Posts by SkippyBing 2392 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2008
They didn't buy the camera from China, they bought it from a Canadian Company as part of an integrated turret:
https://www.currentcorp.com/products/night-navigator-3000-series/
It would be interesting to know which of the various components in there was actually phoning home, was it actually the camera or part of the control system?
Why would you own a car in Singapore?
Healthcare is excellent and is paid for via a mandatory medical savings account with the Government covering any shortfalls. Which all in all sounds like a better system than in the UK.
Minimum annual leave limits are like minimum wages, only an issue if you're not in a position to negotiate for better.
We are already buying F-35Bs, this is just swapping the model. Like asking BMW to change your order from a 330 to a 325. So no more money is going to the USA. In fact initially less becuase the F-35A is cheaper than the B. Servicing of engines etc. will be as for the rest of the fleet.
And the Italian Navy, and soon the Japanese, with Spain and South Korea toying with the idea.
To answer your question as with all things Government and MOD is in year spending. Adding catapults and arrestor gear to the carrier would make them cost more than the Treasury were willing to pay in any one year during the decade they were being built. So instead the slighter greater costs of VSTOL have been spread over the purchase of 'up to' 130 F-35s over a longer period.
'Cameron cancelled the programme he also threw away the avionics that could and should have been fitted into an Airbus airframe'
Which is what they should have done in the first place. However doing it at the point Nimrod was cancelled would have meant another decade without a maritime patrol aircraft which just wasn't tenable.
'changing the locks on cabin doors (not even watertight doors), the design of chairs used in the combat information centre and even the specification of mattresses'
A lot of those changes will be to match what the rest of the fleet has as someone will have told them they need to minimise the number of lines of inventory to save money, without looking at the bigger picture.
It depends what they're paying for. E.g. does the headline Norwegian price include a support package for x years where the RN one doesn't? Given the RN have already partly paid is it all in the same year currency, otherwise inflation plays a part in the headline figure.
'recently shown by the arrest of over 500 peaceful protesters whose only crime was to hold up hand-written signs protesting the genocide in Gaza.'
No, the crime was holding up a sign supporting a proscribed terrorist group. If they'd just held up signs protesting about Gaza there wouldn't have been a problem. But for some reason they wanted to be edgy.
Many years ago I worked in tech support in France so long ago I think el Reg had only just started. I found it much easier to set the keyboard as QWERTY so I could still touch type rather than learn how to do it on an AZERTY one. With the bonus it drove anyone who tried using my machine mad.
This also helped many years later when a colleague tried to get revenge for some minor misdeed by moving by keys around. Took about a week before I noticed.
I have to assume they wanted to minimise/eliminate through hull openings. So the Bluetooth controller allowed them to communicate through hull to all the stuff bolted on the outside without having to seal a gland. They probably thought it was a genius move that the world's navies are idiots for not using...
I am idly wondering which legal jurisdiction any contract/waiver fell under? If they signed at sea would it be the state of registration of the ship, international waters in which case no jurisdiction, or have they explicitly stated on the paperwork it's considered to have been signed in a favourably lenient location?
They are also the only organisation I know that takes four weeks to mark multiple-choice exam papers, with a computer. Whereas at the time the German equivalent would tell you that day if you'd passed.
Or the time they told me they couldn't issue my licence because I hadn't crossed their palms with silver. Which was odd as I had a month old receipt saying I had...
Having been on a few warships I'd be impressed if they go 3 days without some sort of electrical or mechanical break down that needs human intervention, never-mind 30. Also although minimal crewing sounds like a great idea if you're on fire or flooding you want as many trained people as you can to throw at the problem to make it go away. See HMS Nottingham vs Australia in 2002.
From the book on Project Orion by Dyson's son the estimate was 1 additional death, somewhere on Earth, per launch. For the time at least the 'bomb' designs were relatively clean in terms of fall out as I understand it, but a lot of the project is still classified as small lightweight nuclear propulsion systems may have other non-peaceful uses...
