Thought of the Day

AMP is deeply disappointed that its advice business has charged customers fees where service has not been provided and for misleading the regulator in this regard. We apologise unreservedly to our customers, our regulator and the community more broadly.

--- AMP statement here

When a European-built airliner or an EU manufactuer's aero-engine has a major incident, the fleet is grounded. Yet this week has seen yet another in a series of catastrophic failures in an American-built airliner with an American engine - this one with a punctured cabin, depressurisation, death ... oh, well. No biggy.

-- PleaseBeInformed.com - Thought of the day.

Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.

Diogenes Laërtius, (404 - 323 B.C.)

Intelligence is born of learning for oneself - every thing else is data. But we only learn by trial and error. Are we ready to hand over critical business functions to machines that we know will make mistakes but we don't know what mistakes they will make nor the consequences of them?
-- Nigel Morris-Cotterill www.countermoneylaundering.com

Don't fry naked

Yesterday, internet hosts Names.co.uk migrated our Group's websites to their servers. We continue to have trouble with most of our sites including several that are broken completely. This site is not working properly and we suspect that is related to problems with the https security certificate. We are pressing Names.co.uk to solve the problems they have created but, after some 12 hours, we have little or no faith in their ability to do so with the requisite skill and attention. We regret the difficulty that our customers and clients are facing due to problems that are outside our control.

Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.

-- Diogenes Laërtius, (404 - 323 B.C.)

Our internet host plans to migrate all of our Group services to a new server farm today (10 April, 2018). We are therefore remaining off-line pending transfer and verification of the data. We regret this inconvenience which has been imposed on us without consultation or planning to ensure effective continuity of a live website. If this notice is present, things have gone well. If it is not, they have gone badly.

One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.

-- Diogenes Laërtius, (404 - 323 B.C.)

The sentencing of Issakidis and Dickson are a wake-up call to the lawyers and accountants who devise and promote tax evasion schemes and never think they could go to jail. Well, the sentence handed down today, and Dickson’s sentence of 14 years, shows that those involved in tax evasion schemes will go to jail, and go to jail for a long time.

There are serious consequences and personal impacts for these crimes. Those unethical lawyers and accountants devising these schemes don’t want to have to face the reality of having to going home, pack your bags and to tell your family “daddy’s going to jail”.

---- Chris Jordan AO, Commissioner of Taxation, Australian taxation Office 29 March 2018

Mr Radford, a man of previous good character, was convicted of one count of rape, four counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted sexual assault, one count of assault by penetration and twelve counts of administering a substance with intent. These index offences related to twelve victims, aged between 19 and 33, and to crimes committed in the period of 18 months between October 2006 to February 2008.

-- High Court of England and Wales re Worboys / Radford, "the black taxi killer."

We don't need money, we just need people

-- Ron Stanbridge from the Fancott Miniature Railway Society making a plea for volunteers

Yes, our software got the time wrong and no, it wasn't because we changed to British Summer Time
-- No one at Mercedes F1 said this but Toto Wolf's explanation wasn't any more convincing given that Hamilton had benefited from similar circumstances last year.

It's time. #deletefacebook

- Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, sold to facebook which promptly reversed WhatsApp's promises to users.

Linda Carter,"a woman who used to go around in a skin-tight strapless outfit and use magic bracelets to help corral bad guys [now counts amongst] her circle of friends ... Blaine Trump, the much-photographed wife of Donald Trump`s even less-successful younger brother, Robert" and "she married (in 1984) hot-shot Washington lawyer Robert Altman, junior partner and protegé of Clark Clifford, long-time lobbyist/lawyer, presidential confidant and former defence secretary."

-- Chicago Tribune, 1991