We have the Data Protection Act, which makes it illegal for an organisation to hold data about you on a computer without your consent. And they have to allow you to view it, and demand its removal, if you so wish.
I would assume that bona fide members of the judiciary are exempt from this, but I'm quit surprised that a solicitor is so flagrantly absuing the system.
What am abysmaly poor choice of language! The meta-syntax inherent in the inferred non-diadectic methodologies used in contextual recognition protocols are far inferior to, say, Pascal..
begin
talking_shit
end
Yep. I think that attitudes in the UK must be somewhat different...
My office is all open-plan, and with only 35-odd people in it, it doesn't seem that dissimilar to a "War Room" as desribed here. And it works: the pace in the office is fast, but relaxed. (Paradoxically!)
Whereas, the place at which I'm working on-site at the moment, is about as close to a cube farm as you get in the UK, I suppose. Although all the cubes are half-height, so you can still see people around, and chat. But there's not the same feeling of open-ness (both in terms of space, and the way people behave)...
So, the queen can block the democratically-expressed will of the people
Yes. It's her country, why not?
So the army does not defend the people and their belongings, but only the queen
Correct. But the Queen defends her subjects, as is her duty to her country. So the armed forces of the UK are vicariously defending its inhabitants.
The british never saw themselves as mere humans; they think they are above all other nations and always flouted their arrogant snobbishness, never backing-off from the concept that they oughta rule the whole world. They can't play by any other rules than theirs, and they keep changing the rules so they always win. For them, a "level" playing field is always tilted to advantage them.
Strange, I can't think of any other English-speaking nations like that...
Of course, having a monarch isn't the ideal paradigm of national governance, but it's a damn sight better than, for example, electing a head of state every few years. (A feat so shocking in its awkwardness that even the most advanced of civilised nations find it a bit of a struggle sometimes!)
British telcos are currently under a legal obligation to store the last 7 years worth of CDRs (Call data records) that have passed through their switches. Now, these don't contain any/content/ of the call, but they do contain the numbers called from and to, duration, time of call, date, and all sorts of other curios.
If they want to find out where you've been in the last 7 years. It's just a matter of a bit of restoration from archives, and some simple SQL.
This is not so much about telco's charging specifically for VoIP through an ISP. What this/is/ concerning, IMNSHO, is the plans for most of the major telcos to convert their entire networks to IP. So/all/ voice calls will be VoIP. The crunch is, whether to charge per second, or by data quantities.
Current thinking tends toward the latter - if telcos charge by the second, there's no incentive to offer broadband access, since you can make people wait longer for their downloads.
However, if you can charge them for all their data, then broadband becomes a cash cow, as the world and its dog logs on to Napster. (Or starts downloading pr0n movies in their entirety, or whatever)
That's where the money is, and where the telcos are putting theirs.
The Market. Is. Supposed. To. Reward. Cheapness. and. Innovation.
This does not. Regulations like this hamper efficiency.
[/Quoted]
Yes. But. The. Telcoms. Market. Is. A. Natural. Monopoly.
And efficient though a monopoly market is, western governments have decided (rightly or wrongly) that they are/bad/ and that they should be opened up. Of course, with an incumbent monopolistic company it's necessary to regulate, else that company will exert its influence and control of the infrastructure to block entry and remain in control of the market.
However, what we really need is regulators that actually have some form of legislative power...
Here is my point: The PTTs are used to charging by the second, at 64Kb. That business model is dying.
Dead, more like. I work for a telecoms consultancy, and we're doing a large amount of work on IP billing systems at the moment. All that will happen is that ISPs (and consumers, down the line) will be billed on a data-consumption basis. And they won't have any choice. (Since (particularily in the UK) privatisation through the franchise system was such a colossal cock-up)
However - there is a glimmer of hope. EU competition law prevents charging for interconnect on a basis other than cost. For a broadband connection, it's just as expensive to pipe a whole load of 0s as 1s. Can the telcos justify charging on a packet basis?
