Posts by VinceH 3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
"YES! The first acceptable use for the damned things!"
Well, I wasn't thinking of it as a "use" as such, but in hindsight, it is: The Sun is gradually losing mass (and we're getting further away from it) - so feeding it sprouts (and other things we don't like) makes sense.
"There is a 20% tax on turnover on EVERYTHING Apple sells in the UK. It's called VAT."
VAT is not a "20% tax on turnover".
It is a tax added to the price of the goods or services and is ultimately paid by the consumer. The company is merely collecting it from the end customer, and hands it over minus any VAT they themselves have paid on allowable goods or services they have purchased along the way.
"so they employ lots of staff in the UK, all subject to national insurance and so on."
They pay employers' national insurance contributions, yes - but that isn't a tax on the company, as such. However: "and so on"? You originally claimed they paid "tax and NI on local employees." The tax is deducted FROM the employees wages and salaries (along with the employees' own NI contributions). Apple isn't paying anything here (other than the ers' contribution as I said) - just like with the VAT, they are merely collecting it, this time from the employees, and then handing it over to the tax man.
"The recipients and their families when they use the income to buy stuff."
They use their net income to buy stuff - net after the tax has been deducted by the employer (in this case Apple) and passed on to the tax office. That was the point I was making - tax on income is a tax paid by the employee, not the employer.
The person I was replying to seemed to suggest it was a tax paid by Apple. It isn't - they're just collecting it from the employee and handing it over.
"You think that's bad? Try a channel with only 44 subscribers and less than 300 views a month. Up until this point I have nothing interesting to offer tho."
Ahem. Fewer than.
But that aside, during 2017 I'm sure I saw something from YouTube saying a channel's videos could no longer be monetised until the channel had reached 10,000 views. (Logging in to check, mine currently stands at 6,739 on the main channel).
Prior to the change, though, I had built up a small balance - it currently stands at a whopping 92p, though I think half that probably dates back to long before I put anything on YouTube and is from when I was young and foolish and actually had Google advertising on a website.
Oh, those heady days.
"as I start to put some elbow grease and started producing videos, Youtube waltzes up and move the goalpost farther away."
Yup. And because I logged in to check those numbers above, I can also point out that it's worse than El Reg says. The article says "until their channels hit 1,000 subscribers and a total of 4,000 viewing hours" but looking at the monetisation page, it actually says (my emphasis):
"You can apply for monetisation at any time. To be approved, all channels need at least 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and 1,000 subscribers. This requirement allows us to properly evaluate new channels, and helps protect the creator community."
"I really don't care what the paint job looks like as long as it works."
^ This.
I looked at the blog post, at the image, and filled in the survey with comments to the effect that they're talking about "Improving its Interface" - but the image looks like the same interface with some icky paint job on it.
Also, the questions are so stupid. For example: Does it look "trustworthy" - WTF?
I can't "trust" something where form is given more import than function. So that comment got added as well.
"I think you fail to realise that Google search results are "personalised" based on browsing history. (Same applies to the original complainant)."
So what does it do for someone who doesn't, by default (or directly), use Google for search? I use Startpage. If I happen to log-in to a Google service, I tend to log-out when I've finished, and cookies are wiped at the end of my browsing session - and I don't keep the browser open longer than I'm using it.
So let's go to Google now, and see what it suggests for me. These are the ten suggestions, in order:
is my car taxed
is santa real
is water wet
is my car insured
is my car mot
is it down
is 1 a prime number
is it going to snow
is the earth flat
is the iphone 7 waterproof
If there's no browsing or search history to draw on, it must be using some other algorithm to make suggestions - and popular search terms certainly seems a likely possibility.
There's been a lot of confusion and misinformation* over the whole Making Tax Digital farce - including some from HMRC themselves, where some people in the organisation have a different understanding of what it is or is not to others.
I did notice in the report this article is about, though, that where it makes reference to Making Tax DIgital for Businesses, it suggests it will be for those businesses that have a turnover over the VAT threshold.
* Although I think the worst misinformation came from cloudy crud companies, some of whom kept pushing the notion that MTD meant companies had to use cloudy accounts rubbish.
Amusingly, I received a Word doc by email a couple of weeks before Christmas, which I needed to forward to someone else. He printed it using Word and the result ended up back with me. It printed incorrectly, so I want back to the original email I'd received and printed it from there, using Libre Office.
