Posts by Alan Brown

Re: "Weeks"?

"Untested backup recovery."

or "backup to disk" - which were online and got encrypted too.

Re: PGP crypto keys..

"hi pixel pics taken by today's cameras produced a fingerprint from someone at 30 feet away"

time for vein pattern scanners instead?

Re: PGP crypto keys..

" I'd like to have a device that still asks for a PIN or password after an FP, "

Android phones require a password at poweron, or if you miss the fingerprint reader and tap the "lock" icon. They can also be set to require a password if left unattended "too long"

Re: In this respect it is the perfect poster-boy for Free Market Capitalism

"Wall Street hails the likes of McDonalds for trying to replace serving staff with machines."

Not for long. Low value franchise manual labour like this isn't going to be replaced quickly - and here's why: Franchisees cut corners.

Back in the 1980s that resulted in cooking times at several London McDs being shaved down by the franchise holders. Which in turn resulted in a number of cases of serious food poisoning (McD's calculated cooking times are to the second and take account of things like killing bacteria). In the end, after a number of very expensive settlements McDs had to step in and buy out the franchisees.

The introduction of food handling robots and staff reduction will lead to corner cutting in maintenance - the reason for this is that "idle" staff are actually cleaning and those robots will need cleaning throughout the day to stay hygienic (the cooking tools at McDs are cleaned almost continuously).

Robot-infested kitchens in the typical franchisee establishment will likely result in roach infestations due to inadequate site cleaning, followed by outbreaks of food poisoning from cross contamination of cooked/uncooked burgers coupled with inadequate cleaning cycles.

The rate of return on robots doing low value manual work makes them a non-starter for most jobs, unless there's a significant risk of payouts for worker injuries involved (eg, care home staff - where this and a critical shortage of staff has resulted in a lot of R&D into lifting exoskeletons, etc - but that hasn't actually filtered through to the UK yet).

The low hanging fruit for automation is and continues to be areas where mechanical (wo)men aren't needed - which has been going on for the last 40 years. When was the last time you saw an accounts ledger clerk, etc? What's changing now is that more "intelligent" functions are being taken over, leaving the "supervisor" to sign off or do the fiddly bits on a machine's work instead of stuff done by a meatsack.

There are going to be roving gangs of unemployed conveyancing lawyers, estate agents, accountants and day traders long before you see hordes of unemployed nurses and carers - which poses a real problem for those people who leave university carrying £100k debts and can only find minimum wage jobs.

Robots will take over driving because there's a benefit in doing so - humans are lousy, easily distracted drivers. Likewise when operating heavy machinery, etc and they're already taking over farming jobs simply because it's impossible to recruit enough people stupid enough to want to do backbreaking work at shitty pay rates. In other occupations they'll take a while to dominate.

"Some minicab companies have similar (ish) apps"

Yup, and they brought them out before Uber arrived in London. What Uber brings is marketing and slave wages.

Ironically, a few Black Cabbies tried the app route about a decade ago and were drummed out of business by cartel tactics from the other driveers.

Re: China being a fair example

Chinese labour hasn't been cheaper than western labour for about a decade. They're winning on logistics and having everything in one place.

That one child policy means that the chinese are facing an even more extreme version of the pensions trainwreck that took out Japan's economy 20 years ago and is currently engulfing the western world. Other countries which had such policies are now frantically encouraging people to have more children in order to ensure they have enough taxpayers to sustain the whole mess in 20 years time.

Re: re:ten percent of the population of London. Seriously?

"While counter intuitive it is that demand which creates more jobs (something poor countries tend to be short of) which dries up the available labour and causes improving conditions. China being a fair example of starving to death under communism"

As a counterpoint for that, Burma is now steamrolling into the garment trade, with most of the local investors being part of the junta that used to be in charge. This is all happening in areas of the country well away from trouble spots (ie, nowhere near the Rohinga, Karen or Shan areas). The local population is swallowing government propaganda justifying the ongoing ethnic clensing (which has been going on for over a decade) and the military are still in charge in these areas, with Ms Su Kyi having already made it clear in various speeches (done in london 5-7 years ago) that she supports the military in this aspect.

