* Posts by LucreLout

3039 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jun 2014

Nervous Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg passes Turing Test in Congress

LucreLout

Re: All you need to know is...

Never had a FB account nor any other social media site apart from LinkedIn but deleted that after a year.

And yet, somehow, I would expect Farcebook to know so very much more about you than you'd ever be comfortable with. Let he who is without idiot friends or relatives cast the first downvote.

I've never had a FB account, but I'd be they know more information about me than all but my closest friends. Roll on GDPR day, so we can begin the fight back. Once the ICO refuses to use their powers to lever penalties, the push to change the law and allow the courts to impose said penalty can begin.

LucreLout

Re: Sen Dick Durbin To Zuk "Are you comfortable....on that BIG cushion, short-arse?"

If you're in the UK, have you considered investing a tenner and making a subject access request to the company?

Please be patient and wait for GDPR day before doing this. Right now the ICO will do nothing, literally, other than ping them an email slapping their wrist. On GDPR day we can bury these clowns if only everyone in the EU could get their act together and file the same request on the same day.

Airbus plans beds in passenger plane cargo holds

LucreLout

Re: Glossing a commercial turd

I really don't need a high ceiling and a window if I'm asleep.

I'm not sure how much sleep will be had in them - those beds are likely to see more action than Helmand province.

The notion of what has happened where you lie, potentially just an hour previously, and the boises while it happens from a bunk across the isle will, for some, prevent any pleasant sleep that may have been had.

Fear the Reaper: Man hospitalised after eating red hot chilli pepper

LucreLout

Re: Ghost Peppers

so "1.5 million" or "2 million" in modern terms does not really mean a lot.

... it means I'll be needing an extra soft toilet roll, preferably chilled.

I love hot food, but some of the later generations of sauces and chillis seem to be more about pain than flavour.

Mind the gap: Men paid 18.6% more than women in Blighty tech sector

LucreLout

Re: Communist nonsense.

Feel free to reward all the workers that strive for more with more, is it too much to ask that society is fair?

Whoever told you life was going to be fair? It isn't.

Some good people die young, some evil people live to a grand old age.

Bad stuff happens to good people, while rapists win the lottery.

Some people are confined to a wheel chair, while others sit in front of the TV the whole of theirs by choice.

The sooner we dispense with this horrendous notion of "fair" the better. What does fair even mean to you anyway?

Is it fair that just 10% of people pay 70% of income taxes? [1] I don't think that is very fair; everyone uses the services it pays for so should shoulder the burden equally. That would be fair.

Is it fair that some people are born pretty while some look like the back end of a donkey? Clearly they will experience different life chances, if only in terms of getting laid. Would you equalise that by assigning the pretty someone unfortunate looking that they have to bed once a month?

Is it fair that some people are born smarter than others? Do we equalize that by making the smart remain drunk such that their ability to reason becomes comparable?

I've no idea what you consider fair to be, and certainly can't even begin to see why you feel your definition of fair should be used above all others, or that life should be in any way fair. It isn't. And it isn't going to be. Get over it and play the hand you're dealt.

1 - https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

LucreLout

Another point, what happens when all those jobs are automated? What do you think will happen? They won't have a choice but to gain skills then who joins the race to the bottom?

Sorry AC, but you seem to have fallen for the lump of labour fallacy. Google it and get reading.

People in automated roles are freed up to do other roles (you've noticed we need immigrants, right). They might be forced to upskill, which is never a bad thing. Those who could skill up but refuse and throw themselves on the scrap heap deserve not our pity but out robust condemnation. Those who cannot skill up deserve our help.

Sorry, but f***ing about at school all day instead of studying comes with a price - often a life long price. If society have sugar coated that message so much it is failing to get through, then we simply need to tax some of that sugar.

LucreLout
Thumb Up

Re: Sooo...

@AC

You missed an important component of the pay equation - performance.

Yes, I did miss that. Good point, well made.

LucreLout

The people at the bottom (cleaners/fast food workers) get very low pay yet we as a society argue they should try or work harder and work their way up however someone ultimately has to do those jobs so really we are saying it's ok not to pay people a wage they can live off so those at the top can get more money.