I'd have thought that component prices would be pretty closely linked to the product life cycle. (Pretty standard bit of marketing theory, have a google for it if you want to know more) As demand increases at the beginning of a product's life, prices are high, to cover development costs and shortage of supply. As the product matures, the price will stabilise to one that the market supports for a given supply/demand equilibrium. And then prices fall as the product wanes, and is superceded, only to rise again if the product becomes an antique. (ie, if demand begins to outstrip supply once more)
The key difference with hi-tech components is the extremely quick life-cycle. A component could easily be a huge success and make loads of cash, yet be dead within a year. This makes it a lot harder to track exactly what is going on with the price than with other products. (I mean, there's never any great fluctuation in the price of washing powder, for instance)
I'd expect all of the major component manufacturers to be doing analysis of this sort - since it's in their interest to set their pricing model to reflect the appropriate stage in the life-cycle that a given product is at. Especially during the later stages, when mature products will be used as cash cows to fund future developments, which should be launched to co-incide with the natural death of the replaced product. (In the ideal world, natch!) If they're not doing this, then they're very silly! (But I doubt that anyone outside the companies involved would ever get to see it, since it'd be crucial for product launches / deadlines - even specification creation....)
[Quoted]
Network Solutions initially allowed all words, then banned George Carlin's "seven dirty words," alone or as substrings, with occasional slip-ups and odd exceptions. The seven words were piss, shit, fuck, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, and tits
[/Quoted]
What about "semprini.com"? [/Ponty Mython]
[Quoted]
I can appreciate changing the title to fit American terminology, but how do you Americanise the rest of it?
[/Quoted]
See all of those half-wrecked land-rovers? Left-hand drive, the lot of them!:-)
And maybe there are some other small changes. The "Build a cannon" episode could be changed to "Build a fully-functional attack helicopter, with chain guns, air-to-ground missiles, and nuclear capabilities, and at the end of the day, you can take it home with you!"
What the bloody fuck are your talking about? I'd rather sound like a redneck or valley girl than a snooty, inbred, ignorant, conceited, good-for-nothing english fuck.
[/Quoted]
[Quoted from Economist article]
America's air force spends around $2m training each pilot, and $1 billion a year keeping its 2,000 F-16 pilots in peak
....
From simulations, Boeing has worked out that operators should be able to handle four UCAVs efficiently from a single workstation.
[/Quoted]
So, if you can quarter the number of pilots you need, that's a cost reduction of US$750m pa in ongoing training costs. Not to mention direct labour cost. Oh, and if you're spending US$2m on each pilot, that can be quartered as well.
And given that military outfits spend more time sitting around at peace than in conflict, this is a real ongoing saving.... And I'd bet that/that's/ the real motivator. Nothing to do with engineering prowess, or protecting pilots, just good old-fashioned greenbacks.:-/
Due stupid tax system here is better for company to provide you with cellular phone, car, separate office, simply everything else than higher salary.
But on the plus side, it costs the company less to acquire these sort of things in bulk than it would for an individual employee. So both sides win. What's becoming increasingly common in the UK is for a portion of salary to be paid in vouchers for certain retailers (usually supermarkets) 3-way win: The company can get bulk discounts, the supermarkets get guaranteed trade, and the employees (supposedly) get a better remuneration deal.
The IT sector is very lucky in terms of the perks employees get, when compared to other industries (I would guess that this is due to the percieved "skills shortage" that HR mgrs often witter on about) although there does often seem to be agap of what employees need and want compared with what employers are prepared to give... Probably due to a deficiency of expertise in management of IT-skilled people, due to managers having been trained in other industries./generalisation
Of course, I'm still in favour of having dress-up Fridays, where people can come to work all tarted-up....:-)
"We think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop a competing technology to RDRAM and not infringe on our patents," he said. "We are extremely confident in our legal position."
Yeah - but what about when a country with low labour costs and not much care for patent law starts producing cheap clones for not-much money. Say, China, f'rinstance. Then they'd be stuffed. By the free market no less. How positively ironic.:-)
You're telling me! I'm a consultant, working on-site at the moment. And it's over an hour and a half commute each way. And that's if there are no problems with the trains. (For those of you outside the UK - it's monsoon season here, and all the trains are fscked) It's taken me over 3 hours at times, and on Monday I couldn't get in at all!
And a survey published yesterday (I forget the source) claims that commuting is the biggest cause of stress in workers' lives. No surprise, when it takes you 12 hours to do 8 hours work..
Telecommuting/is/ the way forward - as offices move toward hot-desking and methods of work that are geographically-independant... And I reckon that even if the quantity of contact time between cow-erkers may decrease, the/quality/ of that time would increase. (Consider all those pointless meetings.....)
At the moment, the main thing holding back teleworking is not the technology, it's the culture of "fear-thy-customer". As long as companies continue to believe that customers want the thought of their suppliers having all their employees in one place all the time, things just won't change... Sadly.:-/
Bush: The war on drugs has been a resounding success.... I've finally given up.
