Posts by LucreLout

Lets just take a moment to remember, you voted for 4 more years of bush...

That's what scares me about America. Every president they've had since Regan has found a way to dig deep and be somehow worse.

The Bush's and Clintons playing Hatfields & McCoys over the whitehouse is very tiresome; Both families have had more than enough time in that building, and neither clan has improved the lot of their average citizen. Obama hasn't really achieved anything either - his primary achievement is not being GWB, who was the worst president America ever had.

And that's where things become dangerous, because not being a Hatfield or McCoy is a trick The Donald is also able to pull. It's looking like a two horse race between Hillary and Trump, and not unreasonably a great number of Americans may take the view that Hillary has already had her eight years in the gaff.

The world deserves better than this America. You deserve better than this.

Re: 17

Well yes, because apparently being capable of anything so simple as SQL injection at that age makes you a sophisticated hacker, according to the troughers at TalkTalk et-al.

Re: Sanctimonious much?

@Suricou Raven

He doesn't, being in the US. If he were in the UK he would, under Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. But he still wouldn't get the right until four years after completion of his sentence.

The 1974 act has been replaced with one requiring significantly shorter declaration periods.

However, that only provides a time limit for how long the criminal must declare their acts; It does not require the removal of their crimes from the public domain - in fact there are many databases of such information that exist. My employer validates any declarations we make with a 3rd party data provider.

Also, as a victim of crime there is no requirement to decline to name your assailant(s) [1]. While it could be held that persistently naming and shaming them would adversely interfere with any rehabilitation they were trying to undertake, but that has to be balanced with the rights of the victim to talk openly about their experiences as part of their healing and coping processes. Running an ongoing advertising campaign may be frowned upon, but naming them from time to time when you're talking about the crime is legal. All criminals choose to commit crimes, while very few victims choose to be such, which is why it is difficult for the criminal to gag the victim for public disclosure purposes.

The 'witch hunt' problem was recognised even in the seventies, and the internet has only made it worse.

If I were to choose to name any of my assailants online it would likely cause them difficulties beyond the length of their declaration period. Unfortunately, there's not a lot they can do that will make me care about that. It's certainly not a crime for me to talk about my incident openly and with full disclosure [2]. The primary reason I've not is that none of them have yet attempted to make anything of their lives, so now is not the optimal time for disclosure.

I've tried to find a reason to show them more consideration for their well being than they showed me, but I keep coming up empty handed. They chose this outcome of their own free will, I didn't, so there's no reason for me to feel bad about any consequences that befall them, or to protect them from society. As I said in my original post, those in society that feel their debt is paid in full will disregard such information, and decide if they want to hire those people, or do business with them, or not. It's simple and it's fair.

I've hired people with convictions in the past and will do so in the future, though not those with convictions for violence or sex crimes. That is my choice and each in society must make their own.

1 - not all crimes involve an aspect of assault but I'm struggling to find the right word so I've gone with that.

2 - Even if it were, I could simply make any posts from America, to American web sites, where free speech is a constitutional right and no crime would be committed.

Re: James is a dick...

Professionalism is a two-way street...

No it isn't. My professionalism is my own, however lacking my current employer may or may not be in that regard, my professionalism belongs to me, not to them, and they don't get to influence that.

Having said that, I don't see this as a professionalism issue at all. Looking back with time & hindsight its easy to see what the problem was, but would it have been easy to foresee at the time? I doubt it, because there's just so many potential things that could have gone wrong. Add to that the lack of an exit interview and the purdah regarding colleagues, and how was the guy supposed to get the message across? Quite aside from probably being in a mild state of shock.

Were I to leave my current gig this very minute, there's just too many potentially destructive imminent risks to convey in an exit interview, even if my manager & hr could follow what I was saying. Would something go wrong? Quite possibly not, but if it does then that really isn't my fault, or responsibility; and it's nothing to do with professionalism.

I simply don't see that the guy did anything wrong, as he wasn't given a fair opportunity to consider any risks and identify them to the remaining staff. This episode wouldn't prevent me hiring the guy at all - but then I would expect legal to have oversight of any contracts, and I'd expect to have knowledge of them.

Re: How about we get them modern electricity grids and cheap reliable energy first?

@Julian

Most estimates over the last few years of deaths due to climate change (i.e. the increase in mortality today over what would have been predicted with a 1990 global climate) run at a couple of hundred thousand per year. That's quite a long way from "nobody".

Most estimates by the green lobby you mean? Well, they would say that wouldn't they.

And yet, here we are, STILL waiting for the first death certificate to feature the words "climate change" upon it, still with zero actual deaths. Does bad weather kill people? Well, yeah, but bad weather and what you perceive as climate change are - with some heroic assumptions in your favour - at best correlated, not causal.

