* Posts by DavCrav

3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007

Oi, drag this creaking, 217-year-old UK census into the data-driven age

DavCrav

Re: Data protection.

"Also the raw census data doesn't get published for 100 years - at least that's how the law always used to be. I believe the last census to go public was 1911. Great if you're a historian, economist or into family history."

the next one will go live in 2021 (1921 census) but then we'll have to wait a while: the 1931 census (at least for England and Wales) was destroyed in a fire, and the 1941 census didn't happen because the UK had more important things to be getting on with at the time.

Opt-in cryptomining script Coinhive 'barely used' say researchers

DavCrav

"So said security firm Malwarebytes in an analysis emitted on Monday, but Coinhive developers disputed those findings and argued that a third of cryptomining-using websites get their users' consent."

So two thirds are running unauthorized software on users' PCs? Can someone get me a copy of the Computer Misuse Act, please?

BBC Telly Tax heavies got pat on the head from snoopers' overseers

DavCrav

Re: Paying for a license is optional

"Of all the taxes in life at least I get some things back out the Beeb..."

Yes, those hospitals, schools and roads are useful too though.

Sheer luck helped prevent mid-air drone glider prang in Blighty

DavCrav

"surely the drone would have been knocked out of the way by the glider?"

Sure, but in a kind of crashy way, that might not have gone so well.

Google reveals Edge bug that Microsoft has had trouble fixing

DavCrav

Re: Another Viewpoint

"Who's more responsible for the explosion, the man who builds the bomb, the man who writes the manual for it, or the man who sets it off?"

Well, in the UK, all three of you would be going to jail for a while. All are illegal.

In the UK, and I suspect in other countries, try writing an instruction manual for hacking ATMs and distributing it, and see how long it is before you find your collar felt.

Google is doing the digital equivalent of that, and I would be surprised if an offence hasn't been committed under UK law. (And Google does have a UK presence, so UK law applies as well as other countries'.)

James Damore's labor complaint went over about as well as his trash diversity manifesto

DavCrav

Re: re the fluffy little women can't hack it nonsense.

The plural of anecdote is not data. And you don't even have two anecdotes there.

This is just a comment that you don't trump a paper that has a semblence of scientific thought (true or not) by citing one person as proof that a group of individuals have that property, otherwise I can say 'men are smarter than women, proof Stephen Hawking'. It just doesn't wash. Debunking a claim with utter specious bollocks makes people more likely to believe the claim, whether or not it's true. They think 'if that's the best you have to refute him, he might well be onto something'. That's a bullshit argument as well, but it's how people think.

Mueller bombshell: 13 Russian 'troll factory' staffers charged with allegedly meddling in US presidential election

DavCrav

Re: Wonderful timing!

"Regular delegates voted for bernie - at least when they could get in to vote. The fix was in an the way the superdelegates were manipulated or browbeaten into voting clinton and the way a large number of regular delegates were completely denied their votes."

That's bullshit. Looking at the Wikipedia page for the results, we see that regular delegates voted for Mrs Clinton 2271 - 1820, and she secured 55% of the vote.

To paraphrase Brexiters, she won, get over it.

DavCrav

Re: Wonderful timing!

"Kinda like Mrs. Clinton with Bernie Sanders."

Yeah, definitely fixed, what with her winning more votes than him in primaries.

Kentucky gov: Violent video games, not guns, to blame for Florida school massacre

DavCrav

“There are video games that, yes, are listed for mature audiences, but kids play them and everybody knows it, and there’s nothing to prevent the child from playing them,”

Fixing it for you:

“There are guns that, yes, are listed for mature audiences, but kids play with them and everybody knows it, and there’s nothing to prevent the child from playing with them,”

BBC presenter loses appeal, must pay £420k in IR35 crackdown

DavCrav

Re: £419,151

"That would be £1,050,000 in salary and assuming she'd paid tax and NI/employers NI at some point - £419,151 (39.92% of salary) seems quite a lot in my opinion."

Looks like about 40% deductions to me, which seems like it's not way over. She was probably dodging everything she could, so paid very little tax before. Normal tax is around 45% on over £100k, with the phasing out of the tax-free allowance. Also she might get hit by interest penalties, which might form part of the figure.