Which means that pulling back out of the garment trade is one of the few ways of bringing pinchpoint economic pressure to bear on Burma in such a way that the generals will pay attention, due to their now-"civilianised" mates phoning them up and berating them for hurting business.

In other instances I'd agree with you, but this is a specific case where the economic benefits of global trade are not going to result in things improving for a targetted and oppressed minority.

Re: Erm

"I am going to need some context here."

In our case: Hundreds of applications from British applicants, most of whom are unqualified for the job or who we find at interview time can't answer questions that their qualifications indicate they should know (we always ask tech questions). Make of that what you will. I can't possibly comment about embellished CVs.

There are usually a few applications from outside the UK but they're a lot more thought through as a rule. The impression of UK applications is that they're shotgunned out with no thought as to suitability and for the lower-skilled positions the applications can run into thousands.

This is not what happens in a market with "full employment" - which I've worked in too.

Re: Erm

"We are back to full employment and growth and have been for some time."

Not by a long shot. If we were there wouldn't be multiple hundreds of applications for every job we advertise.

The reality is that the figures are being bodged with to hide the lack of fulltime equivalent jobs AND to seriously downplay the number of unemployed (by kicking them off the dole) and underemployed (if you have a zero hour contract, then you're no longer unemployed even if you work zero hours)

"New Labour and following them the Tories let literally millions of extra people into the country"

In a simple summary: "Bullshit". To expand it a little "Utter bullshit"

Even if governments had let _zero_ people into the country over the last 40 years there would still be a housing crisis for the very simple reason that the number of people per household has reduced from an average of 4-5 in the 1960s to around 2 now. It's actually worse than it seems if you look at modes, because there are more 1-2 person households than all higher numbers combined.

The effect has been a doubling (at least) of housing requirement without even changing the population and the UK simply hasn't doubled its housing stock in that period.

Couple that with a movement of around 20% of the UK population from North to South over the last 40 years and you have a perfect storm.

Foreign immigrants (and in particular eastern europeans) tend to live in higher numbers per household so they're far less of an influence on demand than you seem to think. The targetting of them is all about pointing at someone who looks different (smoke and mirrors) and hoping you won't pay attention to the man behind the curtain pulling the levers.

Even back in the 1980s before the great sell-off started in ernest, single bedroom council housing intended for retirees was being snapped up by young couples (mostly GenXers) faster than it could be built, because the demographics were already changing rapidly at that point. The knock-on effect was that of retirees sitting in 3-4 bedroom council housing who couldn't be moved because of the double whammy of there being nowhere to move them to and extreme hostility from their children (baby boomers), who were fully expecting to inherit those flats when the parents died and making life hell for parents who openly considered moving.

Re: @DRue2514

" 'Right to buy', which itself isn't a bad thing, "

It is when the property is sold at a 90% discount in order to score political points(*) with councils _forced_ to sell property and _prohibited_ from using the income from sales to build new housing stock(**)

(*) Labour explored right to buy back in the 1950s. The conservatives dusted off the idea but set knock-down prices on the sales (far below replacement costs) as a cheap way of simultaneously buying voters and nobbling labour-dominated councils.

(**) The restrictions imposed on councils preventing reinvestment in new housing made it utterly clear that the government of the time intended to kill the social housing market - which they have admirably succeeded at. More than a few politicians felt this was the "christian thing to do" as it would force the poor to better themselves (aka "you can only improve through suffering" - and we all know how that worked out in many institutions).

Re: Property Prices

"- The UK has also for the last two decades promoted the idea of property as an investment vehicle"

Not just the UK.

In a increasing number of countries, what has been passed off as "economic growth" has actually been inflation of house prices (which doesn't produce anything, and therefore doesn't contribute to the economy) and other invisibles - effectively a bloody great ponzi scam where people think they're rich until they try and cash in.

