* Posts by xerocred

133 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Feb 2012

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Flight sim records show MH370 captain practiced 'flight' near search area

xerocred

Be careful, Australia

That China doesn't build an airfield on Heard Island and claim its their territory (and all the sea around it)

Facebook's UK wing paid just £4k in corporation tax last year

xerocred

"If you do business in a country then you should pay that countries tax."

No it won't work.

Well as my personal experience example above. Imagine you are a small SME selling stuff all over the world - do you really want to have to do a full corporate tax return in every country you sell to just because you sold 10 widgets costing $300 there? Then if you have no sales the next year you'd still have to do the tax return to prove you sold/earned nothing. And, say, for others selling to the UK you were late submitting tax return or made a mistake you might get nailed a penalty that could be far in excess of the value of sales.

How would you apportion 'profit' to each country? you'd have to include the cost of compliance with local tax laws and subtract what the local tax account is charging you.

For my company, we would sell a few 100K's worth of stuff (ideally, but maybe only $250 yes, really!) to different countries... I personally dealt with 8 countries our profit margins was not like Apple. Should my salary be attributed to the country I reside and pay tax in or from the region I oversaw or be apportioned equally across the countries or in proportion with the sales volume?... Or do you suggest I have to pay salary tax in 8 different countries too? Think about it for a moment and the current system is simplest and workable - maybe not perfect but there's nothing better. Maybe if the OECD normalizes tax rates there will be less gaming the system and it will work..

So there are loads of reasons it won't work.

xerocred

Re: They do just not to the uk.

I used to be the overseas office of a small UK firm.

All the invoices and $$ went back to the UK, profit if any was wholly in the UK and tax was paid in UK etc... there was no tax paid in my overseas location, except by me on my salary.

That is how it works.... This is exactly what Facebook are doing.

The alternative you suggest is that the small UK firm has to pay corporation tax on all the /revenue/ (or profit - how to work that out) that it earns in the 50 different countries it does business in, with their different tax years and special rules and so on.

The current system is not perfect but the alternatives are expensive tax authority bureaucratic nightmares. You might nail Facebook for a few millions but just watch the SMEs get crushed by additional unnecessary tax accounting charges.

xerocred

Paying more than an individual - They do just not to the uk.

SONY HACK WAS WAR says FBI, and 'we're still struggling to hire talent'

xerocred

Aren't these the same guys that redefined a weapon of mass destruction

As having half an ounce of explosive?*

Coming next, spoilt milk classed as biological weapon.

*About the size of a medium firework.

Ahmed's clock wasn't a bomb, but it blew up the 'net and Zuckerberg, Obama want to meet him

xerocred

"to pay the kid's airfare"

Good luck getting it on the airplane!

Squawk, squawk: Today is Vulture Awareness Day

xerocred

The EU banned farmers from leaving dead livestock lying around

for the vultures.

The EU fuckwits are directly responsible for contributing to their plight (in the EU).

You CAN'T jail online pirates for 10 years, legal eagles tell UK govt

xerocred

"Sexing things up is the modern way in government..."

Indeed, a 'weapon of mass destruction' is now defined as having more than a quarter ounce of explosive.

(The UK started a war with Iraq over WMD)

xerocred

Fake goods

Virtula (information) is not same as (physical) selling counterfeit medicine, fake jet engine components, fake high tensile bolts for nuclear reactors or shipping industry is not the same as virtual goods...

It's not like British Airways bit torrents the airplane control software either. Or the NHS doctors pirate audiobooks how to remove appendix...

Skills crisis? Not for long: More and more UK kids gain STEM quals

xerocred

Re: Good.

Brenda, you need to check the employment statistics at the Higher Education Statitics Authority hesa.ac.uk - computer science has the highest unemployment rate 14.4% among graduates followed closely by engineering. Contrast with medicine at 0.2-3%

There is no skills shortage that will be fixed with more unemployed cs and eng graduates.

Gazan medico team 3D-prints world-leading stethoscope for 30c

xerocred

Re: Am I just too pessimistic?

I just checked Alibaba...

You can get them from us$0.50 in bulk from China. They come in multiple colours too.