Gore: I invented the War on Drugs!
2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
Bush: I will allow Satanists to hold ceremonies around state executions, and thus reduce the number of sacrifices required. And then I'll cut taxes with the money saved!
Gore: I even let Linux users onto the internet.
3) Why give a tax cut?
Bush: I need to give a slingback to my rich buddies.
Gore: I need to give a slingback to Bush's rich buddies.
4) electoral reform
Bush: What an excellent idea - let's charge people 50,000USD to vote!
Gore: I invented electoral reform!
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
Bush: I would love to have some intellectual real estate.
Gore: Information wants to be free. - I invented that slogan!
6) Encryption....
Bush: The socio-political synergistic demands of a multifacted errmm. information dynastic ummm strategic alignment ummm what was the question again?
Gore: "$J%H£^£(%*$TGSJKNG$W*(WRWJEHR($*%
7) Rising Political Protests
Bush: Multinationals are great. As long as they're american. Well. Texan.
Gore: The world is just one small village composed of cottage industries. And I invented that!
8) Asteroid Defenses
Bush: Computer games are bad for kids. Keep them away.
Gore: I've got some Preparation H, if that helps.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
Bush: Our mission is to get elected, whatever the cost.
Gore: Our mission is to get elected, whatever the cost.
Slashdot Mirror
Bah!
:-)
Syndicate had the best running-around-screaming flamethrower. And dontchaknowit!
..and in the UK, too.
We have the Data Protection Act, which makes it illegal for an organisation to hold data about you on a computer without your consent. And they have to allow you to view it, and demand its removal, if you so wish.
I would assume that bona fide members of the judiciary are exempt from this, but I'm quit surprised that a solicitor is so flagrantly absuing the system.
What am abysmaly poor choice of language! The meta-syntax inherent in the inferred non-diadectic methodologies used in contextual recognition protocols are far inferior to, say, Pascal.. begin talking_shit end
how every one in the UK can sing the theme tune to the Bodyform advert despite the fact it hasn't run on TV for three years.
[/Quoted]
Please. For the sake of our collective sanity, do not tempt fate. Thank you.
Yep. I think that attitudes in the UK must be somewhat different...
My office is all open-plan, and with only 35-odd people in it, it doesn't seem that dissimilar to a "War Room" as desribed here. And it works: the pace in the office is fast, but relaxed. (Paradoxically!)
Whereas, the place at which I'm working on-site at the moment, is about as close to a cube farm as you get in the UK, I suppose. Although all the cubes are half-height, so you can still see people around, and chat. But there's not the same feeling of open-ness (both in terms of space, and the way people behave)...
There can be only one. :-)
:)
(Don't suppose anyone knows where I could find an original Bubble-Bobble coin-op, do they?)
That and Hired Guns on the Amiga. Corking 4-player deathmatch on a single machine.
It was related to me that in a certain call center they got bored one night and decided that everybody would be named "Bob".
[/Quoted]
Weren't there dozens of guys all called Bob in the Demon network support team around the early 90s?
So, would anyone out there who is currently using more then even 256 Megs of RAM tell me?
/do/ need more RAM. (And no, it does not run NT!)
[/Quoted]
Yep. 640 Megs here. But that's on a bolshy great machine that processes call records from over 50 telephony switches across the UK.
And yes, we
Britain has **NO** constitution.
The United Kindom has no /written/ constitution.
So, the queen can block the democratically-expressed will of the people
Yes. It's her country, why not?
So the army does not defend the people and their belongings, but only the queen
Correct. But the Queen defends her subjects, as is her duty to her country. So the armed forces of the UK are vicariously defending its inhabitants.
The british never saw themselves as mere humans; they think they are above all other nations and always flouted their arrogant snobbishness, never backing-off from the concept that they oughta rule the whole world. They can't play by any other rules than theirs, and they keep changing the rules so they always win. For them, a "level" playing field is always tilted to advantage them.
Strange, I can't think of any other English-speaking nations like that...
Of course, having a monarch isn't the ideal paradigm of national governance, but it's a damn sight better than, for example, electing a head of state every few years. (A feat so shocking in its awkwardness that even the most advanced of civilised nations find it a bit of a struggle sometimes!)
British telcos are currently under a legal obligation to store the last 7 years worth of CDRs (Call data records) that have passed through their switches. Now, these don't contain any
If they want to find out where you've been in the last 7 years. It's just a matter of a bit of restoration from archives, and some simple SQL.