It was wasn't quite right, but the result was much closer to how it should have looked than the version that spewed forth from Word.
(Most likely, the source used a different version of Word than the person I forwarded it to - but still!)
No, they don't remove your data - at least, not everything. It might be that they delete all your posts/photos etc, and just retain your connections - I can't be sure.
I deleted my old account a few years ago, and a couple of years (ish) created a new one with a different email address (which has remained unused until the start of this year*). Some time after doing that, I tried doing the same with the original email address as an experiment, and it offered to restore my old account. This was a while back now, so I can't remember the exact wording - it might have just been the connections. I didn't proceed in order to find out - that was as far as I wanted to take the experiment.
"Of course, they could just be hoping you decide to cancel your deletion and remain connected to the collective"
Yes, ^ this.
* A few family members have commented about me not using Facebook (and have given the impression they think I'm weird, like the poster further up). At least one thinks I'm a liar when I've said I don't use Facebook because he's seen the name crop up and doesn't understand "not having" and "not using" are two different things. So over Christmas I said that I will start using it again from this year, albeit very lightly (log-in occasionally, post something unimportant). And now that I have, all I can say is that I think it's even more awful now than it was a few years ago.
"Somewhere for the birds and the bees to do educationalnaughty things."
When I was a child and was told about the birds and the bees, I didn't believe a word of it. After all, wouldn't the bees sting the birds?
Of course, some of the birds could be masochistic, but I didn't know about that possibility back then.
"Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C Clarke. (There be sequels.)"
A thousand times yes!
Also: Lucifer's Hammer (Niven & Pournelle) - it's a big old book IIRC, so would probably work as a mini series.
Another I'd like to throw into the list of possibilities is a trilogy, of which I've only read books 1 and 3: The Trigon Disunity (Michael P Kube McDowell).
Yes - on a usenet group I inhabit*, we made that observation a long time ago - and whenever something good appeared, we'd therefore anticipate early cancellation.
There are, of course, exceptions that somehow last the distance, but science fiction TV history is littered with good stuff (or stuff that showed a lot of potential) that didn't last.
I hereby raise a glass to some of that stuff.
* I nearly said "used to inhabit" - but I am still subscribed. It's just there are almost never any posts these days.
Although the article was heading in a distinctly different direction, one sentence in particular jumped out at me and I felt needed fixing:
"And the more data there is, the greater the attractive force pulling applications and services marketeers to associate with find ways to monetise that data."
"Will we all start to covet this new security system?
Well, having tested the system now for two months, we can answer authoritatively: yes and no. And which side you will end up on will depend on two things: the size and shape of your home; and how much money you have and are willing to spend on a security system."
You appear to have missed a reason for someone falling into the 'no' category - which is because they aren't stupid enough to buy things with teh 'smarts'.
Don't forget "It's a small exhaust port, right below the main port" and (right after it) "The shaft leads directly to the reactor system."
And didn't Obi Wan tell Luke that he'd have to "learn to use the force if you want to come"?*
* There may have been a reference to Alderaan at the end of that sentence, which I'm ignoring.
"It's a bios setting, usually."
But not the worst one I've encountered, on a laptop from a couple of years ago.
It's common on laptops for the F1-F12 keys double up as system functions; press 'fn' and one of them to turn up/down the volume, brightness, whatever. But on this laptop, they defaulted to those system functions, and 'fn' had to be pressed to use them as F1-F12.
I use a piece of software A LOT that uses certain of those keys, so it was bloody annoying until I found the relevant BIOS setting.
"You're always known, because you're always logged in."
No, I'm not.
On a computer, I log in for specific purposes, and when I am done I log out again. Oh my phone, I sometimes remain logged in for longer, but I do log back out again eventually.
Although when I tried to do so the other day I discovered I couldn't. There is no 'log-out' option that I've found on a phone other than to "remove" the Google account, but it now won't let me do that. (My "administrator" says no, apparently). So I promptly logged in on the PC and kicked the phone off the account from there.
Now I seem to have an alert that I can't get rid of - "Google Play services - Account Action Required - <my registered email>"
The account action that is required? AFAICS, it just wants me to sign in.
Go to hell, you bastards.
"I've had at least one Samsung which had a feature whereby it would suppress the screen lock timeout if it thought you were still looking at the phone, and I'm assuming it used to front-facing camera for that."
