Posts by Nematode

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

It's not yet a mandate that 10 out of 10 should have signed up. It is a stepped approach, both by date and turnover.

The issue is: is the figure 3 in 10 expectable because of the date and turnover thresholds or because it should be much higher? If 3 out of 10 meets the expectable uptake, then implying 70% of businesses are not doing it is indeed misleading. (30% sounds about right to me. If it should be 33%, then there's a shortfall of 10%, not 70%.) Since we know it needn't be 10 out of 10 yet, but that's the sort of spin HMRC put on it to try and frighten people into MTD. A bit like they keep parroting tax avoidance as Bad, whereas tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is not.

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

"they'll be fully occupied doing tax investigations and audits"

And getting a lot of them wrong, too, viz IR35

Seriously though, why is El Reg playing HMRC's fiddle for them? A very unbalanced headline, only partly compensated for by the content details.

These stats are meaningless at present because of the turnover(? - I note the article fails to clarify turnover vs. profit) threshold. The £30k to £50k band I'm sure accounts for a huge proportion. And anyway, many sole traders are already using software which is ready for MTD (no. 1 son included) and they won't see very much of a difference, the s/w will smooth the way having had the vendors do all the work. 3-monthly reporting is a good idea imho. I usually did my books monthly (Ltd Co) but occasionally I missed it and the quarterly VAT return would kick me into doing them.

Amazon rewards loyal Kindle devotees by closing the book on old e-readers

Five devices

You only need to buy one new, then pop Calibre on your computer, de-DRM it and the other 4 can stay old.

And they knew they were going to do this a while back because they quietly removed the "download to your computer" option.

Finding an economic alternative to Kindle is damned hard, Kobo are megabucks, and e-book prices similarly. Amazon are locking out others by their pricing strategies. Still, even if we do bite the bullet, it'll be my Kindle that I replace as its battery is just about dead anyway, and then I'll buy and download books then move them to our Calibre library so SWMBO can pop it on her old Kindle. Even with new DRM, someone will write a plug-in update before long, as they have for all previous attempts to enforce DRM.

World's smallest violin spotted at Amazon HQ as exec pay packets deflate

Re: Don't cry for them

"In the US its actually quite a big cut". Hmmm, still not as much as most other countries. Yes, they have some categories at 40% but by and large most folk with a regular income aren't in that area. You have to earn over $626,350 to reach 37%, plus maybe around 10% state income tax max (many states are zero), CGT max 20%. A complex system overall, though, but if I was earning now I think I'd prefer the US figures to the UK's, especially their $14 million threshold for IHT - compared to the 40% my kids will have to fork if I die leaving any of my SIPP "unused", thanks to Rachel from Accounts. Grrr

Re: $365,000 base salary

Um, Blackrock, Vanguard et al don't "own" the shares. They may buy them up into funds but the funds are usually owned by individual punters like myself - my pension is half in Vanguard funds as recommended by my FA, with a very low charge. Of course, there are large corporations who also invest in these funds so it's not all individual punters. A huge proportion of the shares and funds market is essentially pension investments.

NHS staff resist using Palantir software

One hopefully good thing about the way the world is going to hell in a handbasket, viz. Trump and his cronies, Putin carrying on blithely, the stupid war in Iran, the whole multi-billionaire thing while planning to escape this dying world and disappear to the moon or Mars as they screw this world, people unable to earn a crust to keep mind and body together whilst the high heidyins are rolling in it, gross corruption absolutely everywhere, AI being shoved down our throats with no regard to those who will no longer have jobs (e.g. Amazon robots), in the UK tons of literally 5hite being tipped into our rivers whilst the bosses cream it, dumb projects like HS2 (HS rail only works over long distances and the Tories were told this), Starmer and his cronies being nothing like a Labour government and letting down every who voted for them to reverse the Tory disasters, the serial cluster-**** which was and is the Tory party, the lies over Brexit, the utter balls up which C19 was, I could go on, I think you get the idea - is that everybody is now aware that those we (sort of) trusted (or at least blindly hoped we could) to run this country and this world have our interests absolutely at the very bottom of their priorities. I for one have never suffered fools gladly, what I'm looking at is that eyes are opening, deep mistrust is spreading, and people really want some grown-ups to return, which doesn't mean Reform. The forthcoming Scottish election will be interesting, and the US mid-terms, and the next Westminster election even more so.

Artemis II astronaut: 'I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working'

And what an opportunity...

"Where's the airlock? Ok, pop the machine in there and..."

What's "Outlook"?

Claude Code source leak reveals how much info Anthropic can hoover up about you and your system

Thanks. May still use Tor...

