* Posts by I ain't Spartacus

10894 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009

UK students flock to AI to help them cheat

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The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the late 18th century

I've had to write whole essays just on this one sentence. Was the industrial revolution really a revolution, and if so when did it happen.

My personal take was that it didn't really happen until after the Napoleonic Wars - so 1820s - and that it depends on what you mean by revolution. But much ink has been spilled on just that one sentence - with some going for its having started in the late 17th Century - but the consensus when I studied this was that it was the mid (not late) 18th C. Also it didn't start in Britain, it's just Britain was the most industrialised single country - there were also concentrated areas of industrialisation happening simultaneously in Northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands (both one country until 1830), Bohemia and Northern Italy.

I'm not sure if the above is AI generated or not - it almost looks like a Wiki entry or short popular history paragraph. I could probably write paragraphs arguing with the premise of pretty much every sentence - because it vastly over-simplifies - to the point of being wrong. It's also a bit of a mess on the timescales. For example, steam shipping isn't really important until the 1850s, so 100 years after the consensus start of the industrial revolution. And isn't much more reliable (or faster) than sail for another 20-30 years after that. Although saying that, I've not studied this since the 90s - so lots of new research will have changed a lot. History has been incredibly dynamic in the last few decades - because computerisation has brought us tons of new sources of information - which has contradicted loads of long-held beliefs.

Meta sues 'nudify' app-maker that it claims ran 87k+ Facebook, Instagram ads

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Isn't Martin Lewis suing them for those ads? Because they refuse to take them down until he finds them and reports them. So perhaps this case is part of their defence in the other case? Proves we're not lying when we tell you that we're too incompetent to be able to vet the ads we make money from.

DARPA is testing a device soldiers can swallow to make them less stressed

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Happy

Re: The British forces already have this!

I have no iron in this fire as I can't (technically shouldn't) eat oats.

How are you with toenail clippings though?

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The British forces already have this!

Every military vehicle has to have a method of making tea. The squaddies all carry the means to make a brew. In WWII even the Observer Corps posts in the Battle of Britain had it in the spec that as well as equipment to estimate height of German aircraft and communications gear, they also had to have tea-making facilities.

A swallowable system for instituting calmness while also maintaining attention spans. Also goes down nicely with a piece of cake or a chocolate hobnob*.

All we need to do is find a nice acronym for this - and we'll make bank!

Tranquilising Enhanced Alertness Producing Operational Teapot

That's a nice recursive acronym for starters.

*Note: I'm not really a fan of the hobnob. They appear to be made out of a combination of oats, sugar and toeonail clippings. But it is one of the most euphonious biscuit names - and so seemed to fit here. I really shouldn't offend the hobnob fans, for they seem to be the most fanatical of the biscuit tribes. But I like to live dangerously.

US Navy backs right to repair after $13B carrier crew left half-fed by contractor-locked ovens

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Re: UK's F35 engines

But it was - and in modified form still is - stupid to have accepted such as condition in the contract.

Firstly, it's not all engine maintenance. It's for engine overhaul. Which is something you're going to do every 2,000 hours - or when the engine eats a goose.

There are several reasons for why it was done. I don't know in what mix though. Cheapness, efficiency, pork barrel politics.

I suspect it's a mix of cheapness and pork barrel - with efficiecy coming last. It's expensive to set up an engine repair centre - so not everyone will want to do it. But also F-35 is a very joint project, where every country that buys in gets some of the work in return. So maybe you don't produce enough parts to meet the quota - fine you get an engine workshop to top up the numbers.

One of the problems seems to be we haven't made enough spare engines. I think lack of spares in general is a problem with the F-35 program. I think that's a mix of manufacturers not being able to make them fast enough, and governments for not placing enough orders. Spares aren't cool and sexy - new planes are cool and sexy - so much better to spend your money there. This is something the US and UK got right in WWII, and Germany got wrong. Build lots of spares and then you can keep stuff working and have more where you need them - even though you've built a few less finished articles.

Google outfoxed by crafty squatters in $1B London HQ's rooftop garden

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Happy

Like a badger,

Now you've answered that vital question. What's your attitude to mushrooms and snakes?

Enquiring minds would like to know...

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The other problem with urbane foxes is all the pointed witticisms about how you've not kept your garden looking nice and should really move to a more fashionable part of town. And the food, dear boy, the food! Could you not try just a little harder? Oh dear. This isn't the 1970s you know...

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Re: My suggestion .....

take off and nuke the whole site from orbit!

It's the only way to be sure!

That's a bit hard on the foxes. Can we not get rid of Google in some more humane way?

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Re: Fox's or Fox'es?

Technically Austrian soil, therefore Austria is in the USA.

Just your afternoon pedant, making his rounds.

Embassies aren't the soil of their owning countries. They're just legally protected (Vienna Conventions - or their expression in national law) property, belonging to a foreign government. While it's an embassy, the country's government can't enter it without permission of the owning government or ambassador. However the embassy may only be used for "diplomatic purposes".

Microsoft rolls out Windows 11 Start Menu updates

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There was a search box on the Vista menu, I don't think it was very good. I'm pretty sure the press window key (or click on start button) and start typing search came with Windows 8.1. But it could have been 8, or 7?

