Posts by skpirate

Pentagon needs China's rare earths, Beijing just put them behind a permit wall. Oops

The first rare earths processing facility in North America went online in Saskatchewan last year. They currently only producing about 40 tons of refined metals/month, but working on scaling up.

The first rare earths processing facility in North America is already operating

It's just not in the USA. The Saskatchewan Research Council's demo processing facility in Saskatoon started producing 40 tons of refined rare earths ingots per month last fall. I guess we'll just use it for production here in Canada - or maybe see if Europe is interested.

Ex-SAP CTO walks away with €7.1M payout after scandal

You're right, it shouldn't take a huge investigation and a lot of resources - if someone does that, they deserve to to be fired for cause as soon as its proven. There is no defense for this, there's no acceptable level of groping your coworkers. It's really that simple.

Rather than add a backdoor, Apple decides to kill iCloud encryption for UK peeps

Re: Without an understanding

Successive UK governments have been asking for different flavours of the same thing for over a decade, it's more an obsession of the UK "security" establishment that keeps bubbling to the surface than a policy you can pin on Labour or the Conservatives.

Oracle starts laying mines in JavaScript trademark battle

Re: Oracle SQL Developer for VS Code

Writing a program in Javascript doesn't involve exercising their trademark at all, though. It's irrelevant to the legal case.

Trump eyes up to 100% tariffs on foreign semiconductors, TSMC in crosshairs

Ready Shoot Aim

Trump is simultaneously threatening to impose tariffs on Denmark if they don't sell Greenland to the USA (residents' opinions on the matter be damned). This gives Denmark enormous leverage to hit Trump back by imposing an export ban on ASML's photolithography equipment to the USA. Still let them sell to Intel, Nvidia, etc - but only at their fabs outside the USA.

This is how Elon's Department of Government Efficiency will work – overwriting the US Digital Service

Re: Giga

How about XCloud?

Australia passes law to keep under-16s off social media – good luck with that, mate

Re: What Australian kids did with fake IDs…

Well, it's hard to get sloppy drunk quickly on beer, and it's almost impossible to give yourself alcohol poisoning with it. Not a terrible place to draw the line, really.

Weekends were a mistake, says Infosys co-founder Narayama Murthy

Re: "I have not changed my view; I will take this with me to my grave"

Spending money is definitely not the point of having free time. Free time is essential to having a life outside outside of work, be that raising a family, pursuing a passion, or just getting a good rest. Some of that involves spending money, but it's not the goal.