Posts by Doctor Syntax 40559 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"Experience suggests rules long out-last the reasons for them"
I've thought for a long time that a rule should be accompanied by its rationale. That way (a) PHBs & CxOs who wish to override them can be made aware of the risks and (b) it's possible to see when changing circumstances remove the rule's reason for existence.
"I think the appeal is more of a hissy fit as they have been embarrassed"
It may be but even so I think it's the right thing to do. Imagine the situation if it was left at this stage, the MPs voted for May's bill, Article 50 was invoked and then someone was to appeal the current decision to the Supreme Court alleging that it wasn't legally invoked. Taking it to the Supreme Court rules out any further uncertainty which is simply the sensible thing to do.
As is leaving it to the MPs. After a few more % of inflation and a few big employers indicating they'll leave the UK MPs voting against invoking Article 50 could be hailed as popular saviours. A week is a long time in politics: there are quite a few weeks between now and March.
Seeing as you raised the Brexit court decision and obviously disagree with it see if you can answer this:
Article 50 starts:
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own
constitutional requirements.
What is the UK's constitutional requirement for this? Please quote an authority for your answer.
"So why block logons to online banking? That suggests that they have been totally hacked..."
Probably a reasonable precaution until they determine what the problem actually was. Yes, it prevents customers getting on to check but if this was the route so it would stop any further fraud so they had little option.
"This is just the next step in the subversion of the general purpose computer."
There seems to be an effort to get us back to the days of there only being a market for 6 computers (or whatever the number was) in the world. The modern twist on this is that rather than being single computers they're networks of data centres (AKA clouds). Everything else is just a programmable client (programmable by the parent company, not the "users") with which to access them. And yes, we need to put "users" in quotes because they're the entity being used.
"I do not understand why someone downvoted you for that post."
Probably on account of the fact that someone who thinks £50 isn't too much to spend on something like that has more money than sense. It's the sort of voting that brought us Brexit.
And surely, a Jambox in a kitchen should be a place to keep your pots of jam.
"Almost any tech presentation's Q&A is liable to feature an interminable question from an audience member who's only asking a question to prove that he knows much more about the subject than the presenter."
Answer to that one: "you're wrong of course but it would take too long to explain why."
Microsoft, SugarCRM (and derivatives), etc: do they keep personal data of customers?
If so do users have the customer's permission for that and are they registered with the appropriate regulator?
If not they stand at risk from the DPA or equivalent. Things get even worse if it's hosted by a supplier. They then have to worry about - or should be worrying about - where it's hosted, whether the hoster is also registered and just how much cover the Privacy Figleaf provides. Given the standard gung-ho approach of the average salesman or marketroid I suspect that many of the users of CRM are in contravention. Maybe a visit from FAST is the least of their worries.
"So yeah, the visible viewport would not show ads to you; but this concept fails to address the bandwidth, performance, and security issues that the current generation of ads has foisted on us."
Security issues wouldn't be a factor unless you have an exploitable /dev/null. Bandwidth, set a maximum size - accept the first K or so and then break the connection. If the advertising agency has any wit they'll count that as the full advert sent and bill the client accordingly.
"It's dangerous to believe that ads don't work on you because you choose to ignore them."
I didn't say they don't. They piss me off so I buy from someone who's adverts I didn't get. Businesses have definitely lost my custom by getting in my face. My home insurers are going to be the next to experience this when the renewal comes up shortly.
'No, because they can use bandwidth usage as a Turing Test to see if their ads are really being "seen".'
A few moments' thought - OK, these are advertising people, a few days' thought - should show them that that really isn't information they want to have. If they don't have it they could, with as clear a conscience any advertising company could have, bill the client for an advert shown.
"What if I were to tell you .. they possibly make more than a smidge more than that off a person (who doesn't block ads)...?"
A) I'd want to see evidence
B) Any advertiser selling something I might possibly buy stands a better chance of selling to me if I've blocked their ad. and hence helped them to not piss me off.
"I've got adblock and have used it for years just fine in conjunction with NoScript. Don't see any ads when I'm surfing"
Snap. And what's more UO seems to interfere with the Beeb weather site. No doubt it can be tuned no to but AB+ and NS do what I want with no problems.
"Quite possibly, even Ms May herself would be in that category."
I see her as in the category of closet Leaver but unwilling to declare on the assumption that they'd lose the referendum and she didn't want to be out of a job. Previously she didn't seem enamoured of anything from the EU that impinged on her old job in the Home Office.
"I'd be quite interested in one for my eldest lad who burns almost all of his saved pocket money for screens for his current one"
Let him burn all of it. But point out that the screen he buys with the last of it has to be taken care of, otherwise he's phoneless until he's saved up for a new phone.
"So let's call their bluff, this is this opportunity we have been waiting for to get stronger enforcement - the government should now say - "
Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation especially the Sanctions section. Not necessarily 10% of turnover but it should concentrate the mind. I look forward to the results of the first few prosecutions.
"since before the great y2k hoax"
That's a bit of a give-away about the state of your commercial knowledge. I had a client who insisted on using a non-Y2K updated accounting package for a couple of weeks into Jan 2000 (they didn't want to risk switching whilst they closed down their financial year). It was no hoax. For those two weeks the thing fell over on a more or less daily basis. We had the vendors dialling into a modem on the server to fix it on an equally frequent basis to sort out the database. Fortunately most businesses weren't so daft.
"Bots also offer an alternative way to interact with enterprise applications, which (in the desktop world at least) have a reputation for clumsy interfaces and burdensome workflows."
Why is the interface clumsy? If it's because it requires accurate inputs the process isn't going to be improved by bolting on an interface based on guessing what the user meant. Alternatively it might be clumsy because some UX-"expert" was let loose on it.
And if the workflow is burdensome it's the workflow that needs improving, not the interface.
I think this whole article is a piece of puffery about a solution looking for a problem.
"but my reading prior to the judgement seemed to suggest that the balance of probabilities was with the government so it's at least a surprise."
The legal issue was the supremacy of Parliament vs Crown (the govt may be the creature of a Parliamentary majority but nevertheless it's Her Majesty's Goverment, not Parliament's). Any other decision would have been contrary to the trend of the last third of a millennium or so of constitutional history so I'm not in the least surprised.
"Also, Tories have commons majority and I am quite sure that, if MP vote is after all required ... Brexit vote be pushed through no matter what."
I'm not. It's a matter on which the big parties are split and have been for a long time. The whole referendum thing was an attempt to glue the Tory party together. It hasn't worked. I think it's an issue where whips will be defied by MPs who believe that the national interest is at stake.
'The logical endpoint of Admiral's idea is that if anyone doesn't have a "social media" profile then they don't get car insurance'
It depends on how you look at it. I'd regard not having a profile as in indicator of a sober, well-balanced personality and set the premium accordingly.
'The fossil fuel industry is massively subsidized, with trillions in defense spending over the years to "secure" oil supplies in the middle east'
Wind and solar are subsidised by the costs of having fossil fuel plants on standby to make up the gaps. So if the fossil fuel industry is itself subsidised then wind and solar are doubly so.
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