Um, dumbo mode here, but is this saying that using Claude via a browser risks access to all your files/data on your PC?

BOFH: Are you ready to raise our expense account limits now?

If the invoice doesn't quote the relevant client's order number, reject it for resubmission. It's part of the standard Ts&Cs to do that. Simples. No need for AI

Microsoft breaks Microsoft account sign-ins in Windows 11 with latest update

When will they break W10 as well....

I'm just waiting for them to fek Win 10, at which point I will regret that I ever went for the ESUs (but will not be extending for another year). Fortunately, SWMBO's wouldn't register for ESUs so apart from some nagware from the new anti-malware, she's been fine.

Brilliant backups that kept data alive for ages landed web developer in big trouble

I would have taken the approach that if something can go wrong it will, and it's impossible to say what and why it might go wrong (something odd will always happen, viz most recently a buried https setting in my browser screwed redirect on my son's website, even my hoster couldn't work it our). Old data preservation = use backups.

Those who 'circle back' and 'synergize' also tend to be crap at their jobs

That'll be the whole of one of my old contract clients, a certain British oil company. I had to try really hard not to fall into the lingo.

AI datacenters may gulp a New York City's worth of water on hot days

Sorry (actually not), but as a Chemical Engineer who spent his 40+ year career designing process plants with heating, cooling and many other functions, I just can't see how we got into this mess, with local authorities of whatever shape and size being tasked with cooling these monstrosities. Surely when a company applies to use water, it knows how much and what for, and the council/whoever should simply say, no, we wouldn't cool a chemical plant / oil refinery / manufacturing plant with once-through water from the municipal supply, since it's blatantly not the purpose of water supplies to do other than sustain life and hygiene. The obvious method is closed-circuit cooling via cooling towers (though even these can need top-up due to evaporative losses) or refrigeration circuits for lower temperatures. These systems are called "Utilities" in the relevant industries and there's a whole canon of established practice which the AI companies for all their cleverness can't seem to understand how to write a prompt which gets them a sensible answer to the cooling / power requirements..

Critical Microsoft Excel bug weaponizes Copilot Agent for zero-click information disclosure attack

AI? What's that? /Win10

Brits fear AI will strip the human touch from public services

There's a human touch to public services?

Not in my experience

Enforcing piracy policy earned helpdesk worker death threats

Freedom and responsibilty are bedfellows...

.....or they should be. Seems to be a missing element (responsibility) in today's world though.

Free to say what you want but only if what you say meets common decency. The Buddhist concept "right speech" is a useful metric, regardless of beliefs/non-beliefs. Such as https://www.deepdharma.org/beliefs/right-speech/ (seems to be the full lot!)

Microsoft's 'atypical' emergency Windows patches are becoming awfully typical

"To be fair to Microsoft..."

er, why?

Tech support detective solved PC crime by looking in the carpark

As a contractor I was working at a major-size client where every once in a while there would be a round-robin email saying, essentially, "don't use work PCs for your own browsing". Then it would gently home in over about 4 or 5 emails, saying don't use work PCs for visiting non-work-related sites, which became don't visit inappropriate sites, which became don't visit adult sites which finally became don't visit pron sites, with all of these emails adding "or disciplinary action will be taken". Followed fairly swiftly on each clampdown (every 3 months or so) by an email saying "Today we have dismissed X number of people who were ignoring all the earlier emails". Yet very 3 months, people were still getting caught out. What part of No did they not understand?

Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check

At some point, the financial markets are going to realise they've been watching an Emperor with no clothes on. Sooner the better.

Microsoft Windows Media Player stops serving up CD album info

Re: consumers are returning to physical media like CDs

"boxed Allman Brothers' set" Do say more! Signed, A. Big Fan.

Been using MusicBee for years. Fantastic.

Earlier Horizon rollout could widen net for quashed Post Office convictions

"Motion passed"

Appropriate = Fujitsu dumping on everyone

Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching

Re: Thunderbird for the win

Good point, but almost every piece of advice on t'interweb about IMAP vs POP denigrates POP and says use IMAP. How many people realise all their private stuff is on "Someone else's Server"? I'm paranoid enough to be aware that mails I send to people who have @gmail addresses will more than likely stay on Gmail's servers, so be careful what I say.

Safe CEO: AI is an assistant, not a replacement

Re: "There is no automated substitute for experienced staff"

Re: "There is no automated substitute for experienced staff"

One is tempted to say when did sound logic ever influence the occasional, and in some cases (the oil industry) regular, experienced headcount reductions. Followed before long by panic re-hiring of now contractors charging a lot more.

iPad kids are more anxious, less resilient, and slower decision makers

"When I was a kid..."

