* Posts by DavCrav

3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007

We suck? No, James Dyson. It is you who suck – Bosch and Siemens

DavCrav

This is easy to check: buy one, plug it in, vacuum something, check power draw. Come on El Reg, you can do this test for a couple of hundred quid. Investigative reporting, and we can see whose pants are on fire.

Dad who shot 'snooping vid drone' out of the sky is cleared of charges

DavCrav

Re: @Robert Helpmann??

"The issue of violent crime, guns or no, will most certainly not be solved simply by removing guns."

No, but it's escalation of risk that's the problem. Guns are powerful and dangerous, and when lots of people have them, a simple pickpocketing or car theft becomes a possible murder scene. That just doesn't happen in the UK, because there's generally little possibility of a serious escalation in violence.

The UK has a vastly lower level of violent crime, and severity of violent crime, than the US. Consider that, in the UK, a 'violent crime' is considered to be any crime involving violence, e.g., common assault. In the US this is so commonplace that it is a misdemeanour.

Ofcom won’t hold back in latest mobile spectrum auction

DavCrav

Re: Not TalkTalk, FFS

Maybe they want to broadcast people's data next time, save the hackers the trouble of breaking in again.

Google can't hide behind Alphabet, EU competition commish warns

DavCrav
FAIL

Re: No, just one...

"Perhaps if you Europeans could have done even 1/8 as much to create the same software and services that Google had, you might have a point. You didn't, so all your sturm and drang is just more whining.

However, since you lazy, complaining, blackmailers have done NOTHING to create a better product since Google before started, EVERYTHING you are saying about them is only sour grapes."

Yeah, Europe. What have you done towards inventing the World Wide Web?

DavCrav

Re: How can you fight a monopoly which offers products for free

"Google made maps (first)"

Damn, I must have imagined using those Internet mapping tools before Google Maps.

"Google made Android (First free smartphone OS)"

I don't buy a smartphone OS, I buy a smartphone. So the cost of the phone OS is largely irrelevant.

DavCrav

"MS still has >90% desktop market share as MS fanboys like to point out which is a lot higher than Google's search market share."

1) False. In Europe, Google's market share is above 90%, so your entire point is wrong.

2) It's about abusing a monopoly. If you remember, MS was, in fact, done for market abuse. So comparing MS to Google to prove Google is fine isn't a great strategy.

Silicon Valley freeze-out: EU watchdog tells firms clock is ticking to limit data transfers

DavCrav

"Why wait, it should have been unlawful as soon as the decision was released."

When laws that result in significant amounts of work for compliance are introduced or repealed, it is reasonable to have a grace period. If a government votes for new accounting rules, they don't say "and they'll come in tomorrow. Why? Fuck you, that's why." They give people time to adjust.

We can't all live by taking in each others' washing

DavCrav

Re: Shame

"If the price of one specific type of food went up, we would buy substitutes instead. It is only if the price of all food increased that demand would be inelastic."

Of course, but all that is saying is that we don't value beef, or lamb, or kumquats, all that highly individually. Which is true. Elasticity of demand can only be considered with respect to an ever-changing basket of prices.

DavCrav

Re: Not all exchanges are voluntary

Some crime does appear in GDP figures.

DavCrav

Re: Everything is the product of labour

"I'm not convinced of this statement. Initially there may be labour. But after that an autonomous process. Can apply to a Robot Factory, automated oil well or burning forest and then scattering seed of something that doesn't need replanted every year. Or totally automated agriculture.

Surely many things will be the product of less and less labour, tending toward zero?"

That's not the point. It's not that everything is the product of labour, it's that the resulting money can only go to people. I have a robot vacuum cleaner that does work for me, but I don't pay it, so the money in that transaction went to the iRobot company. If a landscaper comes with a turf cutting machine, the machine doesn't get paid, the landscaper does.