I'm not clear on what evidence you've drawn such a conclusion.

Lots of the jobs at the bottom are getting automated (the McScreens, for instance). Society values academic qualifications, hard work, hours worked, and value adds. Those who bring less of those will typically hold a lower paying role, while those who bring more of them will typically hold a higher paying role. Obviously there are some large variations within that and probably a great many exceptions.

Roles requiring fewer skills and where experience is of little value (flipping burgers requires very little training or experience to get right at full commercial speed) will be unlikely to climb the comparative pay scale. Those where experience brings added value, and that require perpetual training or education will climb the payscale (IT, doctor etc).

I can increase my intelligence through education, and I can increase my strength via the gym, but I can't make myself look like a supermodel. It's one of the reasons pretty pays. Things that are harder to achieve accrue greater incomes - they always have and they always will. Why would it be any different?

LucreLout

Re: why not....

No company I have ever worked for has had a published grading system. I would like to see all pay rates published, as at the moment the employer knows what everyone is paid but no-one else does. I believe that's the way they do it in some Scandinavian countries.

I wouldn't like to see it. My pay is my business, not my colleagues.

Knowing that I earn more than most of my colleagues won't enhance their lives, but will lead to jealousy and inevitable shrieking for my salary - I've seen it happen once before when an outgoing boss got drunk and dropped a bombshell at his leaving drinks. In another 5 or 10 years, when they have the same exprience I have now, they'll be earning what I earn, maybe more, and they'll understand the reasons for it, but not today. Not today.

LucreLout

Re: Sooo...

If you are 40 years old and have worked for ten years you will yes will have lower pay than somebody 40 years old who has worked for 20 years doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same job, regardless of why you have have worked less. Just as if you work 10-3 you will yes get paid less than somebody who works doing exactly the same 9-5. And as one of the touted "solutions" is "more work flexibility", then that will just excaberate the pay gap. If you take more and more advantange of flexible working to work less and less hours you WILL end up with a pay gap between yourself and somebody who does not take advantage of flexible working to work less.

Totally agree - I'd just add that there's more to flexible working than number of hours worked - I get to WFH up to one day a week (mine tend to bunch up a little so I'm in the office all week most weeks), and I get to move my start and finish time about around some core hours.

LucreLout
Thumb Up

Re: Sooo...

I'd give up work too and look after the kids if my other half earn't enough to cover the my loss of salary.

That'd be living the dream! I love the days I get to work from home because my wife has a training course or some such, and I get to spend the extra time with my kids.

LucreLout

Re: Sooo...

Really? You saddo White-Knight Syndrome suffers should be ashamed of yourselves.

Snorlax and I disagree on almost everything and we plainly don't get on, but characterising him/her as white knighting seems excessive. I don't think anyone realistically expects there not to be a maternity gap - it influences experience, which is primarily what employers pay for.

Snorlax objection to some of the language used seems fair to me. Yes there are female cleaners, most of them I'd agree, and most CEOs are old men, but in the context of the whole thread, some of the language used isn't reasonable and must be off-putting to women reading it.

And no, you don't need to worry about me trying to get with any feminists - I'm happily married and too smart to fool around, but I'd not be happy to have my wife or daughter described as having a jihad against men. In fact, I'd be unhappy enough to insist upon an apology.

LucreLout

Re: Sooo...

The other problem is that quite a few are throwing up this straw (wo)man argument that "well of course cleaners should be paid less that CEOs" or "pilots should earn more than stewardesses". That's nonsense, and not what the equal pay argument is about.

I agree, that is not what equal pay is about, but quite obviously it is responsible for some of the staistical distortions leading to Ryan Air having the largest gender pay gap, for instance. It is relevant to the thread.

A woman pilot of 20 years standing should always expect to earn the same pay as a male pilot of 20 years standing working the same hours for the same employer. A woman pilot of 10 years standing should no more expect to earn the same as a male pilot of 20 years standing as should a male pilot of 10 years standing expect to earn the same as a female pilot of 20 years standing. Experience counts, and ultimately is much of what employers pay for.