...we used to play football in the street, fortunately a fairly quiet street in a housing estate, early 60s. Now 60+ years later, living in rural Scotland and with a similar low level of traffic where we are (even on the local B road to Aberdeen in rush hour!) the saying we had as kids still gets trotted out when a car comes along - "What do they think this is, a ROAD?"

Re: 'read to your kids'

Good points, well made. Sadly all true.

Re: 'read to your kids'

Spot the person of a certain age. (My age!)

What the Linux desktop really needs to challenge Windows

Re: Mint

There's an awful lot of unlucky people though. I always end up ditching Linux in the end, or sooner

Re: Mint

"If Linux wants to become the replacement for Windows..." Therein lies one problem. There is no single "Linux" to want to do this, instead there are over 100 distros all of which do things their own way and there's minus-infinity chance of homologation.

Re: Mint

"Disclaimer: I don't know if Android has a similar transfer mechanism when changing phones"

Yes it does, or at least Samsung's version does. Had to port my recently-dropped phone to an identical one bought inline. Worked like magic. Very impressed.

"Commercial software" will not port to Linux if there is no $$££ in it for them, and the Linux world generally = Free Software.

I'm glad someone has stuck their neck out and said this. Trouble is, for the average home user, Linux is not a great migration route away from Microsoft. Yes, theoretically Libre Office can do what Word and Excel can, but I've tried, as an experienced user, and the Libre Office offering ain't great. And the more expert you are with MS products, the quicker it's going to be to get frustrated by LO for anything more than 2+2=4. Businesses can look at a wider picture, check they can do what they need to, hire experts, and spend time re-training users. Individual users are on their own.

Another point is that outside of WP/Spreadsheet/e-mail/browser, commercial program offerings also ain't great. e.g. last time I tried Zoom on Linux it was terrible, others similarly. Windows emulators/VMs are not for the new user and need more fiddling with then J Bloggs is willing to, and sometimes still don't work.

One possible reason: I'm beta testing a commercial app (Win/Apple/Android/iPhone) at present and asked the developer were they ever going to release a Linux version. No, simply put. A point they made was that Linux tends to inhabit the same world and is seen in the same light as free software, and the chance of a developer making money out of porting their programs to Linux is pretty small. So, if you happen to need an app that works in Linux, great. Otherwise it can be a desert.

But my current count of regularly-used apps that either there is no Linux version or there's an app but it's frankly awful, is about 25. Quite a hurdle.

I just need an OS to let me run my programs and then get out of the way, and unless someone works out how to make a Linux distro that does what I need without spending more time than I have fiddling with it, then I shall (unfortunately) put up with Windows.

The Roomba failed because it just kind of sucked

To my mind the Roomba and other robot cleaners are typical of today's technology - find something which you don't really NEED but big it up as something desirable and sexy. Yes, there will be people for whom these advances are helpful, the disabled for example, but by and large you may be that fool whose money has been parted from them.

If it's serious carpet/etc cleaning you need, as in there is an allergic or an asthmatic in the house, then just about ALL cleaners of whatever size and state of technology they use FAIL on the most important factor - being able to tear it down and clean it, preferably, no, compulsorily, in water. The Roomba just takes this to ridiculous extremes, tempting you to not even look at it until it gums up and stops working.

We have a huge old Bissell thing, built like a brick outhouse (and heavy :( ), takes completely apart and lets you !wash! it. When you see what comes out, you'll be asking what does your non-cleanable (e.g. Dyson, Roomba, and most others) actually DO with all that crap? The other one we have is a small battery-powered one, which we also chose for cleanability. Also because the motor and stuff, i.e. the C of G, is low down near the floor and does not have to be held up by your slowly tiring arm muscles.

Both of our machines have cyclonic first and second stages, with filter 3rd and 4th (HEPA) stages. As an engineer specialising in industrial gas/liquid/solid separation technology, cyclonic technology is often smaller, and by and large they are blockage-free, but they have a minimum particle "cut size" below which the dust will just fly through unless and until it meets a proper filter. Filters clean the air stream up well but will block and need cleaning/changing.

AI-authored code contains worse bugs than software crafted by humans

No Sh** Sherlock. This is news?

Microsoft security update breaks MSMQ on older Win systems

I knew I shouldn't have bothered with the extended updates programme.