The start button was almost unusable in Windows 8 - plus it was almost impossible to find the power menu to turn the bloody thing off. Whereas 8.1 was actually reasonably decent - once you'd customised it a lot. Win 11 is terrible, I'll be getting the company a license to some start menu tool or other. We're about to buy some new PCs, and someone even suggested going Apple - but I'm not sure we're ready to go that far.

If only MS had saved themselves some cash, and just kept updating Windows 10.

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Happy

Re: Still...

Can I have my hodgepodge devilled please?

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Megaphone

Windows 7 was when it got good. We'll not talk about Windows 8 - therapy is expensive. Although 8.1 improved things considerably (they couldn't get much worse).

Personally I'm happiest with Windows 10. I've got an alphabetical list of almost everything on the left - with a panel on the right that's quite customisable and has tiles for all the stuff I use most - or the stuff I need in a hurry - plus little mini icons for the things I want to keep handy. Plus it's all divided up in to groups HOW I LIKE IT.

Whereas this new abomination doesn't improve on Win 11, which is already rubbish. You can't control it, things keep moving and you can't organise it. But worst of all:

IT'S ALL FUCKING FLAT!!!!! FLAT!!!! FLAT!!!!111!!!!1111!!!! I WILL KILL AGAIN!!!!!1111!!!!!!! Aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!

It's just a horrible mess or randomness all smooshed together. So you can't pick anything out against the noise. All on a shitty grey/white background with no distrinction or visual way to differentiate.

To be fair, this might be the terrible vision talking. Maybe people with normal eyesight can just pick stuff up from a huge undifferentiated mess - even if it's taking a certain amount of mental effort. But I can only read the text (or really parse the icons) where I'm focusing, so can't pick things out from peripheral vision. Without visual cues like lines, different coloured bits or whatnot. Which is why I organise things properly.

On the other hand all our office PCs are set up identically, by me. Because it's me that sets up and fixes them. Admittedly, this is 10 PCs for 6 people. But nobody has wanted anything changed from what I think of as a logical and easy system (and I do regularly offer). Except for the couple of weirdos who insist on using Chrome, and so have that as their main browser - rather than Firefox. So I can't be wrong that the combination of different sized icons, and logical groups is easier to use than a horrible flat list o' everything.

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Re: Only a small step away from having gone full circle to Windows phone

METRO: 1980s - a combination of rust and car parts sometimes moving in loose formation.

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Devil

Re: Or.....

I'll still with bash, thank you

Put that bishop down!

You don't know where he's been...

Forked-off Xlibre tells Wayland display protocol to DEI in a fire

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Re: "Modernize" - does that mean what we WANT it to, or what we FEAR it means?

I'd like to defend old Firefox here. Sure, they changed the UI. But they also allow you to keep it the old way. I still have proper menus, like I've had it set up for well over a decade. I'm experimenting with the tabs on the left thing at the moment, still can't completely get used to it after 2 months - but I think it's actually better. I'm just a creature of habit - or possibly a bear of very little brain...

But even if FF have a mode where you have one massive, unweildy, horrible menu summoned on the right of the screen (aping Chrome) - you don't actually have to use it.

Can you blame them for copying the popular thing? Not realising that Chrome became popular through underhanded methods and monopoly abuse - rather than people necessarily liking it. Although there is some of that too.

Apple goes glass whole as it pours new UI everywhere

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Coat

Re: In the fall of 2025, users will therefore receive iOS 26

I remember iOS the Tiger. It's the one with the will to survive...

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Re: In the fall of 2025, users will therefore receive iOS 26

IOS 69? It’ll be released in the Summer…

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Just being able to effectively select for cut and paste on a phone screen would be a big win.

It's no better on tablet screens. For reasons I can't understand.

The UI designers seem to have decided that if you click on something you want select all. So if you're trying to correct something you've typed - you desperately try to get the curson into a word, to correct a typo, hit the letter you want - and hey presto! The whole email's disappeared! I admit that this is not the easiest thing to get right, but it seems to be terribly badly done. Windows Phone was quite good at it, certainly compared to my experiencens with Android - though iOS seems to be the worst.

Also Google deserve a shout out for their amazing YouTube UI. There's a feature where clicking on the progress bar of a video can bring up some enlarged version with thumbnails, that allows you to select more accurately where you want to be in the video. Nobody knows why they bothered though. Seeing as invariably, when you click on the cross on top right corner (to close the window) it takes you right to the end of the video. If you're unlucky enough to have autoplay on, it then immediately takes to to some random other video and straight into an advert.

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Nothing dates so fast, as things that are supposed to be futuristic.

I've really come to like dark mode, on various UIs. Because of my black and shrivelled soul it seems be less eye-wateringly bright - while still offering contrast. Imagine if you had to live and work on JJ Abrams' idea of the starship Enterprise? You'd need sunglasses just to use the computers. There'd probably be a lighting droid, wandering round randomly shining bright lights into peoples' faces - for that authentic lens glare feel.

Then again, modern designers seem to hate contrast as well. Pastel text on white backgrounds appears to be a popular design choice, so why not turn the transparency up to 11 and make everything impossible to read.