If you're, say, a software developer doing the same work/same hours as your colleague in the next cubicle (who happens to have ovaries or any of the other recognised grounds for discrimination) you should both earn the same pay. End of.

Only if you have the same qualifications and years of experience. Employers pay for these things and they always have - its nothing to do with gender. Equalise those facotrs and yes, both people should earn the same.

As an example, I have the same role as a number of my male colleagues, and we do substantially the same work, but because I have an extra decade of experience than they do, I get paid more. Quite a bit more in some cases. Such discrepancies are expected to arise within a gender and should be expected to equally hold water across genders.

LucreLout
Pint

Re: Oh please

Can you guys get Tim Worstall back please.

This ^^^^ in spades.

The Reg has been getting progressively more emotive, less analytical, and betraying a line of artciles that elevates emotion over reason ever since he left. Stop the rot!

LucreLout

Re: Sooo...

It's not hard to see how women are treated as second class citizens, if the thinking shown here is typical in industry...

In a very rare alignment of the planets, I think we largely agree on this. The language used in some of the posts is regrettable, unreasonable, and unhelpful.

The point a lot of the posters are making with their poor use of language, however, has greater validity than their choice of words used to express it.

LucreLout

Can women in the tech industry now march into their boss' office and demand an 18.6% pay rise? Not really since even though the median pay may be lower that doesn't mean that one employee's is.

Unlikely since the median experience level will be a LOT lower. My undergrad degree in the 90s had about 1-1.5% women on the course. I've only ever worked with two developers my age that were women. Being in the same role does not add the same value - experience makes a huge difference and is ultimately what the employer pays for.

My masters I did earlier this decade was still overwhelmingly male students, but had 10 times the rate of women than my undergrad course. Salaries shouldn't expect to be aligned until a generation of workers has gone through school, college, uni, and the workforce with a 50:50 split. Its mathematically impossible unless you pay women more than men just for being women.

I'm not suggesting women should be paid less, but the average male dev in my company has a lot more experience than the average female dev. Same role, different genders, and pay distortions that only exist if you ignore the number of years worked: the male devs with 5 years experience earn the same as the female devs with 5 years experience. The male devs with 25 years experience earn rather more than the male & female devs with 5 years experience.

Amazon and eBay agree to expose potential VAT evaders for UK tax man

LucreLout

Tax free earnings are explicitly specified part of tax law.

All avoidance is part of the tax law. You can never legally evade taxes nor illegally avoid them. The difference IS important, even if you wish it weren't.

As for those two words they have the same meaning as far as normal people are concerned.

Ignorant people may feel that they have the same meaning, but they don't. And there's nothing normal about lauding emotion over reason. Most animals display more emotion than reason - that is what seperates us from them. Why the very law you herald is designed to weigh reason over emotion.

LucreLout

Hurrah for knowledge with a dash of arrogance.

Well, that puts me only slightly ahead of you then, with your dash of knowledge in a soup of ignorance.

You're entitled to your opinion, founded as it is in emotion rather than reason, but you evidently still do not understand the difference between avoidance and evasion. You're desperate to conflate the two when no venn overlap is possible.

LucreLout

you're making laughably unfair comparisons. £2k tax free earnings so that the poorest paid can attempt to afford to survive

Quck quack oops. Its nothing to do with the poorest paid - you have to be earning over £100k before the tax free earning threshold begins to get withdrawn. I'm sorry that in this clash of facts vs your emotions it is your emotions that have lost. I feel bad for you son.

a multi billion profit making company that pays millions to tax avoiding (evading, you say tomato I say legally evading) experts to hide

You can't legally evade tax. You can legally avoid tax or illegally evade it. Avoidance is ALWAYS legal, evasion is always illegal. Again, apologies for treading all over your emotions with these simple facts.

transfer to make believe shell companies in havens such as those that the UK in particular allow to exist that are only available to to the super wealthy companies / individuals

There's nothing make believe about offshore legal entities and they aren't necessarily shell companies. You know there's a difference? Probably you don't.