When someone in their 60s can sell their house and make several times more money from that one sale than their gross income over their working life, there's something amiss.

As with shares, the notional value is worth nothing if you can't sell it - and it's worth noting that actual housing sales outside the top 1% are still effectively stagnant despite the high prices.

"I can now confirm Uber's plan is to replace drivers with invisible pink unicorns."

Long term, yes. Monkeys are the wheel are a short term measure. Those 40,000 drivers will all be redundant sooner or later.

"Socialism makes bad monopolies possible"

So does unfettered capitalism. The only difference is who enforces it.

(Hint, we've tried unfettered capitalism, it didn't work out well)

Taxi provision in most towns/cities have historically been through cycles of legislated monopolies, increasing customer frustration and eventually deregulation leading to open slather - which usually leads quickly to a bunch of bankruptcies and a local monopoly who then aim for legislation to become entrenched.

There never seems to be a happy medium - and by that I don't mean the twisted duopoly that London has of the arcane City of London Guild of Black Cabs(*) vs private hire minicabs.

The poor consumer is stuck in the middle - regulations aren't aimed at ensuring the best possible market for them, but to either lock out competition or try to ensure that vehicles at least have 4 wheels and working brakes, with very little in between.

(*) The Knowledge is a Guild-based requirement and black cabbies are one of the few guilds where the City of London still has power to dictate the rules outside the square mile. Thankfully other UK cities are more sensible about hailing vs hire car services.

Re: Uber and London

> Uber "We've made mistakes. And we want to work with TFL"

> TFL: "Sounds better"

Indeed. and by drawing a line in the sand with Uber, TfL has set the bar for everyone else too.

The next few months are going to be interesting. There are a number of private hire firms across London with worse records than Uber and if TfL doesn't go after those next, Uber lawyering up might be the least of their troubles.

"The only concept of fundamental right in English law comes from the EUHR convention."

And the ironic part about THAT is that whilst comrade May raves on about european control over UK laws, the EUHR was _written_ by the UK government at the end of WW2.

Re: It's not the judge's fault

"a *jury* can decide that the law is wrong and refuse to convict no matter what the evidence. The only way that could be prevented is to not allow jury trials."

Which is effectively the case in the trial at hand - no jury.

Re: UK [...] does not have a proper written constitution.

"I'm not sure NZ can claim a "proper written constitution" either,"

It can't.

The NZ constitution act(1986 one, not the 1852 one) was debated, modified, voted and passed, but not put into law before the parliamentary session ended for the year. It was supposed to be one of the first items on the agenda at the next parliamentary session.

Guess which bill mysteriously disappeared from the "put into law" TODO pile during that hiatus when it was realised that many things the NZ government and police do routinely would no longer be legal.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0114/latest/DLM94204.html

Re: So what would have been the case

"To be fair, they do return the stuff when you leave ..."

After having it the hands of a hostile government entity, would you trust it to NOT have some unwanted passengers onboard?

In such a case the only sensible option would be to drop it in a bin before you leave the airport.

Re: Defeating Draconian laws

"Truecrypt or similar?"

Several of these packages put the hidden volume at the end of the disk, reading inwards, so a knowledgeable operator can detect the presence. Likewise when the filesystem reports a size substantially smaller than the physical drive's capacity.

The better solution for carrying sensitive information through hostile territory on a laptop or phone is "don't", when you can simply transmit it later.

Alternatively if you're not facing a strip search, 256GB of data fits on a microSD card and a few of those could be stuffed virtually anywhere (including Papillion's charger)

Re: So don't review them

"How do all these clauses 'Trump' the 1st Ammendment to the US constitution?"

Simple, the outfits trying to gag reviews aren't the government. - "Congress shall make no law, etc etc"

As for reviews, I'd take the lead of another commenter and simply post "We'd love to review the product, however the T&Cs say this: ...... - on that basis we recommend avoiding the product."