My other big gripe is that all these touch UIs have pinch-to-zoom built in. But only for some bits of the text, and only sometimes. Some websites delieberatly stop you doing it, and the browser makers allow them to, for some strange reason. And you can't zoom in on tiny bits of the UI - presumably because the UI designers refuse to accept that they might have made a mistake and created something that's unreadable. OK, this is me whining, because I like to read on my iPad without my reading glasses - which I can do with zoom, until the point I'm betrayed by the UI and have to fetch them.

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Re: "a fluidity that only Apple can achieve."

With all the transparency turned up to 11 - so you can't bloody read anything because of the stuff behind it. Oh joy!

Apple AI boffins puncture AGI hype as reasoning models flail on complex planning

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brainwrong,

We didn't evolve intelligence to achieve any kind of a goal. There wasn't some committee in a cave somewhere who went on UggBay to order up a crate of intelligence pills.

We evolved intelligence, and it enabled us to successfully compete with other species and eventually invent digital watches.

Wheresas dolphins evolved intelligence in order to lark about in the water having a good time, and eating a lot of fish.

Or even, possibly not. Maybe the Neanderthals were more intelligent than us, but got outcompeted anyway? Who knows. There's a lot of luck going on in evolution as well, so I suspect its foolish to try to come up with any definitive conclusions. Unless the alien Xenu gave us intelligence, in order to build him (her/it?) better pyramids?

Floppy disks and paper strips lurk behind US air traffic control

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Happy

Re: Obviously

What happens if the aircraft crash into the computers that are supposed to be controlling them? Surely cloud-based ATC has the advantage of easier control, but the disadvantage of having to dodge out of the way every so often...

I think ATC should just shout at the pilots more. Tell them to slow down, be more careful, look where they're going. Stop showing off! You'll fall and hurt yourself. That sort of thing. More Mumsnet, than Skynet.

Ex-NASA Admin pick blames Musk ties for pulled nomination

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How well are the people going to perform on Mars for those few days after 6 months in zero G?

MachDiamond,

Mars gravity is quite low, we could fit out our ship with lots of excercise equipment, and give the crew more time on the machines than the ISS crew get - i.e. fewer science tasks to do and more trianing to arrive in better shape. Plus, if we send them for months, they'll have more time to acclimatise.

But it's such a big list of problems to solve. And every one, difficult, dangerous and expensive.

Much easier to go back to the Moon. And that's still expensive and difficult.

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Excused Boots,

Good point. Two engines on the lunar lander. I must have been thinking of re-lighting the descent engine a few times during Apollo 13. Which fortunately worked. Whereas the ascent engine was a simpler "this has to work" - as there's no back-up and no abort option.

It's got to be a worry for Mars though. You're going to be there for months - so you've either got to have a separate crew on a ship in orbit, or take several landing craft - and all go down - but then worry thaht you're going to need to take off again.

We can clearly leave craft in space for 6 months and use them reliably, we do it on the ISS all the time. A bit different for a craft that's landed on the dusty surface of Mars and has to sit there for months.

As for not being able to stay a couple of days - I'm sure I read in Aldrin's proposal for an Earth-Mars cycler craft that you could stay for a very short visit - if you could carry enough fuel. Very fast deceleration, visit and acceleration back to rendezvous with the cycler for the trip back to Earth. Of course that relies on leaving your long term life support on a craft you're planning to abandon and return to - plus probably carrying unfeasibly large amounts of fuel. If you're going there for a quick trip, it's nuclear propulsion only.

Realistically it's all very expensive options. None of which look very attractive.

At least building the cycler would allow you to solve certain problems. Like taking digging equipment could be done way before astronauts actually got there. That could even solve some of the other problems, in that your digging equipment could also build you nice flat landing pads - so your expensive rockets don't get sandblasted.

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Hmmm. "decelate". Oops. Decelerate. Bugger!

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MatthewSt,

Fair enough. Our launch capacity is improving, and costs falling. So building a Mars vehicle is going to get cheaper.

But there's another problem. Landing on Mars is going to require landing on rocket power. But then you're stuck on Mars for a few months. They were worried the LEM engines might not restart after only a couple of days on the Moon. Going to Mars you take advantage of orbital position - so as I understand it you have to either go and stay for a day or two then come back, or go and stay for 6 months - with a 6 month journey each way. It's a long time since I read Buzz Aldrin's explanation of flying to Mars and back, but he came up with the idea of a Mars cycler, a permanent spacecraft going from Earth to Mars and back every year - and you just have to accelerate your smaller capsules to catch up and board that - then decelate when you get to Mars - then piggyback on it to get home.

Also Mars has no magnetic field of its own to speak of. So you'd need shielding there, or to live underground.

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By that argument we should all descend into a WALL-E style existence, letting robots do absolutely everything for us.

MatthewSt,

Human flight to Mars is currently close to impossible. We don't have a craft that could do it, and building one will be hideously expensive. But worse, the radiation exposure on the trip would be extremely high. If there's some kind of solar flare, in the direction of the craft, everybody dies. If there isn't, everybody receives a radiation dose that might be high enough to risk killing them within 10-20 years - and might be enough to cause physical problems during the actual trip.

