scott.williams.scot
Dynamics 365 & Power Platform Engineer. Based in Scotland. Find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sw175
80 posts
53 followers
33 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Wish this were so but unfortunately the trends in inactivity data are backed up by DWP figures, based on increases in the number of people they're paying. Mistakes for most economic indices can go undetected for longer as there's few or no other source of official statistics to cross-reference with.
comment in response to
post
To be fair, OFWAT are pretty hamstrung by the ridiculous way water infrastructure is handled in England. It's a state-licensed private monopoly, and the costs of any fines are effectively just handed off to either the customer or the public purse, so they don't actually have any power to regulate.
comment in response to
post
Rule 2 - Spend other people's money if you don't have any. And thus we invented banking.
comment in response to
post
To be fair, 'tax credits' is a pretty misleading name for it. Makes it sound like a rebate. Which is the entire point, of course, to make it sound more paletable to anti-benefits folks.
comment in response to
post
Many years ago, yes. As the refrain goes, though, like all works of dystopian fiction, it's supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual. If I'd been told ten years ago that fascism would be tolerated in mainstream Western politics within my lifetime, I'd have laughed.
comment in response to
post
If something even worse happens, this time line is still the worst. If reality wants to win a bet, stuff had better start improving around here pretty damn fast!
comment in response to
post
Most of the remaining staff work in the Teams product group now anyway. All the real-time comms stuff in MS Teams basically uses a blend of Skype consumer and Skype for Business tech under the hood.
comment in response to
post
Again, it's a de facto ability juries have, but de jure, their rulings are supposed to be guided solely by the evidence presented in the case and the law. No judge is ever going to advise a jury to make a decision on any other basis, regardless of whether they technically have that power.
comment in response to
post
Jury equity isn't recognised or endorsed by the judiciary, for what should be obvious reasons. It's just an inevitable consequence of jury trials, a technicality, not an intentional feature. The judge's instruction to the jury was de facto wrong, but de jure correct, as you'd probably expect?
comment in response to
post
That bubble is already beginning to burst, thankfully. Key players are already starting to quietly back out of the space, or at least tap the brakes on further spending in that area. Tech stocks are already starting to wobble in response, roughly proportionate to their exposure to AI hype.
comment in response to
post
Worth a read if this is your kind of thing. Although from that ticket title, you may already have an article in here...
comment in response to
post
Good luck. The EU, for instance, is still trying to get them to pay taxes owed on sales they illegally attributed to their Irish subsidiary. It's deeply unhelpful too that the Trump administration is reportedly considering abandoning the OECD framework designed to tackle these tax-haven shell games.
comment in response to
post
AI has been used in VFX for over a decade now without killing any jobs. It still needs people who know what they're doing to actually operate it. This is unfortunately just another case of bad management and questionable financial decisions that left them needing new investment to shore things up.
comment in response to
post
The problem law-enforcement agencies have with this, though, is that it leaves them unable to go fishing, and still requires them to actually investigate crimes, rather than just trawl the web for evidence. That's the real nub of all this. Investigations take time, money and skills.
comment in response to
post
Let's face it - the only tweak needed to make existing laws work in the face of hard encryption is to allow the courts discretion to not only charge someone with contempt in such situations, but to also grant them the power to sentence up to the penalty for the crime under investigation.
comment in response to
post
There's actually 10 types of people in the world... Those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who understand trinary too.
comment in response to
post
This would be a valid argument, if it weren't for the fact that the perceived value is being massively distorted by the huge sums of VC money being pumped into these companies, allowing them to make the service available at subsidised prices, or even for free. When it dries up, then we'll see.
comment in response to
post
They mistake brand managers for the influencers they sometimes employ.
comment in response to
post
Just for context - the Express is one of the UK's most rabidly right-wing rags and tends to have an even looser relationship with the truth than the Daily Mail. So to see them run with such an anti-Trump headline is quite the statement.
comment in response to
post
Nope, still not quite right. That was Truss. Thankfully, not even the Tory party are as crazy as the GOP. The ones who are really in charge of it, that is. The general membership are the ones who picked the obvious dud candidate nobody was supposed to vote for and they're all nuts.
comment in response to
post
Odd you showed up in my discover feed tonight... I know exactly how you feel! Keep alternating between opening my laptop and closing it again after staring at it for five minutes and realising I don't have the mental energy to do anything productive right now.
comment in response to
post
Always the way with the hard-right. Erasing us, one letter at a time.
comment in response to
post
A subset of Tory party members did. She couldn't even hold on to her own seat in the GE, let alone the whole country.
