Posts by John Smith 19

@mittfh

"...if Acorn Computers ever regretted spinning ARM off into a completely separate company? :)"

Perhaps.

They certainly *never* undervalued their hardware.

The only company that matched their pricing was Apple.

Acorn is history. ARM is still in business.

@John 98

"The worrying bit is that if these goons can remove stuff from our bags and smuggle it out, "

What makes you think they have *smuggle* it out of the airport.

The Thieves Support Association won't stop them.

@John Savard

"in addition to any theft charges, they should also face Federal felony charges with especially severe penalties - so that any theft, however small, could lead to life imprisonment."

Now that sounds like a deterrent, *provided* it's emphasized in training.

Travellers to/from the USA have a choice *which* airport they go into.

There is no choice on using or not using the TSA (or is that the TSA or whoever they outsourced the job to locally).

@The elephant in the room

"what on earth did they spend it all on?"

Well it seems it was a mix of living expenses (living on your credit card for years) and property speculation (getting a mortgage and relying on the rise of value of the property and your job to handle it).

After all it was all *easy* money.

"Is this what it it costs for an entire country to replace all its plates after smashing them at the end of every meal? They should just stop doing that."

Careful now you wouldn't want to be accuses of ethnic profiling, would you ?

@kain preacher.

"Because you don't believe in religion does not make some that does nuts. So do you actually have a valid point against AC@ 11:35 or are you just going to call him stupid cause he believes in religion ."

I've known people who've found a deity before they were found by an ambulance. Their religion has given them the strength to overcome their problems. Their belief has kept them strong.

In *this* context the quote was irrelevant and "proved" nothing. Like everyone else I'll judge comments by their *content*. My *actual* points were in the post. But I'll repeat them.

The Roman empire unified most or all of what is the Eurozone for several *centuries*, which is rather better than any of the military conquerors listed.

The EU/euro is a coalition of *willing* parties to share a currency in the hopes of mutual support and greater stability.

One refuted the OP's list of military failures, the other points out that that the Euro is *not* an attempt to form a union by military means anyway.

I'd call those two valid points.

@Mark 65

My point exactly.

@Marketing Hack

"But what does this have to do with tech/IT/science?"

Well I'd guess as quite a lot of Reg readers live in various bits of Europe it could have substantial knock on effects to companies banks supply funding to. Bankrupt companies don't need IT staff.

Personally I don't have a problem with a few banks going down the pan. There will be an auction for their assets and their *real* worth will be discovered (demonstrating who *really* earned their last staggering large bonus) and "New Bank" will open for business.

Meanwhile money will still continue to be paid into (and out of) the *customer* accounts and customer swill continue to pay off their loans until the new buyer takes over the "loan book"

As for it affecting pension funds I'd wonder if *any* of them are still holding bank shares. It would seem a pretty stupid thing to do.

@Johan Bastiannsen

"So the question is: who are these stupid people? We'll, they're the ones who set up the euro zone. If all the solutions are "illegal", who made this illegal? Find out who. Put a rubber stamp on their forehead "stupid" and gag them for four years.

If they refuse the shut up, kill them.

Stupid people are the curse of the human race. They do much more harm than evil people, simply because there are so many of them."

A delightfully simple solution to the problem.

As always the issue is who decides who are the the *not* stupid people.

Other than that what could possibly go wrong with such a sensible arrangement?

Spopnbistle

"...the bankers will simply connect our pensions and savings with the consequences of their positions."

And will continue to do so until regulation finds a way to punish the *decision* makers, not the institutions.

laws are aversion therapy for organizations. The tough part is to find some that discourage *both* personal and institutional behavior

A case in point is that when banks in the UK called in an accountants to assess if a company was insolvent and they should be shut down (UK banks have preferred creditor status) the accountants who did the audit *also* got the contract to shut the company down.

*Except* at the Royal Bank of Scotland, which tendered the insolvency administration.

Curiously this was the also the bank with the *lowest* number of companies going into receivership.

Good choice of customers or recognition that the firm involved was not going to make *easy* money. BTW It's SOP in insolvency to secure the insolvency fee *first* from the assets of the company you're shutting down.

AC@ 22:21

"You haven't addressed the AC's argument, so he wins by default."