Roses are red, Kaspersky is blue: 'That ban's unconstitutional!' Boo hoo hoo

DavCrav

Re: Good Luck

"Good luck with that. The government will trot out the usual "National Security" line and that'll be the end of it."

You don't think they'll trot out the usual "an AV package is not a person" argument instead? A bill of attainder only applies to people.

South China waters are red, Brit warships are blue, HMS Sutherland's sailing there

DavCrav

Re: Cake and eat it

"We get all cross when the Russians want to sail down the English Channel."

That happens regularly. The UK Government says nothing about it. The Sun might, but I don't see how that's relevant.

Data scientist wanted: Must have Python, spontaneity not required

DavCrav

"You're not a data scientist, are you?"

I am not a data scientist, but I do know about averages. First, mean salaries are normally higher than median salaries because of the floor. The article goes on to say there are very few low-paid ones, so I'd be surprised if the mean were lower than the median. Second, median is now the accepted use of the word average for salaries, as median is more useful than mean as it excludes extreme values.

DavCrav

"The average salary offered to data scientists in the past year was £47,000 [...] More than half bagged £50,000 or more"

Eh?

DavCrav

Re: is there really a skills shortage?

"Newly qualified Tube driver, starting wage £49,673.

No degree required, 43 days holiday, retire at 50 if you like and the main requirement is to stay alert and not be numpty."

Don't forget strike at a moment's notice because you have your employers over a barrel.

Facial recognition software easily IDs white men, but error rates soar for black women

DavCrav

Re: Contrast

"Of course that doesn't explain why it's accuracy is lower with female faces. Do women do anything to alter the shape or colour of their faces?"

Suppose you have four people, A, B, C and D. A and B are 'male', C and D are 'female'. A, B and C look very similar, D looks different. Software will guess 'male' for A, B and C, 'female' for D. It gets 100% for male, 50% for female. So if there's greater diversity in the one dataset, it will get a worse mark on it.

Getty load of this: Google to kill off 'View image' button in search

DavCrav

Re: Bad bargaining

"Google should have offered to simply remove all Getty images from search results. Then Getty would have paid Google to put them back in."

1) This kind of strongarm tactics is what would see Google in court fairly quickly for abuse of dominant position.

2) Getty would likely have said 'fine, go for it'. They make almost all their money from companies who license from them directly, and don't have a quick look on Google to find an image so they can commit a crime with it. (Copyright infringement is a crime. It isn't stealing, but it is still criminal.)

As GDPR draws close, ICANN suggests 12 conflicting ways to cure domain privacy pains

DavCrav

"Would you, for instance, expect a thorough worked example of how to fit fire doors to your premises so you could comply with legislation on fire protection?"

Like this, you mean?

No sh*t, Sherlock! Bloke suspected of swallowing drug stash keeps colon schtum for 22 DAYS

DavCrav

Random Internet person said:

"In the US, his lawyer would probably file for Habeas Corpus - charge him, or let him go."

Article said:

"However, the bloke – who has been charged with possession with intent to supply class A drugs – has refused to make use of the plod's facilities ever since his arrest."

Does random Internet person look stupid now?

Lenovo literally has a screw loose – so it's recalled flagship Carbon X1 ThinkPads

DavCrav

Just picked up and shook my Thinkpad. It rattled. Fantastic.

Basket case lawsuit: Fancy fruit florists flail Google over rotten ads, demand $200m damages

DavCrav

"Edible Arrangements’ valuable trademark"

How in the hell did Edible Arrangements get a trademark for a description of their product? Hold on, while I go and register the trademark 'Dining Tables', and sue everyone into oblivion.

Uber: Ah yeah, we pay women drivers less than men. We can explain!

DavCrav

Re: Why is this a story?

"People who work part time earn le"ss than those who work full time in the same role."

It's not even this. It's "More experienced people better at job."

Women beat men to jobs due to guys' bad social skills. Whoa – you mad, fellas? Maybe these eggheads have a point...

DavCrav

Re: wtyf

"I got paternity leave for both kids.

