Posts by Captain Underpants

@Lost All Faith...

It's a problem with the management's decision on how to deal with unionised staff, actually.

They know there's a union there. They know that a 1.1% raise is an insult and a real-terms pay cut, and to make things worse they also publicly give themselves a paycut.

The customer doesn't want to see the degradation of service that will happen when the staff who actually do the work bail out permanently. The 1-day strike option is a way of showing what that would be like for a short period of time, in an effort to get clients to nag management and essentially tell them to Stop Dicking The Staff Around.

Sure, some unions take the piss, but at the moment it's practically the golden rule for management to take the piss as well. In the business world, a peaceful protest will be less use than a chocolate teapot. Either you do something that has an impact forcing a response (good or bad), or you effectively accept what you're being offered.

Re: Oh look...

@Daniel

I find that Lewis writing about military hardware is a fascinating and knowledgable (at least as far as I can tell) individual with interesting insights to share.

Lewis writing about anything relating to energy or climate, however, appears to be an anti-green evangelist looking for any excuse, no matter how contrived or factually inaccurate, to try and smack everyone even remotely connected to green initiatives. He's clearly passionate about the issue and has his own opinions, but he's so far away from objectivity on the subject that it really is hard to find any reason to read his articles a lot of the time, especially when he's misinterpreting scientific publications...

But yeah, an Orlowski phase sounds about right. Which is a shame, Orlowski with comments on and the right topic can produce some great articles and discussions, but Orlowski with comments off tends to be clickbait and/or effectively trolling his own audience.

Re: And it's taken how long to notice this?

@Anonymous Custard:

Well, if you're going to assume that the spouse should have no ambition beyond sitting around at home alternating between Raising The Kids and Cleaning The Home (with occasional forays into Spending Your Hard Earned Cash, Grumble Grumble) then yeah, I guess you might run into trouble. That doesn't mean it's how everyone does it.

@Lallabalalla:

Retiring at 35 to arse about on a beach is all very well, but the shortening of your life expectancy resulting from the kind of stress usually involved in the relatively few jobs that can actually pay that well will mean you're not necessarily doing well compared to those who decide that Loads Of Cash + Early Retirement isn't the goal. Horses for courses, of course, but there's no one right answer that applies to everyone...

Re: Less than ideal

@g e

I sympathise (not least because I'm with HSBC too and have seen the flakiness of their normally-robust online service today) but, playing Devil's Advocate with your choice of title, I don't think there's ever a good point for banks to be out of service or offline, is there?

This sort of thing neatly demonstrates the most compelling argument to be made in favour of keeping some cash about your person, IMO. Cash has a number of problems, but "sorry, your bank is currently unavailable" is not one of them!

Re: Cunning Stunts

@ Brewster's Angle Grinder:

There are still possibilities, though:

How about implementing a maximum amount that can be claimed as a cost by a UK PLC as an "asset use charge" for IP such as names etc and set it at some low percentage of total revenue, then disregard any additional costs submitted by the company when calculating tax liability? Better yet, set that maximum amount as a % of profits declared in the UK? Ie if you want to be able to funnel out £5M as a cost, you have to have declared a profit of £50M (and paid tax on it).

Or placing an onerous burden of proof re: competitive tendering process for supplier choice (to be reviewed by independent auditors) when eg Starbucks claim they have to use Starbucks beans bought at a 5 Gajillion% markup compared to every other suppier, and where such proof is lacking only accept a cost declaration set by the average cost of said supplies from eg the top 5 suppliers per volume, and ignore any additional costs when calculating tax liability. It doesn't eliminate the problem, but it makes it cost them more to do it, and eventually the cost-benefit analysis will tip the other way.

For product-based companies in particular like Starbucks and Apple, the claim that they have to pay themselves for use of said assets is clearly bollocks. There's no actual business requirement for it, it's an accounting convenience. So limit the accounting benefit from letting them do it. No actual business model will operate in such a way that all possible profit margin is eaten by a cost to an exclusive supplier; if there's no *actual* profit, there's no reason to continue operating.

Alternatively, pass legislation whereby leaking corporate tax arrangements is permissible under law - and so is eg tasering company executives for approving such measures. (Just kidding, though it strikes me that a BOFH-like solution would be more effective in achieving changed behaviour...)

Re: No surprise here - It is DRM that increases piracy

@lurker:

Hmm, I should've chosen my words more carefully. I didn't mean to suggest that there's absolute parity end-to-end between ebooks and printed books, necessarily - I was trying to suggest that it's a fallacy to think "Ebook = no production costs, physical book = enormous production costs". Ebooks increase the workload for layout and platform proofing. I referenced Stross because his article is the best expression of the number of things done by a publisher as part of publishing a book that don't involve either the book being written or the words being put onto paper; the vast majority of those things apply regardless of format.