Wrong. If you have to open a post with a quote from the Bible (Written in the Middle East > 2000 years ago) they (you?) are already raising a "I am a religious nut" flag.

That's not usually a sign of coherent thinking.

As for the rest I'll note the Roman empire if not all at least most of what is the eurozone for centuries.

*All* listed attempted *military* conquest, not the *willing* joining of sovereign nations for mutual benefit (well that's the theory anyhow).

I'll also note that my post polled 8/2 versus the OP 4/5. I'll guess you and the OP being the down votes. I'll leave you to think about what that says about peoples views of my post and the OP.

AC@22:21

"Banks can't create the money out of nothing."

I did not know that.

So could you explain what interest is then?

AC@12:58

"Ever notice that even though lawyers never produce anything, they win whether YOU win or lose and are worth millions?"

As do book makers, casino operators, accountants and banks.

@Neal 5

"4) Ethnic cleansing of the USA by anyone who feels like it. (won't save the euro, but it will take all the press attention away from the problem)"

This used to be handled by ex members of the US Postal Service.

Currently it seems to being conducted by various disaffected high school students.

AC@11:45

"The mass killing of politicians and economist"

Too little.

Too late.

@A J Stiles

"Bonus question, why don't they just do what everyone who owes me money seems to do, and fob them off with excuses and sob stories?"

Because that's what they have *been* doing for the last few decades?

@aircombatguy

You missed the fact that even the *tanks* are not made the same way. They were pressure stabilised with *no* stiffeners in stainless steel (easier to weld and in fact *not* heavier than aluminium at the same stress levels).

Atlas V uses Aluminum with machined in stiffeners.

But (through the magic of "Inheritance") it is expected to have *exactly* as good a launch record as the earlier designs, because it's "Evolved" from them.

Now what's that I can smell?

@Terry H

"ULA is a Boeing / Lockheed unholy abomination"

True

" whose main reason for existing is to ensure neither company has to pay any benefits."

Not quite sure how that works but I'll leave that one.

"NASA paid oceans of cash for these two launch vehicles, both of which thoroughly failed to live up to the "evolved" part of the name "

No they did not. The *USAF* paid the shedload of cash. Roughly $500m to each while Boeing and Lockheed are claimed to have laid down North of a $1Bn to complete their designs. The USAF goal was to lower launch prices to *them* by 50%. They are meant to have been successful and Boeing/Lockmart reckoned they could even compete on the the world market.

Turned out "50% cheaper than the stuffing the USAF were getting on titan IV launches is still several *times* what any *non* US customer is paying or wanting to pay.

"If NASA does the expected and now funnels all the money into the pockets of the top bureaucrats' future employers a once in a generation opportunity will be lost and commercial spaceflight will amount to naught before it even starts."

Note that Boeing have continued to develop their CST-100 capsule anyway, which *could* in theory inherit Orion's crew escape system.

You might also conclude that NASA has no faith in the Senate mandated SLS and want to have backups when the wheels come off.

The bottom line is that both Atlas V and Delta IV cost an arm and both legs more than a Falcon 9 and are unlikely to *ever* be even comparable *but* they are available now while F9H is still in design. You might also consider that Musk is keen to move into the National Security market which Atlas V and Delta IV have monopolized.

@GettaSadda

"The 551 uses 5 SRBs to get its payload aloft and I would expect that SRBs will be a long way down the wish-list for manned flights."

I'd guess SRB's are on the *not* wished list for crewed flights.

Von Braun pointed out that solids of *all* sizes can (and have) exploded and big solids are *very* difficult to shut down. A problem know during Shuttle development but never *effectively* addressed IE the methods NASA devised stressed the stack (and the crew) to pieces if tried.

They also give a lousy ride. Loud (most of the 170Db of a Shuttle takeoff was the SRB's, mostly *because* they were SRB's and not liquids) and very rough. The USAF developed the first suspension system for satellites to allow them to survive the beating of riding a converted solid fuel ICBM to orbit without having to be built like a tank.

@Volker Hett

"and since some of the blueprints from the Apollo program are missing we might better start again at the beginning."

A popular UL. AFAIK (and NASA have stated often) they are micro filmed and in storage.

Being microfilmed they might be the *only* high density storage media still *easily* accessible if civilization ever collapsed.

@Jolyon

Nice.

Headslap (to self) *why* didn't I think of that one?