Negotiate better when getting your next job, or your next pay review."

It's weird, but that answer never seems to satisfy women when they are paid less.

Nunes FBI memo: Yep, it's every bit as terrible as you imagined

DavCrav

Re: How to get rid of fleas on your dog

"And, from (y)our vantage point, how do you distinguish smoke from fog?"

Fog is white or light grey, smoke is dark grey or black. And to be honest, the black stuff looks billowing. "Of course I did nothing wrong, that's why I fired the guy investigating me. To prove that to everyone. As I know I'm innocent, it's just a waste of everyone's time and money. Trust me!"

Nork hackers exploit Flash bug to pwn South Koreans. And Adobe will deal with it next week

DavCrav

There are so many bugs in Flash, the question has to be asked: is there any code that isn't a bug?

Beat Wall St estimates, share price falls 5%. Who else but... AMD?

DavCrav

"The business itself is successful, the management isn't."

Here was silly old me, thinking that management formed part of the business.

"The house is great. It's just the ground it's on that's subsiding."

DavCrav

"That's why Twitter's share prices keeps getting knocked despite the company continuing to be a successful business, they're not in perpetual, exponential growth, therefore they must be destroyed."

Wait, what? Twitter is successful? Is this a new definition of successful where losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a success? What would Twitter being a failure look like? Losing less or more money?

Here we go again... UK Prime Minister urges nerds to come up with magic crypto backdoors

DavCrav

Re: Almost, but not untirely unlike

"Well, they have 316 seats our of 650 - 18 seats represent Northern Ireland, so if we knocked that down to GB only, they'd have 316 seats out of 632 - so they have exactly half, and are 1 seat away from a bare minimum majority."

They won 317 at the election.

DavCrav

"Because we, the electorate, put her there. Not directly perhaps, but anyone who is prime minister is 1) a directly elected MP, 2) appointed as PM by other directly elected MPs responding to the political situation created by how the electorate has voted. It rarely reflects the opinions of everybody, but tough luck that's democracy."

It doesn't appear to be a commonly known fact, but the Tories won a majority in Britain. Since the British parties don't stand in Northern Irish seats, they stand no chance there, and it's only in the whole UK that they failed to get a majority, but this is really a type of super-majority, because of those extra seats. The great irony of having to rely on DUP support is that the only reason they have to is because of Northern Ireland in the first place.

'Bitcoin heist' shock: Cops seek 4 for aggravated burglary in Midsomer Murders town

DavCrav

Re: Exponential growth ... a^t, for a an integer

"Re: Exponential growth ... a^t, for a an integer

... but not just an integer, any real number will do, I think."

Yes, of course, sorry, any real number greater than 1.

DavCrav

Re: Exponuttery

"If something increases or decreases by a particular multiple each day - even if it's 1.01 - it's valid.

Erm no that's geometrically"

No, it is exponential. Exponential growth is any curve of the form a^t for a an integer and t being time. If something doubles every n years then that's exponential growth. Like GDP, for example, or inflation.

All your base are belong to us: Strava exercise app maps military sites, reveals where spies jog

DavCrav

Re: Collect all the data, ignore users privacy...

"It's not PII though. The fuzzy line shows where some of the millions of users have been. The only reason you know a line to a front door is your friend is because YOU have Personally identifiable info on your friend, like where they live and the fact that they use Strava."

I thought there were statements like 'it's not anonymous if it can be de-anonymized with extra information'.

DavCrav

Re: Collect all the data, ignore users privacy...

"Not established in the UK or an EU member state, but use equipment in the UK for processing data (excluding where that data is only in transit)."

Well there you go. Transit means passing through, not starting from. I'm not 'in transit' at Heathrow if I get off the bus there, it's if I'm on a connecting flight. The data originated in the UK, so it's covered. And of course the equipment is the smart watch/whatever.

DavCrav

Re: Collect all the data, ignore users privacy...

"Does it have to comply with UK DPA / ICO requirements if it's a US company shipping the data straight to the US untouched. Seems unlikely. That kind of "our law applies everywhere" mentality is normally restricted to US gov."

