Posts by Andy The Hat

What are the boundaries?

Sell cameras to a state that uses them for nefarious activities - BAN THEM!

Sell electronics to a state that could apply them to military hardware - BAN THEM

Sell weapons to a state to blow people to smithereens - Great, give them a subsidy.

Sell weapons to state police and military where people on the streets are shot in cold blood - that's ok too as long as it's done 'lawfully' in the US or even N. Ireland ...

Whilst I don't want to give judgement over Hik in this case I will say that the Government's historic position is less than clear ...

I think I understand

"That call is backed by citing data to the effect that mobile services help to grow economies, making extra taxation of carriers a self-defeating idea as it would reduce their incentive and ability to invest."

So, just like someone thinking about producing fidgit spinners then? Therefore treat them the same as fidgit spinner producers ...

Or, if they don't want to be producers, just like hauliers who only transport goods. Therefore treat them the same as hauliers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again that the entire multi-volume tax system needs ripping up and replacing with something the size of a paperback (that includes a preface, a prologue and a complete index!) Fewer rules, more level playing field for everyone, fewer tax-avoidance escape tunnels for expensive tax accountants and lawyers to wiggle through.

doh!

"1 in 2,700 and falling ..." noted Trillian. Zaphod didn't see the big rock hurtling towards him as his view had unexpectedly turned a delightful shade of dark indigo.

By the way, the "weight of three grapes" is not exactly helpful, it's not even derived from an El Reg approved unit*.

Is it the weight of three grapes on the surface of the asteroid or the weight of three grapes at sea level on the Earth? And are they the little squitty grapes at the bottom of the tray in Morrisons or big fresh ones from Waitrose? And does it include any diamegnetic repulsion (yes, you can repel grapes with a magnet, look up the grape dumbell experiment, works with lots of other 'non magnetic' things too at least to the size of oranges ... apart from the ones that confuse the issue by being paramagnetic ... :-) )? So many questions ...

*Surely the gravitational force experienced by one Bulgarian Fun Bag when the encapsulant is standing on the tarmac at Schipol Airport would be the El Reg unit of force?

So many questions

1) How do you launch this thing without destroying the launch stand? I assume the safest way is to get Kong the crane to hold it at boom's length, Elon presses the ignite button and Kong squints like he's holding a giant sparkler?

2) How is that thing going to cope with max-q? The relative sizes of the parts means the leverage around the joint will be massive.

3) How do you land this thing in one (two) pieces?

So basically there are only three issues I can see with an orbital mission - launch, flight and landing - apart from that it's easy. If he pulls this one off Elon will become a legend, if he doesn't he may be rebuilding half of Boca Chica!

What?

"...the introduction of mandatory breach reporting in sectors that handle large volumes of personal data has also contributed to the trend"

Let me think about that statement ... mandatory reporting has resulted in a reduction in reports? On that basis the number of breaches reported would go up if it wasn't mandatory to report them ... Forehead meet wall.

Excellent.

A good review of a phone without really mentioning many of the actual phone bits ... does this mean we are finally at the point of selling cameras with a phone attached?

Real tab management ... I wonder why it took Viv developers this long to realise that tab handling was one of the greatest things about Opera (before they destroyed it) ?

Very important

The data will be fully anonymised - I believe that has been the mantra in this exercise.

However the quote

"Meanwhile, patients could opt out at any stage, and have historic data deleted from NHS Digital systems after it had been uploaded, options previously denied."

means that all data held MUST be directly linked in some way to the patient within the new database otherwise a deletion by patient request would be impossible. In whatever way the system is implemented that is *NOT* fully anonymised data being passed to the new database, at best it's data with a variant of a hash based on NHS number, at worst it's data records with the patients NHS number in a secure field labelled "do not look at this field".

No!

“Colloquially, 'mountain' is taken to mean 'quadrupole deformation,' basically stretching a spinning star in such a way that it becomes optimal at emitting gravitational waves,”

I can honestly say that under no circumstances, at any time, have I ever even considered the word "mountain" in the context of a quadrupole deformation ...

I think that definition of "colloquially" is "insane mumblings produced whilst pissed out of my brain with another theoretical astrophysicist and both wishing we could get our teeth mirror-polished and afford volcano proof shoes"

Look at the bigger view

Name and address are usually publicly available from multiple sources.

The post occupied and information pertaining to it (JD etc) are/should be publicly available (give or take a few 'secret' jobs) as publicly funded jobs *should* be open to application by all with all pertinent information disclosed at time of application.

The renumeration provided for the post *should* by publicly available as it is paid by the taxpayer and should be subject to financial disclosure.

However, the 'public data' snafu is the linking of person A (public data) to job B (public data)" - the link itself could itself be regarded as personal data ...

Interesting one ...

Great news

This is a great result for everyone, from the technies who designed it to the current students using Hubble's data.

This is interesting

" ... and did not note that the micro-blogging service is headquartered in the USA and therefore bound to observe American law as well as the laws of other nations in which it operates."

