* Posts by BebopWeBop

2862 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Dec 2015

Don't worry, IT contractors. New UK chancellor says HMRC will be gentle pushing IR35 rules

BebopWeBop
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My interactions (regular but normally uncontentious) with HMRC have generally been very good - they have been efficient and prompt. Our 'discussions' (over double taxation) were resolved quickly to my relief. However to expect them to 'go soft' is only for people living in cloud cuckoo land. For better or worse, they will apply their understanding of the regulations (and laws) to maximise tax revenues - as is their job. Does this half-wit of a chancellor really believe this (unlikely) or is this a frantic attempt to soft-pedal that over which he had no effective influence? I will assume the latter. Given my work, I am under no doubt that I will not fall under IR35 - but if there was any question I am clear on which way they will go.

The Wristwatch of the Long Now: When your MTBF is two centuries

BebopWeBop

Re: Beware survival bias

QR codes a re still a thing? Still, that gives an excuse to require both hardware updates and a new cookbook now and again/

BebopWeBop

Re: Beware survival bias

The link to survivor bias is a good one, I think the point here is that it is referring to a device that, while it was not engineered intentionally to be long-lasting, it was built out of the best materials available and with the most precise mechanical engineering at the time of construction. It is also, one assumes a near 'one off' so making statistical predictions becomes difficult.

BebopWeBop
Thumb Up

An impressive piece of engineering - and as the article points out, good planning can make wonderfully resilient hardware - witness Voyager, still "mainly" going strong in a very hostile environment.

FCC forced by court to ask the public (again) if they think tearing up net neutrality was a really good idea or not

BebopWeBop

Re: Plain English

I suspect that whoever got the sign up "beware of the leopard" on the door of the room housing the report got there first!

Ofcom measured UK's 5G radiation and found that, no, it won't give you cancer

BebopWeBop
Headmaster

Re: Better call Saul

Especially if a crew member left their handset undescured......

BebopWeBop

Memory and critical reasoning.

BebopWeBop
Happy

Re: Dangerous levels of EMF

To mix my genres "not a lot of people know that"

This is your last chance, HP. There's no turning back. You take blue poison pill, the story ends. You take the red Xerox pill, you stay in Wonderland

BebopWeBop

Re: @J. Keith

HP used to outsource much of their laser engine development to Canon (and paid a hefty price for doing so) - the printers outside of the marking engine themselves tended not to be rebadged but homegrown, although as time progressed, lower end (and one assumes eventually higher end) machines were outsourced for design as was much of the software, Having not worked for HP (when it wasstill an integrted ish company although the instruments has departed) for more than 10 years, I could not make a guess as to the current situation.

BebopWeBop

Re: Bit too late?

And printers.

Assange lawyer: Trump offered WikiLeaker a pardon in exchange for denying Russia hacked Democrats' email

BebopWeBop

Re: How?

Yup - two venal sins forgiven per muslim head seemed to be a going rate?

BebopWeBop

One assumes that foreign diplomats get danger money?

BebopWeBop

You missed a lot.

Samsung will be Putin dreaded Kremlin-approved shovelware on its phones, claims Russia

BebopWeBop
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I puzzled a bit over the headline and still am. Possibly some kind individualmight point out the pun (for I assume there must be one - this is The egafter all)

Going Dutch: The Bakker Elkhuizen UltraBoard 950 Wireless... because looks aren't everything

BebopWeBop

Re: Not cheap

Those were the days. As a PhD student, and skint, I rescued an old teletype from a skip (it took three of us plus two skateboards underneath to get it the two miles home). It then served as a local printer for the house) with the proviso that it could only be run when (a) everyone was swigging beer in the kitchen or (b) everyone else was out.

Auf wiedersehen, pet: UK Deutsche Bank contractors plan to leave rather than take 25% pay cut for IR35 – report

BebopWeBop

Re: Alternatively

So dates and numbers please.....

You, FCC, tell us again why cities are only allowed to charge rich telcos $270 to attach 5G tech to utility poles?

