* Posts by Doctor Syntax

32773 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014

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Autonomy's one-time US sales chief can't remember if he took part in grand jury hearing

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Re: British Judges ...

Interesting down vote there. I couldn't, at this distance of time tell you the date or the defendant's name. I could, however, tell you the name of the original judge, the court where the trial was due to have been held, the nature of the premises burgled (OK, I'll give you that - it was a butcher's shop), the nature of the more serious offence, where it happened and that, AFAICR, the trial for that was in No2 Court, Crumlin Rd. Do you know better?

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Re: What the hell

FozzyBear's point is a good one. Justice should not only be done, it should be seen to be done. This pay prosecutors to settle arrangement looks more like justice being seen to be bought even if it's the norm in these cases involving corporations.

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Re: Dear HPE

It was also arguably the world's leading electronic instrument manufacturer way before that. Its subsequent history is a drastic example of what greed for more can do to a well-established, well-regarded blue-chip company.

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Re: Stereotypes

I doubt it will ever get to the entertainment value of Judge Wright's handling of Prenda Law. I rather miss that one now it's finally over.

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Re: British Judges ...

"It's rather rare for anybody to try and change the Judge"

I've seen it attempted in a criminal case by getting an adjournment when the judge was a known hard sentencer. They got the case put off. Whilst on bail for a burglary the lad got mixed up in a far more serious case. I don't know what he got in the end but it would have been a lot more years than if he'd pleaded guilty to the burglary.

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Re: Dear HPE

From previous evidence it didn't appear to have been in a poke, they didn't take time to look at it because they were in such a hurry to buy.

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Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"the whole truth"

Or as much of it as he can remember.

This element of the oath always worried me. As a witness one can only respond to the questions asked. If neither asks for a relevant fact then the fact might not get into the evidence and if a witness were attempt to volunteer it the counsel who the fact doesn't favour might object.

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Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"By claiming forgetfulness he could avoid breaking US law."

The judge might take his memory problems into account when deciding how much weight his evidence carries.

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Re: Picture. Are they auctioning something off?

But the judge is in the UK.

Maybe they used a gavel to give the video-link kit percussive maintenance. But would that have been before or after it went faulty?

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Re: Clarifications on the grand jury system...

The US and Liberia are the only common law jurisdictions to use it. The rest of us have replaced the closed door system with an open court with a judicial figure of some nature in charge (AFAICR it was magistrates in NI). Depending on the case reporting restrictions might be in place but members of the public can see what's happening and defendants not only know about the proceedings but can be represented.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

It's a very interesting comparison between the two legal systems, especially as regards the operation of the grand jury. On this side of the pond we got rid of them some time ago in favour of preliminary hearings, usually, as far as I can remember, in front of a magistrate and in open court. I wonder what impression the US system is making on the judge.

Google puts Chrome on a cookie diet (which just so happens to starve its rivals, cough, cough...)

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"It should not be necessary to close the browser, particularly when the worst offenders are likely to be closed down pretty quickly anyway (say, by having found them through a search, had a quick look to discover it wasn't what you were seeking, and immediately backing out)."

The offenders do include sites I might well have been seeking my local paper's site which has a list of over 100 friends to whom it wants me to allow them to send data (on a totally illegal opt-out basis). Making the exclusion permanent also requires me to allow the paper to set their own permanent cookie.

It's easier to have a standard browser fairly tied down with NoScript etc. that gets used for most of the time including with, say, elReg and another which is just used as needed and then (satisfyingly) blow away whatever the bastards were up to.

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Re: Looking forward to "the Facebook brwoser", "the Amazon browser" and friends

"If you have any information that would make it easier, I'd love to get my hands on it. I don't want to fork it,"

I think the original comment might have been ironical given the existence of PaleMoon, WaterFox and others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Web_browsers_based_on_Firefox

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I've taken to using three browsers none of which are Chrome-based. One of them is configured to delete all history including cookies on closing. That one gets fired up for any site that seems likely to want to make a nuisance of itself and closed down as soon as the site's finished with.

