Technically, Luxembourg isn't a tax haven... but it does have some advantageous tax, as does Ireland.
US companies use Luxembourg as VAT (sales tax) is only 15% so they use this for e-commerce, which means when selling to consumers only 15% is nabbed in sales tax, opposed to say 21% if they were based in Ireland. Which is a polite way of saying they have reduced their (sales) tax liability.
Now, Ireland is used by US companies as they are 'tax friendly' in that to encourage US companies to locate there they only impose something like 5% corporate tax (on profits). The cherry on the cake is that when this profit is transferred to the parent US corp then its not taxed again (I can't remember if this was done as a double-taxation treaty of as a specific get out in the US tax system)
So, now you know why people like Apple sell from Ireland but specifically base their iTunes service in Luxembourg.
Half a billion for reinventing the wheel? I mean, we have USB for a long time already, how hard can it be to reimplement it in military harware?
Quite hard. This is stuff that has to work in space, so it has to work all the time and for usually a longer timespan than originally intended... its not like back on the surface where if your cable/hub/whatever goes futz you can simply get a replacement from the local store and swap it.
Could it be too much to ask, that this bus conform to an openly-specified standard, e.g., Wishbone?
If it was a well known standard it would probably be known by the Air Force's enemies and they could use it against them. It would be nice to not reinvent the wheel, but I don't think the military puts that thought very high.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, per se, why don't they take a (not-so-secure or safe) open system, add a bit of hardness to it, so everybody benefits (apart from the enemies).
It would be equivalent to if the EU told Germany, France, and UK "you are no longer allowed to collect VAT; we will institute a Europe-wide sales tax". How would the member states fund themselves?
Nah... it would be more equivalent to the EU saying to Germany, France, and the UK that "you will now set your VAT levels to 25% and 6% instead of your current levels". In other words, the level of tax would be decided externally instead of by the countries themselves. One of the original ideas behind the EU VAT system was that, eventually, the VAT rates would be harmonized across all countries... but interestingly, Amazon can cope with the current disparate rates and does things correctly, i.e. when I order they always charge me the rate in my country (the destination) regardless of whether I order from amazon UK or amazon DE.
What grates with me is that the Australian Federal Government is spending money training kids to use MS s/ware - something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. The MS marketing department must be overjoyed.
Not only Microsoft... don't forget Adobe as it comes with CS4... and Apple get some love with iTunes (at a guess for use with iTunes U)... you can be sure that any bundled software came at a bargain basement price as companies see this as a way of "getting 'em young, then when they go to work they [want|demand] the same software".
That's just plain discrimination... and also shows your complete ignorance that domestic applicants can be just as stupid, evil, liars, as non-domestic applicants.
On a more serious note, why does the CEO want to hire globally... perhaps he's realized that getting in people from different cultures might actually add something new... I've worked in multicultural environments and they're far more interesting than working with a room full of my countrymen.
The drones just do watch their told to and move on.
That really depends on the company. I've worked for some where this is very true... people never question anything and do things that are just plain stupid because they don't apply any common sense and check with somebody before they do something they know is stupid or could be just plain wrong.
On the other hand, I worked for one bank where you couldn't sneeze without several line managers signing off a change request. This meant that when things got done, it usually got done right; of course, getting several line managers to sign off is like trying to heard cats.
Its not an anti-piracy warning... its satire of the anti-piracy warning that is shown at the start of DVDs sold in the UK. As satires go, its very funny is you know the original warning.
(And, to be blunt, one reason to rip your DVDs is to remove the very f*****g annoying anti-piracy warning that is shown at the start of DVDs sold in the UK, especially as you can't skip through it, grrrrr. When I buy a DVD, I just want to watch its content, not get bombasted with crappy anti-piracy warnings and all the stupid trailers they are starting to add now).
Nokia has won more design awards for phones than Apple, by a long shot.
Yes, but Nokia has been in the phone business for how many years compared to the short time Apple has been there... so its hardly surprising they have more awards.