BebopWeBop

Re: FCC Budget Trolls

Yes, if there is not a Douglas Adams or Pterry quote to summarise a situation, SCD or Dilbert will do the honours.....

BebopWeBop

“How did you get to $270?” Judge Bybee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asked the FCC’s lead lawyer Scott Noveck. “I don’t see much data there.”

Appropriate inducements to FCC officials (current or deferred) if they played ball?

Report on AI in UK public sector: Some transparency on how government uses it to govern us would be nice

BebopWeBop

Some transparency on how government uses it to govern us would be nice

Transparency will never catch on - so yesterday.....

HPE's orders to expert accountant in Autonomy trial revealed

BebopWeBop

The Judge's conclusions will be fascinating.

BOFH: Darn Windows 7. It's totally why we need a £1k graphics card for a business computer

BebopWeBop
Pint

And after a few days of very long days, we are off to the pub - great way to end the week.

Contractors welcome Lords inquiry into IR35 before tax reforms hit private sector but fear it's 'too little, too late'

BebopWeBop

Re: E U must be joking me!

Or move........

LCD pwn System: How to modulate screen brightness to covertly transmit data from an air-gapped computer... slowly

BebopWeBop

I remember seeing that being demonstrated by the EM group at the University of York in the 80s - several rooms away even then.

BebopWeBop

Smashing

Although despite the bandwidth and location issues, I am sure there are applications that might use this to signal simple interactions with a piece of software of interest. Nice lateral thinking from Ben-Gurion.

Former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch 'submits himself' for arrest in central London

BebopWeBop
Headmaster

Re: Nah

Well everyone is a subset (large admittedly) that does not contain those in favour with the US administration de jour shurely?

BebopWeBop
Holmes

Re: Again, and again, and again...

The same filing cabinet that the report on Russian influence in the UK and on certain parties is stored no doubt.....

Twitter says a certain someone tried to discover the phone numbers used by potentially millions of twits

BebopWeBop

Re: Just reinforces the phrase

Twitter is for Twats

TFTFY

Finally, that cruel dust world Mars proves useful: Helping scientists understand Earth's radio-scrambling plasma

BebopWeBop
Pint

A nice simple illustrative video. Cheers. Reminded me of my teenage years experimenting with amateur radio (and homebrew digital packet switching with like-minded obsessives.

Vulture discovers talons are rubbish for building Lego's International Space Station

BebopWeBop

Re: "a pain when using the pieces to create something new"

I remember purchasing my youngest son (a prolific Lego builder with an enormous collection of bricks - mainly purchased in job lots from car boot sales at knockdown prices) a book of lego designs for 'interesting things'. He thought it was great and carried on taking some of the designs and constructing increasingly bizarre electromechanical widgets that swung/crawled/shed dangerous lego bits arond his bedroom and the house in general. One of my best purchases (at retail costs) was a 'lego hoover'. It saved many a foot injury and the early introduction to the kids of creative anglo saxon.

BebopWeBop

Re: I've got a 'LAB' for the ISS

The last dog in space was not impressed with the experience I believe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika

BT: UK.gov ruling on Huawei will cost us half a billion pounds over next 5 years

BebopWeBop

Re: And of course by "Cost BT £500m" they mean

The poor cats as opposed to the fat ones?

In your face short sellers! Tesla goes two quarters in a row without losing money

BebopWeBop

Jaguar and others appear to be giving them a run for their money (with what appear to be better made vehicles without the 'autopilot' [sic])

BebopWeBop

Re: welcome to China

Sound like a good use for the harbour in a holiday....

It’s not true no one wants .uk domains – just look at all these Bulgarians who signed up to nab expired addresses

BebopWeBop
Holmes

Short, generic names free from cybersquatting claims can often be sold for tens or hundreds of times what people ordinarily pay for domains.

I suspect they also have some value for scammers - retain the .uk equivalent of someones .com or .net, pack th site with opages that look the same and offload some nasties on the off chance that they will stick.....

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

BebopWeBop
Happy

Percussive maintenance - for when all else fails.