comment in response to
post
Meh. Copilot's been able to do that in Teams for about a year now. The issue isn't with the tech, it's with a) actually doing the actions, and b) keeping the meeting focused and on-topic enough to agree any in the first place. But let's circle back to this point next week?
comment in response to
post
Meh. Copilot's been able to do that in Teams for about a year now. The issue isn't with the tech, it's with a) actually doing the actions, and b) keeping the meeting focused and on-topic enough to agree any in the first place. But let's circle back to this point next week?
comment in response to
post
Not for much longer, apparently. At least, if you're in the US. Anywhere else, it should be properly labelled still.
comment in response to
post
Good God America... The Handmaid's Tale was supposed to be a work of dystopian fiction, not a manifesto!
comment in response to
post
Nah, I don't think they've sunk low enough to print this yet... But yeah, the journalism does seem to be in a slump of late, and the comment is just Daily Mail stuff rewritten to be a little bit more verbose.
comment in response to
post
I mean... SpaceX got started by purchasing Russian engines for its earliest rockets, because at the time, they were some of the most reliable in the world. Korolev's designs are still still the basis of the modern Soyuz rockets, which are still the record holders for successful launches.
comment in response to
post
I was genuinely surprised when I was over in the States and I got a load of tax added to my purchase at the time of payment. Over here, consumers just get shown a VAT incl. price which is exactly what they'll pay at the till. You'll only usually see ex. VAT pricing in B2B contexts, e.g. wholesalers.
comment in response to
post
Yeah, you only pay the 99p, not the full pound, but I just tend to round off any price I'm working with to 2-3 significant figures at most - makes things much simpler to calculate in your head, and it leaves you with some savings at the end of the month.
comment in response to
post
Here in the UK, our VAT is usually included in the price of consumer goods, but we still often see the 99p thing. Its always struck me as odd, since I've always just had a kind of mental filter that rounds any penny amount off to the next pound anyway, and I always assumed everyone did that?
comment in response to
post
IKR? I'm pretty far away from the Telegraph's demographic, but I do often find their political cartoons intelligent and amusing. I think the issue here is it's got nothing to say, beyond just "Labour Bad." There's no insight, no commentary - just an overwhelming sense of smugness, absent any ideas.
comment in response to
post
Speaking of which, the gap between the 'k' and the 'e' there just doesn't quite look right to me...
comment in response to
post
That's what comes from living in a country where the majority of urban streets predate cars by hundreds of years. Our roads were built for people first and foremost, so if you want to bring a speeding death machine out onto them, you'd better know how to keep it under control!
comment in response to
post
Speaking as a member of that demographic, creative problem solvers tend to cost too much for charitable orgs to attract and retain. I'd love to still be working in the voluntary sector, but it would mean taking half the pay, for the same job I'm doing right now. I just can't afford that.
comment in response to
post
A properly constructed data mesh should still be decentralised. The idea is that each publisher has ownership of the data they provide, and they also handle access control for it. Consumers of the data can then decide what data they need, but have the advantage of a one-stop shop for finding it.
comment in response to
post
An excellent diagnosis of the main problem with social media. Too often, instead of sparking genuine discussion or debate, it encourages reaction instead, which people often mistake for discourse. Limiting interaction to people who follow is perfectly reasonable in that context.
comment in response to
post
OK... But... Look at you! You're amazing! Your thoughts are great! 😆
Nah, seriously, you're doing a great job at a thankless task, so... Thanks!
comment in response to
post
Can't say I followed him closely enough to have had a clue, tbh - I was just going by the game's rep. I guess it's just another reminder that talent ≠decency 🙄
comment in response to
post
This. It'll be a bit of a laugh for teenage boys and freshers at uni, and of course it'll be a great starting point for the stag-dos. But strip-clubs offer more bang for the buck in that regard, so I just don't see how they can compete. Because that's the perception of their business here in the UK.
comment in response to
post
I thought the lead dev was just trolling them, tbh. He knew the following the first game had, then released the second playing to all their prejudices, before following it up with a bunch of stuff perfectly calibrated to grind their gears... but only after he got their money. Sounds fine to me.
comment in response to
post
That would be illegal under the Snooper's Charter. They are prevented by law from communicating that they have been served a technical capability notice. The law doesn't define that 'communication' specifically, so any 'canary' would likely be found to be in breach by a judge, whatever its form.
comment in response to
post
Nope - it's more like the UK government ordering every locksmith in the world to provide a working key for every lock they install. And ordering them not to tell anyone about it. Disgusting behaviour.