The automation just alters the distribution of which people get paid, not the fact that, in the end, only people are paid. (To deal with things like Apple's cash pile, we can either pretend that companies are people, or state that the company is owned by its shareholders, who own that wealth.) Now, if we start allowing robots to own things and buy things, then we get a different scenario, but all we've really done there is expend our definition of 'people'.

DavCrav

Re: First time I have to totally disagree with you, Tim

"I think the goal of automation/roboticisation is more to do with business owners reducing or eliminating human labour costs and unreliability. The idea that humans then have lots of leisure time is incorrect, as there wouldn't be any wages for them to do anything with that time, and the government benefits would never be enough as the governments would be in the pocket of the business owners wanting their taxes low so they can keep all the income locked in an 'ice cap' of stored but unused wealth that they can show off to their less wealthy (but still shockingly obscenely rich) peers."

The only problem with that model is, who buys the stuff the business owners are making, if almost everyone is poor? I'm not saying they don't want to go in that direction, I'm saying that it isn't sustainable even in a mild sense, over a decade or so.

DavCrav

Re: Shame

"As regards the article, you are right, but that doesn't really mean we value insurance over food, because we simply import the food. Of course, we have to do that because due to the insurance workers earning so much they can 'consume' all the land for second homes, the farmers can't equal the cost of food from overseas as the very land is too expensive. Especially since the land has a mortgage and so the farmers are paying lots to the financial people."

We spend less on food than insurance, but the elasticity of demand for food is lower. If the price halved, or doubled, we wouldn't eat twice, or half as much, we'd eat roughly the same. We might switch to cheaper types of food, but if food were more expensive we'd spend more on it, sacrificing other things. I'm not saying it's a Giffen good, we would still consume slightly less (probably), but we should consider our definition of value to be in terms of our demand elasticity, rather than the amount spent on something.

BBC shuts off iPlayer to UK VPNs, cutting access to overseas fans

DavCrav

Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

"For the last time, the BBC has a special carte-blanche law to use whatever copyrighted material (e.g., music) it wants, but this only applies in the UK. It would be illegal for them to sell it outside of the UK."

OK, considering three-quarters of the votes for this were downvotes, I guess we apparently need a lesson in the legal quagmire that is an international subscription to the BBC. I am not talking about the BBC selling its content abroad on an ad hoc basis, although I will mention this in point 3 below, I am talking about allowing foreigners access to the BBC iPlayer and BBC TV broadcasts.

This is impossible for the following reasons:

1) International events, such as sport, won't let them. The World Cup, Eurovision Song Contest, etc., have rights sold on a national basis.You won't be allowed to access BBC One when Wimbledon is on and you are outside the UK.

2) More generally, many BBC shows are made by outside companies and sold to the BBC. This doesn't apply to shows like Top Gear and Doctor Who (they will come later) but the bread and butter shows are sold on a national licence basis, again. Similarly if BBC One shows a movie; it won't have the right to do that internationally.

3) Finally, we have shows like Top Gear (RIP) and Doctor Who, which are made directly like the BBC. Firstly these are exclusively licensed in many territories, and the recipients might not appreciate the BBC muscling in, but more importantly we run into what I originally mentioned, which are two central tenets of the BBC: it has to do its best, and it can do whatever it likes. The BBC has a compulsory, permanent, non-exclusive right to use any music in its broadcast, and the artists cannot stop them. This law only applies to the BBC, not commercial broadcasters, and only in the UK. So if you want to sell Top Gear abroad, you now have to start negotiating licences. But you cannot do the obvious thing of pre-arrange the licences and use that music because of the BBC Charter, which requires the BBC to produce the best programmes it can using the resources available. So the music arrangers use the very best, and then the lawyers try to licence it afterwards for commercial release. This is time consuming and expensive, and dependent on the territory again, and so is only something you do for multi-million-pound shows that bring in lots of revenue.

DavCrav

Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

"Pay $100/year to the BBC to be able to watch TV from over here - not allowed

$few/episode to the BBC to watch Sherlock/Qi/Dr Who - not allowed"

For the last time, the BBC has a special carte-blanche law to use whatever copyrighted material (e.g., music) it wants, but this only applies in the UK. It would be illegal for them to sell it outside of the UK.

