Posts by JimJimmyJimson

Australia tells tots: No TikTok till you're 16... or X, Instagram and Facebook

Re: "finally receive backing from the National Cabinet"

No - national cabinet is a government forum consisting of state, territory and federal government representatives.

Requiring ID by stealth

Putting the onus on providers will leave them little option to insist on some form of ID verification to establish an account. All of a sudden the true owners of an account will be identifiable to the government by a court order. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your viewpoint - but I’m generally keen on less rather than more government oversight.

If you see the sort of social media posts that are receiving police interest these days - where posting an image of the national flag can make you ‘of interest’ - some may think this kind of thing has a much wider agenda.

AWS must fork out $30.5M after losing P2P network patent scrap

We all lose when this kind of thing goes on - innovation is stifled and the addition of a hefty ' infringemnet tax' (or 'potential infringeent tax' due to process that needs to be put in place to try and limit the risk) on products and services ultimately hurts the consumer.

In any case the original patent owner (Boeing) did allow Amazon to use it - so Amazon seems to be absolved from any kind of hypotetical 'screwing over the little guy' claims.

Regardless of public opinion, large corporations go to enormous lengths to avoid this kind of thing , and generally act correctly and within the law. But they are also massive bureaucracies - even where policies and processes are put in place making sure everyone is aware, and undertstands how to comply, and realises that it applies to their little obscure bit of the business is amazingly hard.

VA, Oracle's Cerner agree on renegotiated health records contract

'Penalties' are not allowed in contracts - best you can get do is 'liquidated damages' which must represent a genuine estimate of losses that will be occasioned in case of a breach - because if they're not they then become penalties which aren't allowed in a contract....

Samsung: We will remotely brick smart TVs looted from our warehouse

This seems normal

I can remotely disable my iPhone - I can remotely do stuff to my car - and I can remotely shut down a whole bunch of electronics in my house. I like being able to do this - but I'm not so naive to assume that the manufacturer also can't do these things to my equipment if it so chooses. So I can't see how this is any different.

European Commission outlines appeal against Apple's €13bn tax ruling

Certainly in Australia payroll tax is a tax on the employer not the employee - paid to the state government. I believe its the same in many other countrie.

HP CEO talks up HP-ink-only print hardware and higher upfront costs for machines that use other cartridges

Re: Dictionary

Server buisness is owned by HPE now not HP. And in any event a maintenance contract on one of those microsoervers costs bugger all. And if you don't want hardware maintenance a software updates only contract costs even less. If you want software updates it doesn't seem unreasonable to pay for them..

Docker shocker: Cash-strapped container crew threatens to delete 4.5 petabytes of unloved images

Re: Docker tweaked its terms of service

Two different issues.

There can be no contract if there is no consideration. That's simply an essential element of a contract. One might argue that supplying of containers for the service to share represents consideration - but that is a separate and complicated question (I think we get into discussions about weighing boilers at that point)

In terms of unilateral changes - assuming a contract exists - if you agreed in the original TOS to unilateral changes then you can't really complain and its perfectly legitimate (mostly - there are some limits to that in most jurisdictions) - if you didn't then they can't be changed.

Like other tech giants, Netflix gets govt takedown demands – and impressively, none of them involve Adam Sandler

Re: How did I know ...

Fair enough to criticise the backwards state of Saudi Arabia, but Singapore has managed to maintain a high degree of social cohesion, despite a very diverse and multicultural population.

One of the ways they have done this is to carefully manage anything that offends religion. Singapore doesn't care what religion you are - they just know (as has been demonstrated in many other places) that when you get friction caused by perceived slights to a deity/messiah/prophet/floating carbohydrate based entity that it can cause massive unrest. So play nice and keep your opinions to yourself.

If only other countries managed this so well...

Now on Amazon Prime: The Amazing Shrinking UK Tax Burden

Re: Still not sure why any of this is an issue

They can't simply invoice from Ireland and avoid UK tax. They must in fact be an irish company that is invoicing from ireland, and ultimately be the company that the buyer contracted with. There is very little stopping you from setting up an Irish or Luxembourg based company and doing the same thing.

If the UK wants to attract more tax revenue then it needs to reduce its tax rates.

Tax is a marketplace - companies will do business where conditions are favourable.

Still not sure why any of this is an issue

Unless you're voluntarily handing over money to the taxman in excess of that required by law, then you're not realy in a position to critiscise Amazon here.. They are operating legally and paying tax as required. Many of the mechanisms that are critiscised that allow for reduced tax payments in the UK are very much neccesary for functioning international commerce.

In any event, its not like the government is spending money so well that you'd be wantng to give them more...

The great leveller: Nokia waves magic wand over unfair wage differences, and *poof* they're gone

Why is it neccesarily the right thing?

Most companies aren't (or shouldn't be) a socialist workers collective. And people should be paid what they can negotiate. If I was hired in a time of job scarcity then I might accept lower pay, in the opposite situation i might be able to get a better package. Is it then fair that either party should be advantaged or disadvantaged just because the labour market conditions that existed when they were hired no longer exist. Certainly the employer has operational needs to meet - so they may neccesarily choose to pay a premium at certain times which they shouldn't then have to extend to all other workers.