El Reg tries – and fails – to get its talons on a Brexit tea towel

BebopWeBop

Re: A perfect demonstration of eccentric British understatement

I prefer the Daily Mash's chearful 'news' - Brexit 50p coins ‘can be sharpened and thrown at the rats trying to steal your last potato’ https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/brexit-50p-coins-can-be-sharpened-and-thrown-at-the-rats-trying-to-steal-your-last-potato-20181029178799

US govt 'told Germany that Chinese spies bug' Huawei 5G kit. It also told the world Iraq had WMDs ready to deploy...

BebopWeBop
Headmaster

They still have not got over Cuba.

In case you wanna launch your boss into the Sun, good news: Earth's largest solar telescope just checked and, yeah, it's still pretty fiery

BebopWeBop

Re: looks a bit like oatmeal

I remember my Granny serving up porridge that was positively molten - to catch out the unwary.

It's been one day since Blighty OK'd Huawei for parts of 5G – and US politicians haven't overreacted at all. Wait, what? Surveillance state commies?

BebopWeBop

Re: A reply from Sparta

Wiley politicians rapidly develop fine BS detectors. It is just that their egos get in the way much of the time.

UN didn't patch SharePoint, got mega-hacked, covered it up, kept most staff in the dark, finally forced to admit it

BebopWeBop
Facepalm

Re: What part of ....

The UN - committed to an 'Open Information' policy.....

BebopWeBop
Headmaster

Re: Rigidly de rigueur

It is not as if Western counties have not been caught trying to bug UN comms in the past is it?

Ding-dong. Who's there? Any marketing outfit willing to pay: Not content with giving cops access to doorbell cams, Ring also touts personal info

BebopWeBop
Devil

Ring - in principle a useful device. In practice, however, it is not just that the devil is in the detail, the Devil has written the details.

Accounting expert told judge Autonomy was wrong not to disclose hardware sales

BebopWeBop

Re: Hmm

Whatever one's opinion of high court judges, to think that they are fools should not be one of them!

Remember the Clipper chip? NSA's botched backdoor-for-Feds from 1993 still influences today's encryption debates

BebopWeBop
Devil

Not even there.

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

BebopWeBop

Re: Good, good.

Is that a virtual bridge?

BebopWeBop

Re: Good, good.

This. It happened to two people working with me, one of whose partner (an NHS surgeon) was ordered to leave. The "mistakes" were rectified with much expense. The joke going around was that the Home Office had release trial orders for practice or maybe through incompetence (as believable). The result - with many multinational couples was the establishment of a European R&D and direct sales group (70% of our business is with EU companies). Funnily enough, there were no problems in (a) getting some decent premises at an extremely good cost and (b) no shortage of people who wanted to be part of the first established team.

Take DOS, stir in some Netware, add a bit of Windows and... it's ALIIIIVE!

BebopWeBop
Trollface

I remember 20 odd years ago asking why there were no drivers for an HP scanner for HP machines running NT (I was working for HP at the time). "HP's view is that Windows NT is the future of personal operating systems, and the company is determined to keep it there" I was told (and he kept a straight face...)

BebopWeBop
Angel

"The world," recalled Miffy, "looked decidedly rosy, which might have been why my then employer let my 25-year-old neophyte self be the technical lead for our migration to NT4."

Maybe her employers had been celebrating a little to hard and too long which gave them a decidedly rosy view of the ease of network migration? Having said that I well remember that at 25 I was also a stupendously experienced, fantastically capable engineer as well......

This episode of Black Mirror sucks: London cops boast that facial-recog creepycams will be on the streets this year

BebopWeBop

Re: What I'll Be Wearing While Out and About in London

That may get you nicked PDQ in the not too distant future.

One-time Brexit Secretary David Davis demands Mike Lynch's extradition to US be halted

BebopWeBop

Re: Saccolas

If we could get a believable statement on whether she had diplomatic immunity that might help understanding. Reports are all over the shop on this and there appear to be little one can actuall believe rather than pander to your favourite confirmation bias. But I agree that diplomatic immunity - even if occasionally abused is a good thing.