Intel workforce diversity report throws up a bunch of 'unknowns'

xerocred

re: Worker shortage...

Time to point out again that computer science (followed by engineering) has the higest unemployment rate among new graduates. Source Higher Education Statistics Authority hesa.ac.uk

TXT message leaves Corvette wrecked

xerocred

Next, the cops will want this functionality.

Save them going on car chases...

Germans in ‘brains off, just follow orders' hospital data centre gaff

xerocred

just following orders...

Reminds me of a story from base station installers... they were told to go and take the antennas down of site 10- they just finished installing it the week before. The site was live and carrying traffic. Ouch.

Turns out they reused the site number, the contractors only knew of the one site of that number, not the old site 10. Lesson learned - don't reuse numbers.

Dough! Dominos didn't register dominos.pizza – and now it's pizz'd off

xerocred

More generally

Domains were supposed to be company names not trademarks... ok in this case though (excepting they didn't take it during sunrise)... but if they try to register SuperSupreme.pizza...????

Europe a step closer to keeping records on all passengers flying in and out of the Continent

xerocred

Re: How about switching food orders randomly

Their big data predictive analysis will have you figured out as a foodie in no time.

xerocred

I had the chicken with rice

I guess I'm not an animal rights activist.

I cannae dae it, cap'n! Why I had to quit the madness of frontline IT

xerocred

skills shortage

'Corporations, governments and special interest groups bemoan a "skills shortage" in IT. There is no skills shortage in IT'

Indeed, the highest rate of unemployment for graduates (in the UK) is Computer Science. Source: higher education statistics authority.

Ford recalls 433,000 cars: Software bug breaks engine off-switch

xerocred

In other news...

3 people were found starved to death driving around mountain view in a Google car made by Ford. Police say the occupants tried to stop the car but a software bug killed them.

Mobe encryption guru Charles Brookson picks up OBE from the Queen

xerocred

Congratulations

Well deserved.

Privacy advocates descend on proposed domain name change

xerocred

Re: um...ICANN hypocritical bastards

Even ICANN don't follow their own rules. There is no name in the contacts on their own whois entry whois search engine..

So why should anyone else?

Why is it that women are consistently paid less than men?

xerocred

Checkout the ONS YouTube channel

It explains all this and more.

'No evidence' Snowden was working for foreign power says ex-NSA boss

xerocred

Re: Blackmail?

Even those agents don't know they are agents.

They are safe, but useless.

Latest Snowden leak: NSA can snoop internet to catch 'hackers' – no warrants needed

xerocred

Re: too late

They knew, but if they told anyone, they'd have to kill them.

Android M's Now on Tap cyber-secretary is like Clippy on Class A drugs

xerocred

N7 fix

Developer options > background process limit > at most 2

But it defaults to standard on power cycle...

Makes the n7 2012 5.1.1 run ok

xerocred

Re: The ongoing fragmentation headache

@davtom old N7...

Settings >developer options >background process limit, set to at most 2

(But seems to reset to degault on a power cycle)

Round Two in Sky vs Skype trademark scrap goes to Murdoch's men

xerocred

Who did voip first?

xerocred

Re: So what now?

The Isle of Skye also received cease and desist letters...

Australia cracks tech giants' tax dodge code

xerocred

Re: The TAX Domino Theory

What about roamers that buy a local SIM ?

London man arrested over $40 MILLION HFT flash crash allegations

xerocred

Latency between Hounslow and New York 90ms

Can someone explain how he was able to pull the bids 1 ms after he placed them?

Philip Glass tells all and Lovelace and Babbage get the comic novel treatment

xerocred

Koyaanisqatsi on 4 screens in Oxford Street

I was transfixed for over an hour.

'We STRONGLY DISAGREE' that we done WRONG, says Google

xerocred

I google for "Webmail" on my Nexus 5

Microsoft360 was second in a list of 6. There were 3 or 4 paid app adverts above that.

Gmail last on list.

So, what exactly is the EU belly aching about? That foundem wasn't there?

Nokia: Yes, we're chatting up Alcatel-Lucent

xerocred

anal.com

You could be onto something, the domain anal.com is for sale.