You don't need to be super wealthy as an individual or company to use offshore vehicles to reduce taxes - my local coffee shop does it.

Certainly immoral to me.

Well, so far you've demonstrated absolutely no understanding of how tax law works or what is actually happening, so I'm hardly suprised you're morally outraged - the confused often are.

Lastly, whether you're happy with the fact that said author never worked for HMRC, PwC or Deloitte and thus should never make any comment on anything related to tax then that's your personal limitation I would say.

I never said the author shouldn't comment becuse they haven't worked for HMRC or PwC. I said the author shouldn't comment until they know the difference between evasion and avoidance - it literally is the first thing you learn about tax.

Why are you discussing it? Or are you in fact an expert in taxation??

Actually, I am - in all my years posting on El Reg I've only once come across a poster whose subject knowledge might rival my own. As I've mentioned in many similar threads, I worked in the tax arbitrage industry and have a very thorough understanding of how it works, and why. You may not like that, you may not like that such an industry exists. Fortunately your emotions don't influence the facts, though the facts certainly should be influencing your emotions more than they are.

LucreLout

"The taxes haven't been avoided, or even evaded. They just haven't been paid." - Vetinari.

I'm not wholly sold on the idea of having favoured literary authors setting tax law, or indeed any other laws. After all, everyone has different favourite authors.

Anyone that thinks avoidance and evasion are the same thing should feel free to send the Chancellor a payment of about £2k to make up for their own "avoision" in using their tax free earnings allowance. Anyone who doesn't send payment fundamentally agrees with me when it comes to their own money.

So, hands up all those sending cheques? Yeah, me neither.

LucreLout

Re: El Reg couldn't possibly comment????

"And nothing inherently immoral." - have to pull you up on this one, lots of us think it's immoral.

Yeah, thats why I used the wording I did rather than "absoloutely nothing immoral", which is my own view. People have different moral frameworks.

I avoid tax be defering some using a pension, using an ISA for my savings, and exercising my tax free allowance on my salary. For some people, that will be immoral - savings being viewed as surplus income, for others it'll be fine.

As long as companies obey the law, all we need are less incompetent legislators. Absent that, I'm afraid we're all just screaming into the void.

LucreLout
Mushroom

El Reg couldn't possibly comment????

El Reg bloody well shouldn't comment until it can comprehend the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Amazon and eBay agree to expose potential VAT evaders for UK tax man

Voluntary agreement gets green light – irony klaxon sounded

Amazon aggressively avoids taxes. Yes it does. There is nothing illegal at all in that. And nothing inherently immoral. VAT evaders, the key to the term is the second word in it, are evading tax, which is both illegal and inherently immoral.

Please can someone in Reg Towers at least try to get the basics right before hitting "approve" on this crap? Its bad enough when the Guardian does it, and also doubly funny given their own highly proactive tax avoidance in the past (trusts, offshore business dealings such as Autotrader etc etc).

Don't want to alarm you, but defence bods think North Korea could nuke UK 'within a few years'

LucreLout

Re: Christ almighty...

After 8000'ish years of civilisation building, can't we all just "down weapons" and start to get along with each other for a change :-(

I dearly wish we could.

Unfortunately, people are fundamentally competetive rather than fundamentally cooperative. Its one of the reasons capitalism works and socialism doesn't. In fact, its the main reason and its the main difference between the two ideas.

LucreLout

The Russians at the UN just said this,

"We all know what the worth of British intelligence information is based on the experience of Tony Blair."

Once you lie it's difficult to get anyone to believe you.

Quite. I often wonder if I'm the only former labour voter who can remember and appreciate the scale of damage that idiot did to our country, our reputation, and our future. And I wonder if there will ever be an end to it.

I don't believe Blair was a war criminal based on the evidence provided to date, but I do believe he has questions to answer and that the correct procedure and location for those questions to be asked & answered is in a trial, at The Hague.

For a man I once held in such high regard, respected, and trusted to have fallen so far in my estimation is unprecedented. I may be the only ex-labour voter with a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for news of his passing, but when the day comes, his legacy will be one of death and destruction and nought more.

