Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Would you ignore the referendum?

"Just wait a few more years for the older generation to move on to the sunlit uplands in the sky then have another referendum."

While I agree with your general point that a referendum is a snapshot in time I do object to the casual ageism and, in particular, the idea that it was the "older generation" as some sort of homogenous group who voted leave. I'm one of that older generation and most certainly did not vote leave.

I doubt very much that rejoining will be that feasible. I remember the long drawn-out process of negotiating membership in the first place and can't believe that, having left, it wouldn't be even more difficult the second time around nor that any deal which could be achieved would be as advantageous as what we had.

It was unbelievably stupid to take a slim majority on an advisory referendum as being a fiat. And AFAIK all those who did so are younger than me.

Re: To pay or not to pay

What if you wrote a library which was disguised malware? You should have liability for that.

Re: Have an upvote

"starts suing anyone he can think of"

That would open him to being declared a vexatious litigant. From Wikipedia "Those on the vexatious litigant list are usually either forbidden from any further legal action or are required to obtain prior permission from a senior judge before taking any legal action."

I was, in effect following your own logic of what happens if you put this into reverse: if someone has multiple cases pending against them from multiple litigants should a court take that into account as possibly indicative that some restraint is needed to avoid the possibility of their incurring still more?

"A slightly better version would be to require the approval of a judge, rather than the plaintiffs"

A likely mechanism would be the judge appointing an administrator responsible to both the court and representatives of the plaintiffs.

Re: "Salary will always be key to any tech job seeker"

Although I retired from freelancing at about the same time as yourself it was being "offered" early retirement from a paid job in my 50s that gave me the opportunity to make the break into freelance. I needed to continue earning something before the rest of the pensions kicked in and the draw of freelancing was the opportunity to continue doing something I was good at rather then being dragged into management which seems to be the expected career move at that age. That and, of course, being "virtually invulnerable to office politics and arsehole bosses".

Re: Elementary, Watson!

"it declares bankruptcy, parachutes out the officers"

If it's a listed company the shareholders might sue the management.

The longer term advantage, however, is that even the most recalcitrant board might start to take notice, realise that it can be a threat and start looking at their own products and processes.

Re: It happens!

The SI might not have been told either.

If you don't have your own record and the other side has, they get to tell the story to their own advantage.

"It does seem kind of early in the hype cycle for this to be dropping off."

Peak AI passed already?

Re: How about direct support absent the middleman.

Would you also apply this to other compensation situations?

Suppose you suffered an injury at work which left the you severely disabled and unable to work for the rest of your life? You might say the company should pay an annual income. But what happens if the company goes out of business? You would still be unable to work but the income would have gone forever.

The purpose of a lump sum is to future-proof the compensation.

Of course, in the example you suggest, it might work as expected until someone finds a health care professional willing to act as a middleman.

Eggs and basket

Ouch!

I suppose a power cut will take out the O2 site so once the POTS system goes you'd have no comms of any sort.

"Centralise distribution and you've reduced the need for someone to go round and replenish supplies."

It probably costs more in that it means a lot more individual trips to & from stores.

Re: So they removed the impossible?

I think a lot of this nonsense originates from ISO9000 and its relatives. It starts with an innocuous statement that all jobs must be done by someone with relevant qualifications and/or experience. (NB this more or less knocks on the head any idea of recruiting the inexperienced and training them up). Then the next draft of the quality manual specifies a period of years. The next one says it must apply to all products in use. The next one says that departments must specify exact versions of products when recruiting.

If the penny ever drops that the quality manual is a millstone, in this and many other respect, it gradually starts being whittled down. Eventually it arrives at a statement that all jobs must be done by someone with relevant qualifications and/or experience. The ISO9000 certification simply becomes a badge saying the organisation wasted a lot of time, effort and money developing what is quite possibly a mediocrity management system - providing they're consistently mediocre everything's OK.

Re: So now the UK is out of the EU...

I think your & the OP's downvotes were a reaction tone of the posts being found offensive by those who voted remain* but are now stuck with the result, those too young to vote but who are now stuck with the result, those who voted leave but now realise they were victims of a con, those who thought it wouldn't have any consequences & wanted to make a protest vote and, with less justification, those who didn't vote because they thought they didn't need to bother voting against something so self-evidently stupid would never get anywhere near a majority.

I'd guess that now amount to more than half of the UK's population.

* In case you've forgotten, that was a whisker under half the votes cast.

Re: Legal stuff

Thanks - adds context.

It still leaves the issues of just how much they had - that weasel word "included" - and whether they needed it all. And whether the drivers knew it had been passed on. We're still not at the stage where data is regarded as toxic: you may need to have some but it's safest to hold as little as possible. And insufficiently guarded is doubly toxic.

Re: Free secure data backups! Now!

I take it you're only suggesting it be free with Windows because Windows users are most in need of backups?

Re: A money saver!

It's probably also produced material for a PhD thesis. Maybe a bit too specialised to write it.

"He (and the rest of the legacy notable blue ticks) were the product"

Musk is probably running the site on that basis. Nobody told him that the product are the rank and file users who are sold to advertisers.

Re: Futile

"It might be a good idea to find out before widely deploying this stuff."

More likely the usual three step procedure will be followed:

Use it blindly, find out the hard way what doesn't work, "it's sooo last year".

"I guess you have what you deserve"

Those whose email addresses were inadvertently negligently shared didn't deserve it.

Re: Ask the dictionary

Growing up in the post-WWII years the typical usage seems to have been anyone involved in the sort of R&D that won the war (excepting, of course BP & the like which we were never told about). As such is was a term of respect. The IoPs problem seems to be that it's neglected to polish its own image.

" If you want to message someone on telegram, use telegram. If you want to message someone on WhatsApp, use that."

And what if you just want to have one ID on one system instead of buying into every service every would-be tech bro sets up

I don't have to have a mobile on every network and a landline from every landline operator because they all inter-operate.

I don't have to have email addresses with multiple MSPs because email inter-operates.

What's proposed here is to try to make messaging work the same way.

Re: It beggers belief...

The problem here is not with what's done and why. It's with the term "crop". If that's what's offered to the user then it's reasonable to expect the user to think that that's what will happen. What's actually happening would be better described as "frame".

LibreOffice Writer acts in the same way and the compress option only affects the image's resolution, not its boundaries.

Re: But I followed the rules...

They can wave it at the press, possibly successfully. Waving it in court is apt to be subject to more rigorous cross-examination.

Re: 35 years and Greed is still Goooood!

That comes later when they discover what the laid-off workers had been doing all these years.