watermanio

This feels especially true when you have access to things like BigQuery ML.

It's very easy for an average engineer (like me) to start using ML using these tools, but a lot harder to explain how it works, or exactly which type of models to use.

In my mind a DS would be really useful to just point us in the right direction and check work. Like a super specialist QA...

My Dad was too cheap for Encarta. We had a shareware version called something like Infopedia. I remember doing a homework project at a friend's house and being quite jealous of the proper version!

My last home was built about 5 years ago, and the house builder had fitted fibre ducting to the curb, but when OpenReach turned up they came with a ladder and slung up a copper cable.

Maybe on a massive development they will install brand new street cabinets, but anything smaller than a few hundred homes, copper is still the standard.

There are probably simpler ways - for example, if an accident report states there was only one person in the car, it was probably the driver using his phone.

> dangerous misinformation

Oh come on, making a V sign is not dangerous. Most likely, someone shouts an original insult to you.

But you still have to give the Verify companies enough data that a breach of their systems would be very serious. Eg. If the Post Office (an organisation that recently falsely sent a load of employees to prison due to their own cocked up IT project) gets hacked, they have (or could have) dates of birth, 6 years of addresses, email addresses, etc. of a good number of gov.uk users.

I still can't believe people are happy using Verify.

I very reluctantly tried to use it as I don't want to give all my data to any of the companies you listed, and yet it failed to identify me using the two companies I was allowed to pick.

I really don't see how it's acceptable to force users to give so much personal data to a handful of randomly selected private companies, on the off-chance that they already have it.

On the other hand, if you are lucky enough to work somewhere in the UK that grants options, those options are likely void the moment you leave the company so this entire discussion wouldn't even take place.

I've been granted options twice, both times essentially designed to stop people leaving during a rough period. Given how few UK startups float it wasn't much of an incentive!