Oracle suspects Pentagon fell for a JEDI Prime trick: Amazon now accused of luring two officials with jobs

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"migrate the entire IT infrastructure of America's military to a single cloud provider"

Is this something to do with eggs and basket?

Zavvi tells customers: You've won VIP tickets to Champions League final! And you've won tickets, and you've won tickets, and you, and...

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Is there anything in their T&Cs that says they can't be held to this?

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Re: O'dear yet another one.

Whoever it was it wasn't very Zavvi of him.

Uber, Lyft rides among the biggest reasons why you're probably sitting in traffic right now – study

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Re: See uber, think shark.

"mass transit systems that work"

Mass transit systems work in the case where the places where you live and work are adjacent to the same route. Anything else and they eat up your life with meandering journeys punctuated by long waits to change bus or train.

You may ask why not move to live near a suitable route? Because multiple household members may need different routes and places to live are often determined by other factors such as children's schools or proximity to other family.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: But are Uber and Lyft the root cause?

"Same with the private commuters - if they had a sensible alternative"

Walking is seldom a sensible alternative and hasn't been for decades or even more for cities.

When I was growing up in an industrial valley in Yorkshire walking was a sensible means of commuting. There were mills within walking distance of houses. For some their nearest mill was even closer than their nearest bus stop and buses were a practical alternative to those choosing to work at a more distant employer. Now those mills have closed and largely been replaced by housing: more people, fewer places to work. The people are now commuting to towns and cities maybe tens of miles away. Not only is walking impractical, so is public transport as a journey is likely to involve several changes of conveyance and very unlikely to go by any reasonable approximation to the direct route.

Those changes happened here in my lifetime. In major cities they happened much earlier. I don't know about the US but for more or less the whole of my lifetime making this mess worse have been planning policy here in the UK. It's not described like that, of course; it's all to do with separating living and working into separate zones to get away from those old images of mill towns where the slums were huddled round the mills. The towns where it was possible to walk to work.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Shouldn't the congestion charge hit Uber and Lyft first?

And black cabs and any other hire cars equally.

Blame Canada! Zuckerberg subpoenaed to face Cambridge Anal. probe from Canucks

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Or Nick.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.

Why, so can I, or so can any man/But will they come, when you do call for them?

Shakespeare

CryptoQueen on the run from Feds, lawsuit after her OneCoin slammed as 'an old-school pyramid scheme on a new-school platform'

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I'm trying to understand Christine Grabils' role in all this.

She's described as an "investor". Is she one of those who lost money and is trying to get it back? If so, why is she trying to turn it into a class action? Whatever money's left, assuming it can be grabbed, will amount to less for her if it's divided more ways, and that after the biggest share has been taken by the lawyers that the feeding frenzy of a class action brings.

Or is she trying to invest into creating that feeding frenzy?

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an initial coin offering that "never really existed, on a blockchain that never really existed, born from mining farms that never really existed."

One of the better ones, then?

Google jumps the shark from search results to your camera: Nest Hub, Pixels, and more from ad giant's coder confab

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Re: make car reservations and buy movie tickets on behalf of users...

"The ticket duly arrived: Naples to London - couldn't even get the right feckking country."

Typical 21st century search engine - return anything rather than return nothing. The '80s did it better.

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Re: I bought my Nest thermostat before Google bought them

"Seems you don't really understand the difference between security and privacy"

One thing I'd want security for is to protect privacy. If a vendor (any of them) goes straight for taking away privacy any security they may put in place against third party threats is somewhat devalued.

Late with your financial paperwork? Here's a handy excuse: Malware smacked your bean-counter cloud offline

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"advising companies running CCH not to freak out just yet."

Will they advise them when it is time to freak out?

Portal to 'HELL' cracks open in street – oh sorry, it's just another pothole

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Re: "The motor was able to clamber out of the Hellgate"

I was wondering about that. If the hole was the road to hell (which is supposed to be broaderr than the average York street) Hellgate is right. If it's a portal then in York terms Hellbar would be better.

Airbnb host thrown in the clink after guest finds hidden camera inside Wi-Fi router

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Re: Some people would argue....

