* Posts by DavCrav

3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007

You were warned and you didn't do enough: UK preps Big Internet content laws

DavCrav

Re: Soft censorship laws - realigning with China

"Personally I don't want people to be able to do what they want, but I do want them to be able to say what they want."

So you think it's perfectly fine for someone to goad and encourage a mentally ill person on a bridge to jump?

DavCrav

Re: Soft censorship laws - realigning with China

"The lights are going out on freedom."

Freedom is not "I can say and do whatever I want whenever I want".

DavCrav

Re: You lot have spent so much time ...

"You lot have spent so much time laughing at the shit-hole us Yanks have dug for ourselves that you've completely forgotten to take care of your own trash."

You know the Brexit vote happened before Trump was elected? It's like the US decided they had to be #1 at making terrible decisions, but that was the best you could come up with. You had the opportunity to elect Ben Carson as President, but that was taking things too far.

DavCrav

"Slight digression. UK had a referendum with a simple question.. Leave the EU, Yes/No. Some time later, 650 oxygen theives are still trying to decide if Yes meant No and vice-versa. Possibly best demonstrated in Peterborough, where 66% of it's voters voted to leave the EU, but their MP's first vote having left jail was to vote remain.

But such is politics. A 'simple' decision has taken 2+ years to implement, and when the Commons was turned over to the MPs to come up with an alternative deal, they failed miserably.. So I don't expect too much from future legislation, and it's possibly one reason why Leave means Stay. 650 MPs may have to do more legislative work instead of simply rubber stamping EU diktats."

Oh dear. Simple question does not necessarily mean simple answer, or simple implementation. You see, Parliament wasn't tasked with leaving the EU. Parliament was tasked with 'Could you please leave the EU, but also maintain all of the nice things we got as a result of the EU, like medicine and food.'

If you start off outside the EU then it's not so hard to do this, but if you start off inside the EU you need to work quite hard to do this. If you are in the EU, your economy gets intertwined and entangled with all of the other EU members. Now you say 'let's just leave it', but the process of disentangling the economies might lead to some issues. Everything will be fine (although the UK will be poorer, no doubt about that) in 20 years time. But people are alive now, and want it to be fine right now as well. A few months of no food, flights or medicine wouldn't be good, so there needs to be a plan to make them continue. Because no deal and no planning means food and medicine shortages.

The main reason that there are such arguments is that there is no easy way to disentangle the economies, and also nobody can agree on just how entangled we want to stay after Brexit. Complete separation means hard border through Ireland. The EU refuses to accept that, and won't even talk about anything else until Ireland is dealt with. And by dealt with, there are only three options:

1) Reunification.

2) Goods border in Irish Sea.

3) Whole of UK stays in CU+SM.

May's red lines/ERG cockwombles removes 3). The DUP (and the fact that the NI economy would crater) removes 2). And there isn't enough support for 1). So...what now? You think this is easy, so what's option 4?

Back to drawing board as Google cans AI ethics council amid complaints over right-wing member

DavCrav

Re: That should be obvious

"Google create an AI with a tenet that Register Commentards aren't people."

But even transphobic people reckon trans people are still people, right? And 'transphobic' apparently means anything not totally pro-trans doing whatever they want to some people. I see there is a balance between 'women's rights' and 'trans rights', and complete self-identification with no controls at all will erode women's rights.

If you decide that men cannot just declare themselves to be women for the day in order to gain some advantage, then you agree there needs to be some sort of controls on this. Some people already claim that's transphobic. But now you decide there must be some sort of control, the question becomes what kind.

Should people be able to change their gender every hour as and when it suits them? No. Should people never be able to change their gender? No. Where exactly is the 'correct' position between those two extremes? Is there a correct position? Possibly not. But this sort of nuanced question is useless in today's society of Twitter rants and death threats.

DavCrav

What I'm still trying to work out is why being transphobic, even if this person is, should be of a concern in an AI ethics situation? Is there a suggested solution to the trolley problem that involves only running over trans people?

DavCrav

Re: Quango's

"You don't understand the intent of forming a Quango"

You also don't understand the meaning of the word 'quango'. It stands for 'quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization', and by definition is an organization close to, but not inside, government. It has to be public sector: companies cannot set up quangos. They can set up think tanks if they want.

DavCrav

"high degree of correlation of socially abhorrent views and right wing tendencies"

Unfortunately, since you are left-leaning (from what I can gather), and you are defining the term 'socially abhorrent', of course there would be a correlation.