It's also relevant to mention that while I happen to know a bit about self-publishing and small press, I generally defer to people working full-time in the field when it comes to what is or is not true about that field.

@ Mojojojo:

I'm not sure you can ignore 16 and 17 For "shipping", you can substitute "file hosting & distribution", and for "invoicing and accounting" you can substitute...errr... "invoicing and accounting". Unless you are exclusively selling your ebook through your own channel (which reduces your reach substantially), you'll be dealing with partners. Ergo invoicing & accounting.

(You may be interested in CMAP #9: Ebooks, incidentally - not least for Stross's prediction that ebooks will end up replacing mass market paperbacks. A prediction that I don't like but suspect is going to be correct.)

@K

I'm not convinced that your volume argument is entirely correct - it assumes that there are no per-transaction costs, for starters, which is generally not the case. On top of which, there's no guarantee that simply cutting the per-item revenue (presumably by slashing the "profit" bit) the total number of item sales will increase enough to keep total revenue standard, never mind increase it. There's so much content out there that price alone isn't the main determinant, especially when you talk about material in which you the reader may be interested, but of which you aren't aware - because the solution to that is marketing (either word-of-mouth which takes ages or the traditional kind which takes money).

I do agree that book publishers want to get reader's loyalty, which is why they tend to want to retain first refusal rights to a given author's next book.

It's worth noting that some publishers are still doing very limited edition high-cost items (eg small runs of individually-numbered signed books, and even smaller runs of individually-lettered signed books - I heard about this when reading about China Mieville's books, but I'm sure he's not the only one). As with the music industry, I suspect that the way to go is to use different formats to target different audiences. (Why turn down the extra money to be made from rich fans who want a unique physical artefact just because casual readers want a cheap ebook, when you can do both?)

@Miek - he's more commonly known as Waylon Smithers these days...

Re: @Captain Underpants

@Neil - yes, fine, owned by The Crown and run for the public. However, in the context of the currently-fashionable instance of constitutional monarchy that ostensibly runs the UK, there's not really any difference between that and being state-owned - at least not that I can tell. (Well, aside from the fact that other state owned broadcasters tend not to be of the same calibre as the Beeb, but I think that's more a fluke than down to something special about the nature of The Crown as a corporate holder...).

Re: why is it illegal?

@Rukario

Yeah, I noticed that the first time. I'm not personally convinced, though, because it's applied across the board and provides no exemption mechanism for those whose usage does not match the criteria. Hence, if it's a legislatively-mandated cost to be included in the price of all such items, it's no different in my mind to sales tax/VAT. (The more cynically minded might argue that the fact that the money gets funneled to a body who then pisses it away in a manner that most of its intended beneficiaries don't much like is yet another similarity to an actual tax...)

The difference between a tax and a levy in semantic terms is irrelevant, in any case - the key fact here is that if you buy storage media, you are paying a per-amount-of-storage-space charge to a body which compensates musicians for the transcoding of their music that you are assumed to do, whether or not you do it. At which point, screw 'em. If they're allowed to pre-emptively charge you for something you may do just by virtue of buying hardware, then the same sort of logic legitimises users pre-emptively snaffling naughty free copies of $BAND's new album before deciding to pay for it or not, because apparently we're reversing the usual order of the payment | product handover process in retail transactions...

Re: White whines: Muh New Overpriced Shiny was a stolen!

From what I've seen of other similar software, it can configure the camera to take snapshots at regular intervals and upload them to a predetermined location. It also seeks out any available networks (either private ones to which access is provided, or public networks) for uploading info.

So yes, it depends on network access being available, but given the likelihood of such equipment being reused after the theft, it's not a terrible idea. Worst case scenario, your stolen shiny remains stolen.

Better yet, in several cases the privatisation strategy decided that keeping the money within the national economy wasn't important so they sold them off to foreign owners, meaning that the profits derived from said companies are flowing out of the UK economy. Which is just excellent. (Source: http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/02/soaring-rail-profits-are-used-to-cut-fares-abroad-3567491/)

Privatisation, in theory and if enacted correctly, can let us all benefit from competition. The problem is that privatising infrastructure on which we all depend and which we cannot allow to fail is a tricky business, and the Post Office is a great example of how, when done wrong, there's a net degradation of service in many areas while costs continue to increase.

Re: BBC for the headlines @Ledswinger

@El Presidente

That's great, until you factor in the notion of whisteblowers. And whether or not you think they're needed very often, it's not necessarily a net improvement to the world to make it impossible for someone to report dodgy dealings or actions without effectively standing up and saying "I, Joe Bloggs of 123 Fake Street, would like to bring to your attention the following criminal *ack ack argh*", shortly followed by a takedown notice on the basis that the post is defamatory and a news story a couple of days later about how Joe Bloggs of 123 Fake Street has been found dead with two bullet holes in the back of his skull, and the police believe it to be suicide, and Definitely Not Shady At All.