Regulation on providers of services exists to protect customers. Genuine businesses comply with that. Compliance is a cost of doing business. Undercutting by non-compliance puts everyone at risk by driving out genuine businesses who try to offer legitimate low-cost provision.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Big disconnect

"I have never had any bad surprises so far."

How closely have you looked? Not just for nasties like hidden cameras but also to see if fire regulations are met. The latter could provide a surprise you'll not come back to tell us about.

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Re: Some people would argue....

"To be fair to AirBnB I don't think they can be held responsible for people doing this"

Yes, they can be and should be. Whether they can meet that responsibility s another matter. If they can't it should be the end of them. It's as simple as that.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: To be fair to AirBnB I don't think they can be held responsible for people doing this

"Probably because there's no way they can really know. In this example"

The whole problem with their business model is that they're taking money for something for which they should take responsibility which they find difficult to do. Their response to the Irish incident suggests they expected to get away with doing nothing.

It's their problem and we should hold them responsible for solving it. If they can't or won't then their entire business deserves to go down the tubes for being built on an unsustainable model.

Put a stop to these damn robocalls! Dozens of US state attorneys general fire rocket up FCC's ass

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Re: Lots of ideas about controlling ID spoofing

The same thing exists here. It gets ignored. From time to time, as reported here, ICO go after offenders and presumably their fines are increased if listed numbers are being called. Unfortunately the calling companies fold to avoid paying but they're now starting to get directors banned and at some point in the future I'm sure there'll be criminal convictions. I still favour a charge back onto the caller's bill with added charges if the celled number is on such a list. At the very least the problem would be contained by the telcos' credit departments.

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Re: Fines?

Switch to a system where it doesn't matter where the provider is.

Assign a short code. In the UK we have 1470 to mask one's own CLI and 1471 to give the number of the last incoming call. AFAIK the remaining 147n range is unused. Assign a number to one of them*. Dial that after a call and it's registered as probably problematic**. If the telecoms company recognises the source as problematic (and don't forget they do know where the call came from because they use it to bill the caller) then they credit the callee with a fee for receiving the call and add the fee and a handling charge to the bill. If the call originated with another telecoms company, even an overseas one, they bill that company. That company can pass the bill on with another handling charge added. Double (or more) the fee if the number called is on a do not call list.

In theory the victims get paid with credits against their phone bill and it's cost neutral at worst for the telecoms companies because their handling charge at least covers the costs unless the callers default. Defaults would be the equivalent of folding to avoid the fines. The telecoms companies have credit controllers so defaults will be limited. A telecoms company which doesn't keep proper track of the calls gets handed the bill and will change its ways PDQ or go out of business.

In practice, of course, this would kill the whole thing stone dead as the costs to the robocallers would go through the roof. The telecoms companies will realise this and know that if they're obliged to prepare for it they'll never get enough handling charges to cover their up-front costs. So proposing to enforce this will incentivise them to clamp down on the problem before the proposal gets taken any further. Once they're incentivised I'm quite sure they'd be very effective. On the principle that there should only be once chance to self-regulate any subsequent slackening off and the whole thing goes ahead.

* Vary for whatever numbering system works in your area.

** There's a risk of fraud if some toerag were to try responding to legitimate calls so the telecoms companies would need to gather a few reports from different people before actioning them.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Feral Pay Masters

"But what happens when the call comes from a hospital whose number you don't recognize...about your mum"

A bit more immediate than that - the local hospital ringing with your appointment time.

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Re: Feral Pay Masters

"The one paying to have the phone call made are ignoring the fact that is has a contrary effect on the way their products are percieved and the company selling the phone call will certainly not reveal that fact."

You have just described the entire advertising industry and the marketing departments that pay them.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"a bipartisan bill proposed last year that gives regulators more powers to go after robocallers."

Clearly "gives powers" is the wrong approach. "Obliges" seems to be what's needed.

The Year Of Linux On The Desktop – at last! Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 brings the Linux kernel into Windows

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Re: Question

"if...Microsoft provides (or offers to provide on demand) the full sources for the kernel version in question, including any customizations they may have made."