The funniest part is that the OP was probably dead serious when he wrote that. If this is a "good example" of anything, it's an example of why having the source code doesn't buy ordinary people diddly squat.
So true! Years ago when I worked at a software house our CEO was paranoid about the source code... he wanted it locked away as he was afraid our "competitors" could get it. Now, there were a few problems with this. Our customers got the source code when they bought our system, since it needed to be compiled on their systems (as no two customers had the same configuration). Also, we didn't really have any competitors. Now, the joke is that even though our customers had the source, and the security blanket that should our company go down they could continue, the customers could do no more than compile the code. The real knowledge was locked in the heads of the programmers who knew HOW and WHY everything was put together in the source code... and, sadly, this is something that is still overlooked. The source isn't everything, but just part of it, and most people don't realize what the missing part is.
Nowadays, it's usually faster to recompute than read it all back from RAM, and if an interactive program uses a lot of RAM, then it's likely keeping a lot of junk in memory that it doesn't need. That tells you that the programmers didn't think things through carefully, and they probably didn't optimize other things that matter either.
When I was doing real time stuff many years ago (when memory was a limited as hell and the CPU chugged along like a snail), calculations were never recomputed... given the tradeoff between memory use and CPU use (for recalculations) guess which one (it took a few cycles to check if a value was available to fetch opposed to a few hundred to calculate the value).
You clearly have more money than sense... plus, as we all know with Apple, never buy rev 1 of any new hardware... there are always a few glitches so wait a few months until the wrinkles are ironed out
COULD it be fixed? Yes. But it would take months for me to do it, and it would cost too much to hire someone else. Scrapping it and rebuilding it is the only viable option, but management spent a ton of money on this app and nobody will admit that it's a disaster and a $1 million+ mistake.
Management refusing to admit they screwed up... I'm shocked!;-)
Unfortunately it seems like the inmates are running the asylum that Apple's iPhone approval department appears to have turned into. Hopefully when Steve returns one of the things he'll do is have a nice work with them about applying a bit of effing common sense.
Why is it that most government projects always end up late and over budget? So much for getting the specs right, decent planning and project management, and PRINCE2, etc. And the bit that made me really chuckle, "increase in staffing to manage procurement". For crying out loud. Why not throw out the staff they currently have and get in people who are more efficient. Just throwing more people at the problem is not the solution. Of course, in these economically challenged times, one has to ask whether such gigantic projects are value for money. Why don't they do smaller less ambitious projects, which might actually produce something useful... but I suppose those big white elephants are always a great way of keeping a bunch of people employed.
Absolutely right. Private keys in tokens are part of the solution. But, I have only ever some across one company who used them... they provided a smart card which you had to use to login to the computer (and provide a password too)... just to make life more fun, the smart card also opened the office doors, so when you want to go for a toilet break or a coffee break you had to remove the card from the computer (which locks it).
Well yes and no. One item on a checklist of pros and cons should be "Is it FOSS", since it is a known fact that given the exact same source code it is preferential and beneficial that said source code be open rather than proprietary. So in that one respect, yes, FOSS should be given preference.
Many moons ago when I developed commercial software we either had to put the code into escrow or supply it to our customers... I was working for small software house and our customers wanted the security-blanket that should something happen, they could get at the code and still support the software we developed. Now, the dirty little secret, is that even with the code, it wouldn't have done them much good. Just having the code isn't enough. You also need the knowledge behind the code and how it was constructed. You need to grok the code, otherwise you have no idea how to make changes/improvements. This was borne out when I left the company and a (junior) programmer was assigned to take over my application... sure, he could recompile the code. but he just didn't grok it. Ironically, one of the analyst/programmers who used a different language in a different platform could grok my code, but he was never asked to help. So, its not just the code that matters, but having the right people too.
It's not about the best app for a given job, it's about avoiding vendor lock-in. When it comes to government documents, total format openness should be obligatory.
