Posts by Doctor Syntax

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Re: Re:Updates

Yesterday I was the local University where someone was about to demonstrate QGIS. He had a W10 laptop. Switched on to wake it up & it started the spinning thing. So he rebooted & again went into the spinning bit, eventually rebooted & started properly. Presumably it had latched onto the local wireless network and found some updates. What's the point of trying to do something like run a demo on a platform like that. As it happens I run QGIS on this Debian laptop which, if I wanted to do so, would be able to run updates in the background without interfering with the foreground, would certainly not tie it up unasked at startup time and wouldn't force a reboot as part of the process.

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

"Here, I'm in my 60's... Young people today"

So you're a youngster.

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

"At best they'd end up running everything as root"

Ubuntu and its derivatives require a certain amount of config fiddling (?confiddling) to run as root. I don't thing your postulated IT-illiterates would get there unaided.

"smell of unwashed sleeping bags make them sexier than, say, a racing driver"

Wouldn't the unwashed sleeping bag would smell less than a driver after a 2 hour GP?

"people who spend time in meetings and spends ages on the phone. Quickly and more discreetly reading whatsapp, sms, short emails and being able to hangup quickly makes all the difference."

I wonder if you can get 4G on the B-Ark.

Re: I Liked Their Earlier Albums, Before They Became Really Commercial

"the folks who, disgusted with Linux's share of the desktop market topping a dizzying 1%, have fled to one of the BSDs"

No, there's another reason for doing that.

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

@ Naselus

I don't think it's Linux that's the root of your users' problems.

Android on the desktop

I've just read a review suggesting that 2016 could be the year of Android on the desktop. The fact that the installer hadn't been translated from Chinese didn't seem to count as an impediment.

"Wearable tech alread has purposes, and has for many years, for instance I've had a Garmin GPS running watch for a good 10 years. GPS/mapping, downloadable to a PC."

What was your point?

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

"Users left to secure Linux and keep it up to date on their own would make an even worse job than they did with Windows"

You may have seen somebody running Linux updates and thought that because they didn't have to wait half an hour for downloads and reboot three time that it had failed. You were wrong.

'No safe level' booze guidelines? Nonsense, thunder stats profs

Re: What about the healthy mediterranean diet?

'It's perfectly safe and valid to say "Hell" when naming the "place".'

Heck is in Yorkshire http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=459500&y=421500&z=120&sv=great+heck&st=3&tl=Map+of+Great+Heck,+North+Yorkshire+[City/Town/Village]&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf as is Hades http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=413762&y=404930&z=115&sv=413762,404930&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=841&ax=413762&ay=404930&lm=0

Google UK coughs up £130m back taxes. Is it enough?

Re: Where's Worstall?

"The benefit of Cadbury's is Cadbury's"

Not sure about that since the take-over.

Re: The article author is part of the problem.

"this is quibbling over semantics."

Have a word with your accountants on this.

Re: The article author is part of the problem.

'They do pay their employees though, and their employees pay income tax. In fact in most cases the employers pay the income tax on their employees salaries "as they earn".'

First sentence correct, second sentence incorrect. It's much the same as VAT; they're tax collectors, at their own expense, on behalf of HMG. They're also tax collectors on behalf of HMG in respect of employees' NI contributions. But they do pay employer's NI.

However it's fair to say that they are responsible for generating income tax and VAT by providing employment and selling stuff. They will also be spending money on goods and services which will also result in income and corporation taxes (they'll also be charged VAT but this will be offset against the VAT they collect).

Data centers dig in as monster storm strikes America's East Coast

Re: Checklist

"Mars bars"

Don't these need a deep fat fryer?

Criminal records checks 'unlawful' and 'arbitrary' rules High Court

Re: CRB never included "spent" convictions

"The ECRB is the problem. It probably shouldn't exist at all, and if May really wants to keep it then it needs to be strictly limited to particular posts."

It's not really a question of whether May really wants to keep it, it's whether there's good reason to keep it. And for some jobs there may be a case. But it should only be available for those jobs.

And in general it should not be the job applicant who pays, it should be the prospective employer.

Apple's Tim Cook rocks up at Vatican - one week after Schmidt

"If Larry Ellison turns up, it’s a cert."

Surely Larry'll expect the Pope to visit him.

Boeing just about gives up on the 747

Re: A bit OT

"Talk about a walk of shame as I went down the aisle!"

You should have muttered something about getting off while you still had chance. Just loud enough to be heard in the aisle seats.

How to help a user who can't find the Start button or the keyboard?

Re: Clue-less

"Turns out the ipad has 3G and they canceled there phone line."

You have to remember that some of the commentards here think it unreasonable to have to rent a local loop connection to use broadband when they make all their calls on mobile or Skype.