Boeing's 737 Max woes trigger BEEELLIONS in losses – and that's just for the latest quarter

Re: They won't fly again

Plenty of aircraft over time have had initial teething problems - even recurring fatal issues - and have recovered. In 12 months time this will be completely forgotten.

I still suspect that flying in a 'buggy' 737 MAX is much safer than driving. Irrespective of any flaws. I'm happy to take that risk every day - it woulld be illogical to have different thresholds for personal safety based on the mode of transport.

EU will have agreed a tech tax by March, says French finance minister

Re: why not

You can't do that - it lead to a whole bunch of undesirable consequences.

Company A develops software in the US. Company B (its subsidiary) sells that software in the UK. Company B needs to pay a licence fee to A otherwise A doesn't have any revenue to pay its costs.

In your world A is going to make a loss in the US, whilst B makes an unrealistic profit in the UK - because now its cost of goods becomes close to zero. B will pay a stack of tax but A will not pay any tax - but will also not have any income to offset their losses.

Transfer pricing is very heavily regulated anyway - calculating and managing it represents a significant cost to do business.

Hands off that Facebook block button, public officials told by judges in First Amendment row

Re: Also facebook

No it does not - The First Amendment protects against suppression of free speech by the government. A private individual acting in that capacity, and a corporation, can still do whatever they want.

Oh Deer! Poacher sentenced to 12 months of regular Bambi screenings in the cooler

Re: 'Murica never ceases...

Suicide would seem to be irrelevant as in most jurisdictions Suicide is now legal. If you want to shoot yourself go nuts.

Oz opposition folds, agrees to give Australians coal in their stockings this Christmas

Re: Gets popcorn

To be fair the 'TSA Key set' was based on the 8 most common luggage keys that were in use. Baggage handlers and other airport workers had already made their own bunches of these keys long before they were identified as the 'TSA Standard'. Only one of them is even remotely secure. So this quite a lot different to that...

Send up a satellite to zap space junk if you want Earth's orbit to be clean, say boffins

Re: Proud to be British

Whilst not a rocket scientist, I have played Kerbal Space Programme enough to know that the most efficient way of deorbiting something is to apply retrograde force to that object - thus lowering its orbit on the opposite side to where the forces is applied. Force applied radially in will change the shape of the orbit, but not affect the orbital velocity - so whilst possible to send it down that way it will require a lot more force.

EU wants one phone plug to rule them all. But we've got a better idea.

Re: Be much more interested in...

But yet, Singapore manages to have them everywhere (particularly in hotels), without people dying every minute... Then again every where apart from Britain we are grown up enough to manage power sockets in bathrooms without killing ourselves too...

Phased out: IT architect plugs hole in clean-freak admin's wiring design

Re: Plot twist? What plot twist?

Everyone around me has 3 phase. How else do you run a 4.5kw air conditioner? You're probably thinking of somewhere like the UK where ice is still considered a luxury item...

UK Foreign Office offers Assange a doctor if he leaves Ecuador embassy

Re: Many things but not a traitor to the US

He would have been a British subject by descent from his Irish parents (the republic of Ireland didn't exist until 1917 if I recall - it was British before then)

I've got way too much cash, thinks Jeff Bezos. Hmmm, pay more tax? Pay staff more? Nah, let's just go into space

Re: Another economically illterate article....

A job is only worth so much - if the cost of employing a worker is greater than the value that a company derives from that job then its not sustainable. Its not an employers job to overpay their worker. Minimum wage makes this worse. It provides an incentive to not employ anyone who is worth less than the minimum wage. Which is why Australian macdonalds now employ fewer staff to take orders and use a machine instead....

A company is not a charity. And this is only going to get worse - more jobs will be replaced by automation. This is not the employers fault - this is employees failing to obtain valuable skills.

But whilst they can't move on presumably there wasn't anywhere for them to work pre Amazon...

Mad Leo tried to sack me over Autonomy, says top HP Inc beancounter

It kind of is.

Fraud typically requires a deception that another party relies on. If the deal was going to be done irrespective of the deception then thats not fraud - there is no reliance.

Apple agrees to pay £136m in back idiot taxes to UK taxman

I would buy that product. Its not like the government is using the money well.

Republican tax bill ready to rescue hard-up tech giants, struggling rich

Whats wrong with this..

It seems perfectly reasonable that the people who contribute such a large proportion of tax revenue should also benefit more when those taxes are reduced. Will be interesting to see how much revenue is actually reduced from these groups in any event - no need to structure your affairs as aggressively to reduce your tax liability if your tax burden is reduced...

Germany says NEIN to purchase incentive for Tesla Model S

These are the same people who can typically afford to drive anything they fancy. So if an incentive makes them buy an electric car rather than an environmentally less good v8 Mercedes then that sounds like a reasonable use of an incentive. Lets also not forget that these are the people whose tax revenue supports everyone else - so perhaps they for once deserve the same break that everybody else gets....