If accurate, this statement infers that any US organisation *must* obey US domestic law in another country *and* obey domestic law of the country of operation. However, if US law says, for example, "freedom of speech is paramount, do not censor" and the local country says "this content is blasphemous against the great God Wobbly, censor this content", or in another case the US authorities say "we have suspicion of naughty doings, you will submit all data to the NSA for examination" but the local law says "It is illegal to offshore any data", which takes precedence? Is the company mandated to break local law?

Really nostalgic ...

To make this whole thing non-sexist, what about Ripley?

Or, to tick every non-sexist boxes, Ash, as besides being a complete dummy he/she/it could be "A Sample Humanoid"?

A technician sits back in his chair ...

takes a deep breath, leans forward and nervously initiates the Power Initialisation Process (presses the red button) on the 1970's Hubble re-initialisation management computer.

Whirr churn chunder chunder zzzz zzzz chunder chunder ...

>PLEASE INSERT DISK 2

This is only the second time the pimple-faced technician has handled a floppy disk. With some trepidation disk 2 is inserted correctly and the locking flap closed.

Whirr churn chirrup chunder zzzz chunder zzz chunder ...

>SENDING INITIALISATION SEQUENCE

Wheee brrr barrrrrrrrrrp ...

<time passes> ...

A green terminal screen prompt suddenly appears!

> "I'm sorry Dave, I can't allow you to do that ..."

The technician begins to fill in a requisition for new pants and asks if the cleaners can take a look at his chair ...

A 75 year old semi-retired engineer lurking at the back of the room coughs violently and dabs his eyes with a handkerchief ...

?

"My mate Malcolm set that prompt, he thought it was a great idea!"

Angry that he'd been suckered by a jape he hadn't thought of, the technician stabs at the return key so hard he gets muscle spasms in his hand. The terminal responds ...

>I'm sorry Dave, I really can't allow you to do that ...

The room goes quiet ...

>It's all full of stars ...

It's the age old argument of whether a 'platform' is a carrier or a publisher of material.

I would expect this to be reversed in court several times before they finally get an answer, which will be moot as the law changed years ago anyway so the lawyers gravy train can be fired up once more ...

Surely this story shows the futility of crypto? Despite being peddled as incredibly secure system and the best currency since ... err ... currency ... there are so many of these very large scams reported that the inherent security of such systems must be in question ... yet isn't questioned by the political masters. The supposedly untraceable nature of transactions makes it all the worse (even if a Nigerian prince moves in to 37 Coleridge Close, Climthorpe, nice semi with one garage and 5 Lambourghinis, who's to say that should be regarded as crypto-suspicious as it may simply be the result of a normal email scam campaign.)

If a banking system had this many large intrusions it would be almost instantly shut down (eg Bearings) yet cryptos keep on starting up and running and failing ... Who has their fingers deep enough in this pie to stop the authorities stamping on this all over the world? China are the only financial power to take action (but that may arguably be for the wrong reasons).

Great bloke ...?

So the next "obviously doesn't pay their share of tax" being hounded for their billions will be ... Bezos? Zuck? Or, because they are in the pockets of the politicians do they get a "get out of jail free" card?

McAfee stuck two fingers up at authority instead of playing the political game, that was his only mistake ( ... give or take some drug smuggling, a bit of murdering, and odd rape and sex with a minor ... all alleged obviously)

Inherently biased?

I note the commentator failed to mention the Pocillopora verrucosa, and was particularly tight-lipped over the fate of the Favia mathaii. Does that not demonstrate an editorial bias against the coral polyp? I'll sea you in court ... anyone got Spongebob's number?

And shut the door on your way out ...

I seem to remember it was the last mission that resulted in the door being kicked to make it latch properly.

Even if they could schedule another mission in some way, I would be asking whether it was still physically possible to perform the service and leave the satellite in an operational state ... I think a lot more remote power cycling and reconfig is in order.

I for one would be sorry to see it go. Alongside JW it would continue to make and amazing broad spectrum tool as JW is simply not designed to do most of what Hubble can. On the other hand, there are now ground based facitities that are as good or better than Hubble for some of the spectrum.

The actual problem with this statement.

Take these scenarios:

The UK government infrastructure is subject to a concerted DDOS by a.n.other power. UK takes immediate action.

The UK military system is infiltrated by a.n.other power. UK takes immediate action.

The UK "public internet" is overloaded by extremist propaganda stemming from a.n.other power. UK takes immediate action.

The Chinese "public internet" is subjected to propaganda by a.n.other power. The Chinese authorities take immediate action against the UK as they don't want Tianamen Square publicised and that's where the information came from ...

One state's "attack" is another's freedom of speech. Accept that any state can legitimately take action against another state for any *perceived* attack without going through diplomatic channels and you are on a steep and slippery slope to physical conflict. In some ways this is similar to the freedom of space, establishing the rights to overfly any state with an orbiting craft, otherwise it would be impossible to operate satellites, and was established by the US President biting his tongue.

Defence against attack is correct and legitimate, diplomatic escalation is also valid, uncontrolled retaliatory attacks are a real can of worms.