That one weird trick fails: Google binned 780 million ads last year

Re: Cleaning up gmail

"Ok companies should not spew spam" [egregious use of possessive instead of plural corrected]

The shouldn't but they do although they'll describe it as valuable marketing information or customer engagement or some such tripe. My household insurance will change at the next renewal because my current insurers clearly forgot they'd been warned a couple of years ago. And no, opt-out is not an acceptable substitute for opt-in.

RSA asks for plaintext Twitter passwords on conference reg page

"it represents a blatant failure to observe best practice"...for even the most lax definition of "best practice".

Gov must hire 'thousands' of techies to rescue failing projects

"Then the government changes the tax rules so that only the first £5k of dividends is tax free.."

Before the permies leap on this it should be noted that the "tax free" dividends are paid out of company profits that have already been subject to corporation tax. So really they were tax paid all along.

Re: don't forget the mythical job specs

"Just need a handful of years more and 'early retirement' beckons"

No!!! Someone graduated as recently as 1990 already looking at retirement. You're making me realise just how old I am. Stop it!

BTW add being told what to do for your offspring to the SWMBO override.

Re: IT degree?

"I am happy that Alan Kay's DynaBook from 1972 is now finally embodied in a smartphone/tablet on a 4g 'world wide web'."

But was the Dynabook supposed to be watching you?

Re: IT degree?

"The best people I ever worked with were a quantum chemist, a biologist, an archaeologist, a couple of classics (Oxford) graduates, some arty type and some telecomms engineers who had converted."

I once worked in an IT team which consisted of a botanist, a geologist, a zoologist and a CS graduate. The CS graduate actually wanted to be an astronomer.

Re: don't forget the mythical job specs

"senior management were a little concerned in their 'hiring processes'"

The real problem was with the hiring processes that hired the senior management.

"a situation where you don't know everything you want in the finished product and you don't have a definite deadline for when it is finished"

Too many govt situations have a definite deadline and they also have several people who know what they want in the finished product but the wants are all different and not necessarily compatible.

Re: The X Prize approach

"And who is to blame when the government ends up with exactly what they've asked for"

I always reckoned that giving the user exactly what they'd asked for was IT's ultimate and best revenge.

"Waterfall doesn't work"

It's not meant to. It was invented as a straw man to explain the need for something better. But reading was too much like hard work for a lot of people so they went with waterfall.

Re: Wagile or AgiFall

Agifail?

Re: don't forget the mythical job specs

"we don't hire anyone over 45 because they know more than the bosses and will talk back"

Scrub that. We don't hire anybody over 30 because they've been round the block at least once & aren't impressed by the BS any more.

Re: The X Prize approach

@A/C

I think the O/P was aware of all that. That's why he suggested a different approach. And no doubt with tongue firmly in cheek.

Microsoft legal eagle explains why the Irish Warrant Fight covers your back

'It's essentially about the distinction between "mail" and a "database record"'

Not quite. It's about the distinction between a company's records and something the company is holding on someone else's behalf.

It seems to be a very dangerous path to follow. If it's upheld in law that a record that's held on someone else's behalf is part of the companies records then it effectively destroys the business of any trustee business and a good deal of the business of any safe deposit business because both of them are holding other people's records which they should not be treating as their own.

Consider how this could go wrong. A trustee is holding records, say share certificates, on behalf of clients. The trustee company goes into administration or liquidation. What should happen is that the certificates are returned to the clients as they're the owners. If they can be treated as records of the trustee the administrator or liquidator could then take charge of them in the same way as they could take any other records and deal with them as they please and either use them as collateral to borrow against or sell them.

I see no objection in the US demanding any of Microsoft's records wherever they might be held. It's simply that email or any other data of Microsoft's customers shouldn't be included in that.

One has to wonder why the US doesn't use the MLAT. Didn't the official concerned know it existed, was too lazy to use it or just decided to throw his weight around? Or wasn't there sufficient prima facie evidence to ask for a warrant in an Irish court? Or did they have sufficient evidence but were just being too secretive to present it?

Re: I'm confused

Why be confused. It's not news, it's been going on since before the W10 data grab and there's no conflict in Microsoft's position.

They want to build a cloud business because they see value in it and if this succeeds it will be an obstacle to that so they're fighting it.

They see a value in having W10 slurp data so they're doing that. This does run a similar risk of putting off customers but they probably reckon that by making it increasingly hard for users to avoid W10 they'll get away with it.

In each case they're doing what they think will profit them. You didn't think one case involved altruism did you?

Brit boffins brew nanotech self-cleaning glass

Re: George Formby hangs up his bucket and sponge

'I daren't look at the actual lyrics of a George Formby song - I fear what i found to be lighthearted nonsense when as a youngster I listened to old 33s is likely somewhat offensive "old fashioned values" now.'

In that case you'd better avoid Blackpool rock.

Turned out nice again!