Labour manifesto: Tech Bacc, not-spot zapping and hi-speed interwebs

xerocred

Re: So why is it computer science graduates have the higest unemployment rate?

tl;dr version

14.4% in Chart 4

xerocred

So why is it computer science graduates have the higest unemployment rate?

Source higher education statistics agency: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2944

Because employers want cheaper ones?

Tech troll's podcasting patent blown out of the water by EFF torpedo

xerocred

Re: [Not] A stupid question

I was wondering that too... it should be payback with interest and penalty.

Aged 18-24? Don't care about voting? Got a phone? Oh dear...

xerocred

Re: Online Voting

"Like India".

I see what you did there:)

xerocred

You could be Harvey Lee Oswald.

UK.gov in pre-election 'Google tax' blitz against internet firms

xerocred

Re: How do you determine if costs are "falsely" attributed?

Exactly.

Then there is the case of the UK based multinationals (if there are any these days) who bring the prfits back to UK getting nailed on tit-for-tat tax arrangements elsewhere.

You're outta here! Baseball star strikes out sleazy trolls who targeted teen daughter

xerocred

Re: get yer pitchforks

"No, their Twits had their pictures and enough relevant info for anyone to find them."

In this case yes... but what if someone had stolen their identities...

xerocred

But, what if they were victims of identity theft?

In this case the real culprits seem to have been on the receiving end...

But we need to be careful here...

What if the culprit used someone else's identity?... this will become the new way to harm someone... Set up a false account (with the victims identity) and threaten a celeb or the Feds...etc

Huawei to build 5G patent book

xerocred

meanwhile in China

Chinese firms ignore patents held by foreigners, copy and sell within their own borders... If they get caught and lose in their own court the foreign firm gets comedy compensation and the China firm comedy penalties.

Carriers want 5G to do everything, for anything, anywhere

xerocred

Spectrum

Great, but I bet they cannot agree on using the same spectrum block worldwide.(the might agree to steal wifi)

EU's zombie data-grab plan climbs out of coffin

xerocred

with more escaping to Syria

It doesn't fucking work. Does it?

World's mega-rich tax dodge exposed: Meet the HSBC IT bloke at the heart of damning leak

xerocred

Re: HSBC is not a cop

If you hold or exchange US $... that is their authority.

Google's Gmail staggers to feet in China as access partially restored

xerocred

Re: Not likely deliberate on the part of China

"There's no way that China would deliberately cut off this massive cash flow. "

You think the Chinese government really cares about the eBay sellers or the money? Nah, they are just collateral - you'll be asked to get WeChat next...

Crims at vendors could crock kit says ENISA

xerocred

Everybody at Huawei are certified clean

That should satisfy GCHQ.

The gender imbalance in IT is real, ongoing and ridiculous

xerocred

Re: Stop blaming us, please

Like you, I object to being blamed for this. I'm sure many geek parents wish their girls would take more interest in these things too - but I guess they have little more success than everyone else.

At uni in the mid 80s there was only 1 girl out of 65 on my degree course - so whatever happened happened long before that, at my A levels it was the same.

The way I see it a only a tiny proportion of the population are actually interested in this stuff. Only 10% of all graduates are in all computing & 'all' engineering ~40k (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/stats qualifications by subject table) the same number as in creative arts or 'allied to medicine' or social science or 2/3 of business&admin. So that's less than 5% of population doing IT and relevant engineering.

If we wonder why females aren't interested then we should also wonder why 95% of the population isn't interested either.

xerocred

Re: Fashion

Are you suggesting women will take up IT in preference to law because (some) apps are cool?

How on earth is Law fashionable for women - is Ally McBeal a role model?

Maybe, but I would warn everyone against such an attempt at following today's fashion. App developers don't make much money (sure some do, on average and in general they don't). The technology might drastically change and there will be armies of others to do the work, you might get in just in time to see your potential career outsourced. There is a low barrier to entry to app development - anyone can download the development kits for free and get started. This is not the recipe for a long, financially rewarding career that will allow you to pay the student loan off.

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