Posts by Notrub

I see the Brexit trolls are out in force on El Register.

Personally, I believe Respect is something earned, not given, and not a single one of these feckless morons has managed to earn a shred of respect since the referendum was first announced.

People, who have their opinions delivered to them by the Daily Fail, and are content to vote for the biggest change to this country since WWII, because their hatred of Johnny Foreigner outweighs any suspicion they may otherwise harbor regarding trusting a mega rich fella guy telling them "Oh go on, vote out, everything will be rosy!"

I spent some time, trying to have sensible arguments, but gave up long since, given that they are mentally incapable of engaging in fact based arguments.

I'm still waiting for one to call me a traitor to my face - I'll greatly enjoy the following 60 seconds.

Anti-competitive?

Just a few misconceptions being bandied around above.

Uber DOES NOT prohibit it's drivers from working for competitors.

What it DOES do (maybe) is cease using them if they take advantage of customers referred to them by Uber, in order to promote a different, rival business.

This is no different to going into Robert Dyas, standing next to the checkout and handing business cards out to customers for your personal hardware etailer. You'd be quickly evicted from the store. Nothing to do with employment status.

NB That is not to dispute that it IS a taxi service - ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

The sad thing about truth and falsehood is that EVERYONE is fooled some of the time, and some are fooled almost all the time.

Most journalists are no qualified in the fields on which they report, and with the proliferation of blogs etc, most of these writers, when searching for information, simply find other blogs. This leads to the formation of bubbles where a false story becomes truth because it is repeated so often that after a while, it is impossible to find anything else.

If you also consider that most people will only consult sources that they find they generally agree with.

Finally, consider that when it comes to medicine, science, economics, etc the vast majority of people don't possess the skills to know whether the author is talking rubbish or not. e.g. a friend's dog recently had red eyes - I suspected conjunctivitis, but knowing nothing about dogs, I looked it up online. She was using cold tea to treat them (which I suspected would do little to help). I did find several websites that gave the same advice but I found their content untrustworthy.

My friend asked me how I could tell that they were rubbish - hmm - difficult to explain. I have medical experience, having chewed through hundreds of papers for a PhD with a medicinal side to it. I know that with stuff like this, certainty is rare, so when I see a site that kind of just links treatments with symptoms, without really considering what may be causing those symptoms, then it's just a bit too neat to be real science. Particularly once I'd read a genuine site that listed multiple possible causes and showed that different treatments would be required in each case. But still, I'd find it difficult to write down a list of rules that would differentiate - my scientific experience tells me when something just doesn't sound right - you can't easily pass that on to someone else.

I have seen attempts to do this, but bloggers are getting wise to this as well, e.g. it is common now to see bad science blogs using references, relying on nobody ever reading them (because heck, reading proper journals is hard) - I've seen writers claim x is true because of this research, when the actual cited research claims x is false...

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"It would be just as disastrous for EU countries if agreements which allow for the continuation of trade between the UK and the EU"

I've seen this argument so many times and it's barking completely up the wrong tree. It's a straw man. Nobody in Remain has EVER claimed that the EU would cease trading with the UK.

Firstly, trade will continue even if we leave the EEA. All that would happen then is some tariffs would automatically come into operation on both sides in the absence of an agreement to the contrary. This won't stop trade but it would make goods more expensive.

BUT the IMPORTANT thing is what manufacturers, who produce goods for sale across the EU, think about the whole thing. If they base their factory within the EU there are fewer barriers to trade - this isn't just tariffs, regulatory frameworks are more important. So any company producing goods in the UK may start looking to relocate - it won't be a sudden thing but it will certainly start weighting decisions on where companies invest in the future. On this note you should note that the leading Brexit economist admitted that Leaving would mean the END of UK manufacturing. It won't be sudden, but expect a long slow line of announcements over the next 3-5 years.

Similarly with our Financial services which have prospered globally on their ability to sell themselves as a gateway into the EU. Again, the downfall won't be overnight, but slowly but surely companies will start to favour other countries.

These are the reasons that Moody's has already set the outlook for the UK to negative.

If you really want to be forgotten, it's pretty simple to just change your name.

In the Western world, Sales type personalities are far more compelling than Engineer types.

All of our politicians and many of our senior managers/directors are all in the business of Selling stuff and rely on charisma and force of conviction to persuade others.

The people who actually know stuff are usually consigned to advisory committees and the problem is that these committees are rarely listened to, particularly by politicians.

That's why China is eventually going to stuff the lot of us.

Incidentally, I see the point of recycling not so much that it's about saving natural resources - after all, the first things to be recycled were glass and paper, and there's practically limitless quantities of both. No I thought the point is to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills.

"2. New form of food packaging that is also a benefit to the environment."

Done - it's called biodegradable plastics.

"3, Robots that can do the washing (take clothes out the washing machine and hang them up to dry)"

I cannot believe you even put this one down - that's just so wrong for so many reasons!

I worked as a consultant on a similar project in Jersey. Obviously much smaller and simpler than UC, and also although all the payments were made through the same system, it maintained separate identities for the different claims - nevertheless the same issues troubled this project as UC has suffered from namely.

1) ANY government project is a whole lot more complex than a similar one would be in the private sector - mostly because in the private sector, that tiny thing of little importance that adds significantly to the cost and complexity would be cut - with government project their hands are tied to they can't do that.

2) Government projects are usually far larger - you then run into the issue that no single person knows enough to design the system - you get high level people in to do it, who have no knowledge of the details and they come up with over-simplified designs that break down when analysts subsequently start working on the details.

3) Requirements are frequently politically driven and change more frequently and radically than private sector projects, where the senior management usually keep their eye on cost, risk and value assessments.

So it was easy to see that UC was going to be far harder to implement than initial estimates.

It doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do - if you claim 3 benefits you currently complete 3 different forms which generally ask the same questions, often in different ways - far better for both the claimant and the assessor to have just one form to deal with. Essentially the form is a conduit for information to flow from the claimant to the assessor - the simpler this process is the better.

"Given how tacky and cheap Samsung phones look I don't think this is anything to worry about."

Well I guess not if you are more concerned with a phone's appearance than its functionality...

My partner just swapped her iPhone 4S for a Galaxy Note - nearly 3 times the screen area, yet considerably lighter - even including its case.

Personally, my biggest gripe with Samsung has always been the amount of (unwanted) software they stuff onto the device - but a custom ROM sorts that out pretty quick.

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Re: Macumba

The mere fact that you are happily posting severe criticism of the US/UK governments on a website shows you believe that you are not going to get in trouble for doing so. I cannot think that you'd post with such little fear of retribution were you a Russian resident criticising Putin.

The anti-establishmentarians raise their voices in unison...

Idiots!

Please imagine a world in which everyone was allowed to just park wherever they fancied parking. Knowing just how many selfish c***s there are out there, I suspect it would not be long before navigating our roads would become almost impossible.

You try to make out it's about privacy rights, but nobody can have an expectation of privacy in a public street - that's just ridiculous. What you really resent is that you've less chance of getting away with it.

So what should Snowden do?

If you think he should never have opened his mouth in the first place, then let's just say we disagree, vehemently and go our separate ways.

Once he had done so, the USA began a war against him, preventing him travelling as far as they could. Persuading other governments to arrest and search anyone connected with him. The guy is stuck in Russia (where I'm sure he doesn't want to be) and he is faced with the choice of either working his way out of this mess, or letting the US capture him, at which point he'll spend the rest of his life in jail.

So at this point, I have no problems with him doing or saying ANYTHING to make his own future! Why should he continue to hold loyalties to countries that have treated him despicably? And if preserving his future now rests on aiding an enemy of the USA, then I'd pick China over Russia any day.