Your one-minute guide to IBM's financial future – or just imagine a skier tumbling down a slope

DavCrav

"So, having sold the business they sort of pretend it's still there for accounting purposes?"

No, but if (say) you split a company into two equal halves, and both report a drop in earnings the next year of 40%, in fact the two businesses together are doing great. Retailers do it all the time when they talk about 'like-for-like' sales, which strips out the effects of opening or closing shops, and allows you to see the underlying trends.

Navy engineer gets 11 years for attempted espionage

DavCrav

Re: Speaking of idiots....

"It would be entrapment if the FBI went to this guy and asked him to spy for them, he says no, they persuade him. In short, it's entrapment if he would <u>not</u> have committed the crime without the FBI getting involved.

On the other hand, if he offered to sell the plans then the FBI got involved, that's not entrapment."

The link in the article appears to suggest that he was minding his own business and the FBI contacted him, presumably because he has a foreign-sounding name.

Good news: Adobe bangs out Flash patch fast. Bad news: Google's defenses were useless

DavCrav

Re: So Adobe <em>can</em> be moved...

"It just takes a hammer swung by a trillion-dollar organisation..."

The Mob?

Wheels come off parents' plan to dub sprog 'Mini Cooper'

DavCrav

"It's surprising how stuff can escape your attention. After carefully selecting a couple of attractive names for our daughter we never cottoned onto the significance of the initials until they caused a certain amount of confusion about her status when she was a post-grad. It's all resolved now as she's Dr DR ..."

There's a famous mathematician called HSM Coxeter. His two middle names were swapped from their original position after the unfortunate abbreviation was pointed out by a Godparent.

DavCrav

Kanye West's son is called North.

That is all.

DavCrav

Must...resist...temptation...to correct...gender...

DavCrav

"The latter name would, according to the court, "inevitably attract mockery", such as its use in the phrase "ramène ta fraise" or "move your arse"."

Interesting justification, that it appears in a rude slang phrase, so shouldn't be a name. How would they feel about, in no particular order, "Dick", "Fanny", "Thomas", "Roger", "Jack", and so on?

'Traditional' forms of thuggery decline in UK, cybercrime on the rise

DavCrav

Re: Ye Olde street Thugs

"In years to come will middle class suburbanites will form re-enactment clubs where they stalk the city streets in 'authentic' reproduction street wear, mugging each other in an effort to have history 'come to life'?"

Like Hallowe'en on steroids?

DavCrav

Re: 2,057 described as "computer virus"

"I'd take that with a massive pinch of salt too. The amount of people I've encountered who are absolutely convinced their computer "must have a virus" when their computer takes an eternity to boot and then promptly grinds to halt, taking forever to perform even the most basic function, is not even funny."

I also wouldn't think to report a virus infection to the rozzers.

WIPO punts Cambridge University over attempt to grab Cambridge.com

DavCrav

Re: Land grabbing

"For all commercial purposes cambridge.com should be owned by Cambridge, Mass., and cambridge.co.uk should be owned by the City of Cambridge."

Skirting over the fact that the real Cambridge is in the UK, so clearly the most deserving of the .com domain, isn't this going to get a bit tricky when more than one company or entity have the same name? Surely Apple.com should be owned by the first company to be called Apple, which certainly isn't Apple Computers.

I think it's difficult to find a rule that works here, I'm afraid. Hence the mess we have at the moment.

Man goes to collect stolen-car court docs found in stolen car in stolen car

DavCrav

Re: week old sashimi - Answers in the article

"Sorry, something smells a bit off. Why did he have the keys to a car? Was the owner equally stupid and left the keys with the car or were the keys part of the loot from robbing the house?"

I think it's clear that he nicked them from the house.

"additional two counts of burglary of an occupied dwelling."

DavCrav

Re: Coloured intuition

"Is Mr Butler non-white?