LucreLout

Re: @ wolfetone

Well said. And yet when a legitimate crisis comes up the chances of people taking it seriously because of the 'cry wolf' factor will be very low.

Absolutely. Tony Blair is responsible for the deaths of how many millions of civilians? And to achieve what? After the dodgy dossier, there is nothing Labour could ever say to me that I could ever believe. A sad state of affairs given I helped vote them into power. Its akin to the BBC and Jimmy Savile. The idea that there weren't hundreds or thousands of people within the organisation that knew of the scandal before the public discovered it is laughable.

No other political party has used my vote to lie to the extent that millions of people died. They are all devious lying shysters, but the impact of some lies are just to big to ever be forgiven.

Taking responsibility for my part in electing the government that started those questionable wars means I can't simply forgive & forget because they ask me to or plead that they have changed. I can't trust them not to start another war, and yet ironically, I certainly couldn't trust them to start one when it was actually needed.

I'm disapointed with our politicians. They are scum. All of them. Across the political spectrum they threw away the respect we once had for their position for a few sheckles, and they want us to trust them again? Really? Why?

An easy-breezy attitude to sharing personal data is the only thing keeping the app economy alive

LucreLout

Re: And that's exactly why...

I don't do Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat and App bullcrap !

It's all about slurping people's data...

Sorry, but my privacy is worth a lot more to me than that !

Mine too, but the problem is ots and lots of people know things about me that they store in the contacts section of their phone, which they then allow all and sundry to slurp data from. I have no control.

My plan to fight back is to wait for the GDPR and then write to the largest slurpers insisting that they delete everything they know about me, whoever they obtained the data from. They'll argue against it, which will make an interesting test case, which I expect them to lose.

What we really need is an amendment to the GDPR such that they can only obtain data from a user about that user - no more grabbing their contacts.

Bot-ched security: Chat system hacked to slurp hundreds of thousands of Delta Air Lines, Sears customers' bank cards

LucreLout

Re: All code is written by offshore idiots to the lowest price

code is written by offshore idiots to the lowest price

Sad but true AC, sad but true.

Code automates process. Process is work. You're paying once to have something you can run for years. Its supposed to be expensive - being a code coder rather than thinking you're a good coder takes decades and a lot of study.

I know a lot of millenials will disagree with the idea that the benefits of experience take time to accrue, but I also know that in time they'll agree with me. And why. Offshore body shops are the very antithesis of good code. In over 20 years professional experience I have never once seen good offshore code.

LucreLout
FAIL

"While we believe we have identified with some precision the transactions that could have been impacted, we cannot say definitively whether any of our customers’ information was actually accessed or subsequently compromised," Delta said.

Yeah, see, Delta would like me to interpret that as saying "probably none of our customers were affected", where as I interpret it as being "We've lost the lot - if you've ever flown with us then we've spaffed your data over the internet for all to see".

Facebook can’t count, says Cambridge Analytica

LucreLout

Also does anyone have any suggestions about who's the bestest politician to vote for?

A dead one. It's the only way to be sure they've stopped lying.

I say, I say, I say: What's the difference between a king penguin and liquid?

LucreLout

I say, I say, I say: What's the difference between a king penguin and liquid?

A blender?

As Zuck apologizes again... Facebook admits 'most' of its 2bn+ users may have had public profiles slurped by bots

LucreLout
Mushroom

Remember

GDPR day is send Farcebook delete me instruction day, whether or not you have an account.

If everyone in the EU could be persuaded to file the same request on the same day, the impossibility of compliance (which provides no defence in the act) would see the company fined half of its revenue for the year.

I'll certainly be demanding they delete any data about me that they've obtained from over sharing friends. I've never had an account so they've never needed any data about me at all, nor have they ever had my permission to have it.

Furious gunwoman opens fire at YouTube HQ, three people shot

LucreLout

Re: Of all places

Nope: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-third-murders/

Interesting link, so thanks for posting it.

I'm genuinely suprised to find the murder rate in the USA only ranks it as 110th highest in the world. Perhaps then, it doesn't have the problem its perceived as having, as its in the bottom half of the world for murder rate, yet has one of the highest rates of gun ownership.