This is not so much about telco's charging specifically for VoIP through an ISP. What this /is/ concerning, IMNSHO, is the plans for most of the major telcos to convert their entire networks to IP. So /all/ voice calls will be VoIP. The crunch is, whether to charge per second, or by data quantities.
Current thinking tends toward the latter - if telcos charge by the second, there's no incentive to offer broadband access, since you can make people wait longer for their downloads.
However, if you can charge them for all their data, then broadband becomes a cash cow, as the world and its dog logs on to Napster. (Or starts downloading pr0n movies in their entirety, or whatever)
That's where the money is, and where the telcos are putting theirs.
The Market. Is. Supposed. To. Reward. Cheapness. and. Innovation. This does not. Regulations like this hamper efficiency. [/Quoted] Yes. But. The. Telcoms. Market. Is. A. Natural. Monopoly. And efficient though a monopoly market is, western governments have decided (rightly or wrongly) that they are /bad/ and that they should be opened up. Of course, with an incumbent monopolistic company it's necessary to regulate, else that company will exert its influence and control of the infrastructure to block entry and remain in control of the market.
However, what we really need is regulators that actually have some form of legislative power...
Here is my point: The PTTs are used to charging by the second, at 64Kb. That business model is dying.
Dead, more like. I work for a telecoms consultancy, and we're doing a large amount of work on IP billing systems at the moment. All that will happen is that ISPs (and consumers, down the line) will be billed on a data-consumption basis. And they won't have any choice. (Since (particularily in the UK) privatisation through the franchise system was such a colossal cock-up)
However - there is a glimmer of hope. EU competition law prevents charging for interconnect on a basis other than cost. For a broadband connection, it's just as expensive to pipe a whole load of 0s as 1s. Can the telcos justify charging on a packet basis?
[Disclaimer: I am not a marketing-droid]
I'd have thought that component prices would be pretty closely linked to the product life cycle. (Pretty standard bit of marketing theory, have a google for it if you want to know more) As demand increases at the beginning of a product's life, prices are high, to cover development costs and shortage of supply. As the product matures, the price will stabilise to one that the market supports for a given supply/demand equilibrium. And then prices fall as the product wanes, and is superceded, only to rise again if the product becomes an antique. (ie, if demand begins to outstrip supply once more)
The key difference with hi-tech components is the extremely quick life-cycle. A component could easily be a huge success and make loads of cash, yet be dead within a year. This makes it a lot harder to track exactly what is going on with the price than with other products. (I mean, there's never any great fluctuation in the price of washing powder, for instance)
I'd expect all of the major component manufacturers to be doing analysis of this sort - since it's in their interest to set their pricing model to reflect the appropriate stage in the life-cycle that a given product is at. Especially during the later stages, when mature products will be used as cash cows to fund future developments, which should be launched to co-incide with the natural death of the replaced product. (In the ideal world, natch!) If they're not doing this, then they're very silly! (But I doubt that anyone outside the companies involved would ever get to see it, since it'd be crucial for product launches / deadlines - even specification creation....)
...Bush doesn't think he got a "mandate" from the people. But, knowing him, he'll say he got a mandrake, or something.
;-)
[/Quoted]
...you mean he doesn't run Debian! Shame on him!
Vice President Gore FLUNKED divinity school and dropped out of law school.
;-)
[/Quoted]
..and Winston Churchill was a bit of a dunce at school. Your point?
Far more important for Heads of State to have a firm grasp of reality and international affairs than a degree or two.
And I'll let youse guys argue whether Gush or Bore is the one that knows that Europe is not a country.....
[Quoted] Network Solutions initially allowed all words, then banned George Carlin's "seven dirty words," alone or as substrings, with occasional slip-ups and odd exceptions. The seven words were piss, shit, fuck, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, and tits [/Quoted] What about "semprini.com"? [/Ponty Mython]
[Quoted]
:-)
I can appreciate changing the title to fit American terminology, but how do you Americanise the rest of it?
[/Quoted]
See all of those half-wrecked land-rovers? Left-hand drive, the lot of them!
And maybe there are some other small changes. The "Build a cannon" episode could be changed to "Build a fully-functional attack helicopter, with chain guns, air-to-ground missiles, and nuclear capabilities, and at the end of the day, you can take it home with you!"