Was the policemen's intuition guided by that?"

No, his intuition was guided by the fact that he had proof that the guy stole two cars, and found a set of car keys on him when they arrested him. He knew where he lived, and if that's far enough away it's likely that he drove to the station with the car matching the keys, so just walk around pressing the remote locking button and see what happens.

OH GROSS! The real problem with GDP

DavCrav

Re: So is it actually a good idea to measure it at all?

"Given it's a figure that we almost all agree is at best a guideline, and is open to some pretty significant distortions, does it have value as a figure?"

I don't now what the business version of a luvvie alert is, but I was talking to someone on the board of Vodafone once at St James' Palace, and he said that they essentially ignore GDP, and are most interested in consumer and business confidence indices, primarily because they will be most suggestive of whether people open or close their wallets. So I don't know as GDP measures are the most important thing on a microeconomic level, based purely on what one guy at a party said.

Exposed Volkswagen 'n' pals get 2 more YEARS to sort out emissions

DavCrav

Of course they are given time

The limits the EU have been setting up until now are based on previous laboratory tests, in other words, if a lab test of a car in 1990 had a value of 100, the new limit for 1995 was 98, then 97, etc.. It is all relative. If the real-life numbers are way higher, you cannot suddenly say "get it down to the lab levels" because they weren't based in reality either.

You can tell car manufacturers to make an engine that runs on rainbows, but it might not actually happen.

Porsche-gate: Android Auto isn't slurping tons of engine data, claims Google – but questions remain

DavCrav

Re: FTFY

"I just find it curious the totally different style of writing. If it was specifically Apple doing this, the story angle would be ridiculous hyperbole about how the world was ending and how it was all Apple's fault with a negative spin on literally anything at all, no matter how insignificant."

No it wouldn't, because Apple don't send The Register statements at all, bullshit ones or not.

US Treasury: How did ISIS get your trucks? Toyota: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

DavCrav

I might be just being stupid here, but can people who work for ISIS not walk into a showroom and buy one, just like anyone else? Or have they taken over a town with a Toyota dealership in it?

White House 'deeply disappointed' by Europe outlawing Silicon Valley

DavCrav

"The US government is "deeply disappointed" by the European Court of Justice's decision to effectively kill the long-standing "safe harbor" agreement covering the flow of people's personal data across the Atlantic."

Good. Spin on it.

Linux kernel dev who asked Linus Torvalds to stop verbal abuse quits over verbal abuse

DavCrav

Re: The problem is, usually Linus is right

"Makes no difference. Intel aren't being paid for her time either. In fact, Intel has a corporate responsibility to protect their employees from abuse, etc. If Intel decides that pouring investment into Linux is not worth the effort (ie they cannot persuade their staff to do the work in an environment Intel does not control) then they might just stop bothering. That would be very bad for Linux."

1) Intel are getting paid for her time. They are getting paid in better Linux, not just her code, but every other contributor.

2) Intel does not have a responsibility to protect her from abuse that people who are not her work colleagues and customers might dish out to her. I can call her a fuckwit on here if I want (to use previous language above) and Intel are not obligated to do one thing.

Silicon Valley now 'illegal' in Europe: Why Schrems vs Facebook is such a biggie

DavCrav

Re: Perhaps anything, but probably not

"It's worth pointing out that it's not like the EU can actually do anything to the likes of Google, since they're not EU-based corporations. Sure, ban them - but since making it illegal for them to sell will have zero effect, you'll have to make it illegal to use their services, and anyone can imagine how well that will go down."

The EU can completely fuck over Google, not by banning them, but by saying that they cannot trade in the EU. The website can still function here, fine, but, and here's the kicker for them, they would not be able to make any money here. Why do you think Google is submitting arguments to the EU competition commissioner?

DavCrav

""That's because the recipient of the email - in this case you - export the data to a third party without the sender's permission."

Actually, this one doesn't fly. The sender of the email exported his own data."

