Posts by The BigYin

I've got some Borax downstairs. Maybe you should provide a link to that as well.

And cooking oil. That's dangerous too, when hot. Can you give me a link please?

Knives! My goodness, I forgot about the knives! Best give us a link so we can all be safe!

Water! ARG! You can drown in that! Link please! Help me! I'm scared to go in the kitchen!

You are beyond ridiculous, Badvok.

You have to consider intent.

Kids hurt (and kill themselves) climbing tree. What do you want to do? Expel kids for doing what kids will do?

She needs a bollocking, sure, but not expulsion.

Re: @The BigYin: Another PR stunt by MPs

MPs cannot accuse Google of immoral acts whilst they themselves do similar things.

Changing the law to get money from Google and protect themselves is also immoral.

They have one clear choice and they are not taking it. Too busy with this circus which achieves nothing.

I would be better of if the UK had proper tax enforcement. The purported £2billion from Vodafone would have been a good start. But no; one handshake and all gone. The culprit in all this faced no censure!

Actual banking regulation would be good too.

Our MPs are long on words but very, very short on action.

Re: Another PR stunt by MPs

> UK MPs can't change global laws

Well they can via treaties etc, but not immediately. What they can do is alter UK laws.

> they can't do anything that makes global businesses look at the UK and go "we're not going to set up a base there".

Then they should shut-up about "morals", tax and stop wasting everyone's time.

> This is for Google to be moral and stop being so mean

Google is obeying the law AFAIK. Right or wrong, that's the deal. Don't like it, change the law.

Re: Another PR stunt by MPs

"If the MPs and their pals avoid tax using these methods, cite some sources,"

I know for a fact it has been repeatedly reported in the "Private Eye", but I can't find any on-line sources right this second (and I don't want to mention names without being sure).

It's not illegal, they've not committed any crime. They're just being hypocritical - which is par for the course with an MP.

The last tax settlement HMRC got was a cosy dinner and a handshake (thanks Hartnett).

Re: Oh Noes!!!!111

Think about it, just for a second. All smart meters are the same. A hack is found.

You are a terrorist.

Wait until winter.

Switch off the gas and power to homes nationwide, screw the network drivers at the same time. You only really need to do the leccy, that'll take out gas central heating too (boilers do use leccy).

*UNLESS* there is a hard-reset switch that can re-flash the meter on-site (and this can be done by the consumer) then there is a very serious risk to life. And even if so, you (as the terrorist) and periodically re-bugger them.

The risk may be low, but the impact high. It bears thinking about.

It'll never happen? Bullshit. Look up the SCADA attacks.

Re: Whilst I can see the value.....

"We aren't paying for them, the electricity companies are paying for them."

And where do they get money from? The pixies? Any cost a company bears is ultimately borne by the consumer.

I would have less of an issue with smart meters if they were dedicated to the customer first and the utility company second. I could see them being very useful to consumers in figuring out where they waste energy etc. But they are not aimed at the consumer, so they are an epic fail. Again.

Re: Not representative

The £1 is calculated from purchasing power, not exchange rates. I jumped to the same initial conclusions, but had a dig on the site.

Why £1

Re: Worthwhile charity

Wait....40% went on staff costs? I thought there were rules and regs on how much went on "administrivia" and how much actually went on, y'know, the "charidee" bit?

Re: Makes no sense

It makes perfect sense.

Why £1

Re: You don't

Oh, and please don't use the phrase "IP". It's meaningless and conflates three areas of law. You are referring to trademark licensing I believe?

Re: You don't

Err...I'm in favour of a tax on the gross. Or any other idea that can simplify the tax system and cut down the chicanery used by the mega-rich.

I am taxed (pretty much) on my gross; why should a company be any different?

Either that, or the MPs have got to get HMRC to stick the boot in. And sort "too big to fail" why they are at it, which I'd a separate but closely coupled issue.

Re: You don't

"Implement a UK business tax based purely on transactions in the UK"

You mean tax the gross income (at a lower rate) rather than profit (at a higher rate)?

Re: Who to blame?

Ran out of time to add this:

RMS has ideas on using a variable rate to reduce "too big to fail". Not sure how viable that is, to my mind it would open loopholes that could be exploited.

Re: Who to blame?

Who said anything about keeping the tax rate at 20%? As the gross is now being taxed, the rate would be much lower and the amount to the Exchequer the same. In you example that would be a tax rate of only 2% on the gross. Actually, the amount would be even lower again because avoidance is (hopefully) so much harder.

The current system is not viable. I get skinned 20% on (just about) everything I buy, I get taxed (just about) 40% on my gross income and mega-corps pay...nada, the super-rich pay...nada (with one or two notable exceptions).

Re: So, when do YOU start the posters and the street signs ?

It's not restricted to IT geeks. Any person who cares about their privacy can do it.

In fact, any person who does care should contact their MP and say how bad this bill is.

Re: $600,000?

No are his job prospects. I wonder what interest the court placed on the US$600,000? Chap is going to a slave to Sony for life now.

Re: Remind me

Some people downvote if you speak out against whatever they happen to have a hard-on for. Be it Apple, Windows, Linux or Sony; people will just think "This was anti-My Thing" and downvote without caring about content.

Sony engaged in a mass hack of consumer PCs and faced zero censure. If their execs were given a similar punishment as Mr. Ex-Lulz here; you can be others would take note.

But the rich can buy the justice they want. Unlike you and me.

Re: Remind me

Sony execs are rich enough to buy politicians. The law does not apply to them.

Don't buy Sony.

Re: Tineye?

No. But Facebook does.

Re: He'll probably/hopefully get sued

Not that I agree with the vigilantism. But what does one do when the police refuse to act on evidence of a crime, and you have gone as far as to give them the GPS co-ordinates of the culprit? A face-to-face could end badly and contacting them? That just prompts them to wipe the HDD.

(Taking the blog at face value - the whole thing could be a hoax).

Re: I like it !

Ah - ok. Looks like "Plumper" is the thief then.

Re: MacBookPro Owners

If it's portable, put a tracker on it. There are many available (e.g. Prey). However, as this software becomes prevalent the first thing any thief will do is nuke-and-pave the storage. Tracking gone. This leaves hardware as the only viable option (unless UEFI can somehow be used to protect an area of their drive and the software runs there - dunno).

You also have to make it easy for the thief to use the stolen item. So consider having a "Guest" account or something that will auto-login after 30 secs or so. If the thief is thwarted by a strong password, they'll just wipe it.

And encrypt at least your home partition ("Documents and Settings"; whatever).

Finally, back-ups. If you lose a portable device, all you should lose is a copy (or the last few hours/days work); you should not lose everything. The number of people who use their laptops as a primary store is depressing.