Mozilla Corporation installs Firefox driver in CEO reboot

As for forks, there's also Waterfox, Pale Moon, and about 10 others according to WikiP

I have stuck with FF because I like it, I know where everything is, because you can frig with the UI and stop them changing everything with https://www.userchrome.org/ and a bunch of other stuff, e.g. about:config. The UI changes people dislike haven't bovvered me one bit. And, of course, because it's not Chrome nor Edge. It also runs things fine which are claimed only to run on Chrome, such as NHS video calls. The privacy thing with recent management changes I don't see as a big issue, maybe I'm naive.

When they add AI I may simply disable it but might leave it as an option. My use of AI is largely as a more complex search engine. Yesterday it managed to tell me exactly why I had a firewall cross-scripting block warning on one of my sites (with the IP of my own house!), how to find the details, what caused it and what to do about it. It was a known bug and actually a falsepos. Yes, I checked independently.

I wonder about all these "improvements" to software when by and large people barely scratch the surface of what the programs can do. S'pose the vendors have to create an ongoing revenue stream.

Affection for Excel spans generations, from Boomers to Zoomers

Lotus

No-one yet has mentioned Lotus 123. I preferred it to Excel but eventually had to port everything I used to Excel. At which point (199x-ish) I discovered Excel didn't have a 2-D lookup, you had to nest formulas. M$ took years to add it (some time after Excel 2019).

And before that there was Smartware, a DOS-based suite. Had a lot of stuff in it that more "advanced" suites did't have until much later.

Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts

Re: Bovvered?

Yep, $2350 is right. They hiked it from $450 a few years ago as so many were expatriating and saw an opportunity. Moves afoot to reduce to $450 again, though any fee is a discouragement to expatriating which is every US citizen's right. Should be free. Whole shebang cost me around £15k, mostly professional fees. Glad I'm out of it all.

Obvious question: since all social media are US-company-owned I would have thought the US govt would hardly need to ask you to see your history? The Orange Manbaby could simply ask his billionaire mates to AI their postings databases and indicate anyone dodgy.

Bovvered?

Am I bovvered? Nah.

Short version: I was born in the US of UK parents and left at age 4. Birth in the US confers US citizenhood, which in turn imposes on all US citizens the requirement to file tax returns in the US, every year, even if there is no US income. It's called citizen-based-taxation, and the only other country which does that is Eritrea.

So a few years back I retired, then got seriously ill (and I mean seriously) and whilst trying to recover my bank suddenly flagged up that as I was a US citizen I had to comply with the "FATCA" international agreement. With a reasonable pension fund and bank accounts at risk, I had to go through the palaver of 5 years of IRS returns (costly as it's impossible without a US-certified tax accountant) and an expatriation request so that I could quit their nonsense. Fortunately the tax "due" was below a $25,000 threshold below which they waived it. Cr@pping myself until that point, I already had PTSD from the emergency illness trauma.

So, once expatriated I decided they could stuff their damned country and they would never get another penny from me even as a tourist. If I ever go across the pond again, it'll be to Canada.

So this doesn't bovver me at all. Talk to the hand because the face ain't listenin.

Amazon complains that Perplexity's agentic shopping bot is a terrible customer

All just goes to show there are some seriously dumb clucks out there who believe this AI gumf they're being fed.

Aviation delays ease as airlines complete Airbus software rollback

I love safety-critical software. Not. I'll always remember one site start-up I did where the client's functional spec., which we followed, resulted in a hugemongous-inch pipeline valve moving when it shouldn't have*.

Having decided that the client's design could therefore not be trusted after all, I did a 1-man instant on-site re-analysis of their "code" and found 3 more errors.

* Had to throw out that particular pair of shorts.

Microsoft's first Windows 10 ESU Patch Tuesday release fails for some

Re: Really?

Yes, not dissimilar to politicians migration from serving their constituents and the wider idea of democracy to the money-and-notoriety-grubbing animals* they have by and large become. And from companies selling wares in order to enrich everyone involved to enriching billionaires at an astonishing annual growth rate but not those who work in these companies.

Cynical? Moi?

* sorry, that's insulting to animals.

AI music has finally beaten hat-act humans, but sounds nothing like victory

"There is nothing to stop the slop."

Rubbish. They're called "ears".

As the article points out, we've always had slop - I remember as a kid watching TOTP waiting to see if they put a decent track on (and week after week failing), ditto the Alan Freeman show (followed thankfully by Alexis Korner's blues programme. It's just worse and there's more of it now. There will always be people who just listen to any old thing but there are also always going to be people who listen out for something genuinely new and interesting. AI is by definition unoriginal, and those with any discernment will soon get bored of any AI slop which makes it through the obvious defences.