That's a bit of a question. The article says We're told people will eventually be given instructions and code on GitHub to roll their own WSL 2 kernels, if the supplied 4.19 one doesn't float your boat. but what does 'eventually' mean? Does it mean when they ship it (and the article says they're shipping it on the Insider programme already) or at some indeterminate time in the future?

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Re: But why?

"IT bureaucracies that seek to have someone else to blame when things go bad"

Having someone to blame isn't the same as having someone to fix it. Either the bureaucracy does that itself or, given that it would be too much like hard work, outsources it. They're unlikely to outsource it to Microsoft but to a third party. The stupid thing is, of course, that the Windows supporting third party can't really go beyond what their latest MS certification course taught them whilst the FOSS-supporting third party can actually look at the source code. It ways more about the stupidity of large bureaucracies with more interest in off-loading blame than in supporting their employers.

"There is also constant pressure to make the software available on Windows... perhaps because it would allow the software to be used in university teaching labs"

What an indictment of University teaching labs.

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Re: But why?

"everyone here who has relatives running Linux keeps a good eye on them and is ready to sort out issues."

People here who have relatives running Linux have them doing so because it's a damn sight easier keeping an eye on them doing that than when they were running Windows.

Please get that into your head: the Linux option is easier.

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Re: Hmm..

I could visualise a switch where the legacy windows applications run under a real Windows Subsystem for Linux, i.e. a Linux kernel with a Windows compatibility layer and, of course, a proprietary UI. But although there would be a legacy support its real purpose would be as a client to all the Microsoft services. Not making people ponder whether they still need Azure etc but making sure they do need it all.

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Re: Hmm..

...HP or ....

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Re: Hmm..

Hubris, mere hubris.

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Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

"The reason I and people like me use Linux is not about money, it's about control"

In my case it's because it runs a Unix-like user land. I really don't see the need to carry a Windows overburden to do that.

I do remember that in the old days Microsoft actually had their own Unix port, Xenix, and at the time it was fine. There was no indication of Microsoft wanting to apply EEE. Possibly it was a matter of them wanting their own server OS at a time when Netware dominated the X86 server world. When it no longer suited them they turned it over to their major distributor, SCO. Inititally the SCO product was also fine. There was even a specialist market in PC boards to facilitate various aspects of running SCO such as multiple serial port boards for character terminals. It was much later when that went to pot.

Often the case with big corporations is that the corporation itself isn't necessarily bad, it's the fact that they can change top management and be taken in totally different directions.

Marvell's Avengers, er, Aquantia Endgame: Biz gobbled up for $452m in robo-ride Ethernet bid

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"a server and software combo designed to give self-driving cars a virtual world where they can play without harming any of those squishy humans."

And where nothing unexpected can happen. What could possibly go wrong?

Blockchain is a lot like teen sex: Everybody talks about it, no one has a clue how to do it

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Re: Highly poisonable well

Also, don't use it to store PII that might be the target of the data-subject's erasure request.

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"of the supply chain projects that got past sign-off, most remain in the pilot phase."

That sounds like praising with faint damns.

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followed by the "Slope of Enlightenment", ending at the "Plateau of Productivity".

Or not as the case may be.

IT bod who does a bit of everything: You might want to specialise if that pay rise proves elusive

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I can't help feeling that there's always going to be an advantage in being someone who knows several areas in detail rather than overspecialising. On the one hand you have value in being possibly the only one able to connect several of those silos to work together when they they need to and on the other you're not stranded when one of the areas goes out of fashion. OTOH you do have the advantage over someone who has sketchy knowledge of everything.

Be wary of emails with links to ... er, Google Drive? Is that right?

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Re: Standard practice

"HR also regularly sends out announcements by sharing a link to Google Docs."

HR and marketing - the weakest points in any organisation*. They'll only send out this crap indistinguishable from phishing if they don't know what's wrong with them and if they don't know what's wrong with them they'll have know inhibitions in falling for incoming.

* Apart from senior management, of course.

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