In theory, if you have an open format, then any app should be able to view/edit it. The issue is that not all open formats are created equally. The OpenOffice format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML, IMHO, is a right mess (as in so complicated to grok). If you want something simple that will last a long time, people need to think more in terms of something like plain ASCII/UNICODE with lighweight markup... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language
Equal consideration is all that is needed. Unequal consideration means that an open source solution is considered a better choice than a closed source solution, before the individual merits of each solution are examined.
Of course, this assumes that the tender that is written in a fair and unbiased manner. I've looked at picking up some public sector work, and the biggest problem is that tenders can be written in such a way that only one supplier will be able to win it... and they're written in such as way as to also appear totally open and fair.
The fact is, for over 60 years the successive British governments have failed computer science in the UK despite it being one of the most important countries in the world when it comes to it's developmental history from Turing to Berners-Lee to Ive (the guy who designed the iMac and iPod). The decision mentioned in the article is just further evidence of how backwards and ignorant the British government is - it cares about only a few minor sectors such as banking, and look how well that has done us - whilst the likes of Google were announcing record profits, banks had effectively failed. I believe this ignorance and a refusal to foster and support the field has cost the UK an IT industry that could truly have rivalled that of silicon valley.
The problem is that whilst a lot of good ideas, inventions, and designs have come from the UK, the UK Government has failed to exploit them. One could almost take the view the the government has almost gone out of its way to ensure that they failed. The situation is compounded by the lack of entrepreneurial spirit.
I have a feeling that the problem with Betchley is that no MPs really understand its importance... after all, how many MPs have a computing or crypro background?
Slashdot Mirror
I think he's looking for a solution to his inability to hear things (including his wife).
I would find NOT hearing the wife/girlfriend/whatever to be a significant advantage ;-)
For e-commerce the VAT is based on the supplier's country, not the consumers country... unless they've gone and changed the rules again.
Technically, Luxembourg isn't a tax haven... but it does have some advantageous tax, as does Ireland. US companies use Luxembourg as VAT (sales tax) is only 15% so they use this for e-commerce, which means when selling to consumers only 15% is nabbed in sales tax, opposed to say 21% if they were based in Ireland. Which is a polite way of saying they have reduced their (sales) tax liability. Now, Ireland is used by US companies as they are 'tax friendly' in that to encourage US companies to locate there they only impose something like 5% corporate tax (on profits). The cherry on the cake is that when this profit is transferred to the parent US corp then its not taxed again (I can't remember if this was done as a double-taxation treaty of as a specific get out in the US tax system) So, now you know why people like Apple sell from Ireland but specifically base their iTunes service in Luxembourg.
Half a billion for reinventing the wheel? I mean, we have USB for a long time already, how hard can it be to reimplement it in military harware?
Quite hard. This is stuff that has to work in space, so it has to work all the time and for usually a longer timespan than originally intended... its not like back on the surface where if your cable/hub/whatever goes futz you can simply get a replacement from the local store and swap it.
Could it be too much to ask, that this bus conform to an openly-specified standard, e.g., Wishbone?
If it was a well known standard it would probably be known by the Air Force's enemies and they could use it against them. It would be nice to not reinvent the wheel, but I don't think the military puts that thought very high.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, per se, why don't they take a (not-so-secure or safe) open system, add a bit of hardness to it, so everybody benefits (apart from the enemies).
It would be equivalent to if the EU told Germany, France, and UK "you are no longer allowed to collect VAT; we will institute a Europe-wide sales tax". How would the member states fund themselves?
Nah... it would be more equivalent to the EU saying to Germany, France, and the UK that "you will now set your VAT levels to 25% and 6% instead of your current levels". In other words, the level of tax would be decided externally instead of by the countries themselves. One of the original ideas behind the EU VAT system was that, eventually, the VAT rates would be harmonized across all countries... but interestingly, Amazon can cope with the current disparate rates and does things correctly, i.e. when I order they always charge me the rate in my country (the destination) regardless of whether I order from amazon UK or amazon DE.