It's just this kind of illogical and narrow-minded thinking that a diverse ethics board would help to stop. Unfortunately, 'diversity' in today's society means diversity of all attributes except opinion.

As the UK updates its .eu Brexit advice yet again, an alternative hovers into view

DavCrav

Re: UK oversenstive

"Ah, but such an offer was not on the table."

Single Market (including Freedom of Movement) was on the table. One of May's red lines went straight through it.

DavCrav

Re: UK oversenstive

I should also point out that their over-reliance on Utrecht over subsequent UN resolutions is not a good look. The actual treaty is archaic. For example, one of the stipulations in it is that Jews aren't allowed to settle in Gibraltar. The UK ignored this provision, and Spain for a while protested this technical breach. They stopped protesting at some point, I'm not sure when, but hopefully not too recently.

DavCrav

Re: UK oversenstive

I've just looked it up. What Spain's (stupid) argument is that Gibraltans aren't allowed to make any decisions about their future because that would qualify as a transfer of sovereignty from the UK to Gibraltar, and Spain gets first dibs. Since decolonization involves Gibraltans attaining sovereignty over themselves, even as part of shared sovereignty, Gibraltar cannot be decolonized and can only be given to Spain. Furthermore, because (in their eyes) territorial integrity trumps Gibraltans' right to self-determination (Spain rejects the idea that Gibraltans are a people in their own right, and say they are essentially Spanish), the only way to decolonize it would be for Spain to annex it. As a UN resolution says that colonies should be ended, Spain deserves to be able to annex it.

DavCrav

Re: UK oversenstive

"If the UK is serious that Gibraltar isn't a colony, then they should return MPs to Parliament, like Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cornwall do."

Gibraltar is, I think, a colony. I believe the Treaty of Utrecht requires it to be so, and if it stops being a colony of the UK, Spain gets first dibs on it. Or something like that.

HMRC accused of not understanding its own IR35 tax reforms ahead of private sector rollout

DavCrav

"@DavCrav, there is huge anti-survivor bias in the cases that make it to court - these are the cases where HMRC feel they have a case strong enough to take to court in the first place. The fact that they lose over half of them does indeed show that they are either incompetent or negligent, and are wasting vast amounts of taxpayers' money on spurious litigation they should be dropping long before it gets in front of a judge."

No, no, no. It really doesn't. You need all of the numbers to make a judgment, and even then you need more granular data. To start with, you need:

1) Total number of decisions.

2) Total number appealed.

3) Total number taken to court.

4) Total number won/lost in court.

Without all of those data you cannot make any statements about the effectiveness of HRMC. Indeed, if HMRC are only taking to court those cases where there is a question of law to be judged, you could expect any number for win/loss, since the judge will set precedents that are not necessarily covered in the statute.

Don't get me wrong, I think HRMC are barely competent, but these data do not show it.

DavCrav

"She said "it appears that HMRC does not understand the IR35 rules", noting it had lost about half its cases, including one against Lorraine Kelly last month."

Yes, except...

Lorraine Kelly won an appeal because the judge reckoned she wasn't playing herself but some carefully crafted fake version of herself on TV. However, she has recently won an award, the citation of which read that she was relatable on TV precisely because she was herself, and was not a carefully crafted fake version. So on balance, I'd say that HMRC was right in this particular case, and the judge got it wrong.

Of course, saying that someone doesn't understand their rules because they lose appeals is nonsense unless you also know how many cases are appealed. Consider two scenarios:

HMRC makes 1000 decisions, two are appealed, one is overturned: HMRC is excellent at judging cases.

HMRC makes 1000 decisions, 1000 are appealed, 500 are overturned: HMRC is shocking at judging cases.

PS:

""Given that HMRC loses the vast majority of IR35 cases in court, how can it adequately educate and prepare the entire private sector to accurately assess the status of the contingent workforce?" asked Labour MP Paul Sweeney."

The person before said it lost about half, he says it loses the vast majority. Is one of these people lying, or is this one of those 52% is an overwhelming majority things again?

Scare-bnb: Family finds creeper cams hidden in their weekend rental by scanning Wi-Fi

DavCrav

Re: why not

"having people stay in your private property waive privacy"

You missed the bit where they are paying, obviously. Pounds to pennies this person is running a business, it's not a private residence. And hidden cameras are generally a no-no in most situations where there is 'a reasonable expectation of privacy', e.g., curtains drawn and nobody else in the room.

