Posts by John 98

TRACK RECORDS

Quite true that religion has had its worser moments, but so has atheism if one looks at Stalin, Pol Pot etc. And since different religions disagree, teaching and inspiring different things, you can't blame one for the fault of t'other. And people may say they don't believe anything, but they still have a working assumption. ... Often that God doesn't exist, but then he might ...

Shame about Brexit

Otherwise we could threaten to make life tough all across Europe for Boeing. As it is, the only thing we have to slap their wrist with is an imaginary wet lettuce

Generally it takes 30 - 40 years for scientific discovery to become commercial product. Look at gas lighting, electricity (Faraday, Maxwell to Tesla - 3 phase supply - and Edison - light bulb). Semi conductors etc. etc. So the government may be right but we need to persevere for another 10 -15 years. Meantime we are probably building up an expert community both on graphene and other 2d materials.

Sceptics should note UK has a long history of giving up on these things at the wrong moment - APT on the railways is now in service round the world (including here) courtesy of the Italians who got the technology off us for almost nothing.

Benefit for both?

Don't quite see how allowing multinationals to continue fiddling their tax in UK is a Brexit benefit. Some of us might think rather the opposite.

terrorist?

Kundly define terrorist. And be careful - you could find the USA, UK and many other states fit your definition better

Inevitable

I was the minion who dished out laptops and phones. In the end you find honest, competent valued people lose them and you have to accept it and plan round that. So I am not surprised or shocked that an outfit the this size has lost 100. I would welcome, though, some reassurance about what data was on them and how well it was protected

listening to lies?

Being old enough to remember the Suez Crisis, I can tell you we had already lost our national sovereignty by 1956. Wake up, smell the coffee

If the European Union is undemocratic, some simple research will reveal that the UK government has steadfastly blocked attempts to remedy things, much to the frustration of many in Brussels.

If we leave, we have no idea (nor negotiating cards, btw) what trade deals we will get with either US or EU. It is a leap in the dark. Watch Boris when the Yanks tell us to sign up for Schengen or starve

This is before the other stuff - 3 million odd British living in Europe, Scots wanting independence, pound already fallen 10%,

On the ownership issue, is this deliberate obfuscation? A wizard wheeze which guarantees it's impossible to pin down who is responsible for anything? Or am I just confusing conspiracy and cock up?

A necessary evil?

The government collecting this data may be (even though the US investigation suggests not) a necessary evil, but even then it should be out in the open, as limited as possible and tightly controlled by judges - not bureaucrats or politicians.

The mere fact it exists, especially given the governments dire record on IT projects, means it will be misused by politicians and staff who are political fanatics, paedophiles, identity thieves, spies or terrorists (or have been blackmailed or bribed by same). It will also inevitably be hacked or tampered with ...

The condescending, nanny knows best, attempts by our politicians to have us ignore these obvious risks is deeply depressing and disturbing.

This is, of course, a good argument against Brexit - Brussels will probably torpedo this assault on our liberty, which our spineless parliament proposes to rubber-stamp.

Agile and flexible ?

When applied to the military, it meant not buying equipment for anything (it neatly answered the charge of preparing for the last war). Squaddy solution No.1 - nick it off the Yanks.

Where I worked (a nameless multinational) it meant not preparing for anything - any problem, however predictable, was greeted by the same panic. The firm has since been taken over ...

Management jargon of the worst kind, but great for the consultants who get hired with the money that should have been spent on decent kit.

Seems they have all missed something

The bottom line is that the European equivalent of the Supreme Court has ruled that the current systems breach folks' constitutional rights in Europe. Any agreement, whether the European and US executive branches or the companies like it or not, has to address that issue to succeed.

If the US government is saying the entire planet is, however, under American law, perhaps they should give about another seven billion people citizenship and a vote.

And the companies - their lawyers must have seen this coming years ago and they did nothing. I guess a billion dollars a day in fines will concentrate minds wonderfully on a restructure to cover the situation. Not very difficult, European subsidiary owns servers in Europe ...

Does it apply to MPs?

I suggest requiring MPs (or candidates) to stand down should anything come up on their check ,,,

Negotiate - what's that?

Sounds like the US may end up out of step with the rest of the planet, and live to regret it. Maybe someone with greater knowledge can enlighten us? Is there any consensus elsewhere on how to use this spectrum - seems 5.9 and 600 are already spoken for?

What the Chinese did with it?

One imagines that the Chinese have used all this data to quietly log in to a multitude of systems using the accounts of users with little technical knowledge, or concern for security, with easliy guessed passwords. They may well have reams of other background information, plus of course the abilty to cause chaos whenever they wish. And an amusing thought, they may have known for quite a while all about what the NSA and CIA have been up to round the world. Maybe more than Snowdon? And maybe been allowing some misleading "hacks" into their own systems for good measure?

And their small competitors?

Let's hear it for the little guy, who faces unfair competition from multi-nationals paying no tax anywhere. There is an argument for ensuring these companies pay tax, since government is unfortunately a necessary evil and has to be paid for.

One can look at their global profits (a number they have reasons for declaring and maximising) and tax them on a percentage thereof, the percentage of global sales in your country. Seems to me a treaty along such lines would give each government a fair share and the multinational pays taxes like everyone else. The actual rate - and permissible write offs for R & D etc. - on its home share would be a matter for each government, while the company can of course simply stop business in a state which sets a stupid rate.

The minutes, please!

This is what comes of letting a gang of politicians hide in a smoke filled room. About time these meetings were in public and minuted so we can all see who got a brown envelope.

train wifi - good news maybe later

I understand the rail companies have internal uses for high speed data between train and track - maintenance of both, tighter control of trains to save fuel, achieve capacity increases etc.etc. The current gsm-r is to be replaced and a new much faster system is to be installed along all tracks. Some genius has worked out (and got it on the agenda) it should be used for passenger wifi. As ever, there are international standards to be ratified, kit to be tested and so on so it will take a while.

Confession as evidence

Confessions are unusable in court in many countries. I am no great fan of the legal profession, but fair dos, some of them got here centuries ago and drew the right conclusion.

The bankrupcy option

I believe any creditor of a plc can, after 28 days, have the company declared bankrupt. I know a guy did it to Rolls Royce in the 70s. The magistrates gave RR a 24 hour stay on condition the MD appeared in person first thing the next morning to grovel (and pay - cash).

We of the Flat Earth Society know better

There are no aliens - the limited size of the dome over the earth precludes their existence. The unexplained sightings were either dragons or the KGB.

Works all ways

Any country banning any technology (for any reason but typically national security) runs the risk of losing out. If the West chooses to ban good ideas from China or Russia, we may hurt ourselves more than them - and fall behind.