I wonder if that was the Railways. I did a contract there (Maternity cover) and loved every day
Posts by Phage
43 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2011
User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work
Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors
Voyager 2 receives and executes first command in 11 months as sole antenna that reaches it returns to work
CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor
UK COVID-19 contact-tracing app data may be kept for 'research' after crisis ends, MPs told
Relying on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mob US to protect you from SIM swapping? You better get used to disappointment
EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield V, Penguinistas respond by demanding crippling boycott
Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway
We're so, so, sorry you're not able to get PC chips, says Intel to everyone who hasn't gone with AMD yet
Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one
Criminal mastermind signed name as 'Thief' on receipts after buying stuff with stolen card
Let's see what the sweet, kind, new Microsoft that everyone loves is up to. Ah yes, forcing more Office home users into annual subscriptions
Researchers find development and conservation aren't mutually exclusive
Azure flock can stop faffing over bastion hosts: Microsoft has made it noob-friendly
We listened to more than 3 hours of US Congress testimony on facial recognition so you didn't have to go through it
It's 50 years to the day since Apollo 10 blasted off: America's lunar landing 'dress rehearsal'
Here's what Autonomy told its salesmen they were allowed to do
Loose Women woman's IR35 win deals another high-profile blow to UK taxman's grip on rules
All those opinions regarding avoidance vs evasion, and change the laws, handily ignore the fact that Governments are national and corporations are supra-national. This creates a race to the bottom, handily won by Ireland, Isle of Man and other havens.
The reality is that we cannot blame the law-makers for entities that are out of their control. The solution would require a UN equivalent of the HMRC and we know how effective THAT would be.
So yes, I do blame the management of the companies for their failure to recognise that their pursuit of profit, whilst legal, is entirely immoral and unethical. The public recognise unethical and inequitable actions when they see it. Even if they are in situations that are not covered by statute !
The problem lies with people (yes you DB) who tell us that we cannot blame the companies for acting unethically, because they are not compelled to. We should hold them to a higher ethical standard than HMRC Regs.
How can we do this ? Hard one... I have a few ideas
Public vote with their feet after name and shaming
Exclude companies domiciled in tax-havens from procurement processes in both Govt and Private sectors
Introduce turnover taxes for companies domiciled in tax-havens
Make lobbying by said companies a declarable interest
Co-ordinate with our EU neighbours on good-actor suppliers and vendors
etc etc
Silk Road 2 + Dread Pirate Roberts 2 + 1 Liverpudlian = over 5 years in prison
Bit nippy, is it? Hive smart home users find themselves tweaking thermostat BY HAND
Re: What your smart meter can do
Citations needed.
The only plausible story I can find that looks like what your referring to is this one. In which no smart meters were involved at all, but the gas cut off after *two personal visits* by British Gas staff.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3342059.stm
Stop us if you've heard this one: IBM sued after axing older staff, this time over 'denying' them their legal rights
Re: Once...
Sigh - Your post is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. I can only assume that your management told you it wasn't their fault, but rather the boogeymen of Finance ? Hint. They lied.
"Their brief is keeping a hold of the cash - minimising outlay." No, no it isn't. The brief of an accountant is to protect and maximise the assets of a company.
"The business managers should be allocating resources, investing and developing etc. with the accountants to advise on the potentials and risks." - Yep. See above
"They should never have been allowed to take control. " They haven't. Who told you that ?
"They are not trained to think in terms of long term development or opportunity cost etc." Completely wrong. Finance is trained in exactly those things.
"But since shareholder value and senior manager bonuses seem to be tied to the difference in the short term cost and income figures the accountant is now king." Hahahahahaha. Oh god, hahahahaha. You're blaming the short-termism of management of the Finance people ? hahahahahaha <gasp> the accountant is king ! hahahahahaha...,cough. cough choke... that's so funny.
Short-termism occurs because management and the Board are rewarded based on short-term KPIs like the bottom line or share price in any particular year. Management then sets targets, Budgets and tactics accordingly. The fact that this is often not the best outcome for the company is usually ignored.
It's coooming: Windows 10 October 2018 Update adoption slows ahead of the next release
Stop us if you're getting deja-vu: Uber used spyware to nobble dial-a-ride rival, this time Down Under, allegedly
Musk shows off the latest power plant for Starship, replaces Tesla CFO with a millennial
"However, with less than two months as VP of Finance under his belt before his elevation to Tesla CFO, he has a worrying lack of experience." You win Understatement of the Month.
As someone in a similar role I can tell you that appointing someone this inexperienced is often a red flag for potential fraud.
I predict a riot: Amazon UK chief foresees 'civil unrest' for no-deal Brexit
TSB meltdown latest: Facepalming reaches critical mass as Brits get strangers' bank letters
Mirror mirror on sea wall, spot those airships, make Kaiser bawl
The harbingers of Doomwatch: Quist is quite the quasi-Quatermass
Any social media accounts to declare? US wants travelers to tell
Confused now
I've not been over to the US from the UK for some years, but I have two half-sisters there, that I would like to see again. What is the implication for UK citizens ? Does this apply to me or not ?
Fingerprints are bad enough but my entire data history.... Probably enough to stop me going.
Uber: Hackers stole 57m passengers, drivers' info. We also bribed the thieves $100k to STFU
Gov claws back £645m in BT broadband from subsidy
The five constants of IT asset management
Google's Drive + Gmail: A 10GB Dropbox killer
Slideshow: A History of Horror in 20 Scary Games
Boffins cram binary data into living cells' DNA
Mm, just what the boss wanted: Live charts about your cloud
AMD claims 'world's fastest GPU' title
Lloyds TSB signs up to Olympic Phone pay-by-wave plan
Why NFC ?
In a word - queue times.
50,000 people + staff in a stadium which may have 150 food outlets, means a long queue at lunch time. Each NFC transaction will save 30s to a minute each. That's got to help.
Picking up a programme on the way in ? Wave your card/phone and keep walking.
Have a large staff ? Give them ewallets for lunch costs.
I know that a number of football stadiums are already moving to NFC payments. The Olympics will be the same only much bigger.
Sex harassment case hits IBM Australia
@Mark65
I worked in Aus for over 20 years, including IBM at West Pennant Hills, EMC and many others. Your comment is not only offensive, but also factually incorrect. If you are going to make those sort of comments please do it in the Daily Mail or similar xenophobic purveyor of steretypes.
IBM has lots of faults, but systemic harrassment is not one of them.