Also (on my old Galaxy S3), while on a call the 'keypad' would be suppressed if it thought the phone was next to your cheek - which I imagine must have used the front-facing camera.
Obviously its purpose was so that you don't hit buttons with your cheek - but when trying to get through a menu on some automated call system, I'd forget and get caught out when I put my other hand over the top to reduce reflections and help me see the buttons... which promptly disappeared.
Note that their accounts are due to be submitted to Companies House by 30th December.
Last year, they changed their accounting date forward by one day from 31st March to 30th March. I commented about this hereabouts earlier this year. At the time I wondered if it was to engage in some creativity and have a chunk of the crowd funding cash show up in the following financial year, but someone else pointed out that filing the relevant form pushes back the date the accounts are due by three months.
So I wonder if the accounting date will change again before the end of this month?
"No"
I agree totally.
Because I don't think I'd have much appetite for what I anticipate yorkshire puddings would be like when I pull them out of my lunch box somewhere in the Brecon Beacons, the Marlborough Downs, or wherever else I decide to go on Christmas Day.
Plus I'm not sure if they'd go with my actual meal that day - typically ham sandwiches and other things you might find in a packed lunch.
Bah!
Humbug!
"PS : I have no social media accounts unless El Reg is considered as Social Media ??"
Ever since I first heard the term, probably around the time of Web 2.0 (though the term was probably around before that) I've considered usenet and mailing lists to be social media.
'At the same time, Netflix says it cannot guarantee the security of the data it collects: "We use reasonable administrative, logical, physical and managerial measures to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft and unauthorized access, use and modification. Unfortunately, no measures can be guaranteed to provide 100% security. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee the security of your information."'
I think they're being honest there - any website or company that says otherwise and claims they can guarantee that security is lying; they don't know what flaws will be discovered in future, nor whether that flaw will be exploited before they can do anything about it.
"No only didn't they identify anyone the chances are it's not even real data and is part of the 73.6% of statistics made up on the spot."
If not that, then it's equally possible that it's simply usage statistics/logs from the film itself, rather than based on an analysis of logs of subscriber accounts. (And that would be far easier that trawling individual account data in order to compile the information.)
In much the same way anyone with a web server might observe (and is free to comment) that 53 people had looked at or downloaded the same web page every day over the last 18 days, without going further into the logs and attempting to trace it back to individuals.
If so, storm in a teacup.
Of course, the other extreme - that they have based the data on subscriber account logs - is also a possibility. But personally, I think it's a lot less likely. I think either the above or what AC suggested is more likely.
"Moral - more than one card (Visa and Mastercard) and more than one banking group."
I have quite a few cards from various different banks, and they WERE a broad mix of Visa and Mastercard - but almost all* of the issuers have shifted over to Visa.
Even Barclaycard, the subject of this story - I originally had two with them, one Visa, one Mastercard. This became three when they acquired Egg (which I think was Visa at the time). And now all three are Visa.
* It might even be all; I'm not sure.
"Jesus wept."
Oh, no tears, please - it's a waste of good suffering!
"Even though this was a prank stunt, the need for calling the services, and consequently saving the guys life remain the same..."
Yes, the need to save his life remained the same - but it was not accidental. At best, the word "unintentional" is a better fit, because as you say this wasn't the intended outcome, but accidental is being far too kind to stupid.
It was a quite deliberate act of incredible stupidity, by an idiot who didn't think through what he was doing.
It's missing an O.
Just move the N and B so that they're either side of the globe.
There are other improvements that can be made as well: Make the primary colour red, and instead of the globe containing some kind of representation of a network, make it a single red diagonal line extending from the top left of the circle all the way to the bottom right.
'Logan said that many of the original demands of data officers had been accomplished, and the role was “moving from classically defence - risk mitigation and regulation - to one of offence”.'
And when the inevitable breaches occur as a result of all of this, offences are what will have been committed.
Ah well.
Greed marches on.
"Exactly, it went so well with RT, they want to do it again."
I suspect they're going to keep doing it again, and again, and again, in the hope that the idea will eventually take hold. Because: The idea of recurring £££ (or $$$ depending which side of the puddle you're on) for software and services on the SaaS model is a little too attractive to them.
Sod that.
Also sod: the crappy keyboard these things will come with.
Not to mention Windows 10.
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