LucreLout

Re: Of all places

explosives? Knives? Acid? Automobiles? Semi-trucks?

Probably they should all be outlawed.

Great - next time I go camping I'll just use knitted yoghurt or tofu to split wood, cut cord, or any of the other 100 uses my rather large knife has. The one use it doesn't have is jamming into someone elses guts 'cos dey dissed me yeh. FFS.

LucreLout

Re: Of all places

There is in fact lots of evidence that tough gun laws do stop this stuff.

And there's lots of other evidence that they don't.

Places like Switzerland manage a very low gun crime rate coupled with very high levels of gun ownership [1].

London has, on limited metrics, overtaken New York for murders, despite very low levels of gun ownership in London and comparatively high levels in New York. Yes, the metric used is selective, but the numbers are at the least comparable. [2]

America has about 33k road traffic fatalities per year [3] and about 9k gun related homicides [4]. Only 6% of those homicides were by legally held firearms. [5]

Thus it is far from clear that in America guns are a significant problem and that legally held firearms are not the real problem. Tightening gun laws does literally nothing about the 94% of murders committed with an illegally held firearm. Nothing at all.

This won't be a popular post, but lots of people don't like facts treading all over their emotions. Go read the citations - you're entitled to your own views but not your own facts.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Switzerland#Firearm-related_deaths

2 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43628494

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year

4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States

5 - https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-gun-homicides-in-the-US-are-committed-using-legally-owned-firearms

Tech’s big lie: Relations between capital and labor don't matter

LucreLout

Potentially the most clueless article El Reg has ever published

The workers affected find themselves completely unable to stop the predations of their employers because they too committed an act of willful stupidity, believing that they’d never need the protections of a union.

You seem confused about what unions are, how they work, and what they do.

The biggest lie the tech devil ever told was that the tech sector was somehow different from and better than the old, nasty industrial economy with its divisions between capital and labor - and its need for strong unions to hold the line against the depredation of capital.

Do you really not see the difference?

Lets say I work for the local steel works, port, mine, or ship yard. Its entirely possible that for my skillset my current employer is the only game in town - there's nowhere else I can work without a move to another city.

In tech, that is not now and never will bee the case. If I go onto my current employers roof I can probably pee on more companies than I have time to work for. Yes, an individual employer may treat me badly, but I can just leave and find a better one. Which is exactly what I did when it happened.

Tech workers believed themselves to be better - both better suited to the historical moment, and simply better people - than their industrial forebears, an act of arrogance that finally cost them everything that should have been theirs the final victory laps of their careers.

Sorry but that is just rubbish. I'm no better or worse as a person or employee than my local butcher baker, or candlestick maker. Not only does the world view you imagine not really exist, but it hasn't done that damage you think it has.

I'm in the right age group for ageism to hit. And it does. But that just means I get tech tested far harder than the kids. The good news is I've had more practice at that than the kids have had hot sex, so passing is rarely an issue.

But the way capitalism works hasn’t changed much in a hundred years: people are disposable in capitalism, unless the people say otherwise.

Not half as disposable as they are under socialism or communism! Killing fields, purges etc don't happen in capitalism: they're bad for business.

accepting that they are just workers, and need the protections of unionisation.

Yes, we are just workers, and no, we don't need a union - just like the great majority of the worlds work force.

In the end, both sides will benefit. But never, ever forget that there are two sides - or where your loyalties lie.

And here we get to the root of the problem, which neatly explains your half baked world view.

My current employer and I come together for a period of time - maybe a few years, maybe a lot of years, to achieve mutally beneficial goals. When either of us decides those goals are sufficiently met that the relationship need not continue, then it doesn't.

It's not me vs my employer, its me & my current employer vs the competition, for now. Collaboration trumps adversarialism every time.

I'm in my mid 40s and have already amassed enough wealth that I could feasibly never work again (changes to private pension retirement age aside). There isn't a single unionised industry or employer where I could have achieved that. Maybe if I'd been a doctor, sure, but I didn't get the grades for medical school, and anyway tech has served me very well.

Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is understandable, workable, and potentially beneficial for all participants rather than just the handful in the union.

The reason capital trumps labour is simply that labour is so easy to find in most of the world - almost anyone can provide some form of labour, and much labour can be automated if the need arises, but not everyone can provide large quanities of capital that make many industries work. I can't, for instance, afford my own steelworks. I can afford my own software company if the need arises, or simply find any one of the millions plus employers I passed on my way into work.

Brit Lords start peer-to-peer wrangling over regulating the internet

LucreLout

Re: Do they all think they can command the tide?

If you read beyond the headline, they're not prejudging that question. Rather they appear to be asking sensible questions, not least that of whether and in what sense the 'net can be regulated. It might even be worth submitting comments, if you can get past the kneejerk reaction.

In that case may I humbly suggest that they begin witht he question "Why do we want to regulate the internet?" and very quickly follow that up with answers to the question "What are our preferred outcomes in terms of any regulation we're seeking to apply?"

It might help frame the debate rather than having the usual trench warfare.

Are you able to read this headline? Then you're not Julian Assange. His broadband is unplugged

LucreLout

Re: @Mongo .. >... serious aggravating factors.

So he would probably face the full force of the law on this one.

Indeed. If this doesn't count as the most serious violation of bail conditions legally envisionable, then what does? there's no chance he's just getting a slap on the wrist for this - he's definitely going to do time and then he is definitely going to be deported.

Students: Duh, of course we're blowing our loan bucks on crypto coins

LucreLout

Re: Careful

World circulating currency is about $80 trillion worth. If cryptocurrencies achieve just 50% of that market share, then investing just $10,000 today will make you a millionaire.

Which value of M did you use for that? As far as I can tell none of the classic considerations of money fit your numbers - the closest I can get is USD 90 Tn, but using that measure as a comparisson to BTC is wildly ignorant of what money is and how it works I'm afraid.

Certainly crypto is not going to hit 50% of any type of money and absolutely not any of the none nation state backed coins out there today.

Speculate on BTC if you wish, just please do so understanding the difference between investment, speculation, and gambling, and do it from an educated position rather than a hypecycle wake.

LucreLout

Re: Careful

Ask yourself this before investing: The money you plan to invest, can you afford to lose it? If you lost every penny would it effect you? This is the risk you take when investing.

Most of your post I agree with, but the above is very wrong.

Investing is risky, yes, but you can spread your risk with a balanced portfolio of asset classes and assets within each class.

Investing all your money in Lloyds shares a dacade ago would have been a car crash, but you'd still not have lost it all. Investing your money in 10-20 FTSE100 companies in differing market segments would be risky, but you'd be unlikely to lose more than 30% of your investment even in a market crash.

Risk & reward are finely balanced. BTC investment is a classic example of FX speculation, rather than investment. You're selling GBP/USD/Whatever and buying BTC in the hope that the rate of exchange moves in your favour. As there's no financial imperative backing the transaction (you don't need BTC to spend) and there's no commercial basis for the transaction (you earn in BTC and spend in USD for example) it becomes speculation rather than investment. The difference is important.

Parents blame brats' slipping school grades on crap internet speeds

LucreLout
Joke

Internet and iPad are the new babysitters.

Am I now supposed to try to feel up the iPad while giving it a lift home?

Skip-wrecked! Boat full o' rubbish scuppered in Brit residential street

LucreLout

A neighbour took a large box of pamphlets left over from an advertising campaign. She was refused entry - and they had no facility to accept payment for what they deemed a "commercial" quantity.

I often get the same challenge when recycling used engine oil - my track day car gets a change every few sessions, and my road cars twice a year on average. Apparently (if I've had a busy summer season) taking 8-10 containers of oil is commercial scale. When I refuse to acept this or to pay, and just start tipping it into the vat they wander off moaning but otherwise nothing happens.

LucreLout

I'm surprised they don't take tires when we can leave old engine oil and car batteries by the kerb and they'll be recycled round here.