We can take radiation shielding, but it's very heavy. And we don't have in-space manufacturing facilities or the heavy launch capacity to build a shielded spacecraft at any reasonable price. It supposedly cost around $100bn to build the ISS (although that does include operating costs for at least a decade) - but it would be that kind of ballpark.

Had a solar flare hit during an Apollo lunar mission, everyone would probably have died. But they were only outside the Earth's magnetic field for under a week - so the risk was acceptable. And round trip to Mars is about 18 months.

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Devil

Also the shit about chucking loads of telescopes is just nuts

IGotOut,

This is because you don't understand basic quantum mechanics.

If to observe a thing is to change it - think how much more true that is if you've just thrown a telescope at it...

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Coat

Re: Witch hunts

What do you think F players hire?

Pee players

[get's coat]

Musk and Trump take slap fight public as bromance ends

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Re: Jail time for Elon

MachDiamond,

Well look how much money Boeing saved by sacking all their quality control people?

Factories are so much more efficient when nothing fails its checks and so doesn't have to be done over again.

Japan's latest Moon landing written off as a failure after ispace probe goes dark

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Re: Lithobraking

Surely tyrobreaking?

Tyros being the ancient Greek for cheese.

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Coat

Re: Only the one lazer?

So, in a similar vein, a lunar lander could dangle a 20/50/100/whatever metre rope with a sensor at the bottom.

How does the blind parachutist know when he's about to hit the ground? The lead goes slack.

Ukrainians smuggle drones hidden in cabins on trucks to strike Russian airfields

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Re: Oh and there is the whole Palestinians being people thing

As a human being with functional emotions, I don't restrict my sympathy and empathy towards the suffering of others based on national origin.

Except if they're Ukrainian or Israeli.

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Re: To quote a fictional

Jellied Eel,

That Russian stealth bomber looks very cool.

Ukraine said they hit 41 aircraft. They're now claiming they destroyed 13. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

It also means they lied

I know you don't like Ukraine. But you are perfectly capable of understanding basic english.

Ukraine said after the attacks that they hit 41 aircraft. After doing battle damage assesment the next day, they say they think they destroyed 13 aircraft.

This means they damaged 41 and think they destroyed at least 13 of those. This really isn't complicated. I've seen visual confirmation of 10, from just two of the airfields - so it could be an under-estimate. Where you're using drones with small warheads - I imagine they're only going to do minor damage if they hit in the wrong place. the one that was filmed hitting a live cruise missile - well that's some easy BDA. Big kaboom. But for example, where they hit non-operational aircraft - they're not going to have fuel or weapons on board - so much harder to do serious damage to.

So the GCAP & B-21 are theorycraft

B-21 is definitely not theorycraft. It's in low-rate production. They've already got a couple built - although model 1 is often a ground-test article, but they're not saying much. 6 are acknowledged to be in various stages of production and one has already been flying for a couple of years. Plus they had a secret test demonstrator aircraft years ago. It's not finished, but it shares a lot of avionics from B-2 and F-35.

I'm not sure I buy Russia's claims about Su57 being in full production yet - I guess we'll find out if they start shipping the promised ones to Algeria. They've not really turned up anywhere or been seen doing anything much. They're ahead of the B-21 program now, but it's been in development for a long time. And I'd be a bit worried that India turned it down.

Finally, Ukraine's air force is no threat to Russia. Their AWACS and F-16s are mostly for missile defence. Which means the AWACS can sit quite a long way behind the front lines, it's just there to be able to look down for incoming cruise missiles.

Maybe Ukraine could try and gain temporary air superiority at a particular point in the front line for some operation or other? But that's risky, and if they try to do anything more the Russians will make mincemeat of them.

Obviously the Russians have long range AAM on the Mig-31 - but they'd have to get in SAM range to launch those at the AWACS - it's a risk, because it might be worth Russia doing some kind of special effort to take out an AWACS aircraft - but to do that I think they've have to launch a substantial air operation inside Ukraine's SAM envelope - and they've not been willing to risk that since the first couple of chaotic weeks of the war. Is it worth the risk, to hit a target that only slightly improves Ukraine's missile defences?

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Re: Politeness

GNU SedGawk,

I'm genuinely shocked. I find your views so extreme, as to wonder if you're trolling - in which case you've done a magnificent job. What we have here, is whatever the opposite is of a meeting of minds. We're not even using the same frame of reference.

There are no Israelis, only members of US backed Zionist State Terror group, mostly Eastern European

Lots of the settlers are also Russian. Why the hate for Ukraine and not Russia?

But I'm afraid you're stuck with the facts on the ground. There are Israelis. There's a few million people living there, and you're going to have to deal with them. If you choose to tell them you're going to kill or forcibly remove them, they're going to object. They've got a lot of guns. You can't just wish them away. Even if morality was on your side - and it isn't - your whole position is stupid. As I said above there is no magic time of perfect borders we can go back to. You can't deal in ideals, you have to deal with the horrible, messy compromises of reality.

No Palestinians are Terrorists, they are under occupation by US backed Zionist State Terrorist group, and as such have every right to use violence to rid themselves of the Genocidal occupier.

