Posts by Doctor Syntax

Technical terminology has specific meanings. Irrespective of how the diligent umbrage takers may dislike terms adopted as technical (a) need to remain and retain that technical meaning and (b) should be seen as having a context of their own in which they are understood irrespective of their meanings in other contexts.

(a) For one thing existing technical documentation isn't going to be rewritten to accommodate feelings of some third party unless that third party is prepared to pay for it and the economic cost of scrapping it instead would be too huge to bear. For another as soon as the grip on strict terminology is loosened marketing are likely to muscle in, change meanings to suit themselves and suddenly we lose all ability to express anything with adequate precision.

(b) There really is no necessity, and sometimes even no possibility, to connect a term with any other context. For instance we all know what a right hand thread is but how does that meaning connect to one's right hand? Or even depend on having a right hand? Indeed, if someone finds any of these terms the OP lists as offensive they can only do so by thinking of them in some other context where they would be offensive but they shouldn't be thinking like that as it's an entirely unacceptable way of thinking to their way of thinking. They should wash their minds with soap and water.

Re: re: Too bad they couldn't continue operating as normal with paper records,

Reverting to a manual paper process therefore means that staff are at absolute best capable of running at about 10% of normal capacity. Using an unfamiliar process that a good three quarters of the staff need training on probably means they are running about a third to half of the speed that is theoretically attainable, so real world you'd probably actually be down to about 3%-5% of normal productivity.

Then train them. Make it part of the business continuity plan.

Even if your in a low impact industry where IT has "only" doubled the productivity of all staff, your still looking at only being able to get one half of the jobs done.

So you have the choice of getting half the jobs done or no jobs done. Ever heard the saying "half a loaf is better than no bread"?

"they did a high pressure sell on a new set of 4 tyres"

Similar experience many years ago. I had a tyre replaced. A few days later they phoned for a "customer satisfaction survey" which turned out to be a few perfunctory questions by an attempt to sell insurance. Another customer lost.

"having first jemmied the til open"

Did they put the jemmy back in stock?

Re: re: Too bad they couldn't continue operating as normal with paper records,

"For most companies apart from man+dog outfits, loss of system is loss of everything."

You're probably correct in that many businesses don't have anything to take over. Others, however, have plans under headings such as disaster recovery, business continuity or just plain contingency planning.

Those that don't and survive are quite likely to have such plans in the future once they've learned that hard way that it can happen to them. It's possible that these plans will be dropped when a new, younger manager comes along and thinks the plans are an old-gittish waste of money.

"You pay your money, submit your DNA, then get access to the database to see matches."

You get access to matches with your DNA. The FBI agents aren't submitting their own DNA, they're submitting somebody else's.

Re: Design deficiencies

I had a gig near Gatwick and stayed in a new hotel. So new they hadn't finished the snagging. I went into the bathroom of the first room I was put in and discovered water coming through the bath overflow. Nothing through the main drain, just the overflow. I don't know how they managed that.

Re: Annoying pedantry

"because its nobody's job to say if its reasonable"

Maybe this is the case where stuff is centrally sourced. If you're running a lab. in the Civil Service and you have an annual budget you do - or at least I did - take good care to get value for money. For instance discovering that one of our more expensive biochemicals had a much cheaper source than the usual supplier and that a useful test strip worked perfectly well for our purposes when bought cheap beyond its use-by date as a medical diagnostic.

Re: Design deficiencies

"Floor drains? What floor drains"

The drains the water comes in by if you're unlucky.

"Humans are a blight on this planet and will soon destroy all but the Tardigrades"

I doubt it. The woodlice (pill-bugs for left-pondians) and cockroaches are also indestructible.

"From what I hear, you can eat pigeon and supposedly it is quite tasty"

It is but can get quite tough. The squabs are better.

"We haven't really asked what he does with them"

You haven't bought any pies from him either?

Re: Hawks

"It's a numbers game"

Too many pigeons eaten and the peregrines starve.

"Sparrowhawks"

Too small. Our local kestrel, however, does a very thorough job on pigeons. No half-eaten carcases, not even the odd bone, just a few feathers scattered on the grass.

Re: Accountability? Responsibility?

"There was nothing in the IPCO report to suggest that any State worker or agency was held to legal account for getting things wrong or not complying with the law."

Or any other action taken. Many years ago a colleague had some run-in with a constable exceeding his duty. The result was that the constable turned up at his door, cap in hand as my colleague put it, to apologise in person. What brought this about was that my colleague was in forensic science and knew enough people far higher up the food chain than a constable. Nevertheless it would be a useful principle to apply. Get it wrong with an innocent member of the public and you personally have to apologise.

And on the subject of forensic science I was never in doubt when giving evidence that it was me personally responsible for the evidence I gave.

I seem to have used the words "person" and "personally" a few times here. This is what's significant - those taking decisions are personally responsible for what they do and should be held to account.

Re: Is that all?

"If the police say he's guilty, then he's guilty."

West of the Bann the exact opposite seems to apply fairly often.

Re: Is that all?

Also notice "once Lang identified who was responsible" means that they had to go to the effort of showing that the police made a mistake

I read that as identifying who was responsible for making the mistake. Even so, it shouldn't have been down to him.

Re: Is Alister paid per word?

"I remembered why I don’t bother reading this now."

Memory getting a little shaky these days? Otherwise why would you have read it today?

"without any way of controlling it"

A pair of wire cutters suffices. A former colleague was said to carry a pair in her handbag but this was supposed to be to deal with pub sound systems.

"the consequences you knew could befall you"

They couldn't have known. Consequences befalling them is an entirely beyond their comprehension.

Re: "As a consumer, you also enter into an agreement with Apple"

"You can't enforce contract clauses that do violate user (or any other party) rights - as the Law is above any contract."

As these were business to business contracts the law offers much less protection than business to consumer contracts. If this impacted any B2C contracts by FB or Google it's their problem for essentially trying to provide something they didn't own in the first place.

Re: Incompetence

"Any business worth its salt should have been planning for a no-deal Brexit over 2 years ago."

Some politician tried telling that to the farmers in the Irish border region a few months back. It was explained that this would involve spending a few million on a new processing plant just on spec.

Re: SMEs in other EU countries have the same problem

"Where's Farage in all this?"

I heard he was looking for a new party to join in case Brexit gets postponed beyond the EU elections and he can get another chance for and EU Parliamentary salary.

Re: Inadaquacy and disagreement

What you're missing is that this gives them rights to work in the UK and the whole of the EU, not just Ireland. The Common Travel Area includes the UK. Those born in NI can have Irish (i.e. EU citizenship) and UK citizenship.

Re: VAT People

"Where's that fence I need to sit on?"

Ask Corbyn to move over.

Re: FFS!!

their data being flogged to the first any company with a cheque book

FTFY

Re: Do these "scandals" have any adverse affect though?

"A lot of people won't delete it because it is their only link to a lot of people"

T'other way round. It's their only link because they won't delete it.