I'm pretty sure you can't be right on that one. If I e-mail a company in the EU, I have a reasonable expectation that that data stays inside the EU. If the receiving company sets up automatic redirecting that shunts that e-mail to the US, then the recipient has done that, not the sender. You cannot say that the sender broke the law when they have no knowledge that the recipient has set up automatic forwarding.

If the recipient wants to avoid breaking the law, they have to, for all new addresses e-mailling them, set up an automatic bounceback with words like "This address forwards data outside of the EU. If you consent to this, please resend your message." The alternative is not to automatically redirect their e-mail outside of the EU and, you know, obey the law.

And if anyone says that e-mail doesn't work like that, it kind of doesn't matter. The law says it must, and if you don't want to break the law, stop sending e-mails. You can then complain to the legislature, but you still cannot break the law in the meantime.

THIS is MASSIVE! Less-Masslessness neutrino boffins bag Physics Nobel

DavCrav

The electrons are angry

Wait, hold on just one second. So, what you are saying is: the neutrinos have mutated? Are they going to heat up the planet next? If so, the (shit) movie 2012 is right after all, just a few years too late.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXqUcuE8fNo (see 3:00 in)

What is money? A rabid free marketeer puts his foot in lots of notes

DavCrav

Re: Moral hazard

"As far as I've seen the mortgages are just fine."

Really? I remember them giving out 125% mortgages as late as 2007. I know prices are back on the up and up, unfortunately, but the plateau period, together with recession, must have screwed them over a fair bit. Or did they tighten their lending criteria in the run up to the crash?

Northern Rock also got bank runned on both ends though, with people also cashing out as fast as they could as things looked serious. I wonder if the long turnaround time on the FSCS (some people were saying six weeks in the media), together with the fact that until that time very few people were familiar with the FSCS and that they would get their money back at all, contributed to the retail run, rather than the wholesale run, which might be at least survivable if they stopped issuing new mortgages and dropped the bonds on the market as quickly as they could.

But yes, I agree, Northern Rock was not floored by defaults on mortgages, and I take back what I said above about them.

DavCrav

Re: cash is not the only money

"Having a fixed maximum number of bitcoins isn't deflationary precisely because they are divisible."

What? If there is 1 tonne of gold in circulation, and the value of all gold goes up, then just because you can chop your bars in half doesn't mean you don't have deflation. For example, suppose that the prices of all goods in the UK halved overnight. That's deflation, whether or not you re-introduce the halfpenny.

DavCrav

Re: Moral hazard

"Part of the problem with the bailout was that there was no effective division betweenn any bank's retail and investment arms, so the government simpyl couldn't bail out the former (which is what they needed to do) without also bailing out the latter. Banks are now legaly obliged to ringfence retail from investment, precisely so that, in the future, it will be possible to prevetn the collapse of the money supply and the loss of the public's savings by baiilng out the retail banks while letting their investment arms collapse."

Except, as has been explained often, here and elsewhere, the three big banking collapses in the UK -- Northern Rock, RBS and HBoS -- either had no, or only very small investment banking arms, and these weren't the source of their collapse, but rather massive exposure on mortgages to poor people who couldn't pay them back.

DavCrav

Re: Smoke and Mirrors

"Err, no."

How long do you put aside each day for correcting people who say wrong things on the Internet?

DavCrav

Did you ever point out to your friend (is that friend as in "my friend has a question", meaning you?) that if HSBC's global turnover was only around £40bn/year, even if they had no costs whatsoever, it still wouldn't come to hundreds of billions. If bankers, and there aren't too many of them, spent hundreds of billions each year on themselves, what did they actually buy with that money? Of course, we know it isn't the cashiers in branches these lunatics are talking about, it's senior bankers, of which there are about 10000 or so (order of magnitude). In which case, if there is £100bn of poor-people's money stolen by bankers, they are spending, every year, ten million pounds on themselves without anything really to show for it. That's tough.