And still we lose hundreds of thousands of people across northern Europe alone due to cold weather every single year. Factor in the losses in the 3rd world where fuel is whatever burns, and we could save more people in one single year than will ever see "climate change" upon a death certificate. Unless, of course, those poor people huddled around small yak shit fire don't count?

Re: Mystical creatures

I spent many an hour under the desks in summertime when ladies had computer problems - it didn't matter the problem, it was always "I'll just pop under the desk". Many happy views, er I mean days.

Probably couldn't get away with that nowadays.

Well no, it'd seem a bit odd, what with them all using latops or tablets....

Re: Oi Belkin!!

Why did you buy a router which is dependant on the badge sticker for quality of software and timely security updates? Hopeless romantic? A moment's inattention? Drunk at the time?

Not drunk exactly, more just needed something to prove to my ISP/OpenReach that the intermittent fault was not in fact the router (it wasn't). Belkin was what my local shop had and I didn't have time to do any research, besides the sale of goods act suggests that anything sold in the local store should be fit for purpose, which this clear is not.

Ok, that last bit does sound a bit hopeless romantic, but I really don't have time to build all my own hardware or reflash everything I own repeatedly. I'm not even wholly sure I possess all the requisite skills to sufficient standard (hardware). I accept that will lead to risks but what the article describes are not risks, they're issues of basic competency.

I'd be ashamed to turn out such garbage as my professional output, and I'm "shouting at Belkin" because corporate silence is not the way to resolve this - humility, ownership, and effort are.

Re: Perhaps????

Well there's the Wileyfox phones

I'm right on the verge of buying the Storm, but looking about for reviews by actual owners, seems to indicate product quality issues - lots of faulty handsets. Any Commentards got one? If so, marks out of 10 pls?

My current Lumia920 is childs play to repair, and has been generally reliable over the past 3 years, but it's time for a new phone and (I'm genuinely not trolling here) Android seems to be most of the market, so if I'm going to jump ship from WinPhone, that seems like the OS to go for.

Re: Thin-lipped chancellor announces death of UK contractor market.

@D3vy

We don't pay INCOME tax (until we hit the higher rate) but we pay the same % in corp tax as you do in income tax.

Only on profits, which is the main difference: a permie pays it on all incoming cash flows. There's an awful lot can and is deducted as expenses, ranging from travel & training, to lunch & laptops, via mileage allowance, and then double the whole lot down by paying the wife. [1]

The effective tax rate - total income divided by tax paid - can be significantly lower than you're implying. On the off chance you don't already know that, then you really need a better accountant. My effective tax rate is about 1.5 times what it will be when I switch to the "duty free" route, as my contractors like to call it.

[1] - Yes, its not as simple as it once was, and you can't just pony up half the balance, but you can save many thousands in taxes.

Re: Nope, don't care

@AC

Why do you attack authors who makes reference to the 911 disaster

What you're doing isn't making reference to it. You're trying to leverage the dead to make some demented David Ike style political point, which is frankly disgusting.

And I'm not attacking you, simply pointing out that 9/11 had NOTHING to do with the tinfoil hat paranoid shite you would like it to have. Did I miss the lizard people from the list of things that didn't cause 9/11?

Cowardly terrorists + planes + buildings = 9/11. Nothing more, nothing less.

Is this some sort of "hot button" for you?

That would be a fair assessment, yes. You'll find that most people living in New York at that time have very little time or patience for people like you abusing that day for your own ends or amusement.

except that that event is a textbook example of protective force malfeasance.

Neither I nor Google have any clue what you think that term to mean. I know what protective force means, and I know what malfeasance means, but the term you've used seemingly means nothing. Is it something that's leaked out of your conspiracy theorist echo chamber?

Finally, a cybercriminal from my home town. Proof that we're not the backwater we're portrayed as.

No, no, you are still a backwater (sorry), it's just that the management of TalkTalk would be out of their depth if they pissed on the floor.

@Dadmin

If you're good at what you do, you can document it and share it with others because you're just going to learn more anyway.

I agree - this is how I operate.

When you're good, you're valuable. No cheap replacements can ever threaten you, because you make the shit happen in the big boy data center. So, do fear Indian IT replacements, if you suck at IT.

Unfortunately this is wishful thinking on your part, but allow me to explain why.

In the bank I work for, I sit 6 people deep in the hierarchy. After me all the way up to the CEO, there is nobody that understands coding, at all. Nobody is qualified to determine who is good and who is not - it becomes purely a numbers game.

Now my boss, he knows I'm good because the rest of the team tell him that, but he doesn't decide who gets cut - his boss does, and it's done on a cost basis rather than competency - the assumption is that there is no key person risk.