Terrorism is a tactic. It's what you choose to do, not who you are. Deliberately murder civilians to engender terror: Terrorist. Attack soldiers: Insurgent / Freedom fighter / Rebel [delete as appropriate]. Sometimes you might be both. Obviously everyone calls anyone they don't like terrorists anyway.

[...]legitimated by your truly depraved racial supremacist world-view. It's telling how lacking in self-awareness you are. You cannot conceive of a universally applicable moral world view, and application of consistency by it's frame.

I can, and I do. Invading Ukraine was wrong. Continually bombing helpless civilians in Gaza is also wrong. Pushing the population out of Gaza to make life easier is genocide. Pushing the population out of Israel (as both Hamas and you want to do) is genocide. Hamas murdering civilians is a war crime, if they claim to be soldiers fighting for a state - ordinary crime if not. Russians murdering civilians on an industrial scale in Ukraine and Chechnya is also a war crime.

Given the existence of two, unreconcilable populations in Israel/Palestine we have the choice of genocide, continuing war or a peace deal. Which we were so near to achieving back in the 90s, but didn't. I want a peace deal, as the only humane option. You, Hamas, the Iranian government and certainly some of the settler parties want genocide. Netenyahu probably wants what keeps his coalition together for the next few months, and him out of court on corruption charges.

Ukrainian Terrorists are entitled to bring about Nuclear war in the Name of Bandera.

If there's a nuclear war because Ukraine attacked Russian aircraft that had been bombing Ukraine - that moral stain will be on the Russian government. By the same logic, are you fine if the Israeli government were to use nuclear weapons on Gaza?

It is both amusing and worrying to be accused of being lacking in self-awarness by someone as extremist as yourself. I'm not sure you've ever really responded to one of my arguments - you've just called me a depraved racist a bit louder.

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Re: Politeness

Replying to myself, but also to GNU SedGawk,

Sorry, missed one of your other posts. Which I'll combine here for ease of discussion.

The removal of US Backed Zionist State Terrorist group from occupied Palestine is a wonderful and laudable goal, replacing it with the democratic state of Palestine free from River to Sea, with Zionist State Terrorists surrendered to ICC.

US backed Zionist State Terrorist groups illegal occupation of Palestine is a crime against humanity. Iran is completely correct to decry the regime of racial supremacy and direct funds towards supporting expressions of national self-determination and armed liberation struggles in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Yemen. Indeed Iran is doing in reality what the UK/EU/US Nazi supporters claim for Ukraine.

You really do support genocide then? Obviously only to the right people though. If Palestinians do it to jews, that's fine. If jews do it to Palestinians that's bad. Even though Israel are a nuclear state, like Russia?

What you're saying here is that might is right. But saying it in support of the side in the conflict that don't have the means to win. But by what you say, you give Israel the right to do exaclty the same, because they do have the power. A power they have not excercised for 70 years.

The only viable option is a two state solution. Palestine and Israel both need to have viable states, with security for both. Nothing else is moral, or viable.

After all, you may claim Israel is Palestinian land occupied by Israel. But then Israel was there first. Well the Canaanites and the Elamites were there before them, admittedly. Hard to find them to give the place back to though. Plus most of us would need to evacuate England to give it back to the Welsh - except they probably stole it from the Beaker People. And who's going to stand up for the rights of the Neanderthals? "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind and toothless." Eventually disputes have got to be settled. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle - Israel is now there. We built international law after WWII to try and find sane ways to settle these disputes. If you call for extreme solutions, then you many eventually get what you wish for - but done to you by somebody else.

Your support for genocide is immoral. But it's also unworkable. It's not even possible for your side to win. Israel just temporarily defeated Iran's proxies in Hamas and Hizbollah - Netenyahu's government might be stupid enough to think they can settle this by force - but they can't. Short of committing genocide themselves, and destroying the society they live in. Israel couldn't survive that - either internally or internationally. But you lose the moral force to criticise them for doing it, when you call for it from the other side. And your idea of defeating Israel is even more unrealistic than Netenyahu's delusions of permanently defeating Hamas. In the end there will have to be a deal. About which nobody will be happy.

Also there won't be a democratic Palestinian state if Hamas win. They're not democrats.

I really hope you're trolling with this "river to the sea" stuff.

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Re: Politeness

We were talking on this threat about a war where Russia has invaded Ukraine and committed war crimes on an absolutely massive scale - and you're concerned about Ukrainian terrorists enslaving Palestinians. I think we're having different discussions.

One problem is that you've decided anyone who disagrees with you is doing so because they're bad. Rather than because they don't believe the same things you do. Although even there, you're very selective about it. Seeing as Putin should be everything you disapprove of.

how dare people support an armed struggle to raise their heads, even while you cheers on a Ukrainian Terrorist groups attack on a Nuclear state.

So here, you support the armed struggle of Palestinians. I'm presuming that includes supporting Hamas in actual genocide? And certainly in terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, because there isn't a Palestinian resistance organisation that only fights legitimate military targets. Nor does Iran, nor do Hizbollah.

And yet you also call Ukranians terrorists for defending their country from invasion and brutal occupation.

And you complain that Ukraine have attacked a nuclear state. But support attacks on Israel?