DavCrav

"Its a very old argument; what if you Hitler and have 1 Billion thanks to your parents and what if you Jesus and have nothing"

I think I speak for everyone here when I say, "what?"

Also, *It's, *are, *billion, *are (I think).

DavCrav

Re: Moral dimension

You start with a question:

"What would have happened if NR were allowed to fold like any other business?"

And then write some stuff that doesn't normally happen. You forgot stage 0:

0. Any slightly vulnerable-looking banks immediately fold from a bank run.

The entire reason all these bank bailouts, the FSCS, etc., were set up is because bank runs are horrible things, and entirely impossible to avoid for a bank as the only thing that can be 100% backed up by cash is a safety deposit box.

Let's continue:

"1. Some other bank or other banks would have bought up the mortgages."

Isn't that what the Government did? You might argue about the price paid, or whatever, but what you suggest was exactly what happened. Most people who go all swivel-eyed about banks also like the idea of government ownership of companies, so surely you would be happy about this outcome?

"2. The other banks would have been legally obliged to cough up and pay according to Savings Guarantee rules."

They do, every year, pay the government for this protection. It's an insurance scheme, and so it's the government that coughs up. Of course it is, because you cannot expects the banks to have enough money put aside to bail out a bank.

Let's skip down to 5:

"5. The country would have been a better place. Instead of disabled people with one extra bedroom in their house than deemed necessary (the bedroom where the carer sleeps) and people at a similar level in society paying for austerity, the ball would have been in the banks' court, where it belongs."

So the collapse of a few banks and the others vastly reducing and tightening their lending, causing a 5-10% recession, would have meant the Government would have had more money to spend and wouldn't have to choose between austerity and a sovereign debt crisis? Have you seen Greece?

US tries one last time to sway EU court on data-slurping deal

DavCrav

"Physical location of the server is only part of the story though. Just look at the ongoing court case between Microsoft and the US government. Even if safe harbour is suspended it will still leave access to our data open to abuse."

But if the physical servers are in the EU, there's at least someone here to arrest. Under Safe Harbour/Harbor, the EU cannot even get their mitts on a human being if someone breaks the agreement.

AdBlock blocker biz bought

DavCrav

Re: Now there's a freudian slap if ever I saw one...

"Now there's a freudian slap if ever I saw one..."

I still like the Frasier joke: "What's a Freudian slip? It's when you want to say one thing and really say a mother."

It's the white heat of the tech revolution, again!

DavCrav

Re: The value of Google

"People don't remember pre-google any more, clearly."

I was just thinking about AltaVista the other day. And Lycos, there was Lycos.

DavCrav

Re: Changing goal posts

"The main reason that "Kids Company" ( a REALLY stupid name for any charity ) failed was because the final Gov investment was withheld ..."

So you mean it failed because the government didn't hand them even more cash?

Lies from VW: 'Our staff acted criminally but board didn't know'

DavCrav

Also from the Department of Redundancy Department

"VW will provide vehicle identification numbers to retailers in the next few days, as well as figuring out how to let owners figure if their autos are affected, before it starts contacting the owners themselves.

In the coming days the company will give the vehicle identification numbers to retailers as well as coming up with a process for owners to check if their vehicles are affected, before contacting them directly."

Sky 'fesses up to broken fibre cables as cause of outage woes

DavCrav

Re: "Contact me by carrier pigeon"

"Am I the only one who is curious that someone TWEETED the above?"

We've got those fancy mobile phone things up north nowadays. They're rait good.

Yahoo!: Who! cares! what! US! taxman! thinks!, we'll! spinoff! Alibaba! anyway!

DavCrav

"What's going on, not a single use of the phrase tat bazaar. Standards are slipping."

Isn't that eBay?

VW’s case of NOxious emissions: a tale of SMOKE and MIRRORS?

DavCrav

Re: I give up

"What CAPTCHA? Is it perhaps a special bonus part of the comment form for ACs?"

CAPTCHA = "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Commentards and Humans Apart". Maybe you are clearly one or the other, hence no need to test?