it PDQ. They do more complicated things than that every day.

"Until regulation requires it. Which makes the manufacturers bark with dismay, because to them regulation = evil socialist totalitarianism."

They're based in China!!!

In fact regulation as evils is no argument at all. Anything you buy to plug into mains is subject to regulation as is the wiring back from the plug to the point where electricity enters your house. The vehicle you drive to the shops to buy the article or the van that delivered it is subject to regulation. The materials the article's made from are regulated. Safety regulation is everywhere but security regulation would be totalitariansim? Bollox!

Re: Leaving security to the end user = no security

"Good luck getting that change approved though!"

Given the increasing levels of damaged being caused I think the pressure for "something must be done" is growing fast. We just need that something to be sufficiently effective. Vendors' stock confiscated. Whole containers of goods held up at the docks or sent back to China because customs discovered a shipment of non-compliant product inside. Complaisant ISPs* not getting routed onto the net. It could all be over in a very short time.

*And countries if necessary.

Re: Leaving security to the end user = no security

"This is difficult and you can't really leave security to the manufacturer either, especially the hundreds of small Chinese outfits that work on thin margins and don't give a toss."

But you can enforce it in the marketplace, UL in the US and CE in Europe, whatever applies elsewhere.

You need to understand that thin margins apply because they're trying to undercut each other because price is a factor in what gets sold. But if they can't get to sell the product without complying with the appropriate regulations then it doesn't matter how cheap they are. If it does cost more to build in some level of security then it's still a level playing field between them - they just compete on thin margins at a slightly higher price.

Facebook agrees to dial back 'racial affinity' ads

Re: Yeah right.

"And by people, I mean the lawmakers who should have sued Facebook into non-existance years ago."

Sigh

If you make laws that's all you do. You don't enforce them.

If the laws you make provide for civil damages then it's up to those injured to sue.

If the laws you make create criminal offences then it's a matter for the appropriate criminal enforcement agency to prosecute and the options for punishment are fines or imprisonment which are not the same as suing for damages.

In either case it's up to the court to find for the plaintiff/prosecution, whichever applies, and to decide on the damages/punishment.

There are good reasons why we have these different approaches for civil and criminal matters* and different roles for legislators, prosecutors and courts.

*And it's not a good thing that IP issues have been allowed to blur this distinction.

Trumped? Nope. Ireland to retain corporate tax advantage over the US

Re: Seems to me ...

"Tax is paid for the purchase of services or supplies. Tax is paid for the sale of services of supplies."

I don't know what tax regime you're in but this sounds very odd. Surely there's a single tax on the transaction whether it's called a sales tax, a purchase tax (UK old style) or VAT?

As to the rest, maybe you should have a word with your accountant. Or a new accountant.

Re: Seems to me ...

"like the only long term sustainable corporate tax rate is zero."

Not really. Look at it like this:

You're running the tax system for a country.

First of all, as another commentator has noted, zero corp tax allows anyone who can incorporate to pay no tax at all by doing so and thus avoiding income tax. So now you have to pick between high and low strategies.

Divide your potential tax base between local and multinationals. Local businesses have no option but to pay CT. Multinationals can choose and your strategy will determine what they do.

If you have a small country with a small* local tax base charging a high rate on not very much yields not very much from your local tax base. Charging a lower rate yields less but that's less than not very much so you're not losing a lot. But if your lower rate brings in a foreign corporation or two you're getting a low rate on humungously much which adds up to doing quite nicely in relation to your needs and your local businesses are also happy because they're not paying as much.

If you have a large country with a lot of of local businesses you still have the possibility of attracting multinationals by a lower tax rate but the gains of that risk being less than the loss of tax from the local businesses. You could also get involved in a race to the bottom which is of advantage to the multinationals and no-one else. You maximise your tax take by screwing as much as you can from the local tax base and let the multinationals go elsewhere.

People keep posting here saying that the Irish tax rates are screwing the Irish tax payers. They're not. They're indirectly screwing the US tax payers.

*Small in relation to the potential multinational tax base.

Join the Q: British intel agencies seek tech-savvy apprentices

It all depends on your benchmark: the strength of your banking password. Are you with Tesco?

A cardboard desk? I won’t stand for it (actually I will)

Re: "Olympic-standard swearing"

"It was a brief but enlightening (and mildly amusing) glimpse into modern methods of non-verbal communication."

And verbal non-communication.

UK Ministry of Defence splurges £280,000 on online 'good ideas' form

Re: Government strongly favours buying off-the-shelf equipment

"Settling on the choice of the P-8A Poseidon means that these aircraft cannot be refuelled in-flight by the RAF’s Voyager tanker planes to extend their range and endurance on-station"

Don't worry. It'll be cancelled and replaced by something else. Which will be cancelled and replaced by something else.

Cancelling aircraft has been a core competence of the UK governments for the last half century.

Angry user demands three site visits to fix email address typos

Re: Ah Education

"My apple and bacon crumble is vegetarian, yes."

But is it kosher?

Re: Ah Education

"CS Lecturer: "But that isn't the internet."

It is from a users perspective.

You did grasp that "CS" meant "Computer Science" didn't you? For some users that perspective isn't good enough.