Support of US backed Zionist State Terrorist group Genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine is Supporting Nazis.

Nope. Because. They're. Not. Fucking. Nazis.

You keep giving quotes about worries about neo-Nazis in Ukraine. I keep agreeing it's a problem. You keep telling me that means Ukraine is a nazi state. It isn't. You then support Russia's brutal invasion and Hamas' brutal attacks on civilians because they're somehow fine. While accusing Ukraine of exactly the same stuff. You're confused. Your worldview seems to consist of people you support and people you hate. And that determines whether their actions are right or wrong. Exaclty the hypocrisy you rightly accuse people of when the West supported some truly horrific regimes during the Cold War - on the excuse that they were anti-communist. "They were bastards, but they were our bastards".

Oh and you called me a racist for saying press TV were the paid propagandists of a vicious Iranian regime that tortures, murders and oppresses its own people on a massive scale. Which is quite frankly bizarre. Otherwise you're equally a racist for saying the BBC aren't a credible source. Your argument is silly.

You might find the use of English words dating back to Chaucer like Cunt offensive

it wasn't when Chaucer used it. Language changes. So it is now. It's a nice subtle way of calling me names, without getting your post deleted, so well done. A couple of your insults on this thread have been quite creative. It's a silly point though. You're still being deliberately insulting. Which is fine - you're passionable about your beliefs and have a manichean worldview. I'm confident that I'm neither a racist, nor a cunt - so I'm not going to shrivel up and die. But your posts on this thread are inconsistent and illogical, and too much of them seem to be based on conspiracy-thinking. And I don't buy your arguments.

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Re: To quote a fictional

It's debateable how much Russia actually uses, or needs Bears, how many were destroyed and what (if any) the strategic or tactical advanatges for Ukraine actually are

Russia uses its Bears pretty heavily. They, and the Backfires, are one of the main vehicles for lobbing cruise missiles into Ukraine. They've got other aircraft to do the same job, although the bigger missiles won't fit on the fighter aircraft. Aren't they using old stocks of things like AS-4s (which maybe only the Backfires can carry)? Anyway, some aircraft's got to do it. Everyone's racking-up the airframe hours and maintenance in a war - so you want to spread out the wear-and-tear over the largest fleet you can. Lest chunks of your fleet age out.

Ukraine said they hit 41 aircraft. They're now claiming they destroyed 13. That doesn't seem unreasonable. I read an article yesterday which confirmed 11, with 2 of the airfields not had a cloud-free commercial satellite pass yet. Which makes Ukraine's claims look pretty good - unusual because their claims for aircraft destroyed have tended to way over the top - almost as hyperbolic as Russian claims. Whereas their claims for things like artillery, tanks and APCs have been within 10-20% of the open source figures I've seen - and therefore pretty credible.

One of those confirmed destroyed was an old AWACs plane with a weathered radome and missing engines, and I think one maritime patrol aircraft and a heavy lift transport one. For airframes where the lines are closed, that's still a small win. They're needed for spares.

The bigger win is more likely to be the changes it forces on Russia's operations. Going on the offensive is needed, to make the enemy react to you. For both sides though, doing it on the ground means heavy casualties.

For Ukraine though even destroying 20% of the active Bears is a good - it imposes further costs on Russia, it reduces the active fleet, increases maintenance woes, saps enemy morale, increases their own. Maybe forces Russia to relocate pressure air defence assets away from the front line.

If they hit maritime strike aircraft it annoys Russia, they're possibly the most heavily used of the Bears, and probably the hardest to replace. Even if it benefits us more than Ukraine. All the more reason to give them more weapons. Good return on investment. We should arm Ukraine, because it's the right thing to do. But foreign policy rarely works like that. So we should also do it, because it's in our interests.

But it's still producing more strategic bombers than we are, and has rather more of a head start. Like where's the design for the EUroBomber? Or how many B-1s are the US manufacturing right now,

What's your metric here? Is Russia better than Europe because it might be able to produce bombers? I could counter that Europe is richer, because it doesn't. Also I don't really see the need. But Russia hasn't demonstrated the ablity to produce anything at scale except updates of the Su27 series. I'll believe the Tu160 when I see it - and the Su57 is looking a bit stalled out too - like they need more customers to get the budget to do it, and India weren't interested.

Meanwhile Europe are producing the Gripen, Rafale and Eurofighter, A400M and A330MRTT and the SAAB AWACs aircraft. Russia have theoretical programs for some of those support aircraft, but none producing anything yet. The US can't make more B1s, because they're replacing all of those with B21 stealth bombers - in large numbers. Europe will have a flying demonstrator for the GCAP/Tempest next year or 2027 - which is the large multi-role you'd like - and it'll have stealth and range.

There's no Eurobomber, because nobody wants one. I suspect that Russia really needs tankers, rather than a nuclear long-range strike bomber. But they're short of those.

