Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Selectively shooting them is the only thing that will work.

"in UK coastal towns for a great example of this"

If only they'd stay in the coastal towns. Or at least, just on the coast.

Even if they got on even terms they'd likely just herd them. Years ago when the farmers wife kept hens in the field behind us if the collies were at a loose end they'd round them up, apparently just for fun.

Re: Anonymous Contractor

"Getting paid way more than a permy doing the same job, just pay more tax and be done with it, or go permy and get paid the same as your peers, simple."

Usual reply: If it's as simple as that why are you permie (it's obvious from your comment that you are)? Is it that you don't fancy the risks you were so quick to dismiss?

Re: It's not just IR35 though

Out of that list VAT isn't really a cost for the freelancer. It might be for some classes of client.

Re: re: contractors are not prepared to be unfairly treated

"You sound bitter that you're not a contractor."

He sounds bitter that he's not being paid the same as a contractor without having actually troubled to think about the risks and responsibilities.

Re: re: contractors are not prepared to be unfairly treated

" They're happy to be paid twice as much as a permie while not taking any responsibility for what they deliver"

What do mean, not take responsibility? Why do you think freelancers need public liability insurance?

"I binge-listened at the weekend"

I know the weather was bad but that seems like a pretty miserable way to spend a seekend.

Re: The Future

"Telling people how easy it was for you to save just a few months worth of salary for a deposit isn't helpful,"

It wasn't easy. It never has been and I'm sure it never will be. But house prices (and they determine land values, not the other way around) are driven by how much money is available to put into them. Mortgages depend on combined income? Of course. Back in the day it was more common for there to be a single wage-earner; now there are two that means more money to go into the housing market so the prices go up.

Re: The Future

"a freakishly bad mortgage plan"

When I had a mortgage interests rates were much higher than now. It's the low interest rate/cheap money policy that's driving house prices up.

Re: The constant mistake..

House prices are high because interest rates have been determined by cost of living indices that exclude them. The result has been cheap money that's gone into bigger and bigger loans. The credit crunch should have drawn finance ministers' attention to that folly. Did it? No, of course not because cheap money is a vote winner as long as the voters don't connect it with their escalating house prices.

Re: Seriously, how many centuries has this exact debate been going on?

"since 1st industrial revolution, methinks."

Yes, but you do need to look at circumstances. Growth can't go on indefinitely. At some point it becomes unsustainable. It may well be that we've already over-shot.

Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!

"Yet 50% of graduates are doing non graduate level work"

That's largely a feature of Blair's idea that 50% of school-leavers should go to University. Was there any chance that there's be that number of traditional graduate jobs? Of course not. But it massaged youth unemployment figures nicely and, in typical Blair/Brown financing, the costs were postponed by student loans.

Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!

"You've noticed how we are all dead, right?"

Nobody gets out of here alive.

Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!

"Historically the net result is more jobs"

I'm not sure whether that was true of the mechanisation of the textile industry or not. It increased jobs in the N of England and Belfast. I'm pretty sure it must have destroyed a lot of jobs world-wide but I don't know what the balance was; I doubt anyone does.

Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!

"When my father was a boy the family would pass an order to the local shop and it'd get delivered."

In a rural setting when I was a boy a local business (I'm not sure they even had a shop) sent a salesman round to take orders which were delivered by van a couple of days later. A number of businesses were based on simply going round districts with vans - a cousin of my Dad's ran a mobile greengrocery. Once the private car has been hounded out of existence it's a model that can make a come-back.

Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!

Certainly, a mechanised loom might push down the income of a hand-loom weaver, but it creates a whole new industry of skilled loom-makers & repairers. In turn they look for ways to spend their money, and ironically we end up in a situation where people who can will now pay more for hand-made goods than for those made on industrial machines.

In fact the introduction of the power loom lowered the price of woven cloth; cottons in the NW of England, worsted & then woollens in my part of the world and linen in Belfast. The consequence of that was that the size of the market increased and employment in weaving rose.

