* Posts by A.P. Veening

3893 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Aug 2018

Pentagon beams down $10bn JEDI contract to Microsoft: Windows giant beats off Bezos

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Re: It's just a coincidence of course...

Retaliation from the next non-Trump government (assuming we ever have one)

It might take a while, but even after Nehemiah Scudder and his successors that was finally managed, see Revolt in 2100.

We're late and we're unreliable but we won't invalidate your warranty: We're engineers!

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Just for your information: alcohol is a drug and medically speaking a harder drug than heroin, despite it being legal for adults in most locations.

Plan to strip post-Brexit Brits of .EU domains now on hold: Registry waves white flag amid political madness

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How the [CENSORED] can you expect bureaucrats to be sensible?

Franco-stein's on the move: Spanish dictator turfed out of decadent mountaintop mausoleum

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Re: That is excellent news!

I hope franco stays dead for as long as possible.

Keep him out of Israel, more resurrections of the dead than anywhere else in the world ;)

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Nothing but good about the dead

He is dead and that is good.

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Re: Should have been put in an unmarked grave...

An unmarked grave is still too good for him, remains should have been burned/cremated and the ashes scattered on the winds (from an unmarked location) or in the sea.

And we're back with the third review of Privacy Shield: Meh, sighs the European Commission

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The US could do more, but it's like pulling teeth

To encourage the US, I recommend pulling those teeth without analgesic, meaning really damaging punitive fines (GDPR anyone?).

Not LibreOffice too? Beloved open-source suite latest to fall victim to the curse of Catalina

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Re: This makes me happy

This makes me happy that I don't use MacOS!

This makes me happy I already quit the church of St. Jobs some tweny years ago.

Don't look too closely at what is seeping out of the big Dutch pipe

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Re: Didn't save her but did get a stay of execution

You should have collected some evidence of some sackable activities about him and reported that to his manager.

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Re: False Positive Sexual Deviant

I made it a point to leave the door open whenever I had to change the diapers on my sons in a public toilet. A lot of "ladies" objected but had no reply whatsoever to that I thought one false accusation was enough for me.

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Re: False Positive Sexual Deviant

I think I can better that. I will freely admit that upon multiple occasions I had my hand on the crotch of a naked, protesting and wailing minor. Neither of my sons appreciated having their diapers changed.

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Re: After telling management I couldn't do it

And how was that solved? Don't leave us with only half a tale.

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Re: A serious question

See here.

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In that case you should have complained about discrimination as you were looking for expert-sex-change ;)

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Are you by any chance referring to Amsterdamned?

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Re: A serious question

Which countries are those?

Just about all with serious privacy legislation, so start with all 28 current EU members and another three EEA members. You can of course exclude the United Spies of America.

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Re: A serious question

You are not allowed to monitor, nothing is said about backtracking from illegal content and reporting to duly appointed legal authorities.

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Re: Student exchange!

Yup, mattress dancing is a sport, usually done in pairs, sometimes more ;)

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Re: We never said anything to anyone...

After office hours and good at HR? I'd call that a "No harm no foul".

Slightly off-topic: I've known enough guys who were "happily" married with children and closet gay. They had enough problems already. The lucky ones (in the end at least) were those, that bit the bullet and came out.

UK tech freelancer numbers down for first time in 5 years since IR35 tax reforms hit public sector

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Re: Simply disjointed...

The one HUGE improvement is getting rid of HMRC. Depending on where exactly you relocate, you can expect different problems, but none as bad. And the Dutch tax office (Belastingdienst) is scarily reasonable as long as you abide by the rules. And while not relevant for individual tax payers or small companies, large companies can make long term agreements with them about how the rules and laws are to be interpreted (just to avoid misunderstandings) and things like that.

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Enforcement

"Much will depend on whether HMRC takes tough enforcement action and publicly hauls an organisation over the coals. If that happens, it likely will have a chilling effect on the use of contractors. If enforcement action is not forthcoming, the impact of the reforms could be more limited." ®

Of course HMRC will publicly try to haul an organisation over the coals (and hot ones at that). However, going by past performance and results, this will backfire spectacularly, making HMRC even more ridiculous in regard of IR35 than it already is.

We read the Brexit copyright notices so you don't have to… No more IP freely, ta very much

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Re: TL;DR

The last time I sent someone non-white, I got a call from the EU Technical Officer to say “I don’t want you to send the lazy guy again. Do you understand. Not the lazy guy or any of your other monkeys”.

The correct solution to this is to sent somebody with the following qualifications:

White

Male

Lazy

Incompetent

Obnoxious

Rude

Only speaking some really unintelligible dialect

Bonus points if he is also gay.

.

Besides that, make sure you know the name of that lout in Brussels and those of his two immediate superiors. Send a complaint to his immediate superior, next time go one level higher. With enough complaints, that lout will get promoted sideways to a location where he is harmless to normal people.

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Re: Supplies of blue tape may be rationed

Extremely misguided, just look at their national flag, it does contain blue. But maybe you were confused by their battle flag.

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Re: TL; DR

We're fucked

The correct term is "screwed without the benefit of getting laid". And you aren't kissed either.

