Posts by Doctor Syntax 33139 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"After tomorrow, we can sign what we like with anyone."
We can only sign what we agree with others. Reaching agreement depends on things like what the other side wants and doesn't want and the relative strengths of the two sides' negotiating position. And the capabilities of the negotiators. And the speed at which you want to sign it.
If you think we can automatically get what we like from anyone you've been seriously mislead. And it sounds as if you have.
"I am still at a loss to understand how a trade agreement negotiated up to the 11th hour can then be magically implemented as a new customs system in few minutes ready for the first of January."
That's no problem, HMG has cornered the market in unicorns and pixie-dust. But just think of all the businesses who'll have to cope with magicked-up customers system with no warning. Think especially of those in NI when Boris's reality distortion field finally breaks down.
There's one area of UI that really needs work.
Hands up all those with users (of any client) storing their read mail in Trash/Deleted.
Hands up those with users - or themselves - storing read mail in the Inbox thumbs up icon is the nearest for myself).
Inbox should be for incoming, unread mail only. Trash is for stuff that's going to be deleted (end of day, over a certain age, over a certain byte limit - whatever). If you want to keep something about while you mull over it a Pending tray would be appropriate. For everything else we need a filing system that's a good deal better than the existing archive/filter system.
For instance instead of just using threading for display of linked emails in the same folder, make a folder for them.
- Automatically link sent and received emails that belong together instead of leaving sent in their own folder where they don't even get threaded with received emails for display.
- Automatically put mails to/from particular individuals, domains or addresses grouped in the address book into appropriate folders.
- Do that when the user moves onto a new mail in the Inbox if they didn't delete or pend the old one and do it with sent emails.
The papered office has known about manual filing for decades if not centuries; the paperless office (sic) should be able to automate it. Done well it might even be able to organise me.
The next step might be to extend that filing system for emails into a fully-fledged document management system covering emails and other documents.* If not done within the email client provide hooks for an external manager.
Yes, it might come as a shock so, as with any UI change, make it optional, at least for a long time, and don't default to it in the first releases.
* Remember that at least some of the documents relating to a topic will arrive as attachments, others won't but they need to be managed together.
"Any email client that doesn't block remote images by default is not your friend."
Unless you're the sort of control-freak designer who thinks they should be able to control to the last detail what the recipient should see. I've even had the text of the email sent as an image - wrote back and pointed out that that wasn't friendly to those with poor eye-sight and depended on a screen reader and that, in turn, was contrary to their policies.
From the article: Things like software updates and security patches can be mandated as auditable, with source code disclosure and local recompilation made part of the cost of doing business. "No binary blobs" shall be, if not the whole of the law, certainly one of its commandments.
I see. That would be the US that totally didn't slip spyware into Cisco boxes being shipped abroad.
Let's be clear about this:
1. The US has form for shipping spyware.
2. Huawei have been obliged to have their code audited by GCHQ with a secure site being set up specifically for this purpose.
3. The audit complained about code quality but didn't find any evidence of what the US is claiming.
4. This is a trade dispute dressed up as security issue by a particularly aggressive POTUS.
5. Our rhetoric towards the US is dependent on its actions towards the rest of the world. If you think this is currently anti-US you should reflect on why and on the extent of making good his successor will be faced with.
The Domesday survey was essentially a survey for tax purposes. The term used was "geld" but no longer paying off Danes. e.g., from Scafe's translation of Yorkshire Domesday: " In Tatecastre (Tadcaster), Dunstan and Turchil had eight carucates of land for geld, where four ploughs may be."
Yes it was a poetic expression of an idea. But historically collection of geld by government long outlasted the original purpose.
As one of the old crusties with children and grandchildren to think about I hope to live to see that rejoining. However, as an alternative they all have their Irish passports and hence EU citizenship on account of said children having been born in NI.
In the meantime, stuff your ageism where the sun don't shine.
"Presumably both parties make/save more money this way or the practice would have died out by now."
No, it only requires the party of the 2nd part, the analytics people, i.e. people in the advertising industry, to persuade the party of the first part, the advertisers, that they're saving money. In fact, of course, they're paying for the analytics instead.
On the assumption that this is on the level and not ironic, let's look at a situation which is a little more clear cut, in the physical world.
The other day, along with the usual payload of bills the post included unaddressed leaflets for some junk or other I'll never want. Yesterday it included the Radio Times for SWMBO and out of that fell several leaflets for junk we'd never want.
There's only one way to describe this: litter.
And litter is a form of pollution.
What possible justification is there for an economic system that depends, or claims to depend on producing pollution? That's pollution as a deliberate product, not as a by-product of something else.
"Laws only provide a penalty phase, not actual prevention of someone doing something wrong. Putting product security into the realm of product liability for damages would be an incentive to improve."
Liability for damages would still be law, just civil rather than legal.
The legislation is only the means which enables the penalty which is the deterrent (or incentive to improve if you prefer).
I'm not sure that targeting a distant manufacturer is the best way to go about it. Make it an offence to offer the stuff for sale, that's more likely to make at least some vendors amenable. OTOH the only effect would be to make stuff available in the UK only through Trotters Independent Trading. There's no chance of manufacturers producing a new, improved line for the UK market. This is the sort of thing that could be done effectively via the EU where the market size would be more worth-while. How good of the MoF to underline why leaving is a mistake before we've even done it.
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