What grates with me is that the Australian Federal Government is spending money training kids to use MS s/ware - something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. The MS marketing department must be overjoyed.
Not only Microsoft... don't forget Adobe as it comes with CS4... and Apple get some love with iTunes (at a guess for use with iTunes U)... you can be sure that any bundled software came at a bargain basement price as companies see this as a way of "getting 'em young, then when they go to work they [want|demand] the same software".
just skip the test for domestic applicants.
That's just plain discrimination... and also shows your complete ignorance that domestic applicants can be just as stupid, evil, liars, as non-domestic applicants. On a more serious note, why does the CEO want to hire globally... perhaps he's realized that getting in people from different cultures might actually add something new... I've worked in multicultural environments and they're far more interesting than working with a room full of my countrymen.
The drones just do watch their told to and move on.
That really depends on the company. I've worked for some where this is very true... people never question anything and do things that are just plain stupid because they don't apply any common sense and check with somebody before they do something they know is stupid or could be just plain wrong.
On the other hand, I worked for one bank where you couldn't sneeze without several line managers signing off a change request. This meant that when things got done, it usually got done right; of course, getting several line managers to sign off is like trying to heard cats.
Can we please find a secure way of using direct debit, so we can cut the credit-card companies out of the loop?
Direct debit is intended for regular payments, not one offs.
Forgive the youtube link, but a British TV show called "The IT Crowd" did a pretty good anti-piracy warning.
Its not an anti-piracy warning... its satire of the anti-piracy warning that is shown at the start of DVDs sold in the UK. As satires go, its very funny is you know the original warning. (And, to be blunt, one reason to rip your DVDs is to remove the very f*****g annoying anti-piracy warning that is shown at the start of DVDs sold in the UK, especially as you can't skip through it, grrrrr. When I buy a DVD, I just want to watch its content, not get bombasted with crappy anti-piracy warnings and all the stupid trailers they are starting to add now).
Highlighting was a bitch.
No chisels in the Cretaceous period then?
Nokia has won more design awards for phones than Apple, by a long shot.
Yes, but Nokia has been in the phone business for how many years compared to the short time Apple has been there... so its hardly surprising they have more awards.
The funniest part is that the OP was probably dead serious when he wrote that. If this is a "good example" of anything, it's an example of why having the source code doesn't buy ordinary people diddly squat.
So true! Years ago when I worked at a software house our CEO was paranoid about the source code... he wanted it locked away as he was afraid our "competitors" could get it. Now, there were a few problems with this. Our customers got the source code when they bought our system, since it needed to be compiled on their systems (as no two customers had the same configuration). Also, we didn't really have any competitors. Now, the joke is that even though our customers had the source, and the security blanket that should our company go down they could continue, the customers could do no more than compile the code. The real knowledge was locked in the heads of the programmers who knew HOW and WHY everything was put together in the source code... and, sadly, this is something that is still overlooked. The source isn't everything, but just part of it, and most people don't realize what the missing part is.
Nowadays, it's usually faster to recompute than read it all back from RAM, and if an interactive program uses a lot of RAM, then it's likely keeping a lot of junk in memory that it doesn't need. That tells you that the programmers didn't think things through carefully, and they probably didn't optimize other things that matter either.
When I was doing real time stuff many years ago (when memory was a limited as hell and the CPU chugged along like a snail), calculations were never recomputed... given the tradeoff between memory use and CPU use (for recalculations) guess which one (it took a few cycles to check if a value was available to fetch opposed to a few hundred to calculate the value).
I'd pay 7k for a 30" OLED in a heartbeat.
You clearly have more money than sense... plus, as we all know with Apple, never buy rev 1 of any new hardware... there are always a few glitches so wait a few months until the wrinkles are ironed out
COULD it be fixed? Yes. But it would take months for me to do it, and it would cost too much to hire someone else. Scrapping it and rebuilding it is the only viable option, but management spent a ton of money on this app and nobody will admit that it's a disaster and a $1 million+ mistake.