We don't get to choose whether there's an arms race or not. Russia and China already made that choice for us years ago. We just (in Europe) refused to join in, and decided to rely on the US. Both of which were poor decisions. We invited China into the global economic system - the fact we're falling into a Cold War with China is because the Chinese Communist Party chose to appoint another dictator for life - a lesson we thought they'd learned from Mao. And he wants to conquer Taiwan, and dominate (and sieze territory from) several other neighbours. Our choice is to have a Cold War, or do nothing and lose a hot war. If we're lucky we'll keep the cold one from turning hot. Similary with Russia, given what's happened in Ukraine, you'd have to be stupid to not worry Russia will have a go at the Baltic States, if it thinks we can't defend them. So we should either arm up, or kick them out of NATO and admit we don't care.

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Re: Sharing your game plan there

GNU SedGawk,

I've not called anyone a racist or a nazi in this thread - both of which you've accused me, and others of. Or made rude remarks about someone living in their Mum's basement surrounded by bottles of their own piss - although that one was after provocation. But you've been consistently rude and unpleasant to a lot of people.

I've remained polite. I'm afraid I won't engage with you on the Ukraine is run by nazis thing, because I can't be bothered. It doesn't look to be true - it's a massive Russian propaganda talking-point. Russia has a similar problem with neo-Nazis - and so do many of the ex-Communist states in Europe. But I'm bored and tired of that argument over the last few years, so you'll have to find someone else to fight over that.

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Devil

Re: Hmm..

CrazyOldCatMan,

You have to be a proper troll to get an actual gold badge.

See above example for comparison.

Those photos of Lewis Page in the bar with the whisky, the whipped cream and the pork pies helped though...

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I don't understand why people try to debate with the obvious Russian trolls in comment sections.

Firstly, what other point is there to a comments section than discussion with people? Well I suppose there's showing off. But who wants to admit that they're only doing that...

Secondly, I've been persuaded and persuaded people in online discussions before. Sometimes I've even admitted that I've changed my mind.

Thirdly, you can't always know someone is a troll until you've engaged them. Jellied Eel is capable of making intelligent and reasonable points, sometimes. Plus, if you don't know what your opposition's argument is, you don't know if you can defeat it.

Finally, not everyone joins in the discussion. Why leave propaganda unchallenged, for people who're just reading it? That's often how the unreasonable win in debates. They keep screaming and shouting their bollocks, often being deliberately unpleasant, in order to drive the reasonable people off so they can control the narrative.

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Re: To quote a fictional

Jellied Eel,

Russia still heavily use those Bears. The US are expensively remanufacturing their B52s - so if Russia could, I'm sure they'd like to have more - or to keep the ones they've got running for 30 more years.

As you say though, replacing with something newer would be better. A quick check suggests that Russia has built 3 Tu160s since the 90s - from parts left over from the early 90s. Plus new stuff too. I'm not sure I'd call that the abilty to manufacture strategic bombers.

They do have replacement programs, and they do have an aircraft industry, although they also only appear to have been able to produce a small handful of Su57s - so I don't think their ability to produce new, modern aircraft is a certainty. But I also wouldn't discount it.

I don't think Europe needs a strategic bomber. I'm not sure Russia does either, although Russia is very big. But with submarine and land-based ICBMs, plus various short and intermediate ranged missiles, it seems like a waste of money. Something that range would be useful for maritime strike for the UK and France - but there are better things to spend the money on. GCAP / Tempest looks like it's going to be the size and range of an F-111, that ought to be enough.

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Re: Ukrainians Nazi supporter responds with racist lies. Racist, ignorant nonsense.

Firstly Iran is not funding Nazis in Ukraine or involved in a Genocide

Wrong. Iran funds, and explictly supports, Hamas. The Hamas charter calls for the removal of all jews from the state of Israel. Not, note, the ending of the state of Isreal, but the removing of all jews from it. Hence genocide. Literally by definition. Iran funds and supports genocide. Completely openly and publicly.

You should try to look at the world more realistically. From your posts in this thread your worldview appears to be socialist, anti-US, anti-Israel (maybe anti-Zionist), anti-Ukraine. However, even if I they are all straight up the bad guys, that doesn't make Iran and Russia the good guys. My enemy's enemy may also be a total bastard. Putin is an ultra-nationalist, crony capitalist war-monger - he should be everthing you claim to oppose. You accuse other people here of being brain-dead swallowers of propaganda.

Even if Israel's attack on Gaza is now genocidal, and it's getting dangerously close, Hamas are openly and publicly an organisation that are pro-genocide. It's literally in their founding charter. Similarly Putin's attack on Ukraine has involved the kidnapping and forced re-education (and sometimes forced adoption) of Ukrainian children, the destruction of Ukrainian language and culture in occupied territories, forced school education in Russian (with threats of forced adoption for those parents that stopped sending their kids to the schools) and the organised murder of community leaders (in places like Irpin and Bucha). All of those things meet the UN definition of genocide.

I don't believe your claims that Ukraine is run by nazis. I don't live there, and don't speak the language - but there just doesn't seem to be good evidence for it. All of post-Communist Eastern Europe and Russia have a nazism problem. Russia has the wonderfully ironically named Liberal Democractic Party, for example. Or the Wagner Group - named for their military commander's (and Hitler's) favourite composer. Dmitry Utkin, according to supporters wasn't a nazi, his SS and death's head tattoos were simply because he was, "a fan of the nazi aesthetic". Maybe Putin's famous anti-nazi credentials were why he had his plane shot down? Doesn't really explain the 20 years of government contracts up to that point mind? That doesn't mean we should invade Russia to "de-nazify" it though.