I do think that an awful lot of comment sections would be improved if the very small but non-zero probability existed that saying something objectionable might get you a real-world kick in the danglies. (But then, who gets to define "objectionable"? Back to square zero...)

Re: Kensington Lock?

Nah, Apple have decided those are aesthetically unpleasing. Besides which, allowing you to lock up your expensive new iDevice deprives Apple of the profits from your replacement when it gets stolen deprives you of the privilege of visiting an Apple Store and buying a replacement if your original were to unfortunately be stolen.

Re: The idea is...

@Destroy All Monsters

Thank you for attempting to explain the issue. (My comment appearing directly below yours was in fact intended for Andrew, not yourself).

As I understand your post, the issue then is that Turing's Universal Machine is not the first example of a universal symbol processing machine? And/or that the Universal Machine is a hypothetical machine rather than an actual piece of engineering?

Re: I realise Google are crap at anything to do with customer service...

@Baudwalk

What part of "informing their employees about why things go tits up." involves telling someone at The Register about it?

Re: Was it just TIFKAM as this is easily replaced/avoided with the right add-ons

@Tom 13

You're missing the point, I think. Which is that people hate change, period. (I remember hating XP because 2K was fine. I remember hating Vista rather more so, because by then I was accustomed to XP and it was fine. I remember disliking 7 for a bit, too. And I remember hating 8. In computing "New interfaces" means "new pain in the arse stuff to learn your way around", regardless of platform - just look at all the Unity/GNOME3/KDE4 stuff doing the rounds for proof that the penguinistas don't necessarily have it any better. One of these days, someone'll fuck about with the look & feel of XFCE and then we're all screwed.) But anyway - in the absence of Windows 365, Microsoft depends on regularly changing the OS version (and UI) sold on new computers to make money. So the joy for us in the field is to navigate this crap as best we can.

You and I are in firm agreement that TIFKAM is a bit silly on non-touch devices. However, after forcing myself to get to grips with it, I can say with confidence that if you're willing to spend a little time at the start of the machine's life getting the Start UI into a configuration that's useful to you (because the default configuration is worse than friggin' useless, and God knows how it got approved as is) and learn a couple of keyboard shortcuts, it's very straightforward to use. Seriously. I mostly spend my time on the desktop forgetting that I'm using Win8 unless I need to get at the settings on the system - for running applications, it may as well be 7.

If you don't want to do that, well, it takes less time to install ClassicShell and force the appearance of Windows 7 onto the thing than to do just about any of the other stuff you still need to do on any new Windows install ever releases, and you get something you're happy with.

Yes, I know, ideally you'd have a "enable Classic UI" button instead, but we're talking about perhaps 150 seconds of your life. You and I have both spent longer than that writing individual posts on the subject around here. Perhaps it's time to agree that it just isn't that big a deal? Or, if you genuinely think it is that big a deal, communicate this to MS in a meaningful way. Because I guarantee that "What those tossers moan about on the El Reg forum" will never be incorporated as part of feedback or UAT at MS. Politely-worded emails, on the other hand...

Re: OK, case study....

@moiety 16:07

I'm really not so sure what you say is valid. Only the printing and shipping stuff is physically-specific; everything else pertains to both dead-tree and no-tree versions. I've seen what you get when people try to skimp on the copy-editing, proofing or layout sections and it substantially devalues the end product.

I'm wary of the assumption that the cost of providing hosting and bandwidth for ebook distribution (especially anything that might contain an abundance of high res images like tech manuals or education-oriented textbooks) would automatically be negligible compared to shipping, particularly since at this point the ebook sales model means that actually admitting you are charging your customer an "electronic delivery charge" of any kind is unacceptable. And with 200+ppi screens becoming more and more commonplace, larger filesizes and greater-resolution images will become the norm, so it's not something that'll go away.

Consider the dead-tree equivalent of your argument re: " sunk costs). Most of the production process isn't in the printing or shipping side; it's in the author's advance, editing, proofing, scheduling and marketing the book. Once you get to the point where a second print run can be justified, the only sunk costs are printing and shipping - this is why paperback editions are feasible even though their profit margins are much lower than initial hardback runs. But not every book gets as far as a second print run, especially not in the "niche" genres like "not paranormal romance" or "stuff that Oprah Winfrey hasn't promoted" or "stuff that doesn't count amongst the 3 books WH Smiths customers buy per year".

The sunk cost to produce an ebook version worth a damn is non-trivial (hence my reference to Stross' post, which I found eye-opening when I first read it) and has to be amortized against a given number of sales of that ebook before future sales are gravy with only distribution costs to offset. Even if the distribution costs are lower per book, they're still not zero, and I am willing to bet money that no profit-making publisher will view the return on the sale of a single copy of an ebook as, in itself, enough to cover the costs of producing it. That's simply not how breaking even works.