What the bloody fuck are your talking about? I'd rather sound like a redneck or valley girl than a snooty, inbred, ignorant, conceited, good-for-nothing english fuck.
:-)
[/Quoted]
Well at least we're not irretrievably vulgar.
[Quoted from Economist article]
/that's/ the real motivator. Nothing to do with engineering prowess, or protecting pilots, just good old-fashioned greenbacks. :-/
America's air force spends around $2m training each pilot, and $1 billion a year keeping its 2,000 F-16 pilots in peak
....
From simulations, Boeing has worked out that operators should be able to handle four UCAVs efficiently from a single workstation.
[/Quoted]
So, if you can quarter the number of pilots you need, that's a cost reduction of US$750m pa in ongoing training costs. Not to mention direct labour cost. Oh, and if you're spending US$2m on each pilot, that can be quartered as well.
And given that military outfits spend more time sitting around at peace than in conflict, this is a real ongoing saving.... And I'd bet that
Due stupid tax system here is better for company to provide you with cellular phone, car, separate office, simply everything else than higher salary.
/generalisation
:-)
But on the plus side, it costs the company less to acquire these sort of things in bulk than it would for an individual employee. So both sides win. What's becoming increasingly common in the UK is for a portion of salary to be paid in vouchers for certain retailers (usually supermarkets) 3-way win: The company can get bulk discounts, the supermarkets get guaranteed trade, and the employees (supposedly) get a better remuneration deal.
The IT sector is very lucky in terms of the perks employees get, when compared to other industries (I would guess that this is due to the percieved "skills shortage" that HR mgrs often witter on about) although there does often seem to be agap of what employees need and want compared with what employers are prepared to give... Probably due to a deficiency of expertise in management of IT-skilled people, due to managers having been trained in other industries.
Of course, I'm still in favour of having dress-up Fridays, where people can come to work all tarted-up....
Wow... I didn't think coders liked salad....
"We think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop a competing technology to RDRAM and not infringe on our patents," he said. "We are extremely confident in our legal position."
:-)
Yeah - but what about when a country with low labour costs and not much care for patent law starts producing cheap clones for not-much money. Say, China, f'rinstance. Then they'd be stuffed. By the free market no less. How positively ironic.
You're telling me! I'm a consultant, working on-site at the moment. And it's over an hour and a half commute each way. And that's if there are no problems with the trains. (For those of you outside the UK - it's monsoon season here, and all the trains are fscked) It's taken me over 3 hours at times, and on Monday I couldn't get in at all!
/is/ the way forward - as offices move toward hot-desking and methods of work that are geographically-independant... And I reckon that even if the quantity of contact time between cow-erkers may decrease, the /quality/ of that time would increase. (Consider all those pointless meetings.....)
:-/
And a survey published yesterday (I forget the source) claims that commuting is the biggest cause of stress in workers' lives. No surprise, when it takes you 12 hours to do 8 hours work..
Telecommuting
At the moment, the main thing holding back teleworking is not the technology, it's the culture of "fear-thy-customer". As long as companies continue to believe that customers want the thought of their suppliers having all their employees in one place all the time, things just won't change... Sadly.
1) War on Drugs
Bush: The war on drugs has been a resounding success.... I've finally given up.
Gore: I invented the War on Drugs!
2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
Bush: I will allow Satanists to hold ceremonies around state executions, and thus reduce the number of sacrifices required. And then I'll cut taxes with the money saved!
Gore: I even let Linux users onto the internet.
3) Why give a tax cut?
Bush: I need to give a slingback to my rich buddies.
Gore: I need to give a slingback to Bush's rich buddies.
4) electoral reform
Bush: What an excellent idea - let's charge people 50,000USD to vote!
Gore: I invented electoral reform!
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
Bush: I would love to have some intellectual real estate.
Gore: Information wants to be free. - I invented that slogan!
6) Encryption....
Bush: The socio-political synergistic demands of a multifacted errmm. information dynastic ummm strategic alignment ummm what was the question again?
Gore: "$J%H£^£(%*$TGSJKNG$W*(WRWJEHR($*%
7) Rising Political Protests
Bush: Multinationals are great. As long as they're american. Well. Texan.
Gore: The world is just one small village composed of cottage industries. And I invented that!
8) Asteroid Defenses
Bush: Computer games are bad for kids. Keep them away.
Gore: I've got some Preparation H, if that helps.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
Bush: Our mission is to get elected, whatever the cost.
Gore: Our mission is to get elected, whatever the cost.