The question, similar to that raised in the article, is to what extent this displaced employment elsewhere. In England the West of England and East Anglia seem to have suffered (worsted takes its name from and East Anglian village) and there may well have been an impact elsewhere in the world. The ROTW got its revenge, of course, as manufacturing moved abroad from the old UK centres.

Another factor to consider is that there are limits to growth. The regular reports of doom and gloom in the computer and phone markets as replacement cycles grow longer is an indication of that. So although historically there has been a growth of jobs with mechanisation it hasn't necessarily lasted, at least not in its original locations.

Re: How in the hell can you "unwind" a decade old deal?

You can't. But if you're the FTC you might be able to collect a tidy sum in back-dated fines.

Alternatively you could order the businesses to be split in other ways. For instance chop Microsoft into Operating systems, Application and Online businesses.

Re: Grand Jury...

"I fail to see what is bizarre about this concept."

Seeing as you provided a munged link I'm not prepared to follow I can't be sure of the details. But assuming the one-sided, closed door bit is correct - and from reports of other grand jury cases with sealed verdicts & whatnot it appears to be - that, to me, is bizarre.

Wigs or not, a preliminary hearing in open court with the accused able to be represented is the only fit way to do this in a democratic society. That's why we ditched it years ago.

Re: "something more durable – with upgrade paths"

Or you took out the middle one from the chain (filaments in series) and checked continuity to each end so you could then check the faulty half. If both halves checked OK you sat there puzzled until the penny dropped.

"but we expect M$ to keep producing security updates for free, indefinitely"

And why do we expect them to produce security updates? Obvious answer: because they need to. But why do they need to?

At an antiques fair there was somebody selling a Leica Olympic. I made a note of the serial number engraved on it and sure enough it checked out for 1936. But Leica never made an Olympic - Zeiss made a 180mm f2.8 Tessar lens for the Berlin Olymics, not Leica. It turns out some guy in Poland is taking Russian Leica knock-offs and knocking them off a bit more.

My problem is a Leica R4 and several superb Leica lenses. The bar stewards have simply abandoned their old customers. So far I haven't seen any sensible option to allow the use of my old lenses on a new digital camera. The new Leica S digital range can take the old lenses with an adapter - about £250!

Re: bits of your car not working...

"the eight grand for the autopilot software is surely less than the impact of the potential negative publicity"

It's probably even less than what they've spent on PR trying to mitigate the response.

"All the software options stay with the car, not the owner."

Except when they don't.

"NOBODY ... wondered whether that was a sensible idea"

I'm sure a lot of people did. The reality distortion field in a typical large business would have made sure such doubts never got through.

Re: This is why the Shuttle never had a software problem that killed people

"it's a shame the whole damn project isn't covered thusly."

Which is the exact point that Feinman made in the original inquiry.

Re: "re-verifying flight software code"

"Nevertheless, Boeing's management have taken them to the bottom of the Western aerospace league"

US Govt policy is to ensure that wherever Boeing might be on merit any non-US companies will be penalised into a lower place.

Re: Capability Maturity Model ?

"They've streamlined their processes to within a percent of perfect"

Define "perfect".

Re: Capability Maturity Model ?

"starting at the top and working down to the bottom"

Or start at the top and just work down as far as they need to go.

Re: Fake news

"in UK cases there's normally only one expert witness that both prosecution and defence share"

Having spent about 14 years in a job where it was my role to be an expert witness I don't recognise that situation at all. True we were usually called by the prosecution but there were a number of instances where defence experts came in to examine my or my colleagues' work. Sometimes we had to show them how to operate the microscopes & so forth...

Maybe things are different in the civil world but as I read it it doesn't seem to have been the case here.

Re: This one obviously needed a chalk pentagram in the computer room...

Micropolis. There's a name from the past. Not that I was ever aware of using any.