It depends. Did the data originate in Nigeria? No. DId it originate in the UK? Yes. Processing UK citizens' data means you fall under the purview of the ICO, and UK law.

DavCrav

Re: Fail!

"What? Care to describe how stalking is a BDSM activity?"

I read it more as like normal stalking, but with a collar.

DavCrav

Re: Collect all the data, ignore users privacy...

""This amounts to an offence under GDPR"

I'm almost certain it won't."

I'd be surprised if it isn't already an offence under the current regulations. They are a processor of sensitive data (where someone is) under DPA, and they cannot just publish all that information in such a way that it can be deanonymized. Obviously showing you coming out of your house is not very anonymous. They might also be in trouble over various national security legislation. Arguably this is material of benefit to terrorists, and its publication would then be an offence under UK law. (Find any route that goes into a military base, for example, and then wait along it.)

DavCrav

Re: Collect all the data, ignore users privacy...

"There are all kinds of privacy setting the users could have employed. If they couldn't be bothered to switch any of them on you can't blame the service."

You mean: there is an option in the settings for us not to come around and shoot you in the face. If you couldn't be bothered to switch it on you cannot blame us.

You publish 20,000 clean patches, but one goes wrong and you're a PC-crippler forever

DavCrav

"It's going to be a bit before I trust MalwareBytes again, I'm not going to reinstall it just because they say the one-off goof is fixed."

Just out of interest, which software that is and always has been bug-free do you run then?

FYI: Processor bugs are everywhere – just ask Intel and AMD

DavCrav

Re: Open source a chip with billions of transistors?

"that can minimuise logical errors"

I just think that's too good not to immortalize in another post. Not saying anything about your other points, so carry on.

Julian Assange to UK court: Put an end to my unwarranted Ecuadorean couch-surf

DavCrav

Re: Expensive

"Isn't that exactly what diplomats who commit an offence do?"

No, they are protected by the Vienna Convention from charges in the first place, should the other country not waive it. Assange isn't a diplomat, despite Ecuadorian efforts to do so.

DavCrav

"There is the matter of jumping bail, but since the charges were withdrawn, then I would consider those charges to have been invalid to begin with and therefore anything related to those charges also needs to be excused..."

You would consider that to be the case, but the law doesn't. And the charges were withdrawn precisely because he's played fugitive for so long. Talk about a reward for criminality!

DavCrav

Re: Oh FFS

"The UK didn't need any assurances. The UK HAS A VETO."

Also, why would be UK care if he gets extradited to the US? Why should they give any assurances at all? He's not a UK citizen, he's just a petty criminal, so not really the UK government's responsibility, more the Australian (and now the Ecuadorian) government's job.

DavCrav

Re: Expensive

"It does seem strange though that British tax payers have had to pay (according to the Guardian) over £11m by October 2015 for police to guard the embassy to prevent Assange from escaping. How many other alleged rapists have this amount of money spent on them to bring them to justice, especially when the original charges have been dropped? How many other bail jumpers would this amount of money be spent on trying to bring them to court? Why is this man so special?"

The money was spent before the charges were dropped. And how much money should be spent trying to arrest rapists? At what point do we say "sorry, love, I know you got raped, but it's, like, really hard to find him, so we won't bother. Much easier to go after speeding motorists instead".

Stop us if you've heard this one before: Tokyo crypto-cash exchange 'hacked' for half a billion bucks

DavCrav

Re: What unpleasant memories?

"Nonetheless, I can't help thinking much of the crypto schadenfreude here is from those who (repeatedly) missed the chance to pay of their mortgages by risking only a few tens/hundreds/thousands of quids."

I indeed missed my chance to buy some Bitcoin before it went up in value, then down, then up, then up, then down, then was stolen.

DavCrav

Re: Just VOID the Crypto numbers and redo them

From Wikipedia:

CryptocurrenciesBearer bonds have historically been the financial instrument of choice for money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general. In response, new issuances of bearer bonds have been severely curtailed in the United States since 1982.

Fancy coughing up for a £2,000 'nanodegree' in flying car design?

