Posts by Bluenose

Time to save the natin

People

we who actually live in the reality fo the majority recognise this for what it is, a massive attack on civil liberties by a few brain dead politicians responding to the provision of a nice wedge of cash for the party funds and a directorship of a nice bank or multinational company (who is probably investing in the technology firms making the required products to achieve this, or even the companies doing it). It is time that we rose up and fought for our freedom, demanded that they retract this infamous Act of Parliament and if they don't let us take to the streets and show them that it is we the people who have the power in this country not the so called political masters.

On the other hand on the basis of the governments view of what constitutes a terrorist my next posting may not be for sometime and potentially from a US prison (even though my alleged crime is perpetrated in the UK).

Like the EU the IETF is full of academics

The problem with the IETF, the EU and all these other standards and other rule making bodies is that they start from an academic (read purist) position and do their utmost to avoid allowing any changes to what is a great theoretical approach so long as everything is the same or at least vaguely similar. The problems arise when the real world tries to interfere and points out that few if anything is the same for everyone and therefore you need a scalable model which may mean that you have inter-interoperability between sat IPv^ on your ISP provided firewall but IPv4 private addresses on your servers and other network connected devices for consumer or small business types. Although to be honest I think even biggish companies would appreciate that type of flexibility.

However the issue is that it breaks the purists view of the world and therefore it should not be allowed. Business impact assessments need to be carried out when we develop these new standards and the models to do the business impact assessment must reflect ALL user types and not just the big boys with the budgets.

Not a fan of outsourcing

but let's be honest outsourcing is al about getting something for less (not necessarily more) and big business still sees India as a large pool of talent there to be exploited and to be sure there are some very bright people working for some of the companies named. The name of the game is profit and while the Govt is foregoing income tax in respect of the work it is gaining, no health insurance costs due to stress of working 9 hours a day up to 6 days a week for 48 weeks a year.

It will also gain from an increased tax take from the profits of the companies located in the UK who will win from this set up (of course the recent tax cuts in business taxes will probably result in a net zero change to the tax take but think of the bosses bonuses as a result of increased profits).

You can also think about the increase in the share price that will benefit all those who saw their top rate cut to 45% and who invest in companies who off shore.

The only loser here is joe public and unemployed British developers but then again they don't necessarily vote Tory and they can alwasy compete for this work by reducing their day rates to the minimum wage and working longer hours. In fact that is probably one element of the Govt's new resgional pay policy. Won't be long before the Welsh and Northern Ireland will be competing with India on price quickly followed by the North East and West. But the dark horse is the Philipines 'cos they are even cheaper than India but less well educated like much of the UK these days.

Why Fiji of all places!!

Whilst I agree Fiji is a nice place with lots of beaches and palm trees it also has serious political and racial issues between the indigenous Fijians and those of Indian descent. The Kiribatians run the risk of being 3rd class citizens never mind 2nd.

That said one has to applaud a leader who has actually given serious thought to the changes threatening the homeland and taking sensible steps towards trying to find a way to alleviate the problems that his people face.

And of course there is climate change, Earth has always been subject to climate change the question is whether we are in part responsible for it and it is highly likely that even if water levels are now stable the increased height of the sea and the impact that has on waves may well increase the erosion of the atolls.

High profits & High Wages

A great writer once said that it was interesting how manufacturers always complained about high wages, even though high wages led to an increase in national wealth. Yet they never moaned about high profits even though they came at the cost of low wages and were often damaging to the country.

Apple is no different to many other companies around the world and they refuse to acknowledge that their high profits come at the expense of low wages, forcing workers to live at or below the level of subsistence and as we see today, the concentration of wealth and therefore power in the hands of a minority. The consequence will be that in about 40 years, it will be the turn of our children to provide the low wage labour to these companies at the expense of Chinese jobs.

The write who highlighted that abusive profits were not good for the country; Adam Smith in the 1770s

Government Forecast?

Let's hope not considering how often they get it so badly wrong. It will probably be worse and we find they will be buying for decades not years going forward.

As for the things like user devices, networks, etc. not sure if Mr Maxwell has noticed but these have been consumables purchased like stationary for years. That's why the number of PC sellers is falling, number 3 & 4 in the market probably break even, everyone below them is losing money. Servers are also becoming commodity items hence why they are being converted to specialist engines for specific types of workloads.

