Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Black Arrows forth dimension

Given that a lot of money had been spent in development writing it off against one or two prototypes gets very expensive. Even more so when you write it off and then buy imports. And most of all when you do so to tell the world the exact depth of your commitment to "the white heat of technology".

Re: Renewtrak is careful to avoid any appearance of shadiness

When I send an email Mythic Beasts send it for me from my domain because they're the MSP for that domain but it originates from my machine sent by me.

Somebody sending an email not via Mythic Beasts and purporting to be from my domain should be instantly treated as a scammer.

Re: "the mail could come from a third party you've never met and never will"

It hasn't stopped me from treating it as phishing. Look like phishing, be treated as phishing.

Re: Polarization - existence vs. enhancement

"Either way, good on the shareholders for finding another angle of attack."

But why are they attacking themselves? It makes sense to attack the executives in person but they, the shareholders, are the company.

Re: Will he get a job offer?

"a lot of time kids are just playing on the Internet without any expectation of massive profits like that."

I find it difficult to believe that he thought this was just play and all above board irrespective of the scale of profits.

Re: Is that all it takes?

It's OK, he'll learn for next time.

they themselves signed on the altar of “taking back control”

I fear the attitude of the current govt. is that that's something somebody else signed log ago. It looks as if getting them to abide by something they signed themselves is hard enough, probably on the basis of an elaboration of "We didn't read it properly".

Re: Negotiating...

"Galileo is a special case, as it is bound up with the defense of the EU, so it is not surprising that we're excluded"

Isn't that something that "we" insisted on?

Re: I predict

"otherwise I would be The Zuck and doing it"

The Zuck is doing it. Haven't you come across sites where a Facebook ID is offered as an alternative to an email address.

Re: I predict

"The thing that will replace email hasn’t been invented"

Doesn't this tell you anything?

Re: I predict

I've always been in the habit of storing emails locally. It's very convenient. It means I've gone through several service providers, migrated from ISP addresses to own domain and switched the MSP for the domain. It still does work on a basis of a server - fairly unavoidable, I'd have thought, with the store and forward nature of email unless I were to run my own server. It means that I have a local archive of more or less anything I need going back years (and a lot of stuff I no longer need but don't have to waste time reviewing to discard).

My sister-in-law, however, has difficulty grasping the notion that the icon for her email on the desktop is just a link to her MSP, opened by the same application as her Google icon with saved credentials and that by going back to the login screen and entering her husband's ID they could use it to access his email instead of using his mobile. People like that would have problems making the switch.

Re: "annual product release cycles"

"which means ensuring that OS, drivers and software will run on older kit"

The OS, drivers and software that ran on the older kit will continue to do so. If you want something he older kit didn't support then you will need something newer although the older products might need continuing security releases.

The real clash comes when the old kit has some very expensive, much longer life machinery attached, such as a PC running W7 controlling some expensive machine tool or medical diagnostic equipment. That case could be dealt with by requiring the source code to be placed in escrow and released if the software is declared EoL before the equipment it was controlling.* If the S/W vendor doesn't want that then they have to look on provision for continuing support as part of the original cost of doing sales.

"Escrow and release would also be the solution for security releases in general.

Re: Conflict of interests

Interests can be steered.

In many countries a lot of equipment has to meet safety requirements to be placed on sale. Looked at in the broader sense repairability can be seen as a public safety issue.

If the choice is a longer life-cycle and selling of reasonably priced spares versus being not being allowed to sell products at all I'm fairly sure most companies would be able to decide pretty quickly to do the right thing.

Re: Ir35 is unfair and hmrc know it

Security of employment, e.g. being employed as a Civil Servant by HMRC, is also a substantial untaxed benefit in kind. An MP with security from only one election to the next would have much less security and a minister, at the whim of the PM even less again and possibly even less than a contractor.

Lower overall tax rates paid for by taxing these benefits should be able to get buy in from Parliament and ministers as they would gain accordingly. I'm surprised HMRC haven't suggested it as it would, at a stroke, get rid of the disparities and ensure everyone pays the right amount of tax.

"They can just not sign the contract and look for somebody else."

So can the contractor although one problem there is the agency providing non-matching contracts.

Re: There's still the old problem

The Robin Hood Airport case was a particularly difficult one. Whether one takes a bomb threat seriously is heavily conditioned by factors such as whether you have public safety responsibilities or whether you have experience of an environment where bombing were sufficiently frequent to make one inclined to take them seriously.

I've mentioned before something that highlighted to me the contrast between someone with NI experience (me) and someone with just English experience (facilities management). One of the other tenants in a glass-walled business received occasional bomb threats. They were taken sufficiently serious that the building would be evacuated but not, inmy view, seriously enough.

FM's idea was that people would walk round the end of the building, following a path very close to it, to the assembly area on the opposite side of the building to our exit.. Mine was that I'd exit the building and proceed in as straight a line as possible as perpendicular as possible to the facade until I'd reached a safe distance and if you want to walk past a glass wall with, potentially, a bomb inside it you're welcome. I'd seen what a bomb detonated a few tens of metres from my place of work had done and heard accounts from those who'd been there at the time.

Re: There's still the old problem

The case goes to trial and a judge jury decides.

The judge might instruct them on what criteria they may use.

Re: There's still the old problem

"Death and rape threats are also illegal."

As is "threatening behaviour" in general, it often appears on the charge sheet. The courts are well experienced in dealing with it. Putting the decision in the hands of a regulator who isn't might be problematic.

We've been through the loop of trying to apply the existing law to threats made online in the past - e.g. the bomb threat against Robin Hood Airport. That didn't work out well. Have we learned anything since then? Do such threats, made in the heat of of the moment but not really meant, have cumulative effects on others who hear them and incline them to violence? If not, can we distinguish those which do or which are meant? If we can make a better judgement of what's serious and what isn't can we just apply existing law through existing means?

Re: It becomes emabarrassing

Windows 7 looks sexy?

Re: SpaceX ?

It would be a bit ironic if the they discovered the current problems are due to damage caused by a collision with a Tesla.

Re: Zombiesoft

"Every single product in their history has been bad to problematic at best."

Not quite. FORTRAN for CP/M was fine. Of course, that was a few years ago.

"the last OS it had drivers for was XP"

https://github.com/linuxstb/dabtools