DavCrav

Re: "Degree"

"You can't offer a degree from "Oxfordshire University" but you can sell a degree from the South Houston Institute of Technology in the UK"

That's treading on thin ice, given that Houston is in Renfrewshire. There's another Houston somewhere else that has been around for a few decades, but Houston, the real one, has been around since at least 1265.

Perv raided college girls' online accounts for nude snaps – by cracking their security questions

DavCrav

Re: Yur pr0nz are belong to us

"There'd also be a good chance in that environment that any woman threatened with coercion would have a couple of large friends overflowing with testosterone who were willing to go along to any proposed meeting and resolve the issue."

This being America, it's likely that someone involved has a gun, probably the blackmailer, so I'm sure that will end well.

Pope wants journalism like the Catholic church wants child sex abuse probes: Slow, aimless...

DavCrav

"Anti-religion: the only socially approved hate?"

You don't want to be hated? Don't be religious then. You do actually have a choice, unlike myself, who does not get a choice as to whether bishops get to sit in the House of Lords. Their qualification to decide on my laws? Believing in something stupid that the small minority of people think is true.

Here is the obvious proof that all major religions are bullshit. The world's major religions are pretty well known now. If any of them had any substance, why are they geographically concentrated and not spread out? If Hinduism (say) is the One True Faith, then non-Hindus should be seeing this and converting. All the Hindus shouldn't be in one place, miraculously just because their parents were Hindu.

In history, some trades were handed down through parental lineage. But nobody said that being a cooper was the One True Profession, and those thatchers and wheelwrights were jobless heathens. Religion is an inherited trait, part of an organism's extended phenotype, to use Dawkins's terminology.

DavCrav

Re: Warning: Devil's advocacy in support of the Pope (???!!!)

"Ah. So Brexit plunged the UK straight into recession in 2017, and Climate Change is settled science and mustn't be questioned?"

Climate change is settled science. What it isn't settled in is in the minds of non-scientists.

This is a technology site, right? We don't see people down the pub have their own opinions about processor architecture, they just assume that the experts are right about that stuff.

"Steve, I've been thinking. I don't see how Intel and AMD are going to get past the uncertainty principle, they cannot just keep shrinking the gap between transistors. Eventually the error rate is going to be too high."

"Yeah, Phil, I know. I reckon they should just build 3D chips. That allows closer spacing of transistors without their linear distance going down."

"Come on, Steve. How are you going to dissipate heat from the centre of the chip?"

"Good point, Phil, I never thought about that. I guess that's why I'm not a hardware designer, and just work in an office dealing with stationary orders."

That's the same as climate science. You have literally no right to an opinion on climate science, in the following sense: climate science is decided in journals, not in the Daily Mail. Your thoughts will not get published, I am going to guess, so you don't get an opinion.

Where you do get an opinion is in electing your government, and some of them seem as intransigent as you.

Electric cars to create new peak hour when they all need a charge

DavCrav

Re: Answering a few points in the comments...

"Our EV works out cheaper by far than the car it replaced. We pay less now including the repayments for the car and all fuel and servicing, etc. than we did for just the fuel on the car it replaced. The EV does very similar miles to the old car."

Yes, but that is because you are being subsidised, and the petrol/Diesel buyers are being taxed to fund it. An article yesterday said that because there's less tax coming in via fuel duty and VED, people are talking about road pricing again, everyone's hated bollocks. It's reared its ugly head again because LEV are eating the tax man's lunch, and the reality is life will have to get a lot more expensive for you.

If you do 10k miles/year, in a car that does about 50 mpg, then you buy about 200 (UK) gallons of fuel, costing about £5/gallon, of which about £3 is tax (it's slightly more, but whatever). So such a car pays £600/year to the Exchequer, plus VED, another £100/year or so. So each electric vehicle is avoiding roughly £700/year in tax. These are rough figures, but you get the broad idea.

That money is needed, both for the road network but also for everything else it subsidises, like the NHS, schools, HS2, Trident replacement, and bungs for the DUP. Since it would be politically difficult to stick the cost on electricity directly, expect an electric vehicle tax of at least £500/year by 2030. How does that make your calculations on upkeep look?