Re: 'You have that backwards, or replied to the wrong story.'

"and some executives opted for insider trading!"

Yup.

Time to public disclosure: over 36 days

Time to dumping shares: under 36 hours

Re: Information is a dangerous good

" Slowly change the media and entertainment, books and culture people consume."

This is the tactic that the USA and certain other countries have been pursuing for the last 25 or so years...

Re: It's not TFLs job to put 40,000 drivers out of work.....

"self driving technology would be worth up to $58Bn annually worldwide by removing the cost of the drivers"

A conservative estimate is that self driving vehicles will make around 400 million people redundant worldwide.

Johnycab may have to contend with gangs of unemployed taxi drivers cornering and torching the vehicles.

"In rural areas often not as an entire bus may be carrying only around 4 passengers. "

The same applies in offpeak periods for buses in cities - and smaller self-driving vehicles might start featuring in the offpeak bus runs (especially when the road damage done by a large bus is taken into account)

"bus is more efficient than taxi."

Apart from the small issue that a 15 ton bus does a few hundred times more damage to the road than 15 cars.

Re: Forget the bloody courts!

"Just make sure you are f'ing well compliant with the law and regulations!"

That applies to other private hire outfits too.

TfL's reasoning for not renewing Uber's license is likely to come back and haunt them. Selective enforcement does not go down well in courts of Law.

The bright side of this is likely to be a London-wide cleanup of private hire and black cab operations.

Re: Ben Hur Moment.......

".....you are overtaking someone in the middle lane."

It's even simpler than that.

The mantra is "keep left unless passing"

Thankfully it's _not_ illegal to pass such numpties on the left in the UK, but you must do so carefully because if said numpty decides to change lanes without warning and drives into you, it can be a careless driving charge on you, not the numpty.

Re: 40,000 drivers out of work

"It is not illegal to modify a car so long as it does not fail MOT tests."

Wrong

"EGR blanking and rechipping for economy and high NOx is perfectly legal."

No it's not. You'll find that the law says that you are not allowed to circumvent factory installed antipollution devices. As another poster pointed out, that invalidates the Type Approval for the vehicles, making it illegal to even _park_ on public roads.

Re: Why Uber was stripped of its licence

"Uber lost its licence for not adequately following up on reports of passenger assault and rape, and not providing evidence of adequately screening drivers for prior violent offences."

In many ways it's good that TfL has drawn this "line in the sand" that Uber has fallen foul of.

_Other_ companies have worse records than Uber (including a number of Black cabs). If TfL doesn't enforce to the same standards against those outfits too, then TfL management are about to have their heads handed to themselves on a silver platter by the courts.

Re: 40,000 drivers out of work

"negotiate their cars to be chipped/ECU reprogrammed to turn the EGR and other emission control off. "

That's an automatic vehicle impoundment if it happens to come to the attention of the DVLA. Just saying....

And those three garages could find themselves the focus of some interesting attention too.

Re: "They looked for the password on the CD . . ."

"....told - by a teller who could see my password in plaintext"

PLEASE name and shame that bank.

Re: "They looked for the password on the CD . . ."

"if your attacker has physical access to your office, you have bigger problems. "

When was the last time you vetted your cleaning contractor's staff?

Re: "They looked for the password on the CD . . ."

"Had this with TSB "

Rule one: Always get everything in writing. If you can't get it in writing, RECORD the meeting/call (because they will if there's anything in it they can use against you, or will mysteriously lose the recording if it's something you can use against them)

Re: "They looked for the password on the CD . . ."

"Why were you looking there?"

If your job includes making sure security is managed, you look for such things - including under the keyboard/back of the monitor/in-out trays/top drawer (which is slightly excusable if it can be and is habitually left locked) or on the inside cover of a book on the nearest reachable shelf (usually the one that looks the most handled, surprise surprise)

Our standard policy is to lock all the accounts and replace the postit or whatever with one that says "Come and see security. NOW"