Re: No straight man

@NanoMeter

Having been to Thailand with the wife, I can safely say that it is possible to say no to boobs provided your Mrs is in earshot, lest you find yourself with fewer knackers than some of the local ladies.

Re: @Hugh hunt

@sisk

I would agree if economics were the only consideration. However it's not even in the top five most important considerations in this particular debate

Economics is always the most important consideration in every debate. All the good ideas, all the deeply held beliefs, all the proposed solutions are worth nothing what-so-ever if you cannot afford to fund them.

I believe no child should be born to starve to death, and that the world has sufficient agri-land to ensure they don't. But as I lack the economic means to implement a solution, however worthwhile, it doesn't happen.

such an approach fails to explain how earlier periods that were much hotter than even the wildest estimates for man's impact over the next 50 years got that way. On the other hand those denying man's influence on the environment fail to explain why global warming correlates so closely with human activity.

Environmental science fails to explain away the min-ice age where the Thames froze up year after year, during a period of human activity off the scale compared to a few hundred years earlier when it didn't because it was a lot warmer. So it ignores it. Goose, gander, sauce.

Things like the CRU debacle, for that IS what it was, do nothing to enhance the warmists standing. You simply cannot take seriously people who fear the release of their data and method because they worry about contradictory hypothesis. That's not science, it isn't even as valid as religion, because at least those people have faith in their beliefs.

Acceptance of the damage they have done themselves, and the release of the zealot/worshipper/believer mindset would do the warmist movement no end of good. Endlessly shouting out guff like "one year to save the environment" or "UK to be hotter than Portugal" just makes them look ridiculous when of course they fail to happen, over and over again.

We know for a fact that the models don't work; it is indisputable. We therefore can expect with a 99.9% certainty, that conclusions drawn from those models will also be wrong; they carry no greater scientific weight than the reading of runes. The models always overshoot by a considerable way, so the only sensible thing to do is assume that reality will be a lot more pleasant than environmentalists want you to believe. And oddly enough, it always has been.

Basically my thought on it is this: global warming or no global warming we need something more sustainable than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels WILL run out eventually.

I agree, but that doesn't mean we need junk solutions today, it simply means that by the time the fossils are gone we have to have something else. And we do, in spades. Nuclear energy for starters.

Most environmentalists dislike nuclear because it takes the heat out of the debate. It buys thousands of years worth of breathing space in terms of energy usage. No requirement for less, you see.

Probably not in our lifetimes (with the possible exception of oil, which super pessimistic estimates claim will be gone by 2050)

That is simply not possible at all. Peak oil, the bit where we've used half of it, is approximately 250 years away from now. Thanks to fracking there is zero possibility of running out of oil in anything less than several centuries, assuming we don't locate anymore within that time frame, which of course, we will. Peak oil is, for all practical purposes, dead and buried: Science & technology killed it.

Where is Tim when you need him? #BBW

That could change with a major breakthrough in solar power

Solar & wind power are sideshows and always will be. The post oil future of energy is nuclear, with a bit of hydrogen thrown in for portability. It might not be the kind of nuclear we have now, but the future is not going to be a couple of windmills in your garden and a brace of solar cells on your roof.

I like the R&D side of environmentalism - it'd do the world no harm to continue investing in future energy supplies, because running our really would be bad - but the vast majority of it amounts to nothing more than a religion for atheists, and communism in an amusing mask. The endless parading of the communist mantra of less isn't advancing their cause.

If you want to regress to an agricultural lifestyle and 1970's standard of living, by all means feel free to do so, just understand that you have no moral, legal, intellectual or scientific right to insist anyone else does.

Climate change has never killed anyone and it never will. However, ocean acidification, IF it can be proven to be the problem it is suggested as being and have the causes it is suggested to have, and we're a pretty long way away from that, then it is something we should seek to rectify. That may well not mean "less" though, it may simply have a technical, chemical, or some other type of solution.

Re: Work as a cleaner. I did!

They will give you the keys and the codes to the whole shop. They don't want to see menial people like you around so you get in off-hours. Everybody knows that all cleaners are stupid and retarded people so no-one will talk to you or check what you are doing or even suspect any threat

Ah, the Wall Street approach... Don't bank on that working with everyone though. I talk to our cleaners and coffee staff, etc, as I have more in common with them than I do most of those I work with or for. I'm certainly not alone in that.

Re: Good

@Alain Williams

Fine the company directors personally, not the companies.

Fine them, then bar them from further directorships for 10 years. The powers already exist, and there's no reason to allow them to repeat the trick at their next gig - otherwise they'll just factor in an approximate level of fines into their compensation expectations.

Re: @LucreLout - @Bob Dole (tm) @Pascal Monett

@GM

If you understood the message of your quote you'd not still be getting the same things wrong ad-finitum. Think before you post.