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Re: Bonfire

We're getting passports from the French Navy?

Nope, those new passports will be Navy Blue and will be produced by a French-Dutch company, which won the bid, and will do so in France, thus "French Navy Blue", should really be "French, Navy Blue" for grammatical correctness but that is not quite as nice a trigger. Just today I heard a rumour production might be shifted to Poland, but I don't know whether that is true or not.

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Re: TL; DR

The really funny thing is, is that that already is quite easy, just never done.

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Re: Supplies of blue tape may be rationed

I'm sure there will be plenty available from Ireland

That will be green tape ;)

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Re: Bonfire

But hey, French Navy Blue Passports...

FTFY ;)

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

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Re: Would someone explain

Here in the Netherlands as well, but you can protest that fine and usually the protest is upheld (there will be a photo of the ambulance as well).

The last time I had an ambulance appear behind me (still some distance away) while waiting in line for a red light, I just shifted gear to backward and moved to the side.

BOFH: The company survived the disaster recovery test. Just. The Director's car, however...

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Re: It's a long, long while from May to Johnson

If you start with that revolution, the election won't be much of a problem as the number of screw-ups contesting will be a lot lower and the confirmatory vote won't be necessary.

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Re: There's a solid point there too

That assumes you can get away far enough those shards can't reach you. The safest spot is probably pushed against the glass flat on the ground. With a bit of luck, the inside of the building is a bit above ground level, giving you even more protection.

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Re: Directors and DR

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

A terrorist attack with some directors and that IT manager getting shot and the place blown sky high would probably be an improvement, especially if the insurance company could be convinced to pay.

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Re: Disaster

Nothing like a power outage to expose your power contractors IQ.

Which just approaches their shoe size on a very good day.

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Re: There's a solid point there too

And yes fire evacuations are a joke. Except when it's a genuine false alarm - because then you learn an awful lot.

Experienced that once and it went flawless (surprising just about everybody). Based on the results of the false alarm, the fire evacuation drill scheduled for a week later was cancelled ... by the head of security.

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Re: BOFH firing up a security action.

And, for the record, the board room drinks cupboard doesn't have a *decent* single malt anymore.

FTFY ;)

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Re: "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."

*Well actually I was on holiday at the time.

That would be my claim as well, shame I threw away the boarding stubs.

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Re: Very Thorough

I think he meant that "600 gasbags"-HQ.

Deus ex hackina: It took just 10 minutes to find data-divulging demons corrupting Pope's Click to Pray eRosary app

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Let us pray

... this gets fixed quickly.

IBM: Why yes, Red Hat is doing great. Thanks for asking. The rest of Big Blue? Sure, wait – someone's at the door...

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Re: Now just an IP milking company

At some point, Ginni and Watson will be the last two running the company.

Unlikely, that way they will get the blame. They will slip out pretty soon now and will leave a sacrificial scape goat in place.

Help! I bought a domain and ended up with a stranger's PayPal! And I can't give it back

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Re: No such thing as Silicon Heaven

Those get re-incarnated as accountants ;)

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I don't really see the problem, as long as they want money from you and you aren't paying, it is their problem. It is something else if you want money from them and they aren't paying.

A cautionary, Thames Watery tale on how not to look phishy: 'Click here to re-register!'

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Re: Why no subdomain!?

There were a couple of Normans that went west, but they landed at Hastings (in 1066) and didn't sail westward again for a couple of centuries. And the protestant Huguenots didn't go to Catholic Ireland. Lots of the ended up in the Netherlands and South Africa. And yes, O' usually means "son of", just like "Mac" and "Mc" (but not in the case of Machiavelli ;) ), while "Fitz" means "bastard son of". For that matter, I don't understand those Yanks giving their sons (mostly middle) names starting with "Fitz", one of the more well known ones being John FitzPatrick Kennedy.

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Re: Legacy CRM...Oh Joy!

To really screw things up you need a government AND A TWO COMPUTERS!!

Fixed that for you, a single computer won't give out duplicate SSNs.

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It's official management policy in Thames Water to declare any failure a success.

Luckily for them, they don't have the reverse problem.

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Re: Why no subdomain!?

I am not aware of a French heritage in Ireland and in Việt Nam it isn't that long ago (1887 - 1954), but it sure deserves more than one upvote.

I discovered the world's last video rental kiosk and it would make a great spaceship

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And now as a link.

We're going deeper Underground: Vulture clicks claws over London's hidden tracks

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Re: 20 MPH zones

I get heavily downvoted every time I post song lyrics here.

But you don't post song lyrics, you post an url to a youtube video without the lyrics and without even having the decency to make it a clickable link. And as a silver badge, you are granted that ability (comes much sooner already).

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Re: 6 mph in Victorian London

5 Years? The current maximum duration is only three months, the standard Brexit extension.

A History of (Computer) Violence: Wait. Before you whack it again, try caressing the mouse

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Re: that reminds me

Pavlov was a great teacher.

In solidarity with its broken email hosting, 123-Reg's '24/7' support lines also fall over

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Vimexx.eu? According to their website, they offer hosting and other services in England. Unfortunately, they don't mention any other part of the UK.