chrisseaton
chrisseaton on Hacker News
> they can't tell defence what to do
The Prime Minister can only exercise control over the military by policy? They have no input to operations at all? Seems extraordinary. Wikipedia says that ministers exercise authority.
> The money you pay for tuition really isn't going into a better education, it's maintaining the illusion that draws big names as both students and professors, and all the networking opportunities that then manifest as better outcomes for graduates.
Good professors, students, and networking makes a good education though, so yes it is really going to a better education.
Ever seen someone shift a gear in a movie?
The rest of the civil service seems almost entirely unable to get anything done in computing though. Signals intelligence in the UK and US seem to ship quite a lot of success, from all the history, leaks, and things you can physically see like Bumblehive. Definitely something they’re doing differently than the rest of the civil service.
> yet some parts of it feel like DisneyWorld
Says it in the name, doesn’t it? It’s a managed ‘park’ for people’s enjoyment, not a wilderness. So it has DisneyWorld-like infrastructure.
> So the broader question would be: what makes governments apparently unable to get big IT projects done right?
Signals intelligence people must be building some of the most powerful computer systems in the world. They also historically have innovated and led the industry in areas like crypto. How come they get it right but the rest of the civil service can’t?
That's what I said about pressing the clutch isn't it? Just like pressing the brake in many automatic cars.
You just turn the ignition. You may have to push the clutch in for some cars, just like you have to push the break in for some automatic cars. Manual cars aren't as different as you think they are.
There's really no magic to it - there's an extra pedal you depress when changing gear, and you bring up to re-engage the engine. Anyone can figure it out when presented with the pedal and the gear lever. People with no no education do it all around the world every day - I'm sure an American can figure it out.
I don't get why people thinking driving a manual gearbox is such a mystery - it's not much different to automatic driving I've never met anyone who wasn't able to do it well enough.
> Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value.
Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary?
How to install some machine code bytes. What machine code bytes do you want to install though? That's the interesting bit!
I’m Senior Staff and still have to use Stack Overflow regularly!
The proportion nationally is literally over 50%. They can't all be older people - that just doesn't factually add up, does it? You must be living in a very strange bubble, completely unrepresentative of the rest of the country.
The reality is most people with a phone use an iPhone. Any tech or academic conference I go to, most people are using MacBooks.
If like 50% of people use iPhones, which they do, how can it be possible to not know anyone young who uses one? Just doesn’t pass a common sense test to be true.
How does that change if the majority is small or large? Like 1% or 10% what difference do you think that makes?
Majority of people in US who use a phone use an iPhone, that’s just a fact. Their comment isn’t credible.
> The only people I know that own iPhones IRL are older people who aren't tech savvy
Where do you live? Overwhelming majority of tech people I know in the US and UK use MacBooks and iPhones. That’s academia, systems programming, web services. Very very rarely see anyone using anything but macOS.
Credit cards vs invoicing seems orthogonal - this is about seeing a price up front.
Most people would answer ‘I’m happy with what’s on the App Store thanks I have no desire to use anything else’.
Apple providing a more secure phone is an innovation and advancement. If the iPhone isn’t the right choice for you buy one of the other thousand phones on the market.
> The idea that you can influence companies by not buying is an illusion.
People didn’t buy New Coke so it went away.
> I suspect you support at least some level of collective restriction
Locked mobile phones don’t hurt people other than the people who choose to use them. That’s different to for example a gun.
The only reason to ban iPhones is because you know other people like them as they are and you’re in a minority! You want to enforce a minority opinion on others. That’s morally wrong.
Why do you need to ban other people from buying them? You can already just opt to not buy them yourself. Why do you care if others still want to?
Clearly not signed everyone - I don’t sign it.
> I want the option to control my devices.
So don’t buy an iPhone. You know that’s not the offer.
I don't get what's 'in it' for people to have overly complicated forms. Like they have to store all the data and in some cases manually input it (like customs forms.) What's the benefit?
Ideally people would have a single universal identifier and then I'd never need to put my date of birth or tax number on another form again.
> Time wasted filling in forms and talking to service staff should really be tracked and associated with the business or government agency
Isn't there a US law on this? The Paperwork Reduction Act?
> offered by inquiry only which i can only assume means we have serious reservations regarding the salability of this 'new' product
Much B2B is done on price by inquiry. The three columns and 'best value!' is a very modern thing. Even in those cases you'll usually see the enterprise option is 'call us'. I wouldn't make extreme assumptions based on the pricing model.
> But definitely could be worded much better than NoMethodError.
But that is the root cause - there is no such method.
The thing about 'Did you mean? name' is just a guess to help you.
> (including health insurance!)
I think they’re European?