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Re: Who built/supplied the drones?

Alan Brown,

Even 80 years after - almost the first thing you come to in any piece about Pearl Harbour is, "why didn't Japan bomb the fuel storage tanks?" I guess, not much changes.

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Re: Ukraine did

that could mean Russia calling a UN session and declaring war on Ukraine..

That really is the most tragically hilarious piece of shit I've seen in a while written about this conflict.

Apart from the fact that it's the line of the wife-beater or bully everywhere: "Look what you made me do! Don't make me angry or I'll do it some more."

Worse, it's fucking pathetic.

There isn't much room for escalation here, except for Russia to go nuclear. And you don't call a UN meeting do do that. The reason Russia hasn't already gone nuclear is the same reason they won't do it in response for this. The consequences are horrifcially dangerous. From global anti-Russian economic sanctions at the lower end, to the end of the world at the high end.

You also don't call a UN meeting to declare war. Unless you're calling for support from others. Especially not when you've been fucking fighting one for 11 years. Although if you want to ignore the undeclared hostilities from 2014-2022 (which were much less intense) - then we can say since 2022. And although it's not legally a war in Russia, Putin still made a TV announcement in advance of it - even if he called it a special military operation. That's as much of a declaration of war as you get nowadays. The formal declaration went out of fashion decades ago.

Again, we also come back to the "Russia strong!" meme. Russia is winning this war, the only reason they haven't won it already is that they're displaying such awesome restraint. Sure they failed to capture Kyiv in the first week, but that's because Russia sent its weakest troops. Putin is playing 5d chess, while Biden is playing snakes and ladders. The only reason that Russia have shown restarint in this war - is if there's a reason for it. They've used thermite cluster munitions on cities. they did it on day 1 of the war.

The reason Russia hasn't mobilised is because the risks of mobilising to Putin's regime are higher than the risks of not mobilising and fighting a 3 year bloody stalemate. Otherwise they've have mobilised, sometime around Summer 2022 - when it was obvious they couldn't easily win. It's a risk for Ukraine - because Russia is a big country and has a lot of people. Although mobilising now, would be much harder, given Russia has burned through so much of its stocks of old Soviet weapons.

Russian propaganda also persistenlty undermines the very powerful "Russia strong" meme - whenever they deploy the "poor Russian victim" meme. Sure you got your nuclear bombers blown up. So were you using them to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine? Yes. Well then. That's what happens. You fight a war, the other side gets a vote too. Don't want your shit blown up, don't use it to invade people. Giving aggressors safe zones, where they can hide their forces and keep attacking you with impunity, that's how you lose wars. Whining pathetically because the bully got punched back makes everyone laugh.

Actually that is a risk. This is too serious for laughing. Miscalculations are what often cause wars. And Putin's regime are the boy who cried nuke wolf. Which means we might miss the signal that actually does cause them to do it. But Ukraine are fighting a war for survival now. Escalating would be hitting the nuke manufacturing/storage sites or SSBNs up North. Otherwise shooting down an Iskander missile is nuclear escalation, seeing as they're also part of Russia's nuclear triad. Actually this is why I don't believe we should have nuclear capable tactical assets. If we want nukes, it should be a special weapons system. That we can ostentatiously deploy for signalling purposes. So the enemy know with confidence that if we fire an air launched cruise missile or tactical ballistic missile at them, that it's conventional.

Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire

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Flame

Re: Tesla that burned so hot, it melted part of the road

Ah yes, the broom method. We have a high pressure steam leak. Who'd like to go and find it? Here - have this broom. You'll probably be fine...

UK CyberEM Command to spearhead new era of armed conflict

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Re: Camouflage ?

Beret and stripy jumper, when exercising against the French?

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Re: Same idea, different messenger

Anon,

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was more talking about electronic warfare. Which I think the RAF have been looking at a lot more in the last decade, and the Navy are quite hot on. My impression is it's an area the army have neglected. Partly because they've been fighting wars against lower-tech opponents and partly due to lack of budget. But I'm also dubious about some of the choices the army have made in the last ten years about spending the budget they do have.

I doubt any of the three services are as up on network security as they need to be. And probably not the offensive side, either.

All this seems to be merging, whether we like it or not. So we may as well try to keep up. Modern radars are also radios and jammers - and can do all three simultaneously. We're now fielding laser and microwave weapons, drones, networked sensors and soon drone ships and submarines. Some armed. If your sensors aren't networked, they're less effective at spotting harder to detect stealthy enemies. If they are networked, they're at risk of disruption - or worse.

To defeat the enemy - you need to disrupt theirs. Welcome to the future.

X's new 'encrypted' XChat feature seems no more secure than the failure that came before it

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Re: I wonder

[1] Not in those words, because, how could Jesus even measure up to him?

Only losers get crucified! Real winners kill the Emperor, bonk the Empress and get to wear the the purple!

Although once I'm Emperor, all the purple will be changed for Gold.

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Re: Probably by "Bitcoin-style encryption" Musk meant...

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You bastard! Take back what you said about my mother!