DavCrav

"you're in someone else's private home."

No, you are renting from them. It's not a private home at that point. And as another poster says, try a quick kiddie porn charge.

Facebook ad platform discriminates all on its own, say boffins

DavCrav

"A massage therapist I use had her advert on Facebook flagged up for review because she chose for it only to be seen by women. She took this decision to prevent the many creepy advances she gets from men."

Unfortunately, if you run a business, any discrimination has to be proportional to the goal, justifiable, etc.. You need a long paper trail to make sure you don't get sued.

DavCrav

Re: Maybe it's not discrimination at all.

"Erm I use "L'Oreal Men Expert Pure Power Wash""

So, not cosmetics then.

"the soap is long gone replaced by a liquid soap dispencer"

So, soap then. Whether it's a solid or liquid doesn't matter. It isn't cosmetics. That's stuff like lipstick and foundation.

Just because you look better after a wash doesn't make the soap a cosmetic. A nice shirt isn't cosmetics.

Prince Harry takes a stand against poverty, injustice, inequality? Er, no, Fortnite

DavCrav

Re: Cheap

"They've gone right off the deep end about Elon Musk in the past."

Betcha a signed dollar they didn't call him a paedophile.

DavCrav

Re: That joke is too effing old

"That joke is too effing old

I am bored with it, bored, bored, bored."

Well, I believe it's not a joke. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he were Hewitt's son.

DavCrav

Re: Personally I agree with Harry

"Seems to me it the author has a chip on his shoulder and it wouldn't matter what Harry said, he'd get roasted for it."

Seems to me that Harry could test that theory by saying or doing something that isn't stupid. Still waiting.

DavCrav

Re: tax it

"however I tend to stay away from those types of games, for a number of reasons:"

I would like to add another reason:

4 - I do not have large quantities of time to spend playing a computer game, and therefore cannot hope to be as good at it as someone who spends all day on it. I don't need to be repeatedly beaten by someone else because I cannot dedicate a portion of my life to getting better.

This is why I avoid all multiplayer gaming.

DavCrav

Re: Unpopular opinion

"So the point you're trying to make is that Harry has behaved like many normal people do "

I've lost count of the number of times I've dressed up as a Nazi for a party.

"he is therefore disqualified from expressing an opinion about a thing that normal people do?"

Actually, yes. You should be disqualified from expressing an opinion on whether something mildly addictive should be banned from society when you, yourself, have done all sorts of irresponsible things over the course of your time, and you are totally insulated from real society and the consequences of your actions by money and immense privilege.

Remember the black spider memos? We need to make it clear to the dolt that his opinions should be immedaitely and vociferously discarded.

DavCrav

Re: Is Fortnite addictive? Or just fun to play?

"The problem comes with a new business model; give the game away, but introduce "power ups", that give you a substantial advantage over somebody that doesn't have them (aka pay to win), which practically requires everybody to buy these power ups to get a level playing field. Introduce these in lock boxes (ie gambling) paid for in real money via micro-transactions and you get (some) people spending hundreds a month on these things, many times what has been paid for gaming before. In order to get people to spend this sort of money, the game is deliberately designed to be as addictive as possible to maximise the income received from micro transactions."

This is the real problem. Freemium gaming in general is exploitative, and has to be, as otherwise the business model cannot work. It must sustain itself from people spending money on a free game. Thus it was very few options to do so: pay to win, which defeats the whole object, or interminable wait times that annoy you, but with enough good content in it to make you want to pay to skip the wait.

And like most long-tail-like concepts, they have to make most of their money from a small percentage of their player base.

DavCrav

"And the son likes him."

And my Dad met him because he came for no obvious reason to the local office for a day. And thought he was a dipshit.

So 1-1 on the anecdote score.

DavCrav

Re: Retarded

"He was never exactly bright but ever since he became c*ntstruck with that C-list actress his brain has totally melted."

He was thick as pigshit before, he's as thick as pigshit now. Can't see the difference to be honest.

DavCrav

Re: Thanks Harry

"arguably, if they hadn't had taken from the people, other people would have taken from the people, and would be in their place now :)"

Yes, but 'I nicked it first because otherwise someone else would have' doesn't normally wash as an argument down the local constabulary.

Just the small matter of the bill for scrapping Blighty's old nuclear submarines: It's £7.5bn

DavCrav

Re: to make things more (nu)clear

"Russia left Eastern Europe in the early nineties and have since watched all those countries joining both the EU & NATO."