George Formby hangs up his bucket and sponge

...keeps ladder

Blighty's Parliament prescribed tablets to cope with future votes

Re: Hang on...

What do they use now? I'd have thought a simple mechanical counter could have been introduced years ago.

Re: What happened to austerity?

I agree with your premise - the MP should be physically present. The existing system doesn't guarantee that either, of course, simply that they must be within 15 mins of the HoC. The tablet could achieve this by requiring the vote to be placed through HoC's own wireless network.

But what I see as what could go wrong as something different; that when the MP tries to vote they discover that someone (?in the whip's office) has already voted in their name.

Why does herbal cough syrup work so well? It may be full of morphine

Re: They may wish to reword and correct the notice...

"So, if you aware that you're taking morphine, it's perfectly safe, eh?"

No, but you'll be aware why you're dead.

GCHQ spies quashed this phone encryption because it was too good against snoopers

"The third myth is that we encourage vulnerabilities and leave them there."

Weasel words. He said "encourage", not "build".

IRA’s former political wing takes aim at Apple over back tax

Re: I'm a Shit Stirrer begorra!

"To date have there been any IRA detonations on US soil?"

Was that a typing error for "donations"?

New open-source ad-blocking web browser emerges from brain of ex-Mozilla boss Eich

Re: Brought it on themselves

"You obviously have no clue how advertising works."

No, it's you who obviously have no clue how I work.

I know very well how advertising works in my case. It pisses me off. Specifically it pisses me off about the businesses who think they're entitled to my time and attention.

I've spent far too many decades on this Earth being pestered by idiots who think I should suck it up.

Companies who thought they knew how advertising works but didn't get the message have lost my business. They thought that as I was their customer they were entitled to pester. My solution was simple. I'm no longer a customer.

Companies I haven't dealt with who think they know how advertising works but haven't got the message try to pester. I'll never be their customer.

Re: Brought it on themselves

"a late thirties marketing man"

Are you sure? The more he writes the more he seems like a teenager on a gap year in advertising.

Re: Brought it on themselves

"Reading comprehension just beat you at it. Again. Badly. No wonder our culture is doomed when most people can't even understand simple, three sentence comments, written in plain English."

"Your arguments is as moronic as arguing for..."

You seem to find writing plain English difficult. However we do understand your badly written English. As a result most of us see you as an example of the advertising business displaying the exaggerated sense of entitlement that seems endemic there.

Re: Brought it on themselves

"Theft is theft"

Indeed. If I get pestered by an advert I'm less likely to buy whatever's being pushed at me. Less as in if it's something I need I'll find someone else to sell it. But the advertising network will have take good money from whoever's trying to sell it in order to achieve this end. So who's stealing here? Clue, who is it that ends up with the money in their pocket?

Re: Brought it on themselves

"And I also know that ad networks are generally more secured and run by more professional people than are websites, in general."

So how do you account for malvertising? Or is it your contention that these professional people are securely serving it up deliberately?

The last time Earth was this hot hippos lived in Britain (that’s 130,000 years ago)

"Currently orbital conditions are suitable to trigger the next glacial inception. We’re due another ice age. However, as pointed out in a recent study in Nature, there’s now so much carbon in the atmosphere the likelihood of this occurring is massively reduced over the next 100,000 years."

Back in the 60s/70s the prospect of another ice age was a concern. That was before global warming research became a global industry.

Once in a while it's worth considering the reality of maintaining a status quo indefinitely and the alternatives of x metres of sea level rise vs y kilometres of ice.

Does anyone know what their broadband costs? The ASA hopes to change that

Re: 3D & Hoverboards

"Stereoscopic tellies as '3D tellies'"

But mine is 3D. It has height, width and depth. It's even 4D. It was there this morning and it's still here now.

"Does anyone know what their broadband costs?"

I find it very easy. I buy line rental and broadband from a different supplier so all I have to do is look at my monthly payment. It makes it much easier to change ISP when, for instance, they get bought by TalkTalk or Sky. By having my own domain I can use a different email hosting business so I can change email supplier if they have unexplained outages*.

I think the ASA is barking up the wrong tree here. It's not that bundling disguises prices** it's that it means users are locked in because changing everything at once is too much hassle.

* I'm not sure if my previous host was even paying enough attention to be aware they had outages. They never even responded to my raising tickets.

**The entire premise of their argument is wrong. You're not buying broadband as such, you're buying a bundle. You can see what the price is; it's the price you pay for the bundle. What they should be looking at is the possibility that you also have to pay for stuff you don't even want such as unemployables kicking a facsimile of an inflated pig's bladder up and down a field.

Newly minted DevOps consultancy roams world, looking for CIOs in pain

"Want to learn more about DevOps, Continuous Delivery, and Agile?"

NOOOOOOOO!!!! Too much already.