Re: Easily fixed

"If the contract didn't cover such calls being chargeable then the people involved in the bid should be sacked"

Probably the owner. Small businesses don't like turning away custom.

Re: smartarse AC

"Have you ever been to a *real* small SOHO outfit ? I would gamble some are still on dial-up."

Way back I had one as a client. The owner was a really good bloke. I felt sorry for him that his only son was just too think for him to even contemplate handing the business on when he retired. The server was on a dial-up modem for support. If I needed to dial in he unplugged the fax and plugged in the mode.

Re: So you didn't fix root cause

"So, as an IT technician, fix the cause - the stupidity of Outlook - rather than trying to fix the user."

11 downvotes. It looks as if the MS marketing crowd have paid a visit again.

"Well that happens to me all the time. I type the wretched password in which I know is right four times and each time it tells me it's wrong."

Sometimes it's the shitlock that's on. No, that wasn't a typo.

"Ones who know they can't use a computer"

The problem is that they know they can use a computer and what's more they know they know more than you. The Dunning Kruger effect.

Re: Oh man, I feel his pain

"something having not been explained or documented well enough"

This isn't exactly an unknown situation.

IoT worm can hack Philips Hue lightbulbs, spread across cities

Re: We are screwed

...or bayoneted.

Microsoft: Don't worry about the CRM cloud price hike... think of the features

Re: "Business version"

"Does Nadella really think they can just rip off British customers like this because of Brexit?"

I assume that's a rhetorical question.

Re: Ah, the wonderful future we are going toward

"A business needs to be reactive to its clients needs, not to its own tools for running the business."

"Own" doesn't seem to fit in that sentence. That's the problem, right there.

The hated Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will soon be dead. Yay?

Re: I wonder

'The legislatures do "have an input", informally.'

Having an input as in being able to comment on stuff they haven't read because they're not allowed to. Or, in a few cases, allowed to read a copy they're not allowed to take away, copy or even make notes from.

'Who do you think does the negotiating in the first place?'

Not the MPs, Congress reps etc. You may be misunderstanding the word but those are the people who comprise the legislature.

Trevor, a lot of Europeans think much the same about the Canada/EU trade agreement except with the roles reversed. Unfortunately the last standouts who had a chance of blocking it were bullied into submission.

Re: I wonder

'But putting the word "modify" in there - implies that you haven't thought things through. In the end, there has to be a straight yes-or-no vote.'

I think the A/C has thought things through.

If what's presented is unacceptable to those who have to ratify it then they say "no". The whole purpose of negotiation is to avoid that by modifying drafts until they are mutually acceptable and that isn't going to work unless the legislatures have an input, however informally. The legislatures are being presented with a fait accompli. The chances that at least one of them is going to find it unacceptable is pretty high.

"The reality is that trade deals are not about – or should not be about – whose wages go up or not, or whether jobs will increase or decrease – even though that is almost always the lens through which they are imperfectly viewed in domestic political circumstances.

Trade deals are about clearing away what can be decades of old rules and ad hoc agreements between a multitude of different countries in order to arrive at a much cleaner slate of rules, vastly simplifying commerce for all involved."

And why should a democratic country wish to simplify commerce? The only sensible reason I can think of is that it should benefit the the wages and job prospects of those who live there. That's why they're almost always viewed through that lens: that is, or should be, their purpose.

Sony: Get out Comedy Central, MTV – we've built a wall around Vue, the greatest wall ever

Re: More wall-building headlines/subheadlines please

And don't forget the Great Again meme, even if it does grate now and again.

Re: The horns of a dilema

"Sony who have taken so much of my money over the years and given me cheap tat in return"

If you offered it to them why shouldn't they take it? You didn't have to do so if that was your view of what they were offering in return.

What went wrong at Tesco Bank?

Re: I'm with them too

"Didn't we use to have 2FA with the Co-Op or was that just for new payments?"

Tried that. Didn't work. And as the branch in the local store (convenience of which was main reason for using them) has closed it meant an unwelcome trip into town to sort out.

Silicon Valley VCs: We're gonna make California great again – on its own

I thought that California was due to separate from the rest of the US anyway. RSN in geological terms, on its way to the subduction zone.

Robot solves Rubik's Cubes in 637 milliseconds

Re: You know who you were.

"Just to be straight, you did this to make it impossible to solve (you can also do this by flipping an edge piece)?"

You can also pick off the colour patches and swap them around.

Even if IoT hits 20bn devices by 2020 mobile operators still won't care

Re: 100KB should be enough for everyone!

"I see the bulk of IoT devices piggybacking on local wireless networks (via something low power like zigbee / bluetooth), think Hue lights with Chromecast-style autodiscovery. "

And see where that leads: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/10/iot_worm_can_hack_philips_hue_lightbulbs_spread_across_cities/

Some! at! Yahoo! knew! about! mega-breach! as! early! as! 2014!

Re: You say state-sponsored, I hear rhubarb, rhubarb

'Was the "state sponsored" IPV4 bit set?'

It's just part of the boilerplate text they use. Same sort of thing as "Your security is important to us" and "Only a few customers were affected". It saves spokesbots having to think.