Yeah, it's almost like they didn't appreciate being enslaved for most of the previous century for the glory of the motherland. Ungrateful bastards.

Fortune favours the Brave: Privacy browser chap takes gripes over adtech body's website to Irish data watchdog

DavCrav

"the law doesn't explicitly say you can't plant land mines in your front garden "

I would hope that at least that falls under general statutes against having explosives...

Autonomy was a 'pure-play software company', testifies former HP chief exec Léo Apotheker

DavCrav

"Responding to Miles's questions about HP's accounting, Apotheker snidely remarked: "It appears that HP's forecasting capabilities and abilities under the CFO were not very good.""

I don't know about that. He said Autonomy would be fantastic, she said it would be shit. I would have said she was pretty spot on the money. All $8.8bn of it.

Pecker-checker Becker's hacker wrecker: Saudi cyber-crew stole Bezos' sexts from phone, fed them to tabloid – claim

DavCrav

Re: House of Saud

"Built on sand chopped-up body parts."

FTFY.

Brit founder of Windows leaks website BuildFeed, infosec bod spared jail over Microsoft hack

DavCrav

Re: First time ...

"AFAIK it tops up the fund used in victim compensation claims. I have no reason to believe it's not used in that way."

I believe it does, but it is a tax, since it is levied on people caught breaking the law where there are no victims, e.g., drugs and motoring offences.

NASA's first all-woman spacewalk outside ISS cancelled – due to lack of spacesuits that fit

DavCrav

Re: "How is this a pioneering moment?"

"Because it hasn't happened before?"

Loads of things haven't happened before though. It's not the first female spacewalk, or the second, it would have been the first time two happened to take place at the same time.

Unless the previous astronauts were being helped around by the man, having both of them being women is something minor.

Brit Parliament online orifice overwhelmed by Brexit bashers

DavCrav

"Not sure where you got the "easiest trade deal etc." but that's toy-town."

The (former?) Trade Secretary, not-actually-a-real-Dr Liam Fox. I mean, if he even lies about his own name (former GPs are not supposed to call themselves 'Dr' unless they have an MD) then he's very well suited as a Brexiteer.

"I hit the UK in '96"

Ah, an immigrant. Why don't you fuck off back home then?

"And I'm sorry, but the numbers are black&white (and I'm a quant/markets boy from way back and only work on real, verifiable sources)"

And I'm a professional mathematician. Given the statistical ability of most quants I know, I wouldn't trust your analysis, to be honest.

"and if some junior twonker in the ONS came out with that, well, the EU's own published numbers flatly contradict him."

It's the ONS Pink Book that says the net figure was around £200m/week. The £350m/week didn't even include the rebate. But I was slightly wrong, it was the UK Statistics Authority that slapped Johnson down for using the figure over and over again. And it wasn't a junior twonker, it was the head of the UKSA. Now, out of the head of the UKSA, and Boris Johnson, which should you believe is more accurate about, well, more or less anything?

DavCrav

Re: The only conspiracy

"No thanks, 650 glasses of wine?"

Luckily you don't have to drink the whole 650. One seat is currently vacant, and Sinn Fein doesn't take up their seven seats. So only 642 glasses needed. That of course would also require them to actually be sitting in Parliament for you to see them, so actually only about 40-50 on a normal day.

DavCrav

"Apologies: I am smirking at the moment, and I know that is not allowed."

Well you are an idiot at the moment, because just take a look around. Here's a lie:

"They need us more than we need them".

Here's another one:

"Easiest trade deal in history".

The ONS disagrees with people here and states that the Brexit bus slogan was, in fact, a lie.

DavCrav

"Worse comes to worst, the UK would have had 2yrs to build extra truck parks and hire more border staff, etc. No dramas, no rush."

And plenty of time for all of the supply chains to leave the UK. No deal = death to large-scale manufacturing.

DavCrav

"I have accepted that even though I voted remain the majority voted to leave so Article 50 must be pushed through, even if it's a giant clusterfuck which will affect the younger generations (who were unable to vote) for the rest of their lives."

Yes. That's why I am currently pressing the government to make attempted suicide a capital offence. After all, if they decided to do it once, it should be pushed through, even though in the meantime they might have changed their minds, and it's obvious that it's a terrible idea.

DavCrav

"Where were you on the 23 June 2016"

Voting to remain

"and why were you not at the ballot box ?"