Management refusing to admit they screwed up... I'm shocked! ;-)
Unfortunately it seems like the inmates are running the asylum that Apple's iPhone approval department appears to have turned into. Hopefully when Steve returns one of the things he'll do is have a nice work with them about applying a bit of effing common sense.
Why is it that most government projects always end up late and over budget? So much for getting the specs right, decent planning and project management, and PRINCE2, etc. And the bit that made me really chuckle, "increase in staffing to manage procurement". For crying out loud. Why not throw out the staff they currently have and get in people who are more efficient. Just throwing more people at the problem is not the solution. Of course, in these economically challenged times, one has to ask whether such gigantic projects are value for money. Why don't they do smaller less ambitious projects, which might actually produce something useful... but I suppose those big white elephants are always a great way of keeping a bunch of people employed.
>But, I have only ever some across one company who used them...
Very common in my sector (manufacture and overhaul of military aircraft).
The military sector is a bit more secure than where I tend to work (in financial services)
Absolutely right. Private keys in tokens are part of the solution. But, I have only ever some across one company who used them... they provided a smart card which you had to use to login to the computer (and provide a password too)... just to make life more fun, the smart card also opened the office doors, so when you want to go for a toilet break or a coffee break you had to remove the card from the computer (which locks it).
Well yes and no. One item on a checklist of pros and cons should be "Is it FOSS", since it is a known fact that given the exact same source code it is preferential and beneficial that said source code be open rather than proprietary. So in that one respect, yes, FOSS should be given preference.
Many moons ago when I developed commercial software we either had to put the code into escrow or supply it to our customers... I was working for small software house and our customers wanted the security-blanket that should something happen, they could get at the code and still support the software we developed. Now, the dirty little secret, is that even with the code, it wouldn't have done them much good. Just having the code isn't enough. You also need the knowledge behind the code and how it was constructed. You need to grok the code, otherwise you have no idea how to make changes/improvements. This was borne out when I left the company and a (junior) programmer was assigned to take over my application... sure, he could recompile the code. but he just didn't grok it. Ironically, one of the analyst/programmers who used a different language in a different platform could grok my code, but he was never asked to help. So, its not just the code that matters, but having the right people too.
It's not about the best app for a given job, it's about avoiding vendor lock-in. When it comes to government documents, total format openness should be obligatory.
In theory, if you have an open format, then any app should be able to view/edit it. The issue is that not all open formats are created equally. The OpenOffice format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML, IMHO, is a right mess (as in so complicated to grok). If you want something simple that will last a long time, people need to think more in terms of something like plain ASCII/UNICODE with lighweight markup... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language
Equal consideration is all that is needed. Unequal consideration means that an open source solution is considered a better choice than a closed source solution, before the individual merits of each solution are examined.
Of course, this assumes that the tender that is written in a fair and unbiased manner. I've looked at picking up some public sector work, and the biggest problem is that tenders can be written in such a way that only one supplier will be able to win it... and they're written in such as way as to also appear totally open and fair.
The fact is, for over 60 years the successive British governments have failed computer science in the UK despite it being one of the most important countries in the world when it comes to it's developmental history from Turing to Berners-Lee to Ive (the guy who designed the iMac and iPod). The decision mentioned in the article is just further evidence of how backwards and ignorant the British government is - it cares about only a few minor sectors such as banking, and look how well that has done us - whilst the likes of Google were announcing record profits, banks had effectively failed. I believe this ignorance and a refusal to foster and support the field has cost the UK an IT industry that could truly have rivalled that of silicon valley.
The problem is that whilst a lot of good ideas, inventions, and designs have come from the UK, the UK Government has failed to exploit them. One could almost take the view the the government has almost gone out of its way to ensure that they failed. The situation is compounded by the lack of entrepreneurial spirit.
I have a feeling that the problem with Betchley is that no MPs really understand its importance... after all, how many MPs have a computing or crypro background?