@ Anonymous Coward; why do you think you are taking it to literally. I know a couple of companies where staff are expected to buy their own mobile phones (with some financial support from the employer) or where staff are given the option of buying a new laptop every two years which will be their work machine during the initial two years. They then get to keep the laptop having paid for it on the never never and giving the employer a final payment on transfer. I am sure the Tories will look at that as an option going forward. They already want single parents to pay them for getting maintenance payments from unwilling ex partners.

I have no issue with this...

but I am still trying to figure out who it is I go to get the payment for each use of my medical record by these private companies. I am going to get paid aren't I??? This is what we are doing this for isn't it, to enable drug companies to develop drugs that make them bigger profits to so they can hand over bigger bonuses to their management?

If the fat cats are getting fatter then I want my cut, no more free data from me. I think a price of £10 per use should see me sorted.

What about Sony

Sony have a foot in both the content and device camps and have started to make some small plays in the merged world of device and media already. If you have a Sony networked TV then you can already get on a "buy on demand" basis access to movies made by Sony Entertainment. I am sure it will not take them long to move in to the subscription model if they see growing demand for such services, although they may have to wait a few years in the UK until we have a broadband network capable of supporting such a model.

One other thing

The author says he went out and bought Kindle Fires for all his friends/family. Did any of them actually ask for this?

I use technology regularly in my life but it is not my life. Whilst people may believe that they cannot live without Google apps on their Kindle Fire or any other piece of technology my view is I can live my life perfectly well without the Kindle Fire and would be very upset if a friend/relative bought me one without asking first since it would imply that they thought my life was unfulfilled without it.

So my advice is forget whether it runs google apps or not and pick up the phone arrange to meet your friends/family and go meet for lunch or a drink in their local restaurant/pub/home.

No demand for FTTC or FTTH

The lack of demand couldn't be down the fact that the FTTC and FTTH are only available in a very small part of the country and those of us who live outside (in my case just outside by about 3 miles) a major town can only dream of such luxuries.

I would love FTTC and the promise of a decent bandwidth to replace my current 3mbps. The idea of HD streamed movies is something that I really want. The ability to allow my kids to watch one streamed movie whilst the wife and I watch something else would be heaven. My chances of every having it without moving, well the kids will have moved out and I'll be blind due to being over a 100.

so obvious

Smart meters will allow them to cut us off one by one as we find the cost of energy to much due to the increasing price due to the addition of taxes to pay for smart meters, funding renewable energy companies, paying off the government debt, paying MP expenses and occasionally even the increase in the raw material.

I am not having one!

think the argument is flawed

Whilst I agree that in certain circumstances an IP address is Personal Data that is normally limited to the point in time where one party seeks to identify the user of that address without the consent of the individual.

In the scenario described in the article the IP address as used by marketers and behavioural marketers cannot be deemed to be a Personal Data on the following grounds:

There is no attempt to identify the specific individual who is using the address and in most instances if there are multiple users of the address then identifying one individual would be difficult.

Tracking the IP address does not necessarily identify the individual. Is the partner or the account owner visiting the Next store's womens clothing site? The marketer does not know and does not need to know they are only looking to see if a user of that IP address falls in to a possible class of customer

The identification of a user through such tracking can only occur at the point that the user actually decides to a)follow the link and b)voluntarily reveals to the supplier their personal details. In this latter point the marketer may not even have visibility of this information and thus remains unaware of the identity of the person using the IP address.

Therefore the test of remoteness still stands since the marketer makes no specific effort to actually identify the individual behind the IP address. Their primary concern is to identify members of a class of people who visit specific types of web site with a view to encouraging them to attend a single web site with a view to actually revealing themself. That is where the consent is actually provided.

Risk to anyone bringing the case

I reckon taking these guys to court would be a difficult case to prove and open up anyone making a claim to allegations that they are using the courts to prevent innovation rather than protect their rights.

Doubt any one will go to court though as probably cheaper to buy them than pay the really expensive lawyers.

'He completely changed the way that human beings live'

I thought that was the bloke who invented the Segway. Or was it the person who invented the house?