Old tyres are worth less than nothing, while batteries contain recycleable metals worth more than the cost of the recycling, and oil is also worth more than the cost of recycling. Unfortunately its basic economics driving what the tip will take, rather than any direct hatred of tyres and speedboats.

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

LucreLout

Re: Yeah... Right

We cannot get cyclists put lights, visible clothing and helmets and we are expecting them to use electronic beacons now?

I'm sure plenty of cyclists will get on board with the tech - it'll ensure they get right of way over anything autonomous, in accordance with the law and otherwise.

What I'm puzzled by is what the car is going to think the cyclist is doing approaching at speed along a footpath, before cutting out into the road and blasting through the junction against a red light. Coding for cyclists in Europe will be a lot easier than coding for cyclists in London, where the standard of behaviour & ability seems a lot lower than the rest of the world.

How do you make those darn code monkeys do what you want? Just give 'em a little nudge

LucreLout

Re: I find shit loads of cash really helps...

Indeed - there are few things in life you can pay me to STOP caring about, but almost limitless things you can pay me to START caring about.

UK watchdog finally gets search warrant for Cambridge Analytica's totally not empty offices

LucreLout

Re: Given the time it's take to get the warrant...

The seven day process to obtain a warrant and the requirement to tip off the subjects of that warrant in advance don't really provide a huge amount of reassurance that ICO has the ability to enforce the rules, do they?

Have you ever tried to get the ICO to take enforcement action against anyone, even where they have determined a breach of the Act has occurred and they can plainly see harm has resulted from it? It's all but impossible, unless you happen to be a media outlet.

The biggest problem isn't the level of power they have, its their absolute stubborn refusal to use it unless cornered like a rat in a trap and nailed to the bloody floor. Seriously WAKE UP ICO!!

Fleeing Facebook app users realise what they agreed to in apps years ago – total slurpage

LucreLout

Re: well

I think it's time each and every EU privacy regulator rip Zuck a new one, the day after the GDPR comes in

Absolutely.

I know so many farcebook users, some of them a little elderly and prone to just clicking "Ok" to stuff, that they're almost guaranteed to hold data, or metadata, about me despite my never having an account with them.

The day GDPR comes into force, I'm going to insist they delete all of it - physically rather than logically, and the moment they get done telling me metadata isn't data I'll be filing a complaint with the ICO.

Perhaps everyone in the UK, or even the EU, could target the same data slurper with requests on the same day. They'd have to spend so much money trying to comply or else drop most of their database that it'd put the fear of go into them - 2% of revenue fines multiplied by 28 nations is going to hurt like hell.

Probe: How IBM ousts older staff, replaces them with young blood

LucreLout

The UK is no different

I've noticed as I've aged that I get technical tested far harder by people half my age than they test people their own age. I've been part of my current employers hiring regime for 7 years now, and over that time I've regularly interviewed in a pair with each of the younger guys that interviewed me, and they definitly go easier on the younger staff.

There's no point expecting us to work to 70 if nobody wants to give us a job after 50. Why is age discrimination not policed and called out where deficient? Everyone is going to get older - there's nothing we can do about it.

Fog off! No more misty eyes for self-driving cars, declare MIT boffins

LucreLout

Re: What's the Point?

That's a totally unrealistic expectation IMHO. Drivers often have problems staying focused even in classic manual vehicles, so it's impossible to expect them to do that when a car is driving itself and the "driver" has nothing left to do.

This isn't a product in commercial use - its a product being developed and tested in a public space. The meatsacks primary responsibility is everyone elses safety and the development and testing of their product comes only after they've done so.

LucreLout

Re: Lawyers are delighted they have HUGE rich corporations to sue now, instead of poor you.

Lawyers are delighted they have HUGE rich corporations to sue now, instead of poor you.

They already do - for just 200 of my English pounds a year they get to sue some lowballing buffoon of an insurance company. I wouldn't insure me for 10x that and I know me!

US mulls drafting gray-haired hackers during times of crisis

LucreLout

can you see a 40 year old IT person going on a 20 mile run?

Yup. 26.2 of them, in fact. Just not every day please!