I was. But somewhere along the line, 48% of those who voted were ignored completely to satisfy the most rabid minority of the 52% on the other side. Even if you ignore the lies and duplicity, did most people who voted 'Leave' vote for 'No Deal', never mind the 96% that would have been necessary to outweigh Remain? At the time of the referendum, the Leave campaigners were saying 'leave the EU, do a Norway-style deal and join EFTA, and nobody was saying WTO-only.

DavCrav

Re: The only conspiracy

"Or kick off a defrag and watch the colours change block by block"

The first time I defragged a hard drive in Windows 95 I think I actually did that for a while. Until I thought 'what the hell am I doing?' and went off to get a good book.

DavCrav

Re: The only conspiracy

"The only conspiracy is all the rubberneckers sitting there, waiting for the counter to tick up."

It has to be a bit of a waste of time. Buy a good book and read that instead of staring at a counter.

Netflix wants to choose its own adventure where Bandersnatch trademark case magically vanishes

DavCrav

Re: Scott Adams not a precedent??

"BBC "Decide Your Destiny" Dr Who books, if you dont protect your copyright you lose it, so were the BBC sued??"

Did they call it 'Choose Your Own Adventure'? Or, you know, 'Decide Your Destiny'?

DavCrav

Re: Scott Adams not a precedent??

"Or how about the old Tunnels and Trolls game books from the mid 1980s? And doesn't Apple have the world cornered on rounded corners? I'm quite surprised that the Netflix lawyers didn't mention any precedents for a person choosing their own adventure."

They'd best not. Choose Your Own Adventure was published in 1979, before the examples you give.

US prosecutors whack another three charges on list against ex-Autonomy boss Mike Lynch over $11bn HP biz gobble

DavCrav

Re: In lay-man's-term

I think it's worse than that. Even at the time many people were commenting that it was a really stupid acquisition. So HP went mad, bought all the candy in the shop, ate it, and then felt really ill. Now they are suing the shop owner for letting them buy all the candy.

Chap joins elite support team, solves what no one else can. Is he invited back? Is he f**k

DavCrav

Re: Unfortunately predicable

When tying a Mini to industrial roller shutters to keep them up, make sure they do not weigh more than the Mini.

That one wasn't me, but my father...

DavCrav

"If the best techs say that it's normal for a 100KB file to take minutes to copy across a LAN"

Read a little more carefully. They actually said "we have no idea how to fix it, so pretend that it's normal". I think the implication being that payroll will have no idea if it is normal or not, and just accept it.

Dead LAN's hand: IT staff 'locked out' of data center's core switch after the only bloke who could log into it dies

DavCrav

"You will never see lawyers, accountants etc do this."

I assume that Patisserie Valerie's new accountants are not singing the praises of the previous lot.

"They understand that solidarity to the profession trumps any short term advantage they may gain from doing so."

'Solidarity to the profession' sounds quite a lot like 'close ranks and disavow any fault' to me.

Boeing big cheese repeats pledge of 737 Max software updates following fatal crashes

DavCrav

Re: Want to try to reprogram it so it feels and drives like an F1?

"It does appear to me that Boeing managed to squeeze a poorly engineered potentially unsafe system past all controllers though."

That seems to be because it was presented as an upgrade rather than a new aircraft, so there were reduced checks before certification.

Whoops.

Meet games-streaming Stadia, yet another thing Google will axe in two years

DavCrav

Re: Because the internet is so much more reliable than local storage/processing

"So who is going to pay to dig up all the local streets to lay fibre so that there is enough bandwidth for this?"

Forward-thinking places have conduits that run under the street. Then it's easy to lay new stuff. Unfortunately, Britain has the problem that it was built too soon, before this stuff became obvious. There are several roads in London, for example, that are designated as 'full', and cannot be accessed for new works. With sewers, phone cable, water pipes, electricity, gas mains, broadband, and other things, there is no more room under the street, even if it is dug up.

Research is happening at the moment to develop sensitive ground-penetrating radar that can map this network of pipes. Because nobody bothered to record where this stuff was when it was laid.

Click here to see the New Zealand livestream mass-murder vid! This is the internet Facebook, YouTube, Twitter built!

DavCrav

"As to the rest - since I don't have to pay YouTube $20 to put a video on their site, of course they can't afford to pay a human being to review each and every video posted. They may make millions in ad revenue, but it's pennies off each video."

'It conflicts with my business model' is not a reason not to require YouTube to do something. If they cannot make it work, they can shut down. But their pleas should